Written by Brian Witten and Robert Loren Fleming
Drawn by Mark Pajarillo
Published by Image Comics

It turns out that Brian Witten wasn’t done with Chapel just yet. In May 1996, just a month after Chapel #7, this two-part miniseries was published, which Witten co-wrote with Robert Loren Fleming. It teamed Chapel up with another Rob Liefeld character, John Prophet, a surgically enhanced superhuman with deep Christian values.

So there’s a Japanese terrorist known as Hayakama, who has a hidden fortress with a legion of devoted cult members called The Singleminded. He’s responsible for some kind of nerve gas attack, and so the U.S. Government sends in a squad of special forces soldiers to take him out. But when the soldiers arrive, they’re ambushed and killed by a bunch of ninjas. So President Bill Clinton calls in “Agents Alpha and Bravo” to take out Hayakama. Those agents are actually Prophet and Chapel.

At least it makes sense that Chapel is called in, with his history working for the government, but this has never been a role that Prophet has been shown to have. It’s not explained how these two came to be called, but it’s the first time they’ve worked on a mission together, and Prophet is uncomfortable due to Chapel’s history as a demon in Hell. In any case, they arrive in Japan and make their way to Hayakama’s fortress but are ambushed by 24 soldiers. A gunfight ensues, and although each of them sustains some wounds Prophet and Chapel kill them all. But as they finally get to the fortress, they’re attacked by the ninjas.

The second issue, which came out a month later, is even more action-packed than the first one. There are Ninjas, Samurais, helicopter fights, and lots and lots of blood until the final confrontation with Hayakama. There’s not much to spoil here, you should know that Prophet and Chapel are going to win, the fun is in seeing all the shit they get into before that happens. And they end with a grudging respect for each other.

This isn’t meant to be anything deep; it’s just a fun little action story, and on that level, it works. Although I wasn’t happy overall with the way Brian Witten wrote the Chapel ongoing series, this series makes me wonder if it would have gotten better if he’d been able to continue on it longer.

Or maybe the improvements are due to the co-writer, Robert Loren Fleming? Who knows?

With the PROPHET movie in development, it may be a good idea for fans to track down this series now. Just sayin’…