LIGHTMASTER

 

LIGHTMASTER

Real Name: Edward Lansky

First Appearance: Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #1, December 1976 (As Lansky); Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #3, February 1977 (As Lightmaster)

Powers: Dr. Edward Lansky was a physicist and the vice-chancellor of Empire State University when he concocted a criminal plot against the New York City government to prevent budget cuts for higher education, which would have harmed his university. Dr. Lansky used his scientific knowledge and university lab facilities to design a special body-suit capable of harnessing the power of light. Donning the suit, he began a criminal career calling himself Lightmaster.

His suit is equipped with a padded inner lining (which enhances the appearance of his average physique) containing special circuitry that enables him to manipulate photons (discrete packets of light which act like a wave-form of energy). The suit uses a high-density light-switch computer (which uses photons instead of electrons) linked to his brain which enables him to control photons for a variety of effects. Lightmaster's suit in some as yet unexplained manner enables him to bind photons to some unidentified particles in order to create solid, low-mass objects. The shape, size, and relative velocity of these objects are determined by numerous pre-programmed responses within the controlling computer, triggered by coded thought-patterns. The objects are limited in complexity to those which he pre-programs. They are limited in speed by the speed of light. Lightmaster can also generate low mass "beams" of light which he can direct from his hands, face, or chest as concussive force. He has been observed to deform one-inch thick steel and propel a human being standing ten feet from him about fifteen feet. The limits of the suit's capacity to manipulate light for various effects are not yet known. He can radiate a blinding glow of light from his body, or can shape light in solid constructs like force fields, battering rams, giant blades or other forms.

Lightmaster can fly by surrounding himself in an aerodynamic nimbus of light to which he attaches a complex spiral of solid light which he rotates at several hundred revolutions per second like a propeller. This enables him to travel through the air at a maximum speed of approximately 140 miles per hour. The nimbus of light surrounding him protects him from the atmospheric effects of friction and wind. He can carry with him in flight any load he can carry in his arms.

During a battle with Spider-Man, he was defeated by having a current of electricity ran through him in an attempt to short-circuit his body-suit. Instead, it interacted with the experimental components of his suit to transform Lightmaster into a being of unstable energy. Weeks after the accident, Lightmaster's energy-mass began to dissipate into the surrounding atmosphere. Forced to surround himself with light at all times merely to stay alive, he sought revenge against Spider-Man. In battle with Spider-Man at his headquarters, a converted warehouse for a defunct manufacturer of light-display signs, Lightmaster accidentally overloaded New York's power system, causing a brief black-out. With Manhattan plunged into darkness, Lightmaster's bodily substance dissipated, his body now fully adopting the properties of his suit and connecting him to the "Light Dimension". Lightmaster needed a constant source of light to sustain his body in our dimension, otherwise his consciousness would be transported away to the Light Dimension. He developed the ability to absorb light, both from ambient sources and by draining it directly from the bodies of photonic heroes like Dagger or Dazzler.

Dr. Edward Lansky is holds a Ph.D. in physics and is a genius intellect in the field.