Resurrection Man (DC)
Resurrection Man is a male comic character who features in DC Comics.
Contents |
Biography
Origin
Mitch Shelley
Miraculously, Mitch managed to survive but was brain-damaged and suffered from amnesia leading to him wandering the streets as a homeless man. Months later, he was kidnapped by a clandestine organization simply called the Lab. Along with many other homeless people, Shelley was forced to be a test subject of Hooker who was a brilliant surgeon and director of the Lab. Suffering from an inoperable brain tumor, Hooker was determined to achieve immortality through a form of nano-technology called Tektites that were sub-atomic robots which could heal and rebuild the body even resurrecting it upon death. All of the test subjects were injected with Tektites and then killed but only Shelley who was Sample 268 actually managed to resurrect. (Resurrection Man v1 #11)
Unable to determine what makes Shelley special, a desperate Director Hooker takes a sample of Mitch's blood and injects it into himself. Rather than duplicating Shelley's full resurrection, Hooker becomes invincible to death but is unable to heal from wounds, losing his sanity in the process. In a rage, he attacks the Lab personnel, causing enough chaos that Shelley escapes. Once again living on the streets, a confused and still amnesiac Shelley discovers he can fly. Meanwhile, Hooker escapes, in pursuit of Shelley, able to sense him due to the tektites in their respective bloodstreams. His subordinates "Mr. Fancy" and Cliff DeWitt take over the tektite experiments. They send the Body Doubles to retrieve Shelley, wishing to know why he gained a resurrection ability not seen in any other test subject, and also hoping to understand why he gained super-powers, as the Lab's tektite technology should not have been able to grant superhuman abilities. (Resurrection Man v1 #12)
He then decided to find out about his past where he went to the library where Irma decided to help him out. They came to find an article about Mitch Shelley where he learnt that he was a lawyer who was presumed dead following a gas main explosion two months ago. (Resurrection Man v1 #1)
Shelley walked along local South Carolina railroad tracks while continuing to contemplate his missing memories, only to be entirely startled when Superman came crashing violently past his position after being struck down by a massive bolt of localized energy. Superman strictly instructed Mitchell Shelley to evacuate the immediate vicinity before launching back into the sky to rejoin the Justice League of America in a brutal, chaotic battlefield struggle against the giant evolving cyborg Amazo. Mitchell Shelley chose to completely ignore the instruction to flee and instead moved closer to the warzone, utilizing his status as a normal bystander to stay low to the ground and successfully pull panicked, un-powered civilians out of the falling debris. While trying to protect the innocent, Mitchell Shelley was caught in the perimeter of a localized explosion that claimed his physical life, triggering his tektites to completely resurrect his body moments later with the temporary, exceptional superpower to actively generate density-shifting shadows directly from his physical form. (Resurrection Man v1 #2)
Mitchell roamed directly into Ivy Town in his ongoing quest to find answers regarding his true identity, stopping to rest at a localized homeless shelter where he met a compassionate volunteer named Kim Rebecki. The temporary sanctuary was violently shattered when the lethal bounty hunters known as the Body Doubles tracked him down and launched a high-yield assault on the facility to forcefully secure Mitchell Shelley for their corporate employers at the Lab. Mitchell Shelley fled the immediate gunfire alongside Kim Rebecki, navigating the streets until he was completely pinned down against an open industrial chemical warehouse line. To protect Kim from an incoming barrage of bullets, Mitchell Shelley deliberately threw his own body into the line of fire, sustaining immediate terminal injuries that effectively ended his current life cycle. (Resurrection Man v1 #3)
Post-Flashpoint
Following the Flashpoint, a new version of reality was created with a different history of events. Mitch Shelley was born in the late 20th century but had no memories of any past lives and there was no indication he had ever lived past lives. An amnesiac Mitch Shelley wandered America, gaining different powers with each death, encountering the angel Suriel, who targeted Mitchell because she insisted that his soul was overdue to enter the afterlife. (Resurrection Man v2 #2)
Shelley collapsed inside a sterile medical laboratory facility in Portland, Oregon, having just experienced a sudden, unprovoked physical terminal event that ended his current life cycle. Within moments, his underlying sub-atomic nanotechnology initiated an automated cellular reconstruction process to fully resurrect his biological form, completely knitting his tissue back together while granting him the temporary, exceptional superpower to actively manifest and control highly addictive, manipulative pheromones. Upon his awakening, Mitchell Shelley suffered from severe amnesia, possessing no memory of his past origins, his name, or his legal history as a corrupt mob lawyer. Before he could orient himself within the facility, a lethal strike team of corporate mercenaries deployed by a shadowy organization known as the Lab breached the room to forcefully apprehend him. Mitchell Shelley fled the immediate gunfire, utilizing his newly emerged pheromone control to psychologically disorient the guards and escape into the rain-slicked city streets, where he hopped onto a moving cargo train to seek out clues regarding his identity. (Resurrection Man v2 #1) Mitchell leaped from the moving cargo train into a desolate patch of wilderness on the outer fringes of the Pacific Northwest, sustaining immediate terminal impact trauma from the high-velocity deceleration that ended his