WANTED: Earth-Two's Most Dangerous Super-Villains
The Cloud
Personal information
Name: Unknown
Residence: Usually Mobile
Occupation: Professional
Criminal
First Appearance (Golden Age): All-American Comics #56 (March 1944)
Character History
Nothing is known about the criminal known as the Cloud before he appeared with his gang in 1944 in New York. By his own account, he was an experience inventor who had been working on a dark rain device for several years. His first known criminal activity occurred when an inky black rain fell in the entertainment distract, bathing everything in an impenetrably dark haze. Using careful planned parking instructions, henchmen of the Cloud placed their care in front of a bank and ran into rob it and retrace their steps to escape. Emerging from a nearby building, Myra Mason and Charles McNider were caught in the rain but McNider, who is also Dr. Mid-Nite, was the only person who could actually see in the darkness. He quickly slipped away from Myra and switched to his uniformed identity to confront the robbers. Caught off-guard, the thieves fell quick victim to Mid-Nite but the driver escaped, leaving on the memory of his license plate.
In the days that followed, the Cloud’s black rain struck without warning throughout the city and across the country side. Dr. Mid-Nite struggled to intervene but always arrived too late. Seeing dolls with humidity sensitive dyes in their dresses, he struck on the idea to use the hygroscopic properties to predict the next rain fall. Seeing the jet black clouds roll in, Mid-Nite intercepted the Cloud’s agents as they robbed an armored car. Recognizing the license plate, he made short work of the would be assailants and hitched a ride on the escape car back to the Cloud’s hideout. The Cloud was little match for the furious arrival of the hero and was quickly defeated and turned over to the police.
The ultimate fate of the Cloud on Earth-Two and his actual
identity have never been revealed. A criminal with a somewhat similar MO named Oswald Cloud tangled with Zatara the year before (World's Fines #9) but any connection is speculative.

Powers and Abilities
The Cloud's primary threat stemmed from a device that causes an intense black rain, something he claimed to be of his own invention. It is nonetheless remarkably similar to a device used by The Shade in 1942 in his first foray against the Golden Age Flash. Indeed, there also remarkable physical similarities between the Shade and the Cloud in the first outings, suggesting they may actually be one in the same.
Weaknesses and Limitations
The Cloud was an unimpressive physical specimen and easily defeated in hand-to-hand combat.

Multiversity
No evidence of The Cloud's existence has been documented in any time line other than Earth-Two.
Appearances
Issue |
Comment |
Reprinted in |
All-American Comics #56 |
1st appearance, vs. Dr. Mid-Nite |
|