HUMAN FLY

 

HUMAN FLY

Real Name: Richard Deacon

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man Annual (Vol. 1) #10, November 1976

Powers: Richard Deacon was a baseline human who became the Human Fly (aka the Fearsome Fly) after being subjected to the Stillwell process, grafting the genetic material of a real common housefly onto his physiology using advanced micro-surgical techniques. As a result, he gained the proportionate strength and abilities of a common housefly.

He possesses a variety of superhuman powers analogous to a man-sized version of his namesake. The Human Fly has the proportionate strength of a fly, approximately 40 times that of a human being (Superhuman Class 10). His speed and reaction time is about 3.5 times that of an average human being while his endurance is about 3 times that of an Olympic marathon runner.

The Human Fly's fingers and toes are covered with tiny adhesive secreting glands which enable him to cling to non-porous and most porous building material surfaces (brick, glass, metal) by touch, even upside down. His adhesive powers are not as great as that of Spider-Man‘s as he cannot support much more than his own weight. The Human Fly's globular, multi-faceted eyes enable him to see 360° degrees around, above, and below his head at all times. The fovea of the normal human eye confines perception to a very narrow field of view, largely ignoring the peripheral vision. Non-foveal eyesight, like that of a fly, devotes equal importance to all angles of view. While it took him a period of time for his brain to acclimate to the confusing input of non-foveal vision, he is now fully adapted and cannot be caught unawares from behind.

The Fly's tough, thin, membrane-like wings enable him to fly by oscillating at trans-sonic velocities generating 190 mph winds. The Fly is able to support his own weight plus an additional 150 pounds of cargo. His wings are able to propel him at speeds of up to 60 knots (69 miles an hour). He has sufficient endurance to fly for about 6 hours at top speed before needing to alight and recover. The wings produce a high-pitched buzzing sound which is the audible third-order harmonic of his ultrasonic wing-beat frequency. The Fly can vibrate them in opposition to one another at such high speeds that they create a shockwave of air pressure with the concussive force of a focused 190 mile per hour wind (in the range of 40 pounds per square inch of over-pressure, equivalent to the blast wave of 50 pounds of TNT at a distance of 30 feet).

As his mutation progressed near the end of his initial life, the Fly developed more fly-like physical characteristics, including copious thick & coarse body hair and a pair of segmented antennae growing from his forehead. It is not known if the Fly's antennae were functional. His fly-like characteristics affected his mental condition as well, compelling him to adopt some behavior patterns (most notably food preferences) like those of a common housefly.

Post-resurrection, he returned to his more human-like form, although his wings now were quickly regenerative, armored and with a very sharpened edge. He also could secrete a powerful biological agent through his vomit that he used offensively on opponents and as a means to consume and digest (human) food.