D.P.7 #2

· Play Press

🌐 Italian edition · synopsis shown in English

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★ 1st appearance — Shrapnel

About this Issue

D.P.7 #2 (Play Press) reprints the second chapter of Mark Gruenwald's groundbreaking New Universe series — an early attempt in mainstream superhero comics to portray paranormal powers as psychologically and socially disruptive rather than glamorous. The issue introduces three of the series' most persistent antagonists, Bloodhound, Shrapnel, and Vice Versa, establishing the Clinic's paranormal enforcement arm and the CIA's involvement in hunting the group, a thread of government-as-predator that would run through the rest of the title. As one of the few New Universe books to hold a completely stable creative team across its entire original run, D.P.7 stood apart within the imprint, and its Italian reissue by Play Press in 1989 brought that work to a new readership at a pivotal moment in the Italian comics market.

D.P.7 #2, written by Mark Gruenwald and illustrated by Paul Ryan with inks by Romeo Tanghal and colors by Paul Becton, delivers a tense, high-stakes encounter as the team is ambushed on their way to Dave’s trailer home. The attack comes from paranormals—Bloodhound, Shrapnel, Vice Versa, and agents linked to the C.I.A.—pushing the group to unite their abilities in a desperate stand. The cover, by Paul Ryan, captures the moment’s intensity, with Ryan’s pencils and inks bringing the action to life.

writer Mark Gruenwald · artist Paul Ryan · inker Romeo Tanghal · colorist Paul Becton · cover Paul Ryan

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History

The original Marvel D.P.7 #2 — which this Play Press edition reprints — was written by Mark Gruenwald, penciled by Paul Ryan, inked by Romeo Tanghal, colored by Paul Becton, and lettered by Phil Felix; it carried a cover date of December 1986 and was released on September 9, 1986. Gruenwald had recruited Ryan directly from their shared work on the Squadron Supreme limited series, and the two approached the characters with unusual personal investment, discussing them as though they were real people they knew. Play Press, an Italian publisher active in licensing Marvel and DC material from the late 1980s onward, began serializing D.P.7 in April 1989 as a 16-issue monthly run, appending Iron Man backup stories to each issue — a packaging strategy typical of the publisher's approach to building out page counts for the Italian newsstand market.

Trivia · 8 facts

First appearances of three recurring antagonists: Bloodhound (Edward Zentner), Shrapnel (Leland Sharp), and Vice Versa (Geraldine Rumlow) — all paranormals from the Clinic's first test group, acting as C.I.A.-linked bounty hunters.
Story titled 'Runaways'; the group, fleeing the Clinic, heads toward David Landers' trailer home and is ambushed by the three new paranormal hunters — a conflict they resolve only by combining their individual powers.
Creative team on the reprinted original: script by Mark Gruenwald, pencils by Paul Ryan, inks by Romeo Tanghal, colors by Paul Becton, letters by Phil Felix.
The Play Press edition is part of a 16-issue Italian monthly series that launched in April 1989 and ran through July 1990, with Iron Man backup stories included in each issue.
D.P.7's original Marvel run (1986–1989) was the only title in the New Universe imprint to maintain a completely stable core creative team — Gruenwald, Ryan, and Becton — across all 32 issues.
The series was later collected in the English-language D.P.7 Classic Vol. 1 (Marvel, 2007), which reprints issues #1–9 including this issue.
The issue establishes that Bloodhound, Vice Versa, and Shrapnel were the Clinic's first test group of paranormals, giving them a longer institutional history than the protagonists and deepening the series' theme of institutional exploitation of powered individuals.
According to in-story internal chronology documented by the Marvel Chronology Project, the events of this issue take place roughly 23 days after the seven protagonists first met, grounding the narrative in the New Universe's real-time storytelling framework.