ALAN BLACK

Real Name: Alan Black

Identity/Class: Alternate reality (Earth-68759) human mutant (Esper)

Occupation: Assassin, S.E.A. agent

Group Membership: S.E.A. (Society of Esper Anarchists: Ann September, Herscel Goldmann, others)

Affiliations: Renegades (Simon Ashley, Skye Lanning, Ian McVicar, Maria Rivas, William Silent Bear, Linda Williams, Jiro Yabuki), Lori Fields
   (clients, didn't necessarily like them) Jesus, Sergei Koznishev

Enemies: Lo Chong, Inner Circle (Sergei Koznishev, others), Jesus, Krishna, Jake Perry, Anastasio Rao, Triad;
   in Krishna's hallucination: Octopus Army

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: The Contractor

Base of Operations: Formerly a safe house in Italy; a safe house in County Wick, Ireland; a temple in Nepal

First Appearance: Espers I#5 (Eclipse Comics, April 1987)

Powers/Abilities: Alan Black is an Esper, his specific ability being psychic intuition that allows him to always know the best approach to any assignment. He is skilled with a variety of weapons, including several types of firearms. He is also an experienced hang-glider.

Height: 6' (by guesstimation)
Weight: 160 lbs. (by estimation)
Eyes: Brown (see comments)
Hair: Black

History:
(Espers I#5 (fb) - BTS) - Alan Black disliked criminals, and had found a perfect way to both kill them and make a living at the same time.

(Interface#2 (fb) - BTS) - An Esper who possessed psychic intuition that allowed him to always know the best way to approach any task,...

(Espers I#5 (fb) - BTS) - Black became one of the best assassins in the world, operating under the anonym the Contractor. He always researched his targets before deciding whether to accept a contract.

(Interface#2 (fb) - BTS) - He was extremely selective about what jobs he took, but once he accepted he never failed to assassinate his targets. His only vice was a fondness for Toblerone candy bars.

(Interface#5 (fb) - BTS) - He was aware of many of the major players in the criminal underworld worldwide, at least by reputation.

(Interface#4 (fb) - BTS) - With two powerful groups, the Triads and the Inner Circle, secretly vying to use Espers for their own often-nefarious purposes, and both willing to force unaffiliated Espers into service or else slay them, Black chose to secretly join the Society of Esper Anarchists (S.E.A.), a third group that had been formed by Espers seeking to protect themselves and other Espers from the less scrupulous organizations.

(Espers I#5 (fb)) - At Telegraph Hill in San Francisco Black met with a prospective client, Jesus, a member of a Latin American drug cartel run by Anastasio Rao. Jesus wanted to assume power in the organization by eliminating Rao, but knew that to do so he would need to make it look like a rival organization had assassinated Rao. Jesus knew that Rao intended to make a deal with the Cabulo cartel, despite the objections of his subordinates the Ortiz brothers, so he wanted Black to kill Rao the night before he was due to meet the Ortiz brothers in two weeks time, and lay the blame at the Cabulos' feet. Black accepted the contract.

(Espers I#5 (fb) - BTS) - However, Black didn't like Jesus, so shortly before Rao's scheduled assassination he hid a time bomb in Jesus' hotel room, with a beeper attached to ensure that Jesus would find it just with sufficient time to find it and read the note he'd attached explaining himself, but not enough to disarm the device or get to safety.

(Espers I#5) - Rao had taken over the top two floors of a luxury hotel in Contogora Island, Panama to stay in until his meeting with the Ortiz brothers, and placed over fifty heavily armed guards throughout the building, something Black viewed as an enjoyable challenge. Black took a room in a hotel nearby, and that night he slipped up to the roof and assembled a hang-glider. A prearranged distraction by partying girls setting off fireworks diverted the attention of the lone guard on the roof of Rao's hotel, letting Black fly across unnoticed, and he gunned the guard down with a silenced rifle before heading downstairs to Rao's penthouse room. He quietly eliminated a couple more guards on the way down, then went into Rao's room firing, shooting his target to death in front of a pair of prostitutes Rao had hired. Wishing the ladies a nice night, Black departed back to the roof and his hang-glider, more fireworks again distracting the guards on the lower floors. Returning to his car, he drove to outside Jesus' hotel and watched the explosion with a smile.

