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Mist is the name of severalDC Comicssupervillains who are archenemies of theoriginal and1990s Starman. The first Mist is a man namedKyle, and the second Mist is his daughterNash.
Kyle made his live-action debut on thefirst season ofThe Flash, portrayed byAnthony Carrigan.
The Kyle incarnation of Mist first appeared inAdventure Comics #67 (October 1941), and was created byGardner Fox.[1]
The Nash version of the Mist first appeared inStarman (vol. 2) #0 (October 1994), and was created by writerJames Robinson andTony Harris.
| The Mist | |
|---|---|
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | Adventure Comics #67 (October 1941) |
| Created by | Gardner Fox |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Kyle |
| Species | Metahuman |
| Team affiliations | Injustice Society Secret Society of Super Villains |
| Notable aliases | Johnathon Smythe Nimbus Andy "Murph" Murphy |
| Abilities | Able to transform into a living vapor, becoming tangible and intangible at will |
The first Mist's real name wasKyle. He fought inWorld War I as a Captain in the Canadian Army, winning theVictoria Cross. He was also a scientist and created a device that turned his body into a gaseous form; he became a supervillain, first fighting the Golden AgeSandman under the name "Johnathon Smythe", before changing his name to the Mist.[2] In 1941, he undertook a crime wave inOpal City and was stopped by Ted Knight, the Golden AgeStarman; he vowed revenge on Starman and became his nemesis.[3]
He was a member of theUltra-Humanite's incarnation of theSecret Society of Super Villains, and appeared during the late 1980sStarman series (chronicling the adventures ofWill Payton), then using the nameNimbus.
The Mist had two children named Nash and Kyle Jr.
In the early 1990s, after Ted Knight had retired (following the events ofZero Hour), the Mist planned his final revenge on Starman and sent his son, Kyle Jr., to kill Knight's son David, as well as nearly killing his second son,Jack, demolishing his home and kidnapping the elder Knight. In exchange for his father, Jack battled Kyle Jr., resulting in Kyle Jr.'s death, which drove the Mist insane. He was like this for some time until making a deal with the demon-lordNeron, restoring his sanity and curing his senility. This allowed him to advise his daughter, Nash, on joining Simon Culp's scheme to destroy Opal City and conversely kill Culp himself when he threatened her, on the grounds he "hated dwarfs". Ultimately, he revealed he was tired and had decided to end his life, planting a nuclear bomb in Opal City set to detonate at the moment of his death and then taking poison. However, he failed to destroy the city, as a terminally ill Ted Knight used an advanced version of his Cosmic Rod to lift the entire building miles into the air; the two enemies made peace with each other just before the Mist's heart stopped, killing them both.[4]
Nash was not initially the villain that her father or brother were, but rather a meek,stuttering girl. During her father's campaign of revenge against Ted Knight, she was in a position to kill Jack Knight, but let him go after he reasoned that she personally had no reason to kill him. After Jack killed her brother Kyle, she underwent a major personality shift and became the second Mist, exposing herself to the same process that had given her father his powers. During her first major crime wave, Nash drugged Jack and raped him, becoming pregnant. She later gave birth to a son, Kyle Theo, named after her father and Jack. She passed on a second opportunity to kill Jack, deciding to better herself as a villain while Jack worked to become a better hero. She spent much time in Europe, where she killed the secondAmazing Man,Crimson Fox andBlue Devil.
She was then one of the many villains who took part in the plan to destroy Opal City during the "Grand Guignol" story arc. After this failed, her father made his own attempt to destroy the city. Since his plan would kill Nash and her son, she attempted to stop him. Her father then shot her. In her dying moments, she gave her son over to Jack to raise.[4]
The son of Nash and Jack Knight,Kyle Knight inherited his mother's mist powers and embraced his father's heroic background.[5]
In the pages of "The New Golden Age", Kyle was mentioned to currently be 5 years old byStargirl whenHuntress had mentioned that he operated as Mist in her possible future.[6]
Both Mists are able to transform into a living vapor and become tangible and intangible at will.
June 1962 saw Earth-Two's public re-emergence ofVandal Savage. He briefly terrorized a handful of important U.S. cities and was able to attack and incapacitate various members of the retiredJSA.[7] This brazen attack on major American cities and on the persons of a handful of retired JSAers resulted in the re-emergence and the re-formation of the Justice Society of America. This did not have an immediate effect on the super-scientists and criminals who operated openly in the 1940s and covertly in the 1950s, but over time this curious breed of villain did begin to re-emerge.
September 1965 found the Mist working with a gang of hoodlums along the Atlantic Coast in Park City. With his secret formulas and gadgetry he was controlling Mrs. Dinah Drake Lance, using the Drake Flower Shoppe as the means to gain access to the wealthy citizenry, and using his hypnotic influence to have the rich rob themselves and hand over their wealth to the Mist's henchmen. Though Park City did have a protector in the guise of theBlack Canary, this heroine was only seen infrequently and the Mist seemed not to have been perturbed by this. Though he was using Mrs. Lance, he never discovered her dual identity as the Black Canary. By September, his crime spree was advancing nicely and was baffling the local police. Finally, a local private investigator – Mr. Larry Lance (husband to Dinah Drake Lance) figured out the connection between those robbed and his wife's flower shop. At about this time, the Lance family was visited by their friendTed Knight; he accidentally intercepted a hypnotic sound wave sent by the Mist. Together, the three heroes went about hunting down the gang and its leader. During this crime spree, the Mist discovered how to use his inviso-solution, sound waves and a recording of motor noises from the Park City Observatory to block star-energy from reaching Starman's Cosmic Rod, in effect making it powerless; however, Starman had with him a newer, quasar-powered Rod, which proved impervious to the deactivation. In the end, the Mist and his men were defeated and handed over to the police.[8]
In the pages ofEarth 2: Society, Kyle Nimbus is theCEO of Nimbus Solutions who can make himself intangible at will where he has to be tangible to attack. In his plans, he used mind-control chemicals onHourman's Miraclo in order for him to serve Nimbus. With help fromRed Arrow andTed Grant,Dick Grayson asBatman defeated Kyle Nimbus.[9]
In a possible future seen in "The New Golden Age", the Kyle Knight version of Mist joined theJustice Society of America under Huntress, before being killed alongside the rest of his team byPer Degaton who aged Mist to death.[10]
When Per Degaton was defeated by the present day JSA, Kyle and his future were resurrected and erased from the timestream.[11]