Tony Bravado, Trouble-Shooter

Written by Dave Darrigo
Illustrated by Steve LeBlanc, Louis Paradis
B&W, Comics Format
Renegade Press/Special Studios, 1988-89

Poor Tony Bravado. His short comics career was, ironically, plagued with troubles, and he never really had a shot. Which is a shame, because the character had a lot of potential.

Created by writer Dave Darrigo, whose acclaimed Wordsmith series chronicled the hard-luck life of a working pulp writer during the Depression, Tony Bravado, Trouble-Shooter was originally concieved for a proposed series of men's paperback adventure novels.

The concept behind the character and series was innovative and, frankly ripe with possibilities. In fact, here's that concept, as described by Darrigo himself in the title's introductory pages:

"Who is Tony Bravado? he's not a cop -- but he's been one. He's not a private eye -- but he's got a P.I. license. He's not a security consultant -- but that's what he calls himself at tax time. Bravado is a bodyguard and very personal agent for multi-millionaire businessman Lance Palmer. Palmer's business holdings made him famous among Wall Street watchers, but when he developed the 'Eden' concept he became a world-class celebrity. And a lot wealthier."

(Millionaire Palmer's 'Eden ' concept combines high-class resorts with an upscale magazine of erotica aimed at married couples. )

The first issue, "Dirty Jobs," chronicles a single day in the life of the Italian-American Trouble-Shooter as he flies from New York to the Eden Club resort in Jamaica, where he has to deal with a discharged club manager who's selling cocaine on company property.

Issue #2 contains the first part of "Point of No Return," which sends Bravado to Mexico City to handle a malevolent street gang that's terrorizing the local Eden Club's patrons. Meanwhile, his boss Lance Palmer's on a book tour, and becoming paranoid, terrified that someone's going to make an attempt on his life. He tries to recall Bravado from Mexico, but Tony refuses to return to the States until his current assignment is finished.

In issue #4's conclusion to "Point of No Return," Bravado leads an Eden security team into a violent confrontation with the Mexican street toughs before returning to States, where he must face his employer's wrath – and maybe save his life, too.

In the last issue, "The All-American Nightmare," Tony is assigned to protect a beautiful blonde model-actress from her jealous, abusive, and possibly homicidal pro football player husband.

Darrigo's scripts are a little rough in places, and sometimes too text-heavy, but his plotting and characterizations are excellent. He really captures Bravado's hedonistic, high-living milieu perfectly, and effectively contrasts that apparent luxury with the often brutal, gritty street violence that Bravado frequently finds himself embroiled in. While he carries a gun, Bravado prefers to deal with Palmer's problems with fists, and rarely involves the authorities, as his employer insists on avoiding negative publiscity or scandal.

Artist Steve LeBlanc – inked on the first two issues by Louis Paradis – was clearly learning on the job. His figure work, faces and backgrounds are very rough and frequently problematic, but over the course of the four isues, he did improve somewhat, especially once he began inking his own pencils. Still, his work was never more than just servicable.

As I mentioned above, the book was plagued with problems. The first issue was published by Deni Loubert's Renegade Press, which also published Ms. Tree. Unfortunately, a crash in the comics market had her shutting down her company soon after the first issue was shipped. Creator Darrigo ended up paying the printing bill on the second issue and self-distributing it, before assuming full publishing responsibilities on the following issues. Unfortunately, the damge had been done, and low sales did not justify continuing the book.

The character made at least two more appearances in short stories drawn by Peter Grau – a much better and suitable artist than LeBlanc – before fading away. One appeared as a back-up story in the Darrigo published title Piranha Is Loose!, the other in the Alpha Productions anthology, The Detectives.

To this day, Tony Bravado, Trouble-Shooter is one of my favorite characters and comics of the genre. I really wish that Dave had been able to revive the book at some point – preferably with Grau on the art – because the concept had so much going for it, and could have resulted in some pretty unique crime and adventure stories.

Four out of Six Bullets.