(Interface#4 (fb) - BTS) - S.E.A. had also just learned of Williams' group through their network of spies and psychics, and tasked Black with helping them. Though he told Koznishev he would accept the contract, he instead began planning to get to the targets first. Meanwhile one of the other assassins, the telekinetic Lo Chong, learned through his own sources that Black had also been hired for the job, but also that Black was a double agent working for S.E.A.; however, for his own reasons he decided not to share this information with Koznishev yet.

(Interface#3 (fb) - BTS) - Koznishev arranged to meet with all three assassins at Zurich Airport to brief them on their assignments. 

(Interface#3) - However Black skipped the meeting and went straight to Monaco where the leader of the target Espers, Linda Williams, was staying. At the time when he was supposed to be in Zurich for his meeting, Black was already outside her home over 250 miles away.

(Interface#3 - BTS) - In Zurich when Koznishev mentioned that Black seemed to be late for the meeting, Lo Chong told him that Black wasn't coming, and was probably already in Monaco.

(Interface#3) -The Espers had also drawn the ire of a Sicilian crimelord, Benito Giovanetti; Black diverted to take out the man Giovanetti had surveilling Williams,...

(Interface#4 (fb) - BTS) - killing him,...

(Interface#3) - then broke in. Catching Williams by surprise, he wished her a good evening.

(Interface#4 (fb) - BTS) - Black informed Williams that her life was in imminent danger and that they had to leave immediately, with no time for questions until they got somewhere safe. Having already sensed the surveillance via her own Esper abilities, Williams was willing to tentatively take his word on faith.

(Interface#4) - With his gun drawn in case of attack Black led Williams out to his car, straight past the man he had just slain. Though this disquieted her, she offered no resistance as he got her into his car and drove off, though she continued to stare at him, trying to evaluate her supposed savior.

(Interface#4 - BTS) - Koznishev and the other assassins, Lo Chong and the precog Jake Perry, were now flying to Monaco in Koznishev's private jet. As they traveled he asked Lo Chong to explain why he had said Black was already in Monaco, and only at this point did Lo Chong share that he knew Black was working against the Inner Circle.

(Interface#4) - Now far enough from Williams' house to be safe for a while, Black parked on a point overlooking the city and told Williams that he had time to answer a few questions. He explained that people were out to get her, and that he was offering his services to ensure she and her friends survived. He added that he too was an Esper, a member of S.E.A., that there were hundreds of other Espers around the world, and about the three networks that most Espers were usually recruited into. He added that the Triad and Inner Circle had between them used extreme measures to ensure for centuries that the existence of Espers stayed hidden from the general public, that rogue Espers tended to be eliminated by them, and that S.E.A. had been trying to stop both group's world domination plans. However further explanation was curtailed when Black's psychic intuition suddenly made him aware that her friends Maria Rivas, Jiro Yabuki and Simon Ashley had just escaped from a firefight with Giovannetti's hit squads in downtown Monaco, and were now heading their way, flying under Rivas' power. However, his main concern was that their very public battle might have revealed the existence of Espers to the rest of humanity, telling Williams that if that happened it would cause a chaos of paranoia and persecution with much of mankind trying to kill all the Espers. Hurriedly Black started the car so he could get to where Williams' three friends were going to land.

(Interface#5) - Moments after Rivas, Yabuki and Ashley landed in the hills overlooking the town Black's car arrived. Reunited with her friends, Williams introduced Black to them, and he briefed them about the three Esper groups. He promised that S.E.A. could help them survive the murderous intentions of the other two groups, but explained that they would first have to deal with their immediate problem, which was coming from somewhere else. Williams revealed that when she had used her powers to scan the "superspectrum" (the internet, radio, etc.) she'd picked up the name Benito Giovannetti. Hearing this Black was shocked, and he explained that Giovannetti was the region's biggest crimelord, and someone far too powerful to be aware of the existence of Espers. Black told them that if the crimelord knew about them, then they had no choice but to kill him.

