| NoMan | |
|---|---|
 | |
|
Real Name |
Anthony Dunn (or NoMan, see origin) |
|
First Appearance |
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 (1965) |
|
Original Publisher |
Tower |
|
Created by |
Len Brown and Wally Wood |
Origin[]
Anthony Dunn was a scientist and employee of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. who sought to escape his aged body and become immortal by transferring his consciousness into the "electrical impulses" of an android brain. This consciousness could also switch between different bodies at will. Nor was this his only power, for T.H.U.N.D.E.R. gave him an invisibility cloak invented by the late Professor Jennings, once a colleague and collaborator of Dunn. He took on the name of NoMan and became a founding member of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents.
NoMan's bodies are vastly complex machines which cost millions of dollars each to make. They are far closer to organic bodies than those of a typical robot. They apparently need to breathe (NoMan is seen wearing space suits several times) and, given NoMan's intense romantic attractions, may have been "fully functional" as well. However, they displayed a resistance to knockout gas and the mind-controlling drugs of the Tarantula. They possess superhuman strength, though not on the level of Dynamo. If one of his bodies is destroyed NoMan can survive so long as there is another body within range to transmit his consciousness into. He can only inhabit one body at a time. In several cases NoMan has used specially built bodies modeled after others for infiltration missions. In less significant missions he sometimes disguises himself with a strangely realistic rubber or plastic mask. Though he has many bodies NoMan only has one cloak, and he has often had to fight to recover it.
NoMan's cape explained.
When he transferred his mind into the NoMan body, Dunn did not display any fear or uncertainty over becoming something other than human. Over time, however, NoMan's attitude changed. When he met up with agent Linda Rogers to fight Mastermind, he was strongly attracted to her and wished that he were human. When he fell in love with a West German woman named Trudy, he became embittered at his state and wanted to be more human. He started becoming reckless and suicidal, with his bodies dying at an incredible rate. NoMan fled T.H.U.N.D.E.R.'s service and sought her out. T.H.U.N.D.E.R. tried to make Trudy convince him to rejoin but failed, because an invisible NoMan was present when they approached her.
A scientist named Paschke approached him and promised him aid, but the distraught NoMan figured out too late that he was an enemy saboteur. He defeated and returned to T.H.U.N.D.E.R., accepting his android nature, although in his battle with the Tarantula soon afterwards he thought of his "having no body" as a "defect." Whether he has held any resentment toward T.H.U.N.D.E.R. since is unknown. It is also unknown whether his unique form of consciousness has begun to affect his thought processes and outlook on life. When discussing Dunn's reasons for becoming NoMan during his breakdown, both he and others seemed uncertain as to whether he was the same person as Dunn.
Other significant enemies of NoMan include Demo and the Image.
Public Domain Appearances[]
- T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1-20
- Dynamo #1-4
- NoMan vol. 1 #1-2
- vol. 2 #1
Notes[]
- Tower Comics never registered its titles with the US copyright office and also did not include a correct copyright notice on their books. According to US copyright law all works published between 1923-1977 that did not comply with copyright law became public domain upon publication.
- Also the copyright notice on the first issues of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and NoMan were not in the proper location of the book which under copyright law at the time it was published must be "either upon the title page or upon the first page of text of each separate number or under the title heading." Secondly, they were hidden in the artwork which goes against this "The notice should be permanently legible to an ordinary user of the work under normal conditions of use and should not be concealed from view upon reasonable examination." So, the first issue had an incorrect notice and the characters fell into the public domain.