#angtu

First Appearance: Adventure Comics #352 (1967)

Background

The planet Angtu was a polluted, filthy world. Surrounded by space owned by the United Planet, Angtu was mostly ignored by the senators and government officials whose policies still governed the planet due more to coincidental location than political agreement. However, the people of Angtu are adapted to this pollution to a certain degree, and use suits full of polluted and corrosive air. One of these was a mutant and outcast, known as Mano, whose power was greater than anybody realized.

Not much is known about Mano's past, save that he was a mutant with a destructive touch. Specifically, Mano had the ability to tap into the Anti-Matter universe, channeling its power through his right hand. Once he realized this, he saw a way to enact vengeance against those who had scarred and shunned him all his life, becoming more unstable and psychotic over time until enacting his ultimate revenge: destroying the entire planet with a touch. Some people claim that the planet's populace was already dead, as a result of the pollution spread by off-world influences and heightened industry, or by a chemical weapon-fueled war of some kind. Allegedly, Mano was simply an innocent who destroyed the planet out of anger and frustration. But regardless of the true cause, Mano was now alone in the world.

Wearing a protective outfit containing his atmosphere (the last real remnant of his world), Mano left his dead and remote world, and began a rampage of destruction across multiple planets. Eventually, he was apprehended by the Science Police (somehow), and taken to Takron-Galtos. There, he was released from his heavy containment cell to help the Legion and other super-powered individuals defeat the Sun-Eater, then escaped and became a powerful member of the Fatal Five.

Other Incarnations

Mano usually acts as a bit player in his adaptations. In fact, only one of these incarnations ever actually speaks, or has character outside of his destructive touch. Mano from Justice League Unlimited, in the episode "Far From Home", is little more than tool, albeit a dangerous one. Same can be said for the Legion of Super-Heroes version, although it's one of the few that gives him a skull-like head beneath the dome.

Justice League vs. the Fatal Five puts him into a unique role for the character, in that he's the leader of the group while Emerald Empress is imprisoned, as well as her romantic partner. As such, this Mano is devious, dangerous, and determined to free the Emerald Empress by any means necessary. This also ends pretty poorly for them, since that destructive touch of his isn't exactly conducive to affection. Outside of this, though, Mano is more of a force to be reckoned with than a character in his own right.

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