(Interface#5 - BTS) - Drawing on years of experience as an assassin, Black outlined several plans for the group to attack Giovannetti and eliminate him, depending on what they encountered when they reached the crimelord's home.

(Interface#5) - He took the group to Giovannetti's mansion, making it clear to the reluctant Williams that it was the crimelord's life or theirs. Reaching out with her ability to tap into the electromagnetic spectrum, Williams realized they had already been spotted by Giovannetti's security cameras, so Black led his new allies in a frontal assault, starting with the pyrokinetic Ashley hitting the mobster's goons with a fiery blast. Rivas then flew the group into the mansion in a force field bubble, blocking the bullets being fired by the surviving goons. The moment she dropped the field to let the others move, Black opened fire with an automatic rifle, providing cover as they headed inside the building. Always knowing when to duck back to avoid being shot and when to move forward to fire, Black cut a swathe through Giovannetti's men, but when they got to the mobster's office they found he had fled through a secret exit and set a bomb. Cursing himself for not foreseeing that, Black hastily instructed Rivas to throw a force field round them, just before the place exploded.

(Interface#6) - Williams, who had been left monitoring things from outside, believed everyone had died. However Rivas got her field up just in time to save their lives, though all of them were still knocked unconscious; despite being knocked out, Rivas managed to maintain her force field, continuing to protect everyone as the building collapsed around them. The explosion, coupled with the earlier firefight in town, had resulted in the army being called out, and Rivas was woken by a soldier combing through the rubble. Seeing the others, including Black, were alive but still insensate, Rivas airlifted them away, heading for Williams' home.

(Interface#6 - BTS) - The others woke mid-flight.

(Interface#6) - As they arrived at Williams' house they realized they had flown into another battle. Lo Chong had slaughtered an army unit that had been sent there, and was now fighting the super-fast Ian McVicar (a late arriving member of Williams' group) while Koznishev was engaged in a telekinetic battle with Bill Silent Bear (another late arrival, and the last member of Williams' team). Worse, Black sensed they only had seconds to extract their friends before explosives set by Koznishev and Perry (who had since fled) would go off. The energy-channeling Yabuki stunned Lo Chong with a lightning bolt, Silent Bear momentarily stunned Koznishev, and Rivas hastily teleported her friends and Black away, avoiding being caught in a second explosion that night by less than a second.

   Black took the group to a S.E.A. safe house in Italy. The events in Monaco had blown the lid on the existence of Espers, but Black was philosophical, telling them it had been bound to happen eventually. He told them that crossing the Inner Circle meant they couldn't go back to their old lives, but promised that they could start anew with S.E.A.'s help.

(Interface#7 (fb) - BTS) - The group relocated again, this time to a safe house in County Wick, Ireland. Seeking solace after the emotional strain of recent events, Williams took Black as a lover.

(Espers III#5 (fb) - BTS) - This upset McVicar, who had hoped he and Williams might get together, and felt Black had messed up his chance just as he and Williams had been getting closer. As a result McVicar took a disliking to Black, though he kept this to himself.

(Interface#7) - Black explained to the group how the two rival cabals had used Espers to psychically manipulate political leaders and through them world events. However, because they were at odds with one another, this had triggered a lot of the conflicts in the world. He added that both groups tried to recruit Espers the moment they were discovered, and killed those who refused to cooperate. Meanwhile they had been working since the turn of the 20th century to keep Espers secret, disseminating false literature to discredit public belief in psychic powers. S.E.A. existed as a counter-force, the only group to turn to when the enemy took notice of a new Esper, but unfortunately Williams' group had crossed the Inner Circle before S.E.A. learned of them. However, Ashley questioned Black's information, demanding to know where the rest of Black's supposed group was. Black responded that S.E.A survived via secrecy, adding that part of his job was to ensure Williams' group weren't really working for the enemy to draw S.E.A. out. This annoyed Williams, who pointed out that Black had witnessed the Inner Circle try to kill them, and he reassured her that he was just trying to fill them in on what they were up against, and promised his people would show themselves soon.

