Doctor Mist
10,801 BCE - Nommo Balewa is born among the nomadic Sandawe hunters of modern-day Tanzania.
10,774 BCE - 27-year-old Nommo discovers the Pillar of Life in the Udzungwa mountains, and keeps it secret.
10,769 BCE - 32-year-old Nommo performs a series of rites to absorb the magic of the Pillar of Life, exhausting it, and becoming immortal. He begins building the foundations of what will become the Nation of Kor.
9933 BCE - 868-year-old Nommo abdicates the throne of Kor, crafting his sanctum into the Udzungwa mountains. The people of Kor begin to call him Doctor Mist.
9563 BCE - 1,238-year-old Nommo is contacted by Atlan, asking his assistance in creating the first Shadowpact to save the world. He refuses, not wanting to assist Atlantis, the one city in the world to rival the might of Kor, but ultimately understands the stakes.
9518 BCE - 1,283-year-old Nommo assists in casting the spells of the first Shadowpact. They take a heavy toll on him, stripping of much of his magical power.
9257 BCE - 1,544-year-old Nommo sees the pending destruction of the Kor empire. He exhausts the last of his magical power to ensure the safety of the people, falling into an endless sleep deep within his sanctum.
12 years ago - Nommo is awakened within his sanctum by Felix Faust as he attempts to claim his magic. Believing the modern world lost, he begins assembling the magic to try to reset the world back to his own time, fighting the Justice League as he does so with only the smallest fraction of the magic he once wielded. When he learns to accept his place in the world, he fights Faust with the League, absorbing his magic to defeat him and returning to his sanctum to watch over the world.
6 years ago - Nommo declines to join The Kingdom when they seek him out, claiming that it is no longer his place to interact with the outside world. He eventually relents, joining them as they defend the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo and their Revolution, equipping their headquarters with their teleporting magic.
Doctor Mist has actually been around in DC's cannon for some time, but he's pretty easy to miss as such a perpetual background character. We'll get into all of his various appearances as we do his history, but it should be pretty clear as we do so that he's never really managed to make a compelling case for why he should be included. He was always THERE, but never really did anything that could be construed as adding to the larger plot. Even once the new 52 gave him a redesigned look, he just didn't seem to matter at all. So why are we using him?
Well, as we developed our team of African heroes he was an obvious candidate, but we couldn't just use him as is. We needed to examine his story and work out what his role in our world should be. I think what we came up with is pretty solid, but I'm eager to hear if you like what we've done here.
Well, as we developed our team of African heroes he was an obvious candidate, but we couldn't just use him as is. We needed to examine his story and work out what his role in our world should be. I think what we came up with is pretty solid, but I'm eager to hear if you like what we've done here.
Doctor Mist's Comic HistoryDoctor Mist first appeared in the Super Friends tie-in comics from 1978. This series, which was only continuity adjacent, started introducing several new international heroes without a firm grasp on exactly what made a superhero interesting, giving us gems like the Little Mermaid or the Bushmaster. Among the characters introduced here was Doctor Mist, an ancient immortal being who lived in a mountain with his own head carved into it's peak. He was described as over 11,000 years old, and would distribute ancient wisdom to the modern superheroes through a giant monitor.
Eventually Doctor Mist and many of the other international heroes from the Super Friends would appear in regular continuity as the Global Guardians, appearing in Infinity Inc and across the various Justice League books. Mist himself appeared in an absolutely crazy issue of Secret Origins by Gerry Conway in which we come to understand that, as an immortal, Mist has been steering the development of humanity for thousands of years, hoping to evolve them into new homo-magi. Over time, he would appear less often in his Super Friends inspired green costume and would just wear suits, which meant he was regularly moved to the background of any group shots. In 1994 he became the leader of a new short-lived team called Primal Force, although the book had very little impact over DC at large. After the new 52, Mist appeared in the pages of Justice League Dark as an ally of (or foil for) the rest of the team... but at least he had a cool new spirally costume. |
Our Doctor Mist StorySo, to build out version of Doctor Mist we first started to explore the one element of his backstory that really stood out; his immortality. This is a character that has supposedly been around for over ten thousand years, dating so far back he could have been part of the original Shadowpact. canonically he was the ruler of the ancient Kor empire, and we could build on that in a way that gave his ancient history a unique scope that we really liked.
Of course, in the comics he simply survives in the world for tens of thousands of years, and that didn't quite work. We imagined the idea of an ancient slumbering sorcerer, nearly bereft of any remaining magical power, sleeping deep within his sanctum (which, lest we forget, is a giant face on a mountain). This character could even have conflict with some of the modern heroes when he first awakens. He can be a strange, time-lost magical observer who no longer has access to all his previous strength, but who could still be called on to muster some of his magic in service to the modern world. By using him this way, we think he becomes a compelling part of the larger DC landscape and, hopefully, a fun inclusion in the Kingdom. What do you think? |