TITLE: Jon Sable Freelance vol. 1, Issue #2
YEAR: July 1983
COMPANY: First Comics
Created/Written/Illustrated:Mike Grell
In 1983, Mike Grell left DC Comics to develop his creator-owned titles “Jon Sable Freelance” and “Starslayer”.
“Jon Sable Freelance” was beloved by those who read indie comics and it was one of the comic pre-cursors of “the Dark Age of Comics”, before Frank Miller would write “Daredevil” and “The Dark Knight Returns”, Alan Moore’s “Watchmen” and Chris Claremont’s “The Dark Phoenix Saga”, “God Loves, Man Kills” and “Days of Future Past”.
One thing I love about Mike Grell’s work is that his writing is smart, his artwork is fantastic and a lot of thought goes into each issue that he is responsible for. And to think that “Jon Sable Freelance” would lead to an ABC TV series, “Sable” in 1987.
The series revolves around Jon Moses Sable, a man who is a children’s author and celebrity by day (in disguise and known as B.B. Flemm) and a mercenary by night.
In issue 2, New York is being plagued with murders and a serial killer is on the loose, killing the homeless.
While at a meeting, B.B. Flemm meets Myke Blackmon, his illustrator who worked on Flemm’s book for two years but has never met.
A busy man, Flemm has to get back to his home but for Myke Blackmon, who has waited a long time to have a conversation and is more upset that after all the work she has done for him, Flemm has not given her any praise. She follows Flemm back to his home. When she arrives and knocks on his door, she is shock to see another guy opening the door and the man saying there is no B.B. Flemm living in the premises.
But Myke doesn’t take no for an answer and invites herself into the home and as Sable tries to hide his blonde wigg, she eventually finds out the truth that Sable is living two lives. Now that Myke know’s about Sable’s secret, can she keep that secret?
Meanwhile, Flemm receives a call from a distraught woman who wants to hire him to track down the person responsible for killing her father, a once successful engineer who became homeless.
As Sable does his investigation, he finds out that there may be more than one assailant because the ballistics photographs show the bullets came from a .45 ACP but different guns.
As Sable continues to investigate, he becomes the targeted.
Who is the serial killer and who is after him?
It’s a pretty awesome storyline that Mike Grell wrote and his artwork was nothing short of magnificent.