Keith Remsen is the eponymous Nightmask, a young man left in a coma when his family are caught in a bomb blast at an airport. He unexpectedly wakes up in hospital, miraculously recovered, to discover that his parents are dead, his younger sister Teddy will never walk again and he's somehow gained the power to enter other people's dreams.
Working with Teddy and the siblings' guardian, psychiatrist Dr. Lucian Ballad, Keith uses his new abilities to help people who are traumatised by memories or somehow trapped in their own mind. Along the way he uncovers the truth about his parents' deaths and starts to confront their killers.
The series was one of eight titles launched to introduce the New Universe, a shared world unrelated to the existing Marvel Universe. It was initially billed as "the world outside your window", a setting which only diverged from the real world when a single Mass Empowering Event granted some people superpowers.
In Nightmask's case, it occasionally strayed from those guidelines - some people (such as Keith's parents) were already finding hi-tech ways to interact with dreams before the world changed, for example, and voodoo seemingly has real magical power.
However, Keith himself is one of those transformed by the "White Event", which fully healed him, woke him and bestowed his new powers. In the course of the series he also encounters others who have acquired paranormal powers, including the vigilante Justice, star of one of the other New Universe titles.
After the series was cancelled, Nightmask became a recurring character in some of the other New Universe books and starred in a few short solo back-up stories. Once the New Universe was connected to the Marvel Universe, versions of Keith also appeared in series such as Quasar and Exiles.
A one-shot Untold Tales of the New Universe: Nightmask comic was also published in 2006, as part of an event to mark the 20th anniversary of the New Universe.
Three different Nightmask Legacy Characters (all quite different to Keith) also appeared in the newuniversal reboot of the New Universe concept. A fourth Nightmask, Adam Blackveil, appeared in Jonathan Hickman's run on The Avengers and then went on to co-star in Starbrand & Nightmask.
Nightmask includes the following tropes:
- Aborted Arc: Nightmask never manages to avenge his parents. The Gnome sends Mistress Midnight after him, and she manages to connect Teddy's mind to the Gnome so that he can attack via her dreams, but neither villain is ever mentioned again. Untold Tales of the New Universe: Nightmask revisits and resolves this twenty years later, suggesting that the final confrontation happened, but simply wasn't shown in the original comics.
- Arch-Enemy: Horst Kleinmann, aka The Gnome, comes closest. Whereas Keith walks in dreams using a paranormal power to help people, Kleinmann uses technology to connect his mind to dreams and manipulate dreamers. And it's personal for both of them: Kleinmann killed Keith and Teddy's parents, then his first clash with Nightmask maimed him when his machines overloaded. However, he also drops out of the series early on, after the change in writer, becoming an Aborted Arc.
- Big Bad: There's no single villain in this role, but the Gnome's there for a couple of early issues, before his Aborted Arc exit (and is the closest thing Keith has to an Arch-Enemy due to his role in Keith's parents' murder), whereas Tullius Ballad is the big villain of the final arc.
- Boxing Lessons for Superman: Lita's physical training also helps to improve Keith's endurance, coordination and strength when he's inside someone's dreams.
- Death by Origin Story: Keith and Teddy's parents die just before the start of the first issue, leaving the siblings in Dr. Ballad's care and starting their quest for justice or revenge.
- Dream Walker: Nightmask has this as his superpower.
- Dream Weaver: Nightmask is a psychotherapist who uses his power to assist people.
- Dressed Like a Dominatrix: Mistress Midnight appears this way in dreams when confronting Nightmask. She's dressed all in black with a Navel-Deep Neckline, wearing thigh-high boots, studded gauntlets and a spiked collar. And wielding a battle axe.
- Evil Twin: Tullius Ballad is Dr. Lucian Ballad's villainous twin, a voodoo hungan who kidnaps and impersonates his brother.
- External Combustion: Mob accountant Peter Barron loses his wife and daughter to a car bomb after he becomes The Informant.
