Line #4 ComicBook/MidnightNation


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Midnight_Nation_8681.jpg]]
2
3	->''"Okay, [[LetMeGetThisStraight let's run through it again]]. See if it makes any more sense this time than the last time. I've been attacked. I've had my soul stolen. I've slipped through a metaphorical crack in the sidewalk and ended up in the place of abandoned objects and dispossessed people. And if I don't get my soul back in less than a year, I'll end up dead or one of the things that prowl this side of the metaphor. Any way you slice it, it's been a hell of a week."''
4	-->-- '''David Grey'''
5
6	''Midnight Nation'' is a religious-themed twelve-issue American comic book limited series, created by Creator/JMichaelStraczynski and published from 2000 to 2002 by Top Cow Productions under their now defunct Joe's Comics imprint. It is about a man who is killed, in a sense, and is on a journey to save his soul.
7
8	Detective David Grey is a dedicated, workaholic member of the LAPD. He's often successful too, in part because of the fact that he has practically nothing else in his life besides police work, in part because he's one of the few members of the force that actually cares about what's going on, even if the victim he is investigating is black, a drug dealer, or whatever. On his latest case he gets some mysterious hints that the case is more than it appears to be, and that the victim, Toby, was killed by some mystery faction that spooks even the veteran street criminals.
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10	Within hours the informant has been brutally murdered, leaving only his initial hints to go on. From those hints David manages to track down Arlan Jaeker, a career criminal, and takes a police unit to arrest him. He finds Jaeker surrounded by the demonic, bloodthirsty entities known as the Walkers, who literally tear the police unit with David apart. David manages to shoot Jaeker, but is helpless against the Walkers themselves. Then the leader of the Walkers does ''something'' to David, and he begins to pass out...
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12	... then wakes up in a strange limbo world, where he can see people as ghostly figures, but they cannot see him and pass right through him. At first, the only person he finds that can see him is a tall, strange woman who calls herself Laurel, who says she will be his guide, either until the Walkers find him and kill him, or until he turns into one of them, in which case Laurel will kill him. David soon finds that the only things he can interact with successfully are things which have been lost, abandoned, broken, or thrown away, and similarly the only people who can talk to or see him are the same way.
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14	Eventually, Laurel tells David that his soul was taken by the leader of the Walkers, and at most David has less than a year before the loss of it turns him into one of the Walkers. So with Laurel leading the way, David sets out on a cross-America trip to New York to reclaim his soul while slowly learning more about the Walkers (and fighting them at every step), lost things and people, and the nature of the BalanceBetweenGoodAndEvil in this universe. Not everything is as simple as it seems, however, and reclaiming his soul will be more complicated than simply walking to New York and taking it back.
15	----
16	!!This miniseries contains examples of:
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18	* AffablyEvil: {{Satan}}.
19	* AlwaysChaoticEvil: The Walkers, who are also ChaoticEvil period. Justified, as Satan intentionally turned them into that in order to bring down creation. Those that don't remain ChaoticEvil get torn apart by the rest.
20	* BaldOfAuthority: Arthur, leader of some of the Lost People, and one of the few Lost People we meet who did not wind up that way through his own actions, apathy, or unwillingness to change. [[spoiler:He's also one of the first to come back to the world, regaining his hope at the sight of Laurel's ensoulment flaring like a beacon across the world and just dropping back into reality as a result.]]
21	* BigApplesauce: Apparently the place where guys that steal souls hang out. Although David's first guess was that it would be Washington D.C, which Laurel responded was too obvious.
22	* BreakThemByTalking: Satan spends most of issue 9 doing this to David, almost as if he's giving it to God but with only David there to hear. Then he punctuates it with MindRape rather than letting the point stand...
23	* CameBackWrong: Lazarus. Yes, ''the'' Lazarus, and there is at least some implication that this helped to either create or expand the limbo David finds himself in.
24	* TheCorruption: What is happening to David. The longer he goes without his soul, the more the Walker markings expand on his body.
25	* CursedWithAwesome: [[spoiler:David in the DistantFinale. He's soulless, but it mostly just means he can't properly die and move on, meaning he's functionally immortal and can interact with both worlds. He chooses to use this "cursed" state to help people on both sides of the divide, bringing lost people back to the world.]]
26	* DarkAndTroubledPast: Most of the Lost People seem to have either this, or some version of BreakTheCutie or BrokenBird. Of course, there's also a strong implication that for nearly all of them that tell their story, (aside from Arthur) that they could have made different choices and changed their lives but didn't.
27	* DeadpanSnarker: David and Laurel take turns snarking at each other.
28	-->'''David:''' Nobody likes a smartass\
29	'''Laurel:''' Really.\
30	'''David:''' Yes.\
31	'''Laurel:''' Then you must lead a terribly lonely life.
32	* {{Determinator}}: David's schtick.
33	* DidntSeeThatComing: [[spoiler:Satan is not the best judge of character.]]
34	* DrunkOnTheDarkSide: [[spoiler:David, briefly, after Satan's MindRape]].
35	* EyeScream: The only part of the murdered informant that can't be found are his eyes.
36	* FlyingDutchman: Lazarus finds himself wandering without a purpose after being resurrected by Jesus, who told him to await his return... just before heading off to the Last Supper. Two thousand years later, Lazarus is still waiting.
37	* FutureMeScaresMe: David is disgusted by the choice his future-self made to survive. [[spoiler:Turns out things are a bit misleading.]]
