nocturne-poldark-9561-mainnocturne-poldark-9561-face-unmaskNOCTURNE

Real Name: Graham "Gray" Poldark

Identity/Class: Alternate Reality (Earth-9561) human advanced technology-user

Occupation: Freelance film maker, vigilante/adventurer

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Billy Baxter, Inspector Craze, Amy Evert, D.S. Irving, George Jenkins, Ronald MacMasters, Mischief, Night Raven (aka Hatemare)
    unidentified physician

Enemies: Dragonpaw, Noose, Suture (aka Doctor Hurt), Yi Yang;
    formerly Hatemare;
    Iolanthe Spekes had him thrown out of her estate

Known Relatives: Unidentified father

Aliases: "Back" (from Suture), "Kid Spandex" (from Hatemare)

Base of Operations: London, England

First Appearance: Nocturne#1 (June, 1995)nocturne-poldark-9561-kick

   

Powers/Abilities: Nocturne's lenses are made from the mystic artifact known as the Looking Glass, which gives him visions of the future and predicts enemy attacks via a heads-up display, enabling him to avoid/outmaneuver them.

    He can extend and retract glider wings from the seams under his arms, down the sides of his torso and continuing down to about his knees. He also has what appear to be anti-gravity pods

    Gray Poldark sleeps about an hour a night, and he exercises vigorously during much of the rest of the day to burn off his excess energy.

    Gray is a skilled boxer and athlete, and he has some experience swimming, running, biking and in other forms of combat.

    He was somewhat obsessed with fictional heroes, most notably Night Raven.

   

Height: Unrevealed (approximately 5'10")
Weight: Unrevealed (approximately 210 lbs.)
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Brown
   

History:

nocturne-poldark-9561-exercise(Nocturne#1 (fb) - BTS) - When Gray Poldark was seven-years-old, his dad told him he could stay up an extra half-hour if he was good. His dad played the Night Raven show on the radio, and Gray was instantly hooked.

    Gray also enjoyed Captain Crimebuster, Mr. Menace and the Danger Gang.

(Nocturne#1 (fb) - BTS) - Gray Poldark was a freelance film maker, apparently winning awards for his probing documentaries.

(Nocturne#1 (fb) - BTS) - He also remained obsessed with fictional heroes, most notably Night Raven (Gray was unaware at this point that Night Raven was a real hero in his time period).

(Nocturne#1 (fb) - BTS) - Gray's doctor assessed him as being acutely hyperactive as he slept only an hour a night and spent much of the rest of the day trying to burn off excess energy via swimming, running, hitting a boxing bag or otherwise exercising, ensuring his blood pressure was not too high. He went through multiple trainers and a gym bag every month. nocturne-poldark-9561-gliders

(Nocturne#1 (fb) - BTS) - Gray made a documentary about police corruption.

(Nocturne#1 (fb) - BTS) - TV Guide faxed Gray a request to run a little question and answer bio-piece about him in their next issue, the week his latest film got its debut screening. He declined, knowing that his abnormal lifestyle and obsessions would not go over well.

(Nocturne#1 (fb) - BTS) - Pleased with his film about police corruption, Channel 6 asked Gray what he wanted to do next. He told them he wanted to cover the super heroes of radio, TV and film, agreed to give him a 50-minute spot as long as he kept it upbeat. Liking the kid's idol angle and its autobiographical nature, they gave him $10,000 to get started. 

(Nocturne#1 (fb)) <1 week before the main story> - Too excited about his new project, Gray went out for a jog.

 (Nocturne#1 (fb)) <5 days before the main story> - Gray took Ronald MacMasters, who had played Night Raven in two "ill-advised sixties movies," to dinner at McClennan's Brasserie. While obsessed and knowledgeable about wine, MacMasters barely remembered being in any Night Raven movies.

(Nocturne#1 (fb)) <4 days before the main story> - Gray attended a sci-fi and memorabilia fair at the Milton Keynes Recreational Centre, where he met Billy Baxter, soundman of the original Night Raven radio series. Baxter vaguely remembered Night Raven, but he only wanted to talk about his work on Doctor Who.

