Amazing-Man

Amazing-Man, also known as John Aman as well as the Green Mist, is a superhero possessing remarkable strength, agility, the ability to become invisible at will, and various psychic powers. He was taken in as an orphan by the Council of Seven in Tibet, who saw great potential in him and trained him to be a skilled, honorable young man, granting him his superhuman powers.

Biography

Childhood

Details of John Aman's childhood are unknown beyond the fact that he was born to American parents and adopted by the Council of Seven in Tibet very soon afterward. It's even unclear if he was The Council honed his strength, speed, dexterity, intelligence, and even musical ability. During his training, at the age of 12, the young Aman was brought to a valley near the Council's monastery by the Great Question. The latter pointed out an injured man in the valley, and Aman went down to investigate. The man was dying, and gave Aman a box to deliver to a nearby rebellious Taoist temple. On the way to the temple, Aman was attacked by peasants, who expected to find treasure in the box, but the already powerful Aman easily defeated them. In the fracas, the box was knocked open, and Aman saw inside a series of secret, highly valuable items belonging to the Council of Seven. Aman returned the box to the Council, thwarting the Question's attempt to harm it.

1939-1940

At the conclusion of Aman's training, Nika gave him a potion that gave him the permanent ability to turn invisible, with the caveat that doing so would leave behind a cloud of green mist. After twenty-five years of training, the newly-dubbed Amazing-Man was set out on his own, instructed to do good for mankind. He traveled by plane to the United States, landing in Seattle. There a man told him about a train wreck in Sheridan, Wyoming. His suspicions raised, Amazing-Man flew to his new destination to investigate. There he learned that this had been the fourth such wreck in two months, leading to widespread suspicion of foul play. Investigating the scene, Amazing-Man found a pencil with the letter "J" inscribed on it. He visited the president of the local railroad company, Mr. Crater, on one of his trains, and asked him about the pencil. Crater flusteredly denied that he knew anything about the pencil, and Amazing-Man used an ancient psychic technique to make the pencil write out the name of its owner: Uhlin. A further act of telepathy indicated that "Uhlin" was in the train car, leaving only "Crater" as the suspect. Uhlin desperately pulled out a gun, but Amazing-Man quickly overpowered and unarmed him. As authorities arrived, Uhlin jumped out of the window into the river far below, and is presumed dead.

Driving through Arizona, Amazing-Man then came across a pair of hitchhikers, who turned out to be criminal abductors. They took him prisoner and returned to their hideout, binding him and throwing him into a dark room with another prisoner, a woman named Lucille Peabody. She told Amazing-Man that her captors were holding her ransom in exchange for a large sum of money from her father, Carl Peabody, a copper magnate. The Great Question, who had been telepathically observing Amazing-Man since he left Tibet, took this opportunity to take control of his body. Easily breaking free and killing the leader of the criminals, the possessed Amazing-Man declared that he was their boss now. He traveled to Carl Peabody's home and threatened him into an even bigger ransom than the criminals had. Amazing-Man returned to the criminals, whom had tied up and started beating Lucille. Seeing her in distress, he shook off the Great Question's influence and began fighting back against the criminals, rescuing Lucille. The following morning, he returned Lucille to the home of her father, who was speaking with a police officer at the time. Carl was confused at Amazing-Man's resemblance to the man who had come to him the night before; Amazing-Man returned Lucille on the condition that the police ask no questions and that they apprehend the criminals he had just defeated, providing them the address.

While flying across Wyoming in his plane, Amazing-Man witnessed one car ram another off the road below. Investigating, Amazing-Man retrieved the injured victim from his vehicle and took him to the hospital. The man was a maintenance engineer at the Rio Power Dam, and claimed that he was driven off the road by someone intending to sabotage the dam. The man died in hospital care before Amazing-Man could gather any more information. Amazing-Man notified the state engineer, who himself notified the state police. This plan backfired however; the Great Question, observing from afar, commanded a pair of his henchmen in the U.S. to give statements to the police that Aman and his plane had been responsible for the engineer's crash. Aman was arrested, the men further testified to his guilt in court, and he was imprisoned in a cell. Amazing-Man easily escaped by becoming the Green Mist, and overheard the criminals discussing their allegiance to the Great Question. He reclaimed his plane from police custody and took flight, soon being accosted by another pair of the Question's henchmen. Amazing-Man took them down, and recovered a note mentioning a rendezvous with Henry Muth at the dam. Muth was a contractor whom Amazing-Man recalled having associated with the Question in the past. Amazing-Man traveled to the dam and apprehended Muth, stopping his explosive plans for the dam. Amazing-Man deduced that Muth agreed to the Great Question's plan for the dam's destruction because he failed to secure the contract for its construction. Despite his heroic deeds, Aman remained a fugitive at large following his jailbreak.

