Making Your Mark

"Making Your Mark" from Damage #1 (DC, 1994) by Tom Joyner, Bill Marimon and Tom McSweeney

Around this time, DC had come out with new, youthful versions of various Freedom Fighters, including the Ray and Black Condor, so I was sort of disappointed when an apparent Human Bomb analog wasn't given that venerated name. The Human Bomb was my favorite Freedom Fighter! Worse would come. Though Damage did eventually serve on a version of the FF, he wasn't the Human Bomb's legacy EVEN THOUGH Damage was something of an uber-legacy character thanks to Vandal Savage's DNA manipulation. Here's the full list of Damage's genetic parentage according to Wikipedia: Atom (Al Pratt), Flash (Jay Garrick), Green Lantern (Alan Scott), Wildcat (Ted Grant), Hawkman (Carter Hall), Hawkgirl (Shayera Hol), Hourman (Rex Tyler), Black Canary (Dinah Lance), Doctor Mid-Nite (Charles McNider), Starman (Ted Knight), Miss America (Joan Dale), Johnny Quick (Johnny Chambers), Liberty Belle (Libby Lawrence), Martian Manhunter (J'onn J'onzz - John Jones), Flash (Barry Allen), Aquaman, Black Canary (Dinah Laurel Lance), Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), and Atom (Ray Palmer). I call that overkill. A paternity subplot gone mad.