Neon the Unknown
Superhero created for Quality Comics
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Neon the Unknown is a superhero from the Golden Age of Comic Books created by Jerry Iger for Quality Comics. Neon first appeared in a story penciled and inked by Alex Blum in Hit Comics #1 and was featured on the cover of issue two drawn by Lou Fine.[1] His stories ran in issues 1–17.[2]
DC Comics
Langford "Happy" Terrill
Colin Nomi
| Neon the Unknown | |
|---|---|
Neon the Unknown | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Quality Comics (1940–1956) DC Comics |
| First appearance | Hit Comics #1 (July 1940) |
| Created by | "Tagor Maroy" (Jerry Iger) |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Thomas "Tom" Corbett Langford "Happy" Terrill Colin Nomi |
| Species | Metahuman |
| Team affiliations | Tom Corbet: All-Star Squadron; Freedom Fighters Colin Nomi: The Unexpected |
| Abilities | Corbet: Flight on a spiral of light, fires "neonic" energy blasts from hands, enhanced strength Nomi: Matter manipulation and transmutation, occultism, regeneration, teleportation, psychic senses to replace lost eyesight |
Like many characters owned by that company, he was later bought by DC Comics after Quality ceased operations.
Fictional character biography
Tom Corbet is a member of the Foreign Legion. While pursuing an enemy across the desert, his entire unit save for him dies of thirst. He would surely have suffered the same fate if he hadn't found a magical oasis at the last second. Corbet drinks the glowing water and is transformed into Neon the Unknown, with the ability to fly and shoot energy from his hands.[3]
According to Jess Nevins' Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes, "he uses his power to kill an attacking tiger, stop a would-be world conqueror, and go on to fight crime and evil and the Germans, as well as Darmus the Wizard, the Tibetan Four Lamas, a "Batzi" scientist who drops "insanity spores" on the United States, and the scientist Fritz Cardiff and his invisibility ray".[4] His only recurring foe was the Hitler-like dictator Herr Otto Shickler.
On December 7, 1941, Neon is recruited by Uncle Sam to be a member of the Freedom Fighters, along with several other Quality Comics heroes, and defend Pearl Harbor from the Japanese attack.[5] He, Uncle Sam, Miss America, Hourman, Invisible Hood, Magno, and Red Torpedo fight valiantly. All but Uncle Sam are seemingly killed.[6]
As of 2008 Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters mini-series, Neon is revealed to be alive and has been living at his magical oasis (Magno is the only superhero who appears to have actually died in the defense of Pearl Harbor).
The new Neon
Called upon during a major crisis hitting the reformed Freedom Fighters, Tom Corbet is confronted by Langford Terrill, the former Ray.[7] Now warped into a more powerful glowing form but more detached from humanity, Corbet refuses his help but lets Terrill drink from his magical oasis. Adding his light-based powers to Neon's energies, Langford Terrill is now empowered as the new Neon the Unknown.
DC Rebirth
In DC Rebirth's The Unexpected, Neon the Unknown is now famous painter and influencer Colin Nomi, appearing first in Supergirl #20.
Desiring more inspiration for his work, the black-bearded bisexual artist performed a ritual to evoke the Fires of Creation in which his body was filled with a strange luminous rainbow-hued substance that gave him the near god-like power to manipulate and transmute matter, letting him bend mortal materials to his will like oils on a canvas, a power that could only be used to create but never destroy.
However, this great gift came at a great cost. The energy released during this transformation not only caused the loss of his vision, it took the lives of his friends/lovers in his entourage who had been in the room with him.
Wracked with guilt over their deaths, Colin set out on a journey of atonement as Neon the Unknown, and eventually he met up with two others on paths of redemption: the axe-wielding woman warrior Viking Judge and the ancient, blue-skinned giant known as the Ascendant. The three of them, later joined by the new female Firebrand, formed The Unexpected, defenders of the Multiverse against such threats as Alden Quench the Bad Samaritan.[8]
The blind, black and gold-clad Neon's ability to change practically anything into anything else is seemingly limitless, as, in the end, he even transforms the terrifying hypervampire Mandrakk the Dark Monitor into a predator who no longer feeds on life, but death, forcing him into exile in the Dark Multiverse.[9]
Reception
In The Steranko History of Comics, historian Jim Steranko has harsh words for the strip: "The art for Neon... was extremely competent but the concepts and scripts were uninspired and threadbare".[10]