Blockbuster (DC)
Blockbuster is the name of several characters in the DC Universe.
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Blockbuster (Mark Desmond)
- Main Article: Mark Desmond
Origin
Mark Desmond was a male human who was the younger brother of Roland Desmond where he was noted for being a genius but had a scrawny body. He then looked to develop a serum to make him stronger but he was over-anxious and he did not test his discovery first. Upon ingesting the serum, he was transformed into a giant muscular figure with incredible strength and endurance. However, a consequence was that he lost his intellect in the process when he was in his transformed state. Simple minded, Mark was used by his brother Roland Desmond to perpetrate robberies and other crimes in Gotham City where the Gotham City Police Department were unable to stop the figure who the media began to call Blockbuster. (Detective Comics v1 #345)
After that encounter, Blockbuster retreated and sought solitude, but a few weeks later he returned to Gotham seeking to eliminate Batman. The Dark Knight used his previous method of revealing his identity to calm the beast, but this time, another criminal became involved named the Outsider. Ever since he went free, Blockbuster had been manipulated by the Outsider, who wanted to use Blockbuster's brute force to kill Batman, but Batman foiled the plan. Blockbuster was defeated and Bruce Wayne sent him to the Alfred Foundation, to research a cure for his current state. (Detective Comics v1 #349)
Blockbuster’s personality altered drastically after he and Solomon Grundy knocked the hate out of each other. He was peaceful and friendly, calm enough to start relearning how to speak, and the staff of the Wayne Foundation allowed him to work as a handyman and return to his childhood home on weekends. Blockbuster went to a local department store to buy a gift for the doctors that took care of him but had a relapse when he saw a Batman standee advertising toys and went berserk, tearing it up. Security arrived and he reverted to his friendly self, allowing them to take him down to the police station. Wayne Foundation doctors Margot Rankin and Sloane evaluated him, but when they spoke Batman’s name he crashed through his jail cell, screaming that he’d find and kill Batman. Batman and Robin confronted him in the department store where he was ripping apart Batman merchandise, and Batman unmasked to reveal himself as Bruce Wayne to Blockbuster once again. The trick failed to work this time, as Blockbuster said that if Bruce and batman were the same man then he hated them both. He gave Batman and Robin a beating before fleeing to his childhood home. Batman realized that on his weekend visits he was reliving his childhood by throwing himself into the quicksand bog Bruce had once rescued him from. Because Bruce didn’t save him and Batman didn’t save him he had misplaced anger against them, his confused mind reasoning that they left him to die. Batman confronted him and unmasked again, having disguised himself as Solomon Grundy. He pulled Blockbuster from the quicksand and blockbuster was overjoyed that Batman saved him, pleased to believe the Caped Crusader was his brand new friend Grundy. (Batman v1 #194)
Post-Flashpoint
Following the Flashpoint, a new version of reality was created with a different history of events.
He was mind-controlled by the villainous Necromancer into helping her steal an artifact from a Washington, D.C. museum. This brought him to the attention of Hawk and Dove. The pair teamed with Batman and Robin to stop Necromancer and Blockbuster. (Hawk and Dove v5 #6)
Blockbuster (Roland Desmond)
- Main Article: Roland Desmond
Origin
Roland Desmond was a male human who was the older brother of Mark Desmond who was a genius but had a scrawny body. Looking to become strong, he developed a serum but being over-anxious led to him not testing his discovery. This turned him into a giant muscular figure with superhuman strength and endurance but resulted in a diminished intellect. In this state, he fell under the easy control of Roland who decided to use his brother's transformed state to perpetrate a series of crimes and robberies in order to become rich in the process. These thefts occurred in Gotham City with the Gotham City Police Department unable to stop the supervillain that the media called Blockbuster. (Detective Comics v1 #345)
Months ago, he was in prison where he was doing time when he was stricken by a strange malady that erupted after the detonation of the alien gene bomb during the Invasion. This saw Roland being transferred to a major hospital where doctors found that large doses of a certain steroid helped alleviate the seizures. He responded quickly to the treatment quickly but the doctors were unaware that he was gaining strength in ways they had not seen. He was being shipped back to prison when he managed to escape and headed west where he became the new Blockbuster. (Starman v1 #10)
Blockbuster promised a recent acquaintance named Simon he'd kill Impulse, and had his goons lock the gates of the Alabama Warrior Stadium and set a fire to attract Impulse. Impulse made sure there were no casualties, so Blockbuster decided to personally intervene. He killed random people in the town of Manchester and fought Impulse. He thought he killed Impulse by flattening him with a bus, and returned home, but Impulse actually dodged his attack at superspeed. Impulse followed him home and destroyed his mansion, specifically built for Blockbuster's enormous size. Impulse taunted him, and he admitted he made a bad deal with Neron, he would have been better off asking to be normal instead of super-intelligent and grotesque, but when he had sub-level intelligence he wasn't capable of making a well thought out wish. Impulse made him mad enough to collapse the entire mansion down on himself. Impulse escaped the wreckage, but so did Blockbuster. (Impulse v1 #8)