(Nocturne#1 (fb)) <3 days before the main story> - In Penzance, southern England, Gray met with Iolanthe Spekes (pen name: Dinah Danger), who wrote 29 Night Raven novels between 1946 and 1959. When he brought up the Night Raven novelizations, she replied that they didn't talk about those, and she had her man Horace throw Gray out.

(Nocturne#1 (fb)) <2 days before the main story> - At the Sunset Retirement Home in Herefordshire, Gray met with George Jenkins, who had played the part of Night Raven's reporter sidekick, "Scoop Daly" in the radio serial and who had also written most of the shows. When George said he would never forget the great bloke, Gray initially assumed he was talking about Edward Barlow, whom he considered the definitive voice of Night Raven, who had died so young. George clarified that he meant Night Raven himself, and Gray assumed this to just be part of George's Alzheimer's syndrome, but George explained that he had just worked from the details Night Raven had given him, changing a names and exaggerating here and there. George further noted that while he had failed to track Night Raven to his base on the Isle of Dogs, Night Raven had told him that every episode held the secret to its location, that it was hidden behind his initials and that nobody would be able to hear it for another 40 years.

(Nocturne#1 (fb)) <1 days before the main story> - Gray call Amy Evert, whose voice he enjoyed, at Channel 6, talking to her about George and his belief that Night Raven was real. He asked her to use her noise reduction equipment to clean up some old archived tapes from the Night Raven show he had, and she agreed to put her people on it. nocturne-poldark-9561-sting

    Gray was next visited by Inspector Craze of the C.I.D. and his associate D.S. Irving, who questioned him about George Jenkins, who had been kidnapped at 10 AM that day.

    After Craze and Irving departed, Gray biked the tapes over to Amy, asking her to clear up the part after the "For as the vigilant moon sinks over the rooftops, Night Raven slips into the shadows once more," the fadeout when the narrator walked away. Hearing, "...slips into the shadows once more, to where the moonlight marked the threshold of his lair," Gray appreciated that Night Raven's initials, N.R., matched those of Noise Reduction.

    Heading to former site of the Vigilant Moon, a bar in the Docklands/Isle of Dogs that had been demolished in the 1950s, Gray observed as the moonlight marked a portal through the streets into a subterranean cavern. Seeing the name "Grant G.Vine," Gray appreciated that that was an anagram of "Night Raven," and pushing the letters in that order opened a secret passage. After swimming through an underwater section, he found Night Raven's secret base.

    Finding a seemingly updated Night Raven costume, Gray donned the mask, and as he looked through its lenses, it gave him a vision of his potential future battle with Suture.

nocturne-poldark-9561-gliders-post(Nocturne#2) - Realizing the mask had given him the vision, Gray appreciated the circuitry within the mask as well as the name "Nocturne" in his mind. Wishing to learn more, he donned the mask again, which led to a virtual meeting with the seemingly dying Night Raven from 1951, who told him that his finding his lair meant that he was the one. Night Raven told him that he must now watch over the city and that the mask would guide him in his campaign. Night Raven then told him to take off the mask and break contact. After he did so and appreciated that the site was flooding, Gray grabbed and donned the suit and mask and then swam through the submerged caverns.

    Meanwhile, Mischief, who had promised to watch out for whoever found his lair, received the signal that someone had done so. As Gray emerged, exhausted, from the water, Mischief grabbed his hand and tossed him back to the surface. After kicking him in the face when he asked "Who the Hell" she was, she introduced herself as Mischief and told him that Night Raven had asked her to watch over his legacy. After he noted her fanged canine teeth, she admitted that she might be a vampire, told him to trust the mask and then left, promising he would see her again.

    Following what the mask had shown him, Nocturne traveled to St. Saviour's Cathedral, where two of Suture's men were holding George Jenkins hostage. Defeating the men and rescuing George, Nocturne was confronted by Suture.

