A Beginner’s Guide to Mr. Terrific

Michael Holt, aka Mr. Terrific, will make his live action debut on Arrow this season as an employee at Palmer Industries who befriends Felicity Smoak. Holt is a newer superhero, having only appeared in the comics about 20 years ago, and has mainly appeared only in ensemble titles. For those looking to learn more about Holt’s origins and superhero adventures, here’s a rundown of some of his more notable, and best, comic appearances:

A Fateful Encounter with the Spectre

  

Michael Holt first appeared as a troubled soul counseled by the Spectre in that character’s late 1990s solo series. While the Spectre was usually a vessel for God’s holy vengeance, the undead spirit saw Holt mourning the recent death of his wife and unborn child and contemplating suicide. The Spectre approached the grieving Holt and told him of the similarities between him and the original Mr. Terrific Terry Sloane, a Golden Age hero who had fought alongside the Spectre in the Justice Society of America. Like Holt, Sloane was a self-made genius millionaire and Olympic level athlete who contemplated suicide after struggling to find meaning in his life. Sloane became Mr. Terrific after seeing the good he could do with the world and reached out to delinquent youth with his “Fair Play Club”. Inspired by Sloane’s life story, Holt honored Sloane by becoming a new Mr. Terrific and using his abilities to help inner city youth and get them away from gangs. 

Joining the JSA

  

While John Ostrander envisioned Mr. Terrific as an unpowered superhero fighting street crime, David Goyer and Geoff Johns reworked the character during their run on a new JSA series that used a mix of original Golden Age superheroes and their heroic descendants. Giving Holt a more formal costume, a set of all-purpose “T-Spheres” with a variety of abilities, and a mask that rendered him invisible to most forms of technology, Mr. Terrific morphed from a street level hero to a science based hero and one of the brightest minds of the DC Universe.

Holt joined the new Justice Society relatively early into the JSA series and eventually became the new leader of the JSA. He also formed a deep friendship with Dr. Midnite, another scientifically minded superhero. One of the best Mr. Terrific stories during this era was a time travel story in which Holt meets the original Mr. Terrific Terry Sloane and assists him in a fight against a hostile group of KKK members.

Checkmate

  

Mr. Terrific played a minor role in Geoff Johns’ Infinite Crisis, when Batman recruited him for a mission to take down the rogue Brother Eye satellite. Mr. Terrific used his abilities to hide from technology to infiltrate the satellite and sabotage it from within. After Infinite Crisis, Mr. Terrific appeared in Greg Rucka’s new Checkmate series as the intelligence gathering “Bishop” for Alan Scott, one of the leaders of the reformed organization. Mr. Terrific later replaced Scott after the Golden Age Green Lantern is forced out due to political pressures.

Unsurprisingly, Holt excelled at leading Checkmate and even outmaneuvered Amanda Waller after learning that she had reformed the Suicide Squad and was conducting black ops missions on the side. Mr. Terrific also fell in love with Sasha Bordeaux, another high ranking Checkmate member. During Darkseid’s invasion of Earth during Final Crisis (shown in the one shot Final Crisis: Resist by Rucka, Eric Trautmann and Ryan Sook), Mr. Terrific and Bordeaux form a small resistance group and later reactivated millions of dormant OMACs to protect the few remaining humans from Darkseid’s forces.

JSA vs. Kobra

  

After the events of Final Crisis, Mr. Terrific led both the Justice Society and Checkmate against the forces of Kobra in JSA vs. Kobra, a six issue miniseries written by Eric Trautmann and illustrated by Gene Ha. Terrific had thwarted the extremist cult several times in the past both with Checkmate and the Justice Society, leading Kobra to try to assassinate Holt before launching a complex terrorist attack on multiple targets. JSA vs. Kobra not only gave readers an in depth look into Mr. Terrific’s mind, it also put the character through one of his most trying emotional periods. JSA vs. Kobra remains one of the best Mr. Terrific stories of all time.

The New 52

  

Mr. Terrific has appeared several times in DC’s New 52 continuity. The character got his first ever solo ongoing series during the first wave of New 52 titles although DC quickly cancelled the series due to poor sales. Holt later appeared in the Earth-2 series as a pawn of Terry Sloane, now an antihero willing to stop at nothing to save his world from Darkseid’s threats. Mr. Terrific also appeared in the recently finished Futures’ End maxiseries as a target of Batman Beyond, who travelled back in time to stop Mr. Terrific from reactivating the Brother Eye satellite, causing it to take over and destroy Earth.