A month later, Amazing-Man learned of the beginning of World War II as the Axis invaded Poland. He decided to take part, commandeering a plane and piloting it to the skies over France. Aman was shot down by German pilots; he escaped by parachute, but was taken into custody by German officers and put into a concentration camp. He naturally aimed to escape by employing the Green Mist, but recalled that he had not taken Nika's necessary weekly injection to maintain the power. He tricked a Nazi guard into retrieving his personal effects and gave himself the injection, escaping the camp and finding himself in the midst of a battlefield. He claimed a French uniform and weapon and began fighting on their behalf. Aman's superheroics caused havoc for the German forces, to the point that he commandeered a German bomber and began using it on the Nazis' own forces and cities.

Amazing-Man piloted the bomber toward the German capital of Berlin, but was again taken down by Nazi pilots. His plane crashed, and Amazing-Man was hurt badly but survived. Nazi troops recovered him and brought him to an underground hospital. As he recuperated, Aman was telepathically contacted by the Great Question, who insisted that he return to Tibet. Amazing-Man awoke and left his bed, fighting off the doctors as they tried to subdue him, but was soon apprehended once more. Sentenced to death, Aman again used the Green Mist to escape, leaving the compound for good on motorcycle and stowing away on a plane bound for Moscow, in the direction of his destination of Tibet. After the flight had taken off, Amazing-Man took control of it from its Nazi pilots; he soon lost control of it however, finding himself in the village of Kahar. His plane crashed, causing an avalanche, which Aman stopped, earning him the appreciation of the villagers. The Great Question demanded that he arrive at the Council's monastery within minutes—a seemingly impossible task, if not for a village elder showing Aman a hidden, apparently direct passageway to said monastery.

Amazing-Man underwent a "purification" ritual with the Council of Seven. Nika granted him a piece of chest armor with a shield attached to it that granted him permanent use of the Green Mist and an imperviousness to Great Question's attempt at influence. Aman took a plane back to the U.S., running out of gas and landing in a Louisiana bayou. He came upon a group of pirates, led by the large Garlock, who had taken residence in an old castle with a kidnapped reporter, Zona Henderson. Amazing-Man snuck into the castle while the pirates ate in the dining hall, finding Henderson locked in the basement dungeon. The pirates soon appeared, and Amazing-Man brought the fight to them and their panthers. He freed Henderson and claimed the pirates' treasure, returning her to safety and giving the treasure to federal authorities in New Orleans.

After turning in Garlock's treasure, Amazing-Man was approached by a man who handed him a note and whom was shot by an unknown assailant moments later. Aman was able to read that the note was a threat of an attack against the port of San Francisco in two days before chasing the shooter. He found two men who refused to talk and turned them in to the police. Amazing-Man met with his new ally, Henderson, but refused to allow her to help on the coming case on account of it being "too dangerous for a woman." The note instructed Aman to head to an address in San Francisco to stop the plot. Aman took off by plane toward California, and Henderson soon revealed herself as a stowaway. He again insisted that she stay behind in their hotel in San Francisco, and went to the address mentioned in the note. There he found a trap, as a large group of criminals attacked him, but Amazing-Man was largely able to fight him off, although the leader of the gang escaped. The police arrived and took everyone away as Amazing-Man escaped with the Green Mist. Aman investigated the building and found the gang leader conversing via radio screen with the Great Question, who was instructing him to make the attack on San Francisco look like an attack by a foreign power to start a war. The man also revealed that his men had abducted Henderson. Aman jumped the man and forced him to reveal the location of Henderson and whatever was to do carry out the attack on the city. Information in hand, Amazing-Man summarily rescued Henderson and stopped the explosion that was set to destroy downtown San Francisco. Seemingly around this time, Amazing-Man quelled an asylum revolt at Mohawk State Asylum, apprehended a murderer at a circus, and stopped a robbery in Steeleville.

Amazing-Man soon learned that Zona had been involved in a plane crash in Arizona, and that she had been kidnapped on the way to the hospital. He immediately deduced that it was the Great Question's doing, which was confirmed when the Question himself contacted him in an attempt to throw him off the trail. Amazing-Man tracked down the car that had picked up Zona, and learned from the kidnappers that the Question was planning an elaborate heist at sundown. His operatives had planted guns in a prison on the Mexican border to give to the prisoners who would be breaking out that night. They would then in turn ambush a shipment of gold at the border. Aman and Zona arrived shortly after the jailbreak, and Amazing-Man was able to fend off the convicts until the state troopers arrived, rescuing Zona from another group of kidnappers in the process. Around this time, he also solved a murder at a zoo, in which a caretaker trained a gorilla to carry out his crime; and rescued Zona from a sabotaged plane that was intended to take him out.

As Aman and Zona sat in a hotel lobby awaiting a plane from their contact, they received a telegram telling them that the plane wasn't coming as the plant had been sabotaged by spies. The contact further requested help. Aman and Zona commandeered a cross-country flight by other means and spoke to the foreman of the factory, who was clueless as to any potential motivations for the attack. Aman became suspicious of one of the factory's higher-ups and covertly investigated his home, finding a typical television communication device linked to the Great Question. He further learned from a telegram describing a shipment at a remote wooded isle. Traveling there, Aman and Zona were attacked by various criminals, but Amazing-Man was able to confiscate a chest of jewels and discover a further connection to the Great Question. Aman deduced that the jewels, worth millions of dollars, were to finance a war effort on the part of the Question.