(Nocturne#3) - When Suture attacked Nocturne, he was initially distracted by guidance from the mask before appreciating that it could warn him of event before they happened. Acting on the guidance, Nocturne took to the air, realizing that his belt pods were likely anti-gravity mechanisms, and then struck Suture repeatedly. After George called Nocturne "Night Raven" and Suture "Doctor Hurt," Suture admitted to being Doctor Hurt, transformed thusly by "that witch" (Yi Yang). Enraged that his old foe was still still warm and human, Suture lunged at him but ended up crashing through a window and falling to his apparent death, impaled by the spiked fence.

    As a crowd and the media -- including Amy Evert and her camera man, Kenny, as well as Inspector Craze and D.S. Irving -- that Suture was finished, that he was Nocturne and that from now on the city would be safe at night.

(Nocturne#3 - BTS) - Mischief hoped that Raven was proud of his successor, and Amy interviewed Craze and George Jenkins.

(Nocturne#3) - Gray was pleased with Amy's news spot, after which he wondered if Suture was actually Dr. Hurt. He also wondered what he had gotten himself into and what he was going to do about it.

nocturne-poldark-9561-proclaim(Nocturne#3 - BTS) - Aboard Yi Yang's ship, Dragonpaw stood beside Noose as he announced to Yi Yang  the death of Suture at the hands of the seemingly reborn Night Raven: Nocturne. Yi Yang was furious to hear this, and she charged Dragonpaw and Noose to seek out and bring Nocturne to her so she could have his soul as a trophy, and the rest she would feed to Hatemare (who, presumably unknown to Dragonpaw and Noose, had at least the mind of Night Raven trapped in his monstrous form; even Hatemare was unaware of this).

(Nocturne#4 (fb) - BTS) - Dragonpaw and Noose located and attacked Nocturne, casting him from a building atop a car on the streets below.

(Nocturne#4) - After hurling an axe at Nocturne, which missed, Dragonpaw and Noose ran atop the cars on the street as they confronted Nocturne. Guided by the predictive Looking Glass that made up his mask's lenses, Nocturne dodged another axe and then punched Dragonpaw. As Nocturne landed on top of him atop a stopped car, Dragonpaw called him an "accursed costumed fool."

    Nocturne mocked his top-knot and chest tattoo as less than normal, but then Noose caught him with a rope around his neck, and Dragonpaw told Noose to hold him tight(ly) while he struck. However, Nocturne dodged such that Dragonpaw only cut the rope, freeing him, after which Nocturne delivered a punch to Dragonpaw's jaw and then yanked Noose by his rope, causing him to smash headfirst into a car's rear windshield.

    Dragonpaw swung his sword at Nocturne, but he dodged it and the sword got stuck in the car it hit. Nocturne then jumped down on top of the sword's flat side, shattering it, after which he nailed Dragonpaw with his taser, dropping him.

    Nocturne then punched out Noose, but he was confused when his mask warned him of further threat, after which Hatemare introduced himself and punched out Nocturne.

(Nocturne#4 (fb) - BTS) - Hatemare brought the unconscious Nocturne to Yi Yang's houseboat on the Thames, just below Tower Bridge, in which he was bound. Dragonpaw and Noose returned to the ship as well.

(Nocturne#4) - As Nocturne revived, Yi Yang greeted him, noting her past history with Night Raven and taunting him as a pretender. She asked him for the Looking Glass, although he had no idea what she was talking about.

    After Yi Yang left him to give him some time to think about the matter, Nocturne used the mask to again commune with Night Raven, who explained that the history of the Looking Glass, including how it had predicted his own death and how he had used it to steal the future technologies that built the Nocturne suit for his successor; additionally, so that the Looking Glass would not fall into the wrong hands, he had shattered it and then fused the shards into the lenses of the Nocturne mask.

    After Mischief arrived -- having tailed him and slipped into the houseboat -- and freed Nocturne, Dragonpaw and Noose rushed in to stop them. However, Nocturne punched out Dragonpaw, while Mischief dropped Noose with a kick to the abdomen.

    When Hatemare confronted them, Nocturne's lenses revealed that he was actually Night Raven, brought back in that form by Yi Yang as punishment for the scars he had given her. While Hatemare initially denied this, Nocturne put his mask on his head. Forced to realize the truth, Hatemare stated that he did not want to be that monster, and he gave the mask back to Nocturne before telling him to get out of there before he changed his mind. When Yi Yang returned, Hatemare revealed that he knew his true nature again. As Nocturne flew away with Mischief, the houseboat exploded, apparently slaying Hatemare, Yi Yang, Dragonpaw and Noose.

