Read more about Manchester Black at: Wikipedia

Official Site: DC Comics

Manchester Black is a fictional character in American comic books published by DC Comics, in particular those featuring Superman. He was created by Joe Kelly and Doug Mahnke in Action Comics #775 (March 2001). Introduced as an antihero, the character later becomes a supervillain.

Manchester Black was a ruthless vigilante who led a crime fighting team called The Elite. Other than his thick English accent, his notorious Union Flag tattoo, and a few snippets he told about his life, very little is known about him, although he is most likely from the city of Manchester, England. What is known includes insinuations that he was physically abused by his parents while growing up and has a hatred for people with "high moral concepts" who feel they are better than people like Black, who would do anything to survive. This hatred included superheroes who would only turn over captured villains to the police instead of killing them, which was the only way Manchester and the Elite felt villains could be dealt with. Black also claimed distant African and Korean heritage, but as he made these claims to justify his use of racist terms towards these groups, it is possible he was either lying or joking.

Black first appears as the leader of a team of super-powered antihero called The Elite, who gained worldwide popularity for viciously killing their foes and thus preventing them from coming back to cause more problems. Superman opposed this wanton violence, leading to a showdown on Jupiter's moon Io that was videotaped for Earth's media. Black used his powers to give Superman a stroke, and his teammates (Coldcast, Menagerie, and the Hat) apparently were able to destroy Superman in a giant explosion. While the Elite were gloating, however, Superman used his superspeed seemingly to kill all the team's members except Black. Superman then disabled the Englishman by using his X-ray vision to locate a growth inside Black's brain. He identified the growth as the source of Black's powers, and carefully fired a thin burst of heat vision through Black's retinas, removing it and thus disabling Black.

Faced with the apparent loss of his powers, Black actually wept, hypocritically appalled that Superman had seemingly adopted the lethal tactics he and the Elite had spent so much time advocating, especially given that he was being taped at the time. After stating that he was certain his 'demonstration' had frightened those watching with the ugliness of it, Superman then revealed to the powerless Black that the rest of the Elite were only unconscious; he had not removed anything from Black's brain, instead merely causing a micro-concussion that temporarily shut down Black's powers, and that murdering opponents makes a hero no better than his enemies. Furious, Black declared that by not killing him, Superman had guaranteed that as long as Black was alive, he would come after Superman again and again, but Superman calmly replied that he wouldn't want it any other way, and that dreams like the ones he gave to Earth were what made life worth living until the example he and other heroes provided led to a better tomorrow.

No match records for this character.

No match records for this character.