“The Black Terror: Seduction of Deceit” Week: Day 5

“The Black Terror: Seduction of Deceit” Week [written by Beau Smith & Chuck Dixon with art by Dan Brereton]: Day 5 @ the ZONE.   Today’s art is an extremely rare piece by Dan Brereton from a 1988 issue of The Comic Shop News.   It appeared with an article about “the return of a Golden Age hero” [The Black Terror] scheduled to appear in Total Eclipse #3 [a company crossover book] “who will then move into his own title in 1989“.

It’s interesting to note that the article said that “The Black Terror” would be co-written by  Beau Smith and Chuck Dixon [it was] and “illustrated by two artists new to Eclipse, Dan Brereton and Brandon Peterson” [it wasn’t].  Dan Brereton did all of the art chores.  I e-mailed Brandon to find out what happened and here is his response:

“I was given a tryout just out of High School by Beau that Beau liked, but Eclipse wanted one artist on the series and that was Dan, which was the very right decision to make at the time.”

So that’s one small mystery solved, but here’s another: Who is the the character standing beside The Black Terror in today’s art?  I believe it is Beau Smith’s comic alter ego.   Beau, am I mistaken?