Behind the Scenes - Vesper

Hey Summit Fans! This is Daniel Kalban, creator of Vesper, coming to you via encoded VIGILE frequency!

Now, Vesper’s next adventures are under a veil of secrecy for now. I don’t want to reveal what’s coming next for our angsty former sidekick turned super soldier for hire (because why spoil the fun), but I’m here today into more of a deep dive into his creation and his prelude adventure as seen in Sneak Peak and Pinnacle: Origins.

I had been toying with this concept for a while in some ways. Essentially, I figured out that a kid getting the serum would lead to some issues as they grow up. I mean, super soldier serum is a steroid on steroids after all. Taking that as the base point, I started thinking of the various ways this character would go. Ultimately, I became more influenced by a combination Red Hood/Winter Soldier concept, combined with James Bond. I also was influenced by the Captain America tales that felt like thrillers with real world elements versus your classic “cape versus cape fare”.

Now, with that in mind, I had to get it designed. In the original script for the prelude, I wrote:

“Big panel of Jackson Vesper (or just Vesper) entering the lab building. He is a muscular (perhaps slightly overly so) young man of about 25, with close cropped dark hair, a black domino mask with red lenses, black body armor under his jacket, fatigue pants, a utility belt with a gun in its holster, and combat boots.”

Pretty basic, but effective. Our fantastic art director, Pete Collins, did a rough sketch based on that that is now lost to time…and chat logs. However, others pointed out the then design of Vesper (now with the secret identity of Jackson Nacht) was a bit too close to my creations Rook & Knight over in my Libertyverse comics. So, back to the drawing board we went.

Marlon Souza, the fantastic artist on Vesper, took the various inspirations for Vesper and quickly whipped up a concept:

Pete then took the concept and developed it into a character sheet:

And from there, we began the art in earnest.

Now, I knew I had to base it in a real world conflict. I decided to use Russia’s war on Ukraine, as that has seen Russians kidnap and disappear numerous Ukrainian children. So, I had our villain of the day, Doctor Zombie, experiment on them to turn them into Russian super soldiers (as well as giving Vesper a person to bounce off of story wise for the main series in Andriy, Dr. Zombie’s chosen victim for the prelude).

Now, Doctor Zombie was a more…difficult person to name than I liked. I even asked a Russian speaking co-worker at my day job for possible Russian words meaning “zombie” and nothing she could think of sounded right to her or me. So Doctor Zombie remained as the name in the script.

Coincidentally, the not-so-good doctor’s experiments in the prelude opened the door to the story for our first main arc…but that’s me getting ahead of myself.

Plus, I knew with a name like that, he has to return, eventually.

There is more to come in Vesper’s adventures. You’ll get to learn more of VIGILE (which you’ve seen bits and pieces of in Pinnacle Origins) as well as…well, that’s top secret.

Vesper will return in his own series this fall. Get ready for some action!