Amazing Man
Profile image by Alex Garcia (Pen and inks) and David Stepp (Colors)
Personal information
Real Name: William Everett
Residence: Detroit
Occupation: Olympic athlete, Janitor, adventurer
First Appearance (Post-Golden Age): All-Star Squadron #23 (July 1983)
Character History
Will Everett was born in the Southern United states, the son of two sharecroppers. During the 1920's, his family worked for White landowners until the day Will, angry at his family's generally unjust state, physically assaulted the man who owned their land. Fleeing to Detroit, his father found work at an auto plant until Will could finish school and could train as a runner in the Olympics. After the Depression, his family status fell even further but Everett persevered, ultimately taking a gold medal along side Jesse Owens at the Berlin Olympics in 1936.
When he returned to the US, he found his Olympic fame had little weight in the job market and he was relegated to menial labor. He ultimately ended up worked as a janitor in the lab of scientist Terry Curtis. Paid in advance, he continued working after Curtis vanished and one day, henchmen of the Ultra-Humanite showed up looking to collect material from the lab. Angered by their demeaning posture, Everett attempted to fight the men but was quickly knocked unconscious.
Hauled back to the villain's hideaway, the Ultra-Humanite decided to use the Olympic athlete in some experiments and eventually conferred upon Everett the ability to adopt the properties of anything he touched. After some initial resistance, he became one of the Ultra-Humanite's agents along with Deathbolt and Cyclotron, later revealed to be Terry Curtis. His first mission was to fetch Doctor Fate's original helmet from his tower in Salem. After some initial success against Fate and the Atom, he was eventually tricked into touch Atom's bare hand, reverting him to normal flesh where he could be quickly defeated. With him in tow, Fate and the Atom returned to meet the All-Star Squadron.
Initially, Everett - now known as Amazing Man - managed to escape and confronted nearly a dozen members of the Squadron, holding his own until he learned that the Ultra-Humanite was threatening to destroy Detroit. He revealed that he was only cooperating with the villain to protect his family that still lived there and that the Ultra-Humanite had promised to spare his hometown in exchange for his service. Feeling betrayed, he entered into an uneasy alliance with the heroes, intent to prevent the deaths of his parents.
The group returned to Detroit, where a complex confluence of circumstances resulting from the arrival of JSA heirs Infinity Inc and allies of the Ultra-Humanite's future self from the 1980's ultimately resulted in Amazing Man's complete rejection of his criminal associates and the Ultra-Humanite's seeming destruction in a suicide attack by Cyclotron. The All-Star Squadron chose to allow Amazing Man's contribution to the Humanite's defeat to mitigate his actions under duress in the villains employ and chose not to arrest him. Everett was left in Detroit to plot his next move (All-Star Squadron #23-26, Annual #2).
Everett spent the next several months in Detroit, connecting with his family and getting used to his new identity and powers. He came to prominence again when a newsreel covering race riots in his hometown showed him being captured and strapped to a burning cross, only to seize the chains holding him, transforming himself into steel to escape the flames. The All-Star Squadron traveled to Detroit in an effort to calm the situation down while Hawkman and Green Lantern used the JSA's access to the President to request federal intervention. President Roosevelt declined to intervene in a "local matter" with the war on and the All-Star Squadron failed to cool tensions. The situation was exacerbated with the arrival of the Phantom Empire, a white supremacist movement and their champion, the white-hooded Real American. When a rally got out of control, the Amazing Man directly engaged the Real American but was unable to overcome and the All-Star's declined to engage in battle, arguing for peaceful resolution, even as Amazing Man was taken into police custody for his role in the riots.
Ultimately the Real American lead a mob to the jail where Amazing Man was being held, intent on lynching him to break the will of Black tenants in Detroit. Seeimingly the All-Star Squadron members seemed to be swayed to his cause of "law and order". As the crowd swelled, Robotman allowed Amazing Man to make contact with his metal skin, transforming with sufficient strength to break free of the jail. Realizing that the Real American was using some sort of subliminal domination to sway the wills of those around him, Amazing Man aggressively engaged the villain, only to discover that he was in fact a robot, a living transmitter of sonic means of emotional agitation. After the Real American was destroyed, Johnny Quick traced the signals back to the Phantom Empire's base, discovering the local man running it and destroying the apparatus (All-Star Squadron #38-40).
After this, the Amazing Man became a regular member of the All-Star Squadron, joining them as the Crisis on Infinite Earths leeched into 1942 on Earth-Two. His final fate in this timeline is unknown.
Powers and Abilities
Amazing Man was an olympic level athlete with nearly a decade of intense training in the area of track and field. His speed and strength are in the top 10% of human normaleven when his powers are not active. His primary super-power is the ability to assume the properties on any material he can physically touch. For example, if he touches a hard right metal, he becomes dense and as resistant to injury as that metal. If he touches a pliable metal, he gains metallic properties that can distort and extend. In an early encounter, touching a magical memory caused hm to reveal his origins, tho it's not clear whether that was him touching the device or the actions of the device itself. The full range of his abilities is not fully defined.
Weaknesses and Limitations
Amazing Man's abilities could be used against him such as causing him to touch normal flesh, thus reverting to human form or touching something like glass, which would break. His ability to reconstitute himself if transformed into something deleterious is not clear. The duration of his transformation or the energy costs of doing so remain unclear. If caught in his normal human form, he could be bound or rendered unconscious as a normal man would be.
Multiversity
In the post-Crisis Timeline, the history of Amazing Man up intil 1942 is thought to be largely identical to the Earth-Two version. Shortly thereafter, his powers in this timeline seemed to mutate, gaining magnetic powers while losing his mimicry abilities (Young All-Stars #14). Whether this change was permanent of not is unclear.
During the 1950's, FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover attempted to undermined Everett by revealing his identity publicly, resulting in constant threats. When his nephews were murdered during civil rights advocacy in Mississippi, he joined leaders such as Martin Luther King, becoming an important civil rights icon of his own. In this timeline, it was he that captured James Earl Ray, assassin of King (Justice Society of America Vol. 3 #12). The later career of Amazing Man is unrecorded. He died in the mid-1990's of cancer,
His legacy was carried forward by two of his grandsons, William Everett III who joined several iterations of the Justice League and was later killed by the Mist (Starman Vol. 2 338) and Markus Clay of New Orleans, who eventually joined the Justice Society (Justice Society of America Vol. 3 #14).
Earth-49
The Amazing Man of this timeline is a full member of the Justice Society, survivng into the 21st century. His last known recorded case involved the Joker obtaining a powerful mind-control artifact. In a final battle with the Joker, Amazing Man, in stone form, was maimed while most of the Justice Society vanished into realms unknown when the Joker turned the artifact on them. Amazing Man's fate in this timeline is unclear (Injustice: Year Zero LS).
Appearances
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Reprinted In |
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First Appearance and Origin |
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As a henchmen of the Ultra-Humanite |
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Breaks with Ultra-Humanite, becomes hero |
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Cameos |
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Vs. The Real American and the Phantom Empire, joins the All-Star Squadron |
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As a member of the All-Star Squadron |
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As a member of the All-Star Squadron during the Crisis on Infinite Earths |
Crisis on Infinite Earths Companion Deluxe Edition |
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As a member of the All-Star Squadron during the Crisis on Infinite Earths |
Crisis on Infinite Earths HC, Crisis on Infinite Earths TPB, Absolute Crisis on Infinite Earths
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