   Soon after Black's promise came true, when two of S.E.A.'s leaders, Ann September and Herscel Goldmann, came to the safe house. However, their news was not good: Because they had both crossed the Inner Circle in a major way and publicly exposed the existence of Espers S.E.A. had decided Williams' group was on its own. Black was angered to hear this, demanding to know why he'd been asked to help them in the first place if S.E.A was just going to abandon them. They told him that they had needed him to learn what Williams' group knew so they could anticipate the fallout. Hearing this Williams slapped Black, angry that she had fallen for what she thought were his lies, but he protested that he hadn't know this was what S.E.A. was intending to do. September clarified - S.E.A. wasn't going to throw Williams' people to the wolves, and would let them continue to use the safe house, but taking them fully into the fold right now might compromise S.E.A.'s security, so they intended to wait and see how things played out, and if things blew over then they might still let them join S.E.A. September and Goldmann then asked Black to stay with Williams' group for a while and keep an eye on things, though Black pointed out that he might not be welcome.

(Interface#8 (fb) - BTS) - Williams and her friends agreed to let Black stay with them. However, they were unaware their actions had drawn the attention of a group who dubbed themselves the Masters, psychics way more powerful than any Espers, and who had kept themselves unknown to the various Esper cabals. One of them decided Williams' people needed to be eliminated to prevent a major psychic war.

(Interface#8) - Krishna trapped Black and the other Espers in a mind-bending illusory world where they believed themselves under attack from the reality-warping Octopus Army and were forced to flee into an increasingly surreal world where they were tortured by the most traumatic experiences from their pasts. However another of the Masters, Lori, disagreed with Krishna's plan, so she reached into the illusions to wake them before they were killed in their subconscious. Teleporting them all to Nepal, she explained that since so many people were after them, she had decided to take them under her wing and train them to reach their full potential, and hopefully in time to make a real difference to the world.

(Espers III#6 (fb)) - Lori taught them all a lot in very little time, until...

(Espers III#6 (fb)) - Alan abruptly left without any warning. Since the Masters were very secretive, Lori felt this had broken her trust and told the others that they too would have to go. They were much more powerful than they had been, though nowhere near the full potential they might have achieved.

(Espers III#6 (fb) - BTS) - Black later claimed variously that he felt obligated to tell S.E.A about the Masters, and that his intuition had suddenly told him that if he continued Lori's training it would lead to problems, though just for him. Whether either, both, or neither of these were true, remains unrevealed.

(Espers II#1 - BTS) - Williams group became known as the Renegades by the other groups, and they continued to clash with the Inner Circle.

(Espers III#5 - BTS) - The Renegades survived an attack from another Cabal who dubbed themselves the Architects, and wanted to take the fight to them. Needing help from S.E.A., they decided to reach out to the only contact they had for that group, Alan Black. Having no contact information since Black was always deep undercover, they were given a lead by a new ally, "Random Mage" Brian Marx, who sensed that they might find Black in a bar off Michigan Avenue in Chicago.

(Espers III#5 (fb) - BTS) - Black was in Chicago to assassinate a Triad operative, and planted a bomb in the man's office. 

(Espers III#5 - BTS) - McVicar and recent Renegade recruit, the psychometrist Skye Lanning, visited the bar Marx had told them about, where Lanning bumped into Black's target and sensed the man was somehow connected to Black. In response McVicar followed the man back to his office, and as a result only narrowly avoided being blown up by Black's bomb. Meanwhile Black's intuition informed him that Lanning was looking for him, so he went to the bar to meet her.

(Espers III#5) - When McVicar returned to the bar he found Black waiting there with Lanning.

(Espers III#6 (fb) - BTS) - Black joined the Renegades in their current safe house in Colorado and he told Williams there was a major S.E.A. cell in Siberia which might help if they could locate it.

