Dakota North
Created by Martha Thomases

Red-headed former fashion model turned private eye DAKOTA NORTH runs an international troubleshooting agency, North Security, in this short-lived Marvel comic book from the eighties. Alas, the inspiration seems to be more Charlie's Angels than Ms. Tree.

Still, Ms. North seems to be doing okay, what with offices in New York, Paris, Rome and Tokyo; or at least well enough to finance her seemingly endless supply of red motorcycles and skin-tight black jumpsuits.

'Course, even a jetsetting take-charge kinda gal needs a bit of help every now and then. Pitching in are Dakota's brother, Ricky, and her faithful assistant, Mad Dog." Meanwhile, lurking just out of sight is her dad, Samuel J. "SJ" North, a retired agent of some unnamed U.S. intelligence agency.

Big guns, a little cleavage, and lots of things exploding seemed to be the main points of interest in the series, and it was scrapped after just five issues, leaving a case that began in issue three, involving super-models and nerve gas hidden in an antique pen unresolved.

However, Dakota has rather remarkable statying power for the star of a failed series. Just a little over a year later, she popped up in Web of Spider-Man, helping Spidey capture The Slasher, a serial killer who's been murdering fashion models with a straight razor. Subsequently, she's popped up in various Marvel books, most notably an arc in the Cage series (featuring superpowered "hero-for-hire" Luke Cage) in the early nineties and even more successfully as a high-profile supporting character in Daredevil in 2006, where she was put on retainer by the law firm Nelson & Murdock as an investigator and bodyguard (Jessica Jones formerly held the position) while Matt Murdock (AKA Daredevil) languishes in prison.

What makes this arc so appealling is it's dark, almost-noirish (and decidedly non-spandex) tone. It's the first time Dakota's seemed like anything other than a preposterously bad joke. It's scripted by Ed Brubaker and illustrated by Michael Lark, who've done some damn fine P.I. comic work over the years, including The Little Sister, a graphic novel adaptation of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe novel and Scene of the Crime, still one of the best comic book P.I. stories I've ever read.

A new Dakota North mini-series, currently unscheduled, is also in the works, to be written by CB Cebulski. Whether he'll pick up where Brubaker and Lark have left off, or turn Dakota back into the cartoon she began as remains to be seen....

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Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith, with a special thanks to John McDonagh for the heads up.

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