This is "I've Been Here Before," a feature that deals with a term that I coined called "nepotistic continuity," which refers to the way that comic book writers sometimes bring back minor characters that they themselves created in the past as characters in their later work (we're talking after a break of at least two years or so). This is not an insult, it's just interesting to note it when it occurs.

Today, we look at how Fabian Nicieza kept Bengal afloat as a character in the early 1990s after the character was just a fill-in adversary for Daredevil!

The New Universe, in general, did not make a particularly big impression on Marvel fans, with the whole thing folding in less than five years. However, a lesser-known legacy of the New Universe is the way that the line helped a lot of future talents break into comic book writing and drawing, as Marvel mostly used the line to break in new creators after the initial launch of the line. If you look at some of the new creators working on the New Universe at the time, you have a bunch of creators who became stars for Marvel a few years later, like Peter David, Mark Bagley and Fabian Nicieza.

Anyhow, soon after starting at the New Universe, Nicieza also picked up a few fill-in issues on other Marvel books. One of these was a 1988 fill-in issue of Daredevil (#258) with artists Ron Lim (who was just about to blow up for Marvel, as well) and Jim Sanders III.

Nicieza went ALLLL the way back old school Marvel and brought in Willie Lincoln, the blind Vietnam veteran from back during Stan Lee's run on Daredevil. Willie called up one of his old Vietnam War buddies but his friend was then murdered...

It seems someone has a mad on for soldiers in Willie's platoon...

Willie contacts Daredevil and Daredevil stakes out Willie's apartment and is there when Bengal shows up and they fight...

Later, Willie reveals that after an attack on his village by U.S. soldiers wiped out the civilians living there, the little boy decided to try to follow the soldiers, but one of the soliders kicked him off of the helicopter...

He survived, of course, and grew up looking for vengeance. However, after Daredevil defeated him, he had him look at Willie and have him realize that Willie had not actually done anything to him. The guilt made him apparently kill himself...

So he's dead in his first appearance, right?

Not so fast!

First, though, Nicieza brought Bengal back in a story that could have been set before Daredevil #258. Drawn by Javier Saltares, the story appeared in Marvel Comics Presents #15 and it reveals that the hero known as the Red Wolf was somehow ALSO on that helicopter and so Bengal tried to kill him, but the Red Wolf didn't do anything, either, and he survives the attack...

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='Thrashing through the night!']

As it turned out, Bengal survived and popped up in New Warriors #7 (by Fabian Nicieza, Mark Bagley and Larry Mahlstedt). He attacked another one of the former soldiers, who was now a priest. However, his attack occurred when the mutant Silhouette was visiting the church and she assumed that he was there to attack HER!

She escaped and told her boyfriend, Night Thrasher, about it and so he staked out the church to wait for Bengal to return, thinking that Bengal was going after the priest to find Silhouette...

Luckily, the Punisher cleared things up...

The Punisher was after Silhouette for a misunderstanding (he assumed that she would know what her brother's former gang was up to).

In the end, Night Thrasher and the priest help the Bengal get over his anger and he seems like he's on his way to being a hero. He took some detours along the way before joining the Avengers: Initiative, but that's all stuff that was well past Nicieza's involvement with the character (although Nicieza did write the Bengal one last time after his New Warriors appearance in the Night Thrasher limited series). Honestly, some of those detours didn't exactly make sense (his first post-Nicieza appearance had him working as a henchman but then Dan Slott brought him back to heroism when Slott had him train to become an Avenger post-Civil War. Bengal was a consistent presence for good in the Initiative series. Slott has worked with Nicieza a number of times over the years, so it makes sense that he would respect Nicieza's character, as well. Still nice to see either way, though).

It's amazing how resilient of a character the Bengal turned out to be!

If anyone else has a suggestion for a future I've Been Here Before, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!