Black Superhero History Month, Day 7: Mister Terrific.
I wrote off Michael Holt, aka Mr. Terrific, before I got to know what he was capable of. I couldn’t get past the name. Until one day I did, and spent the rest of that day kicking myself for not doing so sooner. You see, Mr. Terrific is the third smartest man in the world. When you figure that number 1 is Bruce Wayne (Batman) and number 2 is Lex Luthor, that’s saying something. His “superpower” is that he has a natural aptitude for natural aptitudes or, put another way, he can literally do anything he puts his mind to within the realm of human possibility. For instance, he could read a paper on the most complex theoretical physics just once and understand every word of it.Like the Flash, Green Lantern and a few others I’m sure I’m forgetting, Mr. Terrific is one of DC Comics’ legacy heroes.
As a white liberal from the Bay Area it’s always irked me that Michael Holt was the world’s THIRD smartest man— presumably after both Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor as wordsthatfit notes here.
Don’t get me wrong: I think Bruce can do no wrong… except for that time he pushed away the whole of the Bat-family, leading to his back being broken by Bane, or the time he got addicted to Venom, or when he kept dossiers on how to take down the Justice League and used “TALIA” as the password only to have her dad steal said files, or the time he “unwillingly” gave a “genetic sample” to Talia which was then used to create Damien (although Damien is cool)… um… what was I talking about?
Oh yeah.
Michael Holt should totally be the SMARTEST MAN IN THE WORLD.
Too bad the Mr. Terrific comic that was launched as part of the New 52 was so lame it’s getting canceled.
Because let’s be honest… calling him the third smartest man is some let’s-coddle-the-white-fanboys-shit right there.