38	* GangInitiationFight: One of the Lost People describes having gone through the realistic version of this trope.
39	* GoodEyesEvilEyes: Most of the good guys have blue eyes. Bad guys get very evil eyes, for example instead of having whites, the Walkers have a gold background and black eyes, while Satan has BlackEyesOfEvil.
40	* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:David.]] But not the way you expect.
41	* HumansAreBastards: At one point David tries to blame the Walkers for everything that is wrong with human life. Laurel calmly replies that no, all they do is speed the process up.
42	* HurricaneOfPuns: David is horrified to realize that the murdered informant's body parts have been scattered all over his house in order to create this. For example, an arm stuck on a chair, (armchair) a head stuck in the refrigerator (head cold) etc.
43	* IAmAHumanitarian: The Walkers. Children are the most nutritious for them.
44	* JerkAssGod: Satan accuses God of being this, for having deliberately created a flawed universe while allowing no one to question it. He also implies that God's is fallible and limited. [[spoiler:Also, he believes God sends Laurel to escort the people who have lost their souls in order to torment him, as he and Laurel were once lovers.]]
45	* MarkOfTheBeast: Although more like TheCorruption, but the marks on David's body could also be considered this.
46	* MeaningfulName: The one who will tip the balance between good and evil is named Grey. What could that signify?
47	** For that matter, David, while certainly a common name, could be meant to evoke the Biblical King David.
48	** The Walkers. They're all [[spoiler:people who have gone on the "long walk" with angels like Laurel to New York City in search of their stolen souls.]]
49	* MercyKill: Laurel offers this to David.
50	* MindRape: For one second, Satan allows David to feel all the misery on the world. It temporarily drives David insane and nearly turns him into a Walker.
51	* OurAngelsAreDifferent: And named Laurel. The one [[GuardianEntity protecting Lazarus]] is rather traditional, from what we see. (A white robe, and a hand gripping a flaming sword).
52	* OurSoulsAreDifferent: Losing them gets you TrappedInAnotherWorld. Getting it back makes you [[spoiler:paradoxically, TheSoulless]].
53	* {{Pilgrimage}}: A man has to walk from UsefulNotes/LosAngeles to UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity in order to get his soul back.
54	* PlaceWorseThanDeath: UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity, apparently. At least due to the influence of Satan and the Walkers. At some points it looks suspiciously like FireAndBrimstoneHell.
55	** It is, according to Laurel, actually the only place in the world where the "sides" are flipped - all the normal people refuse to see it for what it is, so they force themselves into the shadow-world to see New York as they want to see it. Meanwhile, all the lost people are in the real New York, because they can't help but see it as it actually is - a literal HellOnEarth because Satan's influence is so strong there.
56	* RageAgainstTheHeavens: What Satan is doing because of the injustice of creation, and the needlessness of suffering.
57	* RunningGag: Someone will say "Jesus!" in response to something and Lazarus will look around and ask [[AnswersToTheNameOfGod "Where?"]]
58	* SadisticChoice: [[spoiler:David's choice comes down to reclaiming his soul (but becoming part of the Walkers in doing so) or giving it up, letting Laurel have it so she can live a mortal life, (but David will, they think, remain in limbo forever). Ultimately, the story isn't about the choice between good and evil, but between whether to sacrifice yourself for someone else's sake or sacrificing another for your benefit.]]
59	* SatanIsGood: Sort of. Here, he's pretty much the first WellIntentionedExtremist crossed with WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds, seeking to undo creation in order to end needless human suffering, and because God has refused to allow any criticism of it. Still, Satan has pretty much JumpedOffTheSlipperySlope because his methods go far, far beyond "well-intentioned" by this point.
60	* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: Very, very cynical overall, but mostly to give some extra punch to the more hopeful ending. Satan fairly drips with cynicism while preaching his own twistedly hopeful message of hopelessness.
61	* TheSoulless: Walkers. [[spoiler:Averted, because it turns out the Walkers all took their souls back when offered. It's because they chose themselves over giving the soul up for someone else that they became Walkers, because what they let go of was their ''humanity'' and so became Satan's willing servants. It turns out losing your soul just makes you potentially immortal and able to interact with both worlds at once.]]
62	* SuperSargassoSea: The "Place In-Between." Notably, not just lost objects end up here, but lost ''people.'' An odd element is that the normal world can occasionally be seen from the PIB, and people there can see things that ''aren't'' lost or discarded, they just can't interact with them.
63	-->We've got a saying for it. "Another one fell through the cracks this afternoon." The lost. The turned-away. The hopeless. The homeless. The dispossessed, the ignored, the scared, the twisted, the cast-aside. They roll into this place with all the ''other'' junk nobody wants anymore.
64	** The side story "Precious Objects" is about a house where inspiring creations that were never made (because their creators had their lives cut short) end up: Van Gogh's paintings, music by The Big Bopper, JFK's second inaugural speech, and more. The Walkers want to destroy it all because they are a source of hope.
65	* WalkingTheEarth
66	* WasOnceAMan: [[spoiler:The Walkers. Every one of them was once someone whose soul Satan took.]]
67	* WeUsedToBeFriends: [[spoiler:Satan and Laurel. Though in this case, it's the villain saying as much to try to convince Laurel to give up the pain and suffering, and join him in rebellion.]]
68	* WillNotTellALie: Satan may mislead, but he never tells a lie, and keeps his word.

Context ComicBook / MidnightNation