(Espers III#6 (fb)) - He and Williams soon argued over his leaving them back in Nepal, as she complained how that had disrupted their training from Lori, but he contended that they couldn't trust the Masters given how little they knew about them. Williams however pointed out that if Lori had been an enemy then she wouldn't have helped them strengthen their abilities, and would have killed them after Black left. He conceded these were good points, but asked if the Masters were so good, why they had dropped the Renegades, and Williams pointed out that it was his fault for costing them Lori's trust, adding that to win it back they'd need to prove themselves somehow. Their discussion was interrupted by Ashley coming into the room, so Williams assigned him to go with Black to Siberia.

   Using one of a limited number of spell cards that Marx had given the Renegades, Black and Ashley were teleported to a snowy spot around ten miles away from the S.E.A. base because S.E.A. policy demanded they make sure there were no enemies about before moving in, and because (as Black pointed out) it wouldn't be a good idea to just appear unexpectedly in the middle of a group of paranoid Espers. By approaching from a distance they would give their precogs time to sense and identify them. As they walked through the heavy snow Ashley quizzed Black on why he'd left them in Nepal, and was disquieted to get a different answer from the one he'd overheard Black giving Williams. Before he could press Black on this, the hitman told him he'd sensed incoming enemy aircraft. Glancing around, they spotted a stealth helicopter fast approaching, which then fired missiles at them before they could find cover. Though the explosion was far enough from them that they survived, it also separated them.

(Espers III#6 (fb) - BTS) - Evading the chopper, Black managed to make his way to the S.E.A. cell, who were hiding in a cave. However, they didn't know what had happened to Ashley, so Black used another spell card to teleport himself to wherever Ashley was. He found the Renegade standing over the bodies of two men from the helicopter patrol, but was confused when Ashley informed him that he too had run into the S.E.A. cell; however the description he gave didn't match the people Black had been with. Perturbed, Ashley said that the people who had helped him had given him a note for Williams, so he checked to see what it said, and discovered that it was actually from Lori and the Masters, saying that since they had made progress fighting their enemies she might once again be able to soon help them.

Comments: Created by James D. Hudson and John Burns.

   Alan's appearance varied a fair bit depending on the artist. His original artist, John Burns, depicted him with blue eyes and a squarish chin, but his Interface artist Paul Johnson made him resemble Elvis in Interface#2, and then changed him to have a thinner face and much more pointed chin in subsequent issues. Greg Horn, the artist for Image's Esper run, seemed to lean towards this second version, but broadened the chin back out a bit.

   This profile was completed on 09/03/2026, but its publication was delayed as it was intended for the Appendix 25^th anniversary's celebratory event to represent Interface.

Profile by Loki.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Alan Black has no known connections to:

• any other "Alan" or "Black" characters

images: (without ads)
Interface#4, p1, pan1 (main image)
Interface#4, p22, pan3 (headshot)
Espers I#5, p21, pan6 (shooting guard)
Various Eclipse titles (Espers house ad)
Espers I#5, cover (original appearance, per John Burns)
Especs I#5, p19, pan6 (sipping his drink)
Interface#2, p14, pan3 (file photo, his Elvis look)
Espers III#7, p8, pan2 (black and white headshot)

Appearances:
Espers I#5 (April 1987) - James D. Hudnall (writer), John M. Burns (art), Cat Yronwode (editor)
Interface#2 (February 1990) - James D. Hudnall (writer), Paul Johnson (art), Daniel Chichester (editor)
Interface#3-6 (April-October 1990) - James D. Hudnall (writer), Paul Johnson (art), Gregory Wright (editor)
Interface#7 (December 1990) - James D. Hudnall (writer), Bill Koeb (art), Nel Yomtov (editor)
Interface#8 (February 1991) - James D. Hudnall (writer), Dan Brereton (art), Nel Yomtov (editor)
Espers III#5-6 (December 1997-February 1998) - James D. Hudnall (writer), Greg Horn (art), Laura Tavishari (editor)

First Posted: 09/10/2026
Last updated: 09/03/2026

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

Non-Marvel Copyright info
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