''Jonny Double'' is a comic series written by

Brian Azzarello Brian Azzarello (born August 11, 1962 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American comic book writer and screenwriter who first came to prominence with the hardboiled crime series ''100 Bullets'', published by DC Comics' mature-audience imprint Vertigo. ...

and published by the

Vertigo Vertigo is a condition where a person has the sensation of movement or of surrounding objects moving when they are not. Often it feels like a spinning or swaying movement. This may be associated with nausea, vomiting, sweating, or difficulties w ...

imprint Imprint or imprinting may refer to: Entertainment * ''Imprint'' (TV series), Canadian television series * "Imprint" (''Masters of Horror''), episode of TV show ''Masters of Horror'' * ''Imprint'' (film), a 2007 independent drama/thriller film ...

DC Comics DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...

. The series was based on the Jonny Double character, created in 1968 by

Len Wein Leonard Norman Wein (; June 12, 1948 – September 10, 2017) was an American comic book writer and editor best known for co-creating DC Comics' Swamp Thing and Marvel Comics' Wolverine, and for helping revive the Marvel superhero team the X-Men ( ...

and

Marv Wolfman Marvin Arthur Wolfman (born May 13, 1946) is an American comic book and novelization writer. He worked on Marvel Comics's ''The Tomb of Dracula'', for which he and artist Gene Colan created the vampire-slayer Blade, and DC Comics's '' The New Te ...

. It was the first collaboration of Azzarello and artist

Eduardo Risso Eduardo Risso (born 23 November 1959) is an Argentine comics artist. In the United States he is best known for his work with writer Brian Azzarello on the Vertigo title '' 100 Bullets'', while in Argentina and Europe he is noted for his collabor ...

, which subsequently led to a successful and longstanding pairing on ''

100 Bullets ''100 Bullets'' is an American comic book published by DC Comics under its Vertigo imprint. Written by Brian Azzarello and illustrated by Eduardo Risso, the comic book ran for 100 issues and won the Eisner Award and Harvey Award. Style Both ...

''.

Publication history

''Jonny Double'' was published in four issues, from September to December

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

Plot

Jonny Double, an aging

private investigator A private investigator (often abbreviated to PI and informally called a private eye), a private detective, or inquiry agent is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private investigators of ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

with a peculiar fascination with the 1960s

counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...

, is contracted by a concerned father to investigate his daughter, a girl named Faith, and report on the character of her associates. Through a series of twists and turns, Faith introduces Jonny to a seemingly fool-proof scheme to make money without hurting anyone: emptying a long-forgotten bank account once held by

Al Capone Alphonse Gabriel Capone (; January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the ...

. Unbeknownst to Double, the money in the account belongs to a local gangster named Vic Dalenozzo, who starts to murder and maim Faith and Jonny's associates. Jonny eventually discovers that Faith has been manipulating both sides all along. Jonny decides to cut to the chase, and he brings all the money straight to Dalenozzo, where Jonny discovers that the man who originally hired him to investigate Faith was not her father at all, but Dalenozzo's main hitman. As Dalenozzo is about to have Jonny tortured to death, Jonny tells them all he knows about Faith, and Dalenozzo sends his killers after her. Dalenozzo then reveals to Jonny that he and Jonny were acquaintances during the 1960s, when Jonny knew him as "The Wave". He tells Jonny that he wants to repay him for a favor Jonny did him in the old days, but there is a catch.

Collected editions

The limited series was collected into a trade paperback in 2002 (). It is now out of print. The series was later collected under the ''Vertigo Resurrected'' line in October 2011 ().

Notes

References

''Jonny Double''
at the

Big Comic Book DataBase The Big Cartoon DataBase (or BCDB for short) is an online database of information about animated cartoons, animated feature films, animated television shows, and cartoon shorts. The BCDB project began in 1997 as a list of Disney animated featu ...

* * {{Refend 1998 comics debuts Comics by Brian Azzarello