    Consoling Mischief about her former lover's fate, Gray advised her that he had made both of his deaths count for something. He teased Mischief that as a vampire, dying must be a "pretty plural verb for a gal like you." After briefly considering going home, taking a bath and then burning the Nocturne outfit, Gray resolved that "you only live once," presumably indicating that he was going to continue to protect the city as Nocturne.

Comments: Created by Dan Abnett and Paul Neary (with art by Joe Fonteriz).

    Consistently sleeping one hour per night while exercising for multiple hours each day is not really normal. I don't think there was discussion of Poldark being a mutant or mutate or anything...

    While I definitely prefer Night Raven-616, this was a cool series. I'd love to see Nocturne-9561 travel to Earth-616 and investigate/encounter Night Raven-616.
    Dan Abnett is still writing and could do it...

    Pending a profile on Night Raven of Earth-9561, you can see a decent discussion on the differences in the realities in the comment section of the Suture profile.
    And you can review the Night Raven-616 profile for the full details.
    Notably, Night Raven is still Night Raven on Earth-616, and most of his adventures took place in the USA, despite having been published by Marvel UK.

    I'm not positive whether the initial future shown to Gray by the mask was the actual future and just between panels, or whether that's actually a mildly different alternate reality. I favor the former, but I'm not sure where to insert them...so I'll put there here for now:
(Nocturne#1) - At St. Saviour's Cathedral, Nocturne greeted Suture with "I'm back," Suture presumably humorously started referring to him as if his name was actually "Back." They soon fought, and after Nocturne used his taser/sting on him, the annoyed Suture punched him off the roof.

(Nocturne#2) - Nocturne was saved when wings popped from the bodyline seams (aiding the anti gravity pods) 

    His name, Graham Poldark, almost certainly comes from the historical novel series Poldark by Winston Graham. It had a very successful TV adaptation by the BBC in 1975 through 1977. I was a little too young to get into it, but the cultural impact was such that even I was very aware of it, so chances are Dan Abnett, who is a few years older than me, watched it as a kid.
--Loki

    Thanks to Loki for sharing the Marvel Fact File he wrote on Nocturne, which provided his official height and weight amongst other things.
    It does list his main adversaries as including the Great Video and the Astro-Men, which are foes of Marvel Boy (Robert Grayson), and were presumably left in from a template or otherwise erroneously included.

   This was a replacement profile for the Appendix 25th anniversary 's celebratory event to represent Nocturne's series and characters, as I mistakenly duplicated a profile on Dragonpaw.

Profile by Snood.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Nocturne, "Gray" Poldark, should be distinguished from:

nocturne-poldark-9561-fullimages: (without ads)
Nocturne#1 cover;
       pg. 5, panel 4 (fitness);
       pg. 12, panel 5 (face);
       pg. 14, panel 4-5 (sting/taser);
       pg. 18, panel 1 (full, civilian, flashlight);
    #2 cover (glider wings);
    #3, pg. 9, panel 1 (posterior view; anti-gravity? pods);
       pg. 12, panel 3 (front view; pods);-------------------------------------------------------->
       pg. 24, panel 1 (full, announcement);
    #4, pg. 27, panel 1 (kicking Hatemare)
Appearances:
Nocturne#1-2 (June-July, 1995) - Dan Abnett (writer), Joe Fonteriz (penciler), John Stokes (inker), Paul Neary (editor)
Nocturne#3 (August, 1995) - Dan Abnett (writer), Jose Fonteriz (penciler), Andy Lanning, Martin Griffiths and Sean ?? (inkers), Paul Neary (editor)
Nocturne#4 (September, 1995) - Dan Abnett (writer), Jose Fonteriz (penciler), Bambos Georgiou, John Stokes & Martin Griffiths (inkers), Paul Neary (editor)

First posted: 10/04/2026
Last updated: 10/04/2026

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

Non-Marvel Copyright info
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