Who's This? Cagliostro's closet raider.
The facts: First appearing in Detective Comics #479's Hawkman backup (see below), the Fadeway Man saw barely any action in the pre-Crisis era. A Brave and the Bold Batman/Hawkman team-up and that's it. He would later have more success as one of the main villains of Hawkman volume 4 in the early 2000s, as well as Villains United and an issue of that era's Justice League of America.
How you could have heard of him: Blue Beetle: Graduation Day has introduced his grandson as the new Fadeway Man, but he's had recent appearances too - in Scooby-Doo! Team-Up, The Flash #800, and Beast World Tour: Central City.
Example story: Detective Comics #479 (October 1978), "True Heroes Never Die...!" by Len Wein, Rich Buckler and John Celardo
1978 seems to late for a character who, on looks alone, I was sure was from the Silver Age, but let's look at his very first story - an 8-page Hawkman back-up - to see if he desvered his Who's Who page despite very few pre-Crisis appearances... Katar and Shayera have been away to Thanagar fighting Hyathis, and when they return to the Midway Museum, they find someone sitting in Katar's chair!
Seems that in their absence, the Hawks were FIRED! Well, that's pretty realistic, actually. But Katar threatens to take this to the Board of Governors (dude, take it like a man) and that's when Anton Lamont snaps his cloak over them - apparently the Board doesn't know he's there and he doesn't want them to.
I really thought the Fadeway Man was the one who would fade away first. Our unemployed heroes instantly appear on a cliff face... without their wings! They start whistling at sea gulls and get carried off home to Midway (so are these cliffs on the Great Lakes? Damn you, DCU geography, my ancient enemy!). During this absolutely insane sequence, Lamont is unpacking a crate from Italy and the reason he took over the museum. It's all about Leonardo da Vinci's Pistol of Power. Ah yes, classic, well-known artifact.
The Hawks catch him with his hand in the treasure chest. THE TIME FOR PRETENSE IS FINALLY PAST and Lamont takes the "noxious garb [he's] been forced to wear (a suit) and wear what he likes (uhm, that).
Switcheroo thanks to magic cape, but the heroes know better than to get close to that thing. It eats and redirects anything you through at him. He can also open a portal to elsewhere and summon things like a hailstorm:
But Hawkman is to tough a foe (Hawkwoman is trapped in her own net, not a great showing), so it's time to use the da Vinci gun, which uses three lenses to basically shoot a disintegration beam. The Renaissance had it going on. Really not sure what happens next because Hawkman throws a mace at the weapon, misses, and it strikes "the table upon which it rests", which makes no sense since Lamont is holding it. In any case, it goes off and zaps the villain.
The only thing the Mona Laser leaves behind is the "conjure-cloak", but it, too, fades away, promising a future encounter. After all, we haven't even heard an origin, much less the connection to Cagliostro. Nor how he usurped the Halls' jobs. Back-ups, amirite?
We're left with a villain who likes to steal museum artifacts, which is down the Hawks' alley, but this teaser doesn't give us enough of a motivation or modus operandi for him. Good showcase for his cape's powers, but the page count really prevents Wein from fully exploring the idea. It would take almost 4 years before we saw him again in The Brave and the Bold - yeech! So no, DENIED, no business getting into Who's Who!
Who's Next? A quick turtle.
Comments