Who's This? An explosive hero.
The facts: A surprisingly humorous strip (given the premise, but it's Paul Gustavson, so that's his style, see also the Jester), the Human Bomb starts his heroic journey in Police Comics #1 (August 1941), his home for 58 issues of the series (ending his run in mid-1946). Roy Lincoln would be shunted to Earth-X along with other Quality Comics heroes, as revealed in Justice League of America #107 (October, 1973), a crossover that would spin out into a 15-issue Freedom Fighters series three years later. All-Star Squadron, Crisis, and much later, Convergence appearances would follow. He appeared as a frail old man in Damage (as one of the character's precursors), and killed by Bizarro in Infinite Crisis #1 (October 2005). A bit as a Black Lantern and a permanent resurrection in Dark Nights: Death Metal, but nothing as come of that. Palmiotti, Gray and Ordway gave us a Human Bomb mini-series in 2013, but it wasn't Roy Lincoln.
How you could have heard of him: It was recently revealed, in The New Golden Age, that he had a sidekick called Cherry Bomb, who was retconned out of history, then returned in Stargirl: The Lost Children. Roy has non-speaking appearances on Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
Example story: Police Comics #14 (December 1942) "Mr. Chameleon" by Paul Gustavson
Something the Freedom Fighters comics didn't prepare me for is that Roy Lincoln, top chemist, didn't always go in the boiler suit. Seems his curse was quite manageable with a pair of gloves, so long as no one slapped him in the face. (He has to be careful not to upset his fiancée Jean, I bet).
Isn't this the plot of the Brenda Starr movie? Anyway... Roy takes the dusted corpse to his lab to analyze it, but doesn't notice the talking shadow right outside the vault. And there's Jean, getting upset at him. Uh-oh.
What a toxic relationship. When he finally tells her what's going on, and that the dust is made up of all the elements of the human body, she passes out in a three-panel comedy sequence. And then the weird animated shadow shows up, and Roy thinks he's gone mad. But this is Dr. Chameleon who can make himself nearly invisible, but still casts a shadow. Ahhh, nice wrinkle. Chameleon thinks he can kill Roy with his flashlight, but Roy is only faking. Better to leave Chameleon thinking he did away with the investigator on his trail, and quick change into... the Human Bomb! Good thing he passed out next to the right drawer. Here's what the Human Bomb in action looks like:
Far less "explosive" than I imagined. Just looks like super-strength. Dr. Chameleon escapes and Roy tracks him down to the house of his old chemistry professor. Could it be? Of course it could. These are only 8 pagers, you can't have more than one suspect. The old man is shocked to see Roy walk through the door (boiler suit left outside the house), which clinches it. Professor Thorndike offers Roy some tea... laced with arsenic! But not unnoticed. Roy takes the cup with his gloveless hand and...
So can he even eat or drink without exploding his food? Now rumbled, Thorndike pulls a gun, but Roy grabs the Chameleon cloak off the couch and hides, threatening to explode the old man if he doesn't give himself and the stolen formula up. At the end of his rope, Thorndike makes a move (an attack? suicide?) and blows himself up on Roy's hand!
This is just about the only reference to the "curse" of being a Human Bomb. Comics were simpler back then, and you could easily make this concept fairly light-hearted (give or take the villains' usually violent ends). In the 70s, the Human Bomb would become more of a proto-Wildfire figure, trapped in a lethal body, not daring to take the boiler suit off, know intimacy, etc. I think that's the better version, but I'm glad Roy Lincoln got to be relatively happy at SOME point in his career.
Who's Next? A super impersonator.
Comments