NoMan
Entry updated 6 October 2025. Tagged: Character, Comics, Publication.
US Comic (1966-1967). Tower Comics. 2 issues. Artists include Chic Stone, Ogden Whitney and Wally Wood. Scriptwriters include Steve Skeates. 68 pages, with five long strips each issue. This was one of the two spin-offs from the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents comic, the other being Dynamo (1966-1967).
Aged Scientist Doctor Dunn has allowed his mind to be "etched" into the brains of mass-produced synthetic humans (see Androids): though his physical body died in the process, his consciousness can now move between the androids at will (see Identity Transfer), making him potentially Immortal; he also has an Invisibility cloak. As NoMan he is a member of the UN special forces team T.H.U.N.D.E.R. (The Higher United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserves).
#1 open weakly with "Fingers of Fate", where jewel thieves leave fingerprints at the scene of a crime, unfortunately identified as belonging to the President of France, a Nobel Prize winner and other famous people. Someone is using fingerprints left when signing autographs to create gloves bearing celebrity fingerprints. In "Secret in the Sky" the Supervillain The Gnome launches a Weather Control satellite. "Trapped in the Past" has NoMan discovering two Aliens from an Overpopulated planet are preparing for Earth's colonization by building a pair of Time Machines so they can kill off humanity's ancestors, resulting in the present-day population vanishing. NoMan pursues one of them into the past (see Time Travel), where cavemen (see Origin of Man) co-exist with Dinosaurs (see Scientific Errors): the alien is eaten by a dinosaur, which also destroys both time machines. Though it takes a year, NoMan is able to repair one sufficiently for his consciousness to return to the present. "NoMan and the Good Subterranean" has the last survivor of the Underground race led by the Warlords – recurring villains in T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents – surrendering to T.H.U.N.D.E.R. claiming that he, like others of his species, had opposed the Warlords. He is distrusted by many ("This all sounds like the Nuremberg Trials! 'I was not a Nazi'! Bah!"), though NoMan rightly believes him. However, one of the Warlords has also survived.
#2 opens with "Dynamo vs NoMan" where villains use an Invention to control NoMan (see Hypnosis), thus his battle with Dynamo. "The Weird Case of the Kiss of Death" has the newly discovered 3,000 year old mummy of an Ancient Egyptian Priestess come to life. A necromancer's potion (see Magic) allowed her to stay young (see Rejuvenation) by draining a person's "life force" with a kiss, but circumstances forced her to use another potion to go into Suspended Animation, awaking in the present day. "Target NoMan" has a Mad Scientist revive Adolf Hitler, intending to conquer the world using inventions such as a "reverse Evolution" drug, with Hitler providing leadership skills. However his assistant (a hulking Igor-like character) – who had been told a "great man" would be revived – is outraged, killing the scientist and Hitler. In "A Quick Change of Mind!" a scientist kidnaps other scientists, temporarily transfers their minds into an android's to provide the expert knowledge he requires, then transfers them back with the unconscious scientist dumped in the countryside with no memory of recent events (see Amnesia). Both issues also have a strip featuring Lightning, another T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agent, who can go very fast.
NoMan was the most interesting of the Superheroes in the source comic since, aside from his unusual ability, he believed his state meant he was no longer human (thus his name), causing occasional Identity problems; similarly, being an old man's mind in a youthful android body sometimes led to discomfort over romantic attachments to young women. These elements were too rarely engaged with in the original comic; here they are largely ignored. The artwork is good; the stories themselves vary in quality. Given the comic's length, the reader is left wishing they were the era's typical 36 pages, with the chaff removed. [SP]
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