Publication history
In ''Pep'' #1, in a story drawn by Jack Cole, young scientist John Dickering has discovered a gas fifty times lighter than hydrogen. By injecting small doses of the gas into his bloodstream, he is able to make great leaps through the air. After a number of injections, twin beams come from Dickering's eyes and when he crosses the beams, whatever he is looking at disintegrates. He makes a glass shield (visor) as that is the only thing his beams will not disintegrate, a weakness often used against him from the first story onwards. In the second story, tied up and unable to raise his visor to save himself, he smashes it against a rock, breaking the glass. Realising that such a discovery could wreck humanity, Dickering destroys the formula for the gas and uses his powers to benefit humanity. Despite the first page blurb, in the first story, Dickering flies rather than floats/jumps. The Comet is remembered for his casual attitude to violence. In the first story alone, he callously disintegrates three gangsters and drops one to certain death. He kills more in ''Pep'' #2. At the start of issue 3, the police know that the Comet is Dickering, but they want him on the force, rather than try to stop his vigilantism. In that story, he comes under the hypnotic control of Doc Zadar and causes widespread destruction while Zadar robs places. He blasts two policemen, and destroys their police car. When he returns to Zadar, the Comet accidentally destroys him, too, breaking the hypnotic spell. In issue #4, the Comet helps a young reporter named Thelma Gordon, and in her newspaper she reports all the good things that the Comet does to get him back in the public's good graces. In ''Pep'' #7, the gas wears off so Dickering loses his powers and he discovers he can modify his gas intake, rendering him human when he wants, so he can appear in public without fear of destroying people with his disintegration vision. According to ''Jess Nevins' Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes'', "He fights ordinary criminals and Nazis, is hypnotized into committing crimes and has to evade the police, fights Stinger Lee and his blackout machine, the Master and his death ray, and the evil surgeon the Eye Thief." In issue #17, the Comet was followed to his apartment and killed by gangsters as revenge for putting their boss "Big Boy" Malone in prison. He thus bears the distinction of being the first superhero to be killed in a comic. His death inspired his brother Bob to become a superhero, the Hangman, in his wake.Revival
Despite his death in 1941, Archie used the character again over twenty years later as part of their Mighty Comics superhero line in the 1960s and their Red Circle Comics superhero titles in the 1980s. He was revived with a new costume and extraterrestrial origins as a (temporary) love interest for Fly Girl in ''Adventures of the Fly'' #30 (October, 1964). Thereafter, he became a member of the Mighty Crusaders beginning in ''Fly Man'' #31. His origin was repeated and expanded in ''The Mighty Crusaders'' #2 (1966), as well as in the later Red Circle Comics-published truncated mini-series ''The Comet'' (October–December, 1983).Impact
DC Comics
In the wake of the continuity altering ''Powers and abilities
The Comet - John Dickering - was given powers (including flight) thanks to "an experimental substance," and "soon decides to use his newfound powers in the fight for justice."Ask the Archivist - "Didn't you guys used to publish superhero characters?"References
External links
* Offenberger, Rik, ed