Midnighter is an American comic book series published by WildStorm, first issued in November 2006. It is a spin-off from The Authority (which is itself a spin-off from Stormwatch), a superhero team comic book created by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch, and follows the solo adventures of Midnighter, "the greatest tactician in the history of mankind". The first six issues were written by Garth Ennis, followed by three issues made by different writers; the last eleven final issues were written by Keith Giffen. Midnighter ended with its twentieth issue, followed by the limited series Number of the Beast. The series is also known as Midnighter (Volume 1) to differentiate itself from the character's 12-issue latter series first published by DC Comics in 2015. Three Midnighter trade paperbacks were originally released. In July 2017 the complete series was released for the first time in trade. Background Midnighter was released in November 2006 as a part of the Wildstorm Universe "soft reboot" Worldstorm, which included the relaunch and debut of many titles under the label. It was originally intended as a six-issue miniseries written by Garth Ennis only, but later was expanded to be an ongoing series, with following issues penned by other writers. The book was officially announced at the Wizard World Los Angeles 2006 Comic Con, together with The Boys, another Ennis project originally for WildStorm. Conception and development Midnighter idea came when Ennis was having a lunch with other WildStorm people. Beside his A Man Called Kev and Battler Britton vanity projects, Wildstorm editor Scott Dunbier asked Ennis to also do something a bit more commercial in return, so the writer suggested to "go straight for the jugular and give the best character they’ve got his own book", which in his opinion would be Midnighter. Ennis described the character as "utterly lethal and he tells it like it is. He's got a nice dark sense of humor, too". About Midnighter's sexuality, the writer stated that "his sexuality is not a complex issue: he likes screwing men. He likes screwing one man in particular — but that doesn't mean he wants to be around the guy 24/7, hence the solo book". At Midnighter presentation, Ennis said that he could do more than six issues, something that didn't happen, and would try to maintain it as a solo book, without "any major appearances by The Authority in general" ("superteam, yawn"), "Apollo