Blockbuster was intrigued by La Encantadora who was a new arrival in Bludhaven that avoided meeting him. He finally contacted her and after making some lewd overtures when he offered her a job. He had her destroy a steel foundry owned by his rival Boom-Boom Moretti, but he did not tell her that he had his men kidnap Moretti s family who were then tied up in the foundry. She found Moretti s family and saved them before the foundry exploded. Encantadora pushed Blockbuster off a rooftop and told him she would never work for him again. (Secret Origins of Super-Villains 80-Page Giant v1 #1)
Roland's corpse came to be reanimated by a black Power Ring where he was recruited into the Black Lantern Corps. (Blackest Night: Batman v1 #1)
Post-Flashpoint
Following the Flashpoint, a new version of reality was created with a different history of events. Roland Desmond at some point sold his soul to Neron in exchange for greater intelligence. Some years after that, he fathered a daughter called Olivia with an unknown woman. He renegotiated his deal with Neron such that upon Blockbuster's death that the demon lord would instead take his daughter's Olivia's soul. (Nightwing v4 #98) Bludhaven billionaire Dick Grayson promised to use his wealth to remake the city from the ground up, which would threaten the power of the city's crimelords. Blockbuster hired multiple assassins to kill Grayson, but they were all foiled and captured by superheroes who had placed Dick under their protection. Even the legendary La Agente Funebre failed. Eventually Lady Shiva met with Desmond and told him that no assassin would accept a contract on Dick Grayson, and that if he wanted Dick dead he would have to kill him himself. (Nightwing v4 #91)
Blockbuster (Unknown)
- Main Article: Unknown
An unknown Blockbuster was secretly created by Lex Luthor to serve as an opponent of his manufactured hero team, Infinity, Inc. Little was known about this person save for the fact that Luthor possesses some measure of control over his actions and level of strength. Luthor also commented that he was stronger than either of the previous two Blockbusters. This brute's cognitive abilities and appearance were very similar to the original. Blockbuster, with controlled interference from Lex Luthor, killed the superhero Trajectory. (52 v1 #21)
Blockbuster (Martian Manhunter)
- Main Article: Martian Manhunter
The Martian Manhunter came to assume the identity of Blockbuster which he used to infiltrate the supervillain community after it was exiled to Salvation by Amanda Waller. (Salvation Run v1 #3)
Blockbuster (Unknown)
- Main Article: Unknown
Overview
The media initially came to refer to him as the Blockbuster Bandit. (Detective Comics v1 #345)
The power of Blockbuster came from a special serum created by Mark Desmond that affected certain endocrine glands to make the subject grow big and strong. However, the original serum resulted in an over-active anterior lobe of the pituitary gland. Whilst it made the user into a giant with tremendous strength but simultaneously a faulty endocrine gland retarded the person's mental development. (Detective Comics v1 #345)
The second Blockbuster gained his powers through a unique cocktail of strong steroids that triggered his transformation. (Starman v1 #10)
Notes
- The concept of Blockbuster was created by Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino where it made its first appearance in Detective Comics v1 #345 (November, 1965).
- The name Blockbuster was first given by Robin after seeing the reports of the criminal.
Alternate Versions
- In Just Imagine: JLA v1 #1 (2002), an alternate version of the Blockbuster appeared in the Just Imagine reality that came to be designated as Earth-901 (Pre-Crisis), Earth-27 (Post-Infinite Crisis) and Earth 6 (Post-Flashpoint) in the Multiverse. Brock Smith was a death row inmate notorious for a series of mass murders committed with his bare hands, who is rescued by the series' mysterious villain Dominic Darrk and re-empowered with extra super-strength (and a purple carapace) as part of a villainous Doom Patrol. He was defeated and de-powered by Batman and Wonder Woman who cracked his purple facade with Wonder Woman's staff. and dies after running over a live electrical cable.
- In The Multiversity: The Society of Super-Heroes: Conquerors of the Counter-World v1 #1 (2014), an alternate version of the Blockbuster appeared in the reality designated as Earth-40 in the reborn Multiverse.
In other media
Television
- In Justice League Unlimited, the Mark Desmond Blockbuster appeared in the setting of the DC Animated Universe television series where he was voiced by actor Dee Bradley Baker. Following a minor appearance in the episode "Kid Stuff", Blockbuster joins Gorilla Grodd's Secret Society in the episode "I Am Legion". Prior to and during the episode "Alive!", Lex Luthor takes command of the Society, but Grodd mounts a mutiny. Blockbuster sides with the latter, but is frozen by Killer Frost and killed off-screen by Darkseid.
- In The Batman, Mark Desmond appeared in the setting of the animated television series in the episode "Meltdown" where he was voiced by actor Kevin Michael Richardson. This version was an African-American scientist working for Wayne Enterprises who was in charge of enforcing Ethan Bennett's parole.
- In Young Justice, the Mark Desmond appeared in the setting of the animated television series where he was voiced by actor René Auberjonois. This version was a senior scientist in Project Cadmus and secretly allied with the Light.
Films
- In Justice League: Gods and Monsters, an alternate version of Blockbuster appeared in the setting of the animated film where he was voiced by actor Marcelo Tubert. He and a group of terrorists fight their universe's Justice League before Batman kills him.
Video games
- In Young Justice: Legacy, the Mark Desmond Blockbuster appeared in the setting of the video game tie-in where he was voiced by actor Mark Rolston.
Appearances
- Detective Comics v1: (1965)
- Starman v1:
- Nightwing v2:
- Nightwing v4:
External Links
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