POBB February 7, 2022

Pick of the Brown Bag

February 7, 2022

by

Ray Tate 

Welcome to the Pick of the Brown Bag.  This week is the first part of a two part look at Christopher Chance, the Human Target.  The POBB also has a Twitter presence for when you need a quick judgement: #PickoftheBrownBag.

Christopher Chance is a Bronze Age bodyguard/private eye who specializes in disguise.  Created by Len Wein and Carmine Infantino, Christopher's cases began as a back up feature in Action Comics.  

Christopher later appeared in Detective Comics and crossed paths with Batman in The Brave and the Bold.  Where I suspect most people of a certain age got their first taste.

Christopher's longevity isn't all that surprising.  His distinctive and distinguished look is part of it.  As was Dick Giordano's crystal clean artwork, which became more and more associated with the character.  

Furthermore, Disguise artists are just neat ideas.  

Though Batman is still DC's Master of Disguise, he never employed the technique frequently.  More than you may think, but not as a way of life.  Christopher on the other hand was the man.  

As to why Christopher lasted so long in pop culture consciousness.  Why somebody always goes back to Christopher Chance for another adventure, that's a question that's a little trickier to answer.

Mission Impossible succeeded wildly back in the sixties and seventies with an impressive seven seasons.  Two disguise artists Rollin Hand, portrayed by Martin Landau, and later Leonard Nimoy's Paris plied their trades every week.  They I feel planted the zeitgeist of the disguise artist in generations of viewers.

ABC resurrected Mission Impossible in 1988 with another IMF disguise artist Nicholas Black essayed by Thaao Penghlis.  Thank you wikipedia.  I would have butchered that name.

Lasting until 1990, poor ratings sunk the new IMF, but I imagine a lot of insiders really liked the return.  So, when The Flash's Bilson and DeMeo shopped The Human Target series around, ABC leapt at the chance.  Pun intended.

Rick Springfield became Christopher Chance in this cool but unfortunately short-lived television series in the nineties.  Again, poor ratings.  Just imagine if we had the CW back then.

Christopher Chance returned in a Fox series, which I never saw, so I know nothing about.  It lasted two seasons.  There's that.  Chance also entered the Arrowverse on the CW.  Here in the form of Will Traval.

No surprise there.  Greg Berlanti was a fan of The Flash.  It follows he would have eaten up The Human Target as well.

The pervasiveness of television, the sweet artwork of the Bronze Age, and the fans of nineties super-hero themed television, itself a reflection of the Burton/Keaton Batman phenomenon, all kept Christopher Chance fresh in the minds of those behind pop culture.

In the next issue fo the POBB, I look at the first four issues of Tom King's and Greg Smallwood's new Human Target series.