Lesser Known Characters I Love: Resurrection Man

Well it is the New Year. A time for not only looking ahead at what life might bring up, but a time to look back and the year past. For me, this was the start of my blog (among other things). And the true start for me was my thoughts on the New 52 DC had launched. There were hits and misses, but I read them all. But reading about a lot of characters I loved before the relaunch, I got thinking. Very few of these characters are new and most of them just have a fresh coat of paint as it were. So what are the real histories of the characters I loved so much? And not even just from the relaunch, there are a bunch of characters that DC has released that I love but really, no one knows much about.

Well no more. For the month of January, I will be taking a break from reviewing comics to do some history lessons on some of my favorite characters who just don’t get the love I think they should. So welcome to week 1 (yes, I know it is not week one still. Shut up.) of a new post I am going to call:

Lesser Known Characters I Love.

For the first week, let’s take a look at Resurrection Man. 

The first Resurrection Man book to hit the store shelves was in May of 1997. The comic was the child of creators Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, with Butch Guice doing the original art work. According to an interview done by comicbookresources.com, Resurrection Man was a thought that Abnett and Lanning had when they were working at Marvel. Back then, they thought up the character called Mr. Immortal. Mr. Immortal’s only super power was that he can’t die. That’s it. But soon the two of them thought what if he COULD die and come back with a new power. According to the interview, Lanning said that this was a thought in the back of their minds for about 2 years and soon became the idea of Resurrection Man.

Abnett and Lanning did not want to make just another superhero. They wanted to create sort of an everyman who just so happens to have super powers. They never wanted to put their character, Mitch Shelley, in spandex. That was not who the character was. But back in the 90’s, the world just was not ready for a hero like that. Back in the 90’s, we were getting all those heroes with huge muscles, mullets, and square jaws. Mitch was just a skinny guy with amnesia, trying to find out all he could about this life. Sure he has his own villains and his own problems, but at the end of the day, he is just a guy using what he has to do some good. I really like that in characters. Not everyone needs a deep past to be a great hero. Heck, Mitch’s character has no past. His past is what he is trying to find out. Yet he still knows he wants to do some good in this world. That is awesome!

So let’s look at the basic story. Mitch has amnesia and wants to know what the heck is going on in this life. And really, that’s it. That’s all that’s needed. I know there is a deep plot there and he has two very attractive hit women going after him to bring him back to the mad doctor who put nano-bots in him, but really that is just the longer plot. Mitch himself just wants his memories back and that is all that drives him to move forward. Of course he does make some new memories along the way, as well as he interacts with the DCU a lot. But to me, that has always been just extra most of the time. His stories are his own. His fights are always awesome no matter what happens to him.

But the fights would not be as cool without the super powers. How Mitch gets his powers is, well, he has to die. Every time he dies, Mitch comes back to life with a new super power. While Abnett and Lanning say that sometimes there is no real reason why he has a power he has, Mitch does get a power that would have helped him in the last fight he was in, most of the time. One joke that was made is that one time, after getting tortured, Mitch dies and comes back as a woman, since Abnett and Lanning came to the conclusion that woman can take much more pain than men can.

Resurrection Man was part of the DC new 52 and by far, one of my top 5 of that whole relaunch. Not only was it written by the same team who came up with the character in the first place, but it did only a half reset to everything. What I mean by that is when Mitch wakes up in the new 52, he has a brand new case of amnesia. Yep. Everyone else in his world remembers him and all that happened back in the 1997 run but him. That was smart. This way you can bring in new readers who never heard of him before as well as keep old readers who already know everything about him. And with Mitch, you can totally get away with a bad case of amnesia.

Over all, Mitch Shelley, the Resurrection Man, is a great hero written by great writers. I will always be a fan of his no matter what happens to him. Then again, Mitch can’t really die, so I don’t know what can happen to him in the first place.

If you want to read the full interview I used to help me make this post, you can find it here: Interview

Come back Thursday when I look at the true week 2 title for this series.

All images (c) DC