- False Flag Operation: After Salinger's behavior modification serum kills every Unwitting Test Subject in a Central American village, the village burns down with no survivors and his government sponsors arrange things so that it seems to have been destroyed by a rebel attack.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Keith has a crescent moon scar on his forehead. It's the only thing that didn't heal when the White Event abruptly woke him from his coma.
- Happy Place: One issue involves a man whose wife and young daughter were murdered, and who has slipped into a catatonic Happy Place where they're still alive. The recently-orphaned protagonist is supposed to use his dream-walking abilities to bring the man out, but he's not sure he wants to, especially since it involves "killing" the dream family.
- Harmful Healing: In initial trials, Salinger's serum reduced the violent tendencies of the criminally insane. The government wanted to see what it would do for normal people, with the implication that it had pacification and crowd control benefits. The entire Central American village they secretly tested it on died.
- Hollywood Voodoo: The final arc takes Nightmask to Haiti, where he's caught in a battle with his mentor's Evil Twin, a voodoo hungan.
- Implacable Man: Justice, or at least the version of him Keith meets in dreams. In the nightmares of Keith's host he's a grim, totally unstoppable hunter. It's not that much of an exaggeration.
- The Informant: Mob accountant Peter Barron. The mob's first attempt on his life was a car bomb that killed his wife and daughter. The second was a bomb in his safe house, which left him unconscious after falling bricks concussed him. Five days later he still hasn't woken up, so Nightmask needs to visit his mind to see what's going on.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: Nightmask has the ability to enter anyone's dreams, which he used to assist in psychotherapy.
- Kiss of Death: Mistress Midnight's kiss steals dreams and memories - and tends to leave the recipient unconscious. Sometimes they'll never regain all the missing memories. On at least one occasion it was fatal. Just to make it even worse, her associate the Gnome can use her kiss to find a permanent path into any of her victims's dreams.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: A character notes that someone is "deader than The Bee Gees' career!").
- Parental Abandonment: Happened—violently—to Keith Remsen and his sister at the start of the series.
- Plot-Triggering Death: Keith's coma, and everything that follows it, is caused by the bomb that kills his parents at the airport.
- The Precarious Ledge: Keith follows a suicidal Dr. Salinger onto a ledge, hoping to talk him down.
- Sexy Packaging: Inverted. The cover swaps Mistress Midnight's skimpy black Dressed Like a Dominatrix outfit for a short-sleeved jumpsuit that's far less revealing. Her studded belt is the only nod to her actual outfit.
- Shout-Out: Keith's old friend Dan Brody is a science fiction fan, with posters for Alien and what looks like The Terminator in his room, as welll as toys and posters for Star Trek. His dreams echo the Star Trek theme, and one of the monsters haunting them is very reminiscent of Alien.
- Talking Down the Suicidal: Keith ends up on The Precarious Ledge with Dr. Salinger, trying to persuade him not to jump.
- There Are No Therapists: Averted as the main character IS a therapist.
- This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman:
- Largely justified. Keith's powers are useless outside of dreams, but his therapy work with Dr. Ballad actively seeks out cases that will benefit from dream visits. As for the Gnome and Mistress Midnight, they're villains with dream-related powers who are involved because Keith and Teddy's parents were developing dream-reading technology.
- Played with in the final arc, as Tullius Ballad's read his brother's notes on Keith and Teddy, and has no intention of letting Nightmask invade his dreams. Keith has to confront him in the real world, without his powers to help.
- Two-Faced: After he's maimed by his machinery overloading at the end of the first issue, the right side of Kleinmann's face is badly damaged. His hair's mostly gone, his skin is red, uneven and burned, and his eye's hidden behind his cybernetics.
- Unwitting Test Subject: Dr. Salinger developed a serum that reduced violent behaviour in the criminally insane. His government sponsors wanted to see if it had broader uses for pacification, so it was administered to an entire Central American village. Everyone dies, the village is burnt down, and the government leaves it looking as if the rebels killed the villagers.
- We Can Rebuild Him: Kleinmann almost dies when his machines explode after his first clash with Nightmask. When he next appears he's a Two-Faced, maimed cyborg. He punches a mirror when he first sees his new reflection.