current life cycle on the spot. His internal tektites immediately initiated a full physical resurrection, restoring his body to peak condition while manifesting a brand-new transient superpower that granted him extraordinary super-speed matter consumption, allowing his cells to hyper-accelerate and absorb solid materials at a molecular level. As he pulled himself out of the brush, he was forcefully confronted by Suriel, a high-ranking angel of death who had tracked his unique energy signature directly from the Sphere of the Gods. Suriel strictly informed Mitchell Shelley that his human soul was long overdue to enter the afterlife, openly branding his continuous nano-technological resurrections as a direct violation of the cosmic order. Refusing to surrender his existence before uncovering the truth of his past, Mitchell Shelley utilized his matter-devouring traits to burrow deep into the earth, successfully evading the celestial vanguard's immediate tracking grip to continue his desperate wanderings across America. (Resurrection Man v2 #2)
The Resurrection Man was horrified to learn he was a copy of a cruel villain. He concludes that the tektites brought him to life to make amends for the evil the original Shelley has caused. During their confrontation, forces of Heaven and Hell come to claim Mitch Shelley's soul. The angel Suriel takes the soul of the original Mitch Shelley, while a demon takes Resurrection Man and Kim Rebecki to safety back in Metropolis. The demon remarks that Resurrection Man's soul grows more powerful with each resurrection, and is curious to see what the result of this will be. After he leaves, Resurrection Man and Kim ponder their future. (Resurrection Man v2 #0)
Overview
Personality and attributes
In appearance, Mitchell Shelley was a human male who possessed the weathered features of a drifter, characterized by short, dishevelled brown hair and a distinctly weary expression born from his amnesiac state. He possessed a standard adult male height and an average, lean physical build that showed no initial outward signs of superhuman modification or extraordinary musculature. His attire consisted of regular civilian garments suitable for life on the road, typically wearing a plain collared shirt, a dark jacket, and matching trousers that lacked any distinct superhero costuming, emblems, or protective uniform padding. Following his death and subsequent regeneration three days later, his overall physical appearance remained identical to his original base human form, showcasing a complete restoration of his skin, hair, and bodily structures without any visible scarring or permanent physical deformities resulting from the tanker explosion. Over time, he became akin to an urban legend where a Reverend came to refer to him as Resurrection Man. (Resurrection Man v1 #1)
After his seeming first death, he came to suffer from amnesia and a loss of his memories leading to him becoming a homeless man. (Resurrection Man v1 #1)
Upon learning he had powers, he became determined to sharing his gift to help others. (Resurrection Man v1 #1)
Powers and abilities
Mitchell Shelley was born a regular member of the human race, which natively meant he possessed no inherent superhuman traits, strength, or specialized defensive attributes beyond the baseline limitations of a normal adult male. However, Mitchell Shelley possessed a highly exceptional sub-atomic physiology due to the involuntary introduction of microscopic, advanced nanotechnology known as tektites into his bloodstream. These microscopic tektites granted Mitchell Shelley complete biological immortality, rendering him utterly incapable of staying dead. Whenever Mitchell Shelley suffered a fatal injury, his tektites initiated a full physical resurrection process, completely reconstructing his biological vessel and restoring him to peak physical condition. A secondary effect of this nano-technological resurrection process was the manifestation of a random, transient superpower upon each awakening. Mitchell Shelley had no conscious control over what specific ability he received, and the manifestation lasted for the duration of that specific life cycle, leaving him completely vulnerable to standard human injuries until a subsequent death triggered a brand-new adaptation. (Resurrection Man v1 #1)
He later gained powers through his body consisting of Tektites that were nanotechnology which represented the ultimate application of robotics and the key to the next technological era of mankind. These were robotic construction units roughly one-trillionth of a nanometer long. Individually, they were incapable of accomplishing much but millions working together in a concerted effort were capable of remarkable feats. The theoretical branch of robotics had been achieved by the Lab 3 years ago when they perfected fabrication devices capable of producing the Tektites. The Tektites were made to store enough information about the body they inhabited that they were able to rebuild it allowing the host to resurrect even after death. (Resurrection Man v1 #11)
It was shown that each time he killed he simply revived a moment later. After resurrecting, he came to inherit a random superpower as a result. The ability remained with him until he was killed where upon his next revival he gained a new entirely different random power. (Resurrection Man v1 #1)
Notes
- Resurrection Man was created by Andy Lanning, Dan Abnett and Jackson Guice where he made his first appearance in Resurrection Man v1 #1 (May, 1997).
- In an interview, Lanning and Abnett revealed that their conception of the character stemmed from their work at Marvel Comics in the 1990s when they considered reviving the Great Lake Avengers and thought that Mister Immortal's only power being immortality being boring and suggested an alternative where he gained random powers after each resurrection.
Alternate Versions
Appearances
- Resurrection Man v1: (1997)
- Resurrection Man v2:
External Links
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