While the series has garnered mixed reactions, there’s one thing The Book of Boba Fett makes clear — fans sure do love a bounty hunter/mercenary with a cool look and a good heart despite their profit motivations. With that in mind, comic fans, it’s time to meet (or meet again) the purplest of mercenaries, the one, the only Paladin.
Given the genre pools comics swim in, it is strange that there aren’t more lovable antiheroes in the mix. Lovable rogues, certainly; that’s Iron Man’s whole thing, especially the character’s post-Robert Downey Jr. Marvel Cinematic Universe-inspired makeover. However, there’s never really any doubt what side of the equation Shellhead falls on. He’s a hero through and through.
Similarly, Marvel is lousy with antiheroes. Punisher. Venom. Ghost Rider. Wolverine. You can’t throw a stone, post-1992, and not hit a violent antihero beloved by fans. But they aren’t exactly charming, or fun. Deadpool comes closest, but he’s far wackier, and more dangerously unhinged, than flirty and mysterious.
On the other hand, Paladin is a classic bounty hunter with a heart of gold. Charming, intelligent, and available to the highest bidder, he mostly enjoys his work and life in nearly equal measure. However, underneath the devil may care attitude and the very lucrative gun for hire work, there still dwells a conscience. Like Boba Fett, the longer Paladin has been around, the more difficult he has found it to ignore that voice in his head that tells him there’s more worth fighting for than just a paycheck.
When readers first met Paladin, alias Paul Denning (real name unknown), he repeatedly clashed with Daredevil. While not on different sides, per se — after all, they both wanted to bring Purple Man in — the two came to blows because Daredevil sought justice while Paladin only cared about being the one to complete the contract. In the end, Paladin made the smart choice and teamed with Hornhead, especially when Killgrave seized control of Cobra, the Jester and Mr. Hyde.
After his debut, Paladin continued to pop up all over the place in the Marvel Universe. He often worked with Silver Sable. While never showing much interest in her political motivations, Paladin nevertheless demonstrated loyalty to him. His attitude suggested an essentially amoral man who nonetheless would develop connections and commitments to people he respected.
It is also possible that Paladin’s amorality is more of show than reality. After all, while happy to take money from seemingly anyone, he nonetheless still ended up on contracts that put him more or less on the side of angels. Even when he ended up fighting heroes, it was often because they were chasing the same criminals. Other morally questionable contracts saw him fulfilling the job technically while still suggesting he had a preference for justice.
There were exceptions, of course. Paladin once took a contract to kill the Punisher, a choice that sent him head-on into U.S.Agent and ended with Paladin nursing two broken legs. Years later, Paladin would be the man to shoot Daredevil with a sniper rifle after the government decided to bring in the Man Without Fear. This particular incident, the mercenary insisted, came about because of blackmail. It also seemed to be a breakthrough moment for Paladin, marking the most significant change in attitude fans had seen to date. Again, to use Star Wars parlance, it was the gun-for-hire’s Tusken Raider or Grogu moment.
Unfortunately, as the Mandalorian, Din Djarin, can attest, certain habits die hard. Despite his guilt, it wasn’t long before Paladin accepted contracts that led to him betraying his Heroes for Hire colleagues in an attempt to capture Captain America. Paladin also made himself Iron Man’s target so that a wealthy oligarch Nasim Rahimov could attempt to punish a country for the state-sponsored murder of Rahimov’s wife. He even joined up with Norman Osborn’s Thunderbolts.
Again, though, the mercenary seemed to keep shading into heroics. Rahimov’s mission was violent but motivated by a true injustice. Paladin would ultimately team up with the Eric O’Grady Ant-Man to undermine the Thunderbolts. He even went undercover as Scourge to take down Purple Man’s attempt at using a Heroes for Hire style organization to eliminate rival supervillains.
The fact is, though, that Paladin remains at his best when walking in the gray areas. Boba Fett is compelling because his “reform” doesn’t involve acts of charity and literacy campaigns but becoming an entire planet’s benevolent crime boss. Din Djarin doesn’t intrigue because he immediately settled down and took an accounting job after he met Grogu but because he loves that little guy and still pursues a career involving beheading galaxy citizens for cash.
Too often, comic anti-heroes become too sweet. They’re primarily heroes that retain the “anti- “because they’re former villains, or they used to play rougher. Or they go the other way, and we keep calling them anti-heroes despite them objectively being machines of mass murder who happen to kill more criminals and supervillains than regular joes or heroes.
On the other hand, Paladin continues to stray this way and that. Putting a bullet in Daredevil’s chest one week and helping a team of freedom fighters slip away from authorities the next. The fact that he has a moral code means he can trick a reader or other character into thinking he’s a true hero under the bravado. That it is so vague and ill-defined means Paladin can and still will surprise with a genuinely selfish move or a reprehensible decision. In a primary-colored world of uncrossable bright lines, there’s something undeniably alluring about a character who stubbornly refuses to be all good or all bad.
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