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Christopher Chance (The Human Target)

kevinburtonsmith

Created by Len Wein and Carmine Infantino

CHRISTOPHER CHANCE, better known as “The Human Target,” made his actual debut way back in 1958 in the DC comic Gang Busters #61, and would have been nothing more than a slightly interesting if mostly forgotten one-shot, had he not been reincarnated in the back pages of Action Comics in the early seventies.

From that point on, he began to show up every now and then, usually as a back-up feature, in several other DC publications, and has appeared on a semi-regular basis ever since.

It’s an intriguing hook–Chance is a a bodyguard and master of disguise who offers a unique service: for a fee, he will impersonate people who feel their lives are threatened, as a way of drawing out the killer. In his very first case, he assumed the identity of a businessman aboard a train in order to intercept a murder attempt. Of course, most of his assignments required a substantial amount of detective work, as the motive, if not the would-be killer, is a mystery, making Chance a private detective of sorts.

Evidently, fellow DC Comics eye Jonny Double (also created by Wein and Marv Wolfman), was originally conceived as the “Disguise Expert/Bodyguard,” but that fell through, and Jonny became a pretty standard-issue tough PI. The concept was later dusted off, though, and The Human Target made his debut in the early seventies in the back pages of Action Comics. Both Chance and Double occasionally appeared in back-up stories in other character’s magazines, as well as making occasional appearance in stories featuring various other members of the DC universe.

And sure enough, there was Chance, along with a slew of other DC gumshoes, including Slam Bradley and Roy Raymond, in a special story, “The ‘Too Many Crooks…’ Caper”, in the 500th issue of Detective Comics (March 1981). Heady company, indeed.

Chance returned  in 1991, this time in a special one-shot  TV tie-in around the time a new TV show starring former pop star Rick Springfield as Chance, was “supposed” to have aired, written by Mark Verheiden, and drawn by (P.I. fan and NOIR contributor) Rick Burchett, with inks by Dick Giordano, the artist of many of Chance’s original adventures. The story incorporated the supporting cast and elements from the TV show (including the plane) and Chance was now a Vietnam vet,  but he still looked like Chance–grey temples and all–rather than like Rick Springfield (“Thank God!” according to contributor Chris Mills). In this version, for ten percent of a client’s annual income (“whether you’re a busboy or the king of England”), he would take the client’s place and protect his or her life. Philo Marsden was the eccentric computer genius who helped Chance by designing high-tech masks, and Jeff Carlyle was the chauffeur, cook and pilot for Chance’s mobile base of operations, the Blackwing (designed by Mike “The Shadow” Kaluta). Lilly Page was an ex-CIA agent who helped coordinate Chance’s missions.

Unfortunately, only seven episodes ever aired, and that was in the summer of 1992, over a year after the book was published. and to rub salt in the wound, the show was put up against the Olympics. Andy Mangels, in his Hollywood Heroes column, which ran in Wizard and Amazing Heroes, wrote “Fans are urged to watch the enjoyable espionage show now, because it will likely never be back on the air!”

But DC wasn’t through with Chance yet. A newer, darker Chance was brought back under the Vertigo imprint, in a sly and angsty 1999 miniseries, scripted by Peter Milligan (of Johnny Nemo fame). It asked the obvious question: if you’ve spent you’re life being other people, how much claim do you have on your own identity? One of the nice touches in the mini-series was that Chance–whoever he was–had an office in The Bradbury Building in Los Angeles, a long-running favorite of private eye films and TV shows.

The mini-series proved successfull enough that it spawned an original graphic novel, Human Target: Final Cut (2002) and a new monthly series, both written by Milligan. The series ran for a couple of years, and garnered a fair share of acclaim, with each successive story arc having Chance burrow a little deeper into the existential darkness as the cost of always being someone else continues to take its emotional and psychological toll. Until the final, head-spinning three-part arc, “The Stealer,” which features the return of a former protegée, Tom McFadden, a washed-up cop and second-rate private eye he took under his wing for a time, who has decided only one identity will keep him sane –that of Christopher Chance. The only problem is that the real Chance is in the way…

But it turns out you can’t keep a good man down, even if Chance isn’t quite sure who he is.

And sure enough, in 2010, Fox-TV launched another short-lived new TV series, this time starring Mark Valley as Chance. The character later popped up in a couple of episodes of the CW series Arrow, played by Wil Traval. In these, Chance was “an old friend” of the Green Arrow.

Even better, though, was that in 2021, DC launched yet another mini-series featuring Chance, this time following Chance as he tries to solve a murder… his own! It’s a neat twist on the old noir flick DOA, and it’ll be interesting to see where it leads.

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Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Thanks to John McDonagh, Chris Mills and Kit Chance (no, really!) for their valuable help on this one.

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