It's difficult being a fan favorite in the comic book field. Peter David is one of the smartest writers around, and gets all the flak for it. His legendary writing run on The Incredible Hulk comic made a one-dimensional, dumb character into a thoughtful examination of the humanity inside a big, powerful, supposedly invulnerable hero. He got fired from the book for his trouble, even though his successor sold a lot fewer comics.

I liked his Supergirl, where he took a clichéd character - originally a copy of Superman "for girls only" - and turned her into an authentic angel, a servant of God. He even showed God as a fourteen-year-old Jewish kid named Wally, who used a baseball bat instead of a flaming sword. This odd but good book failed with the fickle fans, and Supergirl was cancelled.

Knowing how traitorous comic book readers are, David's written in other fields - the fun cult movie Oblivion, episodes of Babylon 5, his own Star Trek: New Frontier line of books, and recently the Sir Apropos of Nothing and Knight Life novels. Thanks to them, he won't be living in a cardboard box when the comic readers all flock to the next "hot" writer.

But he still writes comics. And he's still challenging himself. His Fallen Angel, after a shaky start, is turning into genuine film noir and genuine tension. His humor is still present in the book, but it takes a back seat to some very unsettling drama.

A beautiful young woman named Lee works as a private school phys-ed teacher during the day. At night, she has another job, as a red-hooded troublebuster for hire named Fallen Angel. She has a lot of work, because she lives in Bete Noire, a haunted Louisiana seaport town where morality is a vast, grey swamp.

It's not the Angel's job to clean up the city. It can't be cleaned; its corruption goes too deep. So does the corruption in Angel's own soul. She simply jumps in and starts kicking booty, apparently with powers that make her invulnerable to harm and cause a lot of damage to others. Sometimes she solves her clients' problems. Sometimes she makes them a lot worse.

This is no dip in the kiddie pool. Recently, Angel bought illegal drugs and dosed herself, because they allowed her to see the evil presences oozing from every citizen of Bete Noire. And to obtain a lost holy relic, she captured an old enemy, a voodoo priestess, and tortured her bloody. Language and situations get very extreme.

And this book isn't from DC's Vertigo line, where sex, violence and rude language are common. This is a regular DC book - although it's made clear that it's not located in the sunny DC Universe of Superman and his pals. You wouldn't expect this dark writing from a guy famous for his humor and puns. But David has pulled it off, showing he's a lot more versatile - and a lot more serious - than anyone else thinks.

From a book I bought uncertainly, wondering if it would work at all, Fallen Angel has become one of my regular reads. But I don't read it at night, or during my darker moods.

Thomas E. Reed is a television engineer in Orlando, Florida. His sole achievement with Peter David was, upon hearing that he played Marryin' Sam in a community theatre production of Li'l Abner, forced him to sing "Jubilation T. Cornpone" before audiences at Dragon*Con - twice. You can sing to him via e-mail at hatemail@off-model.com.