Read more about Eclipso at: Wikipedia Official Site: DC Comics Eclipso is a fictional character and a supervillain in the DC Comics Universe. His character is the incarnation of the Wrath of God and the Angel of Vengeance who turned evil and was replaced by the Spectre. Eclipso first appeared in House of Secrets #61 (August 1963) and was created by Bob Haney and Lee Elias. Originally, Eclipso was written as a generic villain with average superpowers, who would routinely enact an elaborate plot to fulfill his hedonistic motivations. However, the Darkness Within miniseries modified the character to be an evil and megalomaniacal entity. Eclipso's character laments the power he once had as a spirit of divine vengeance. Eclipso would frequently seek to possess beings of incredible power like Superman, Lar Gand, and Captain Marvel to achieve his ends. Eclipso's early comics debut is tied to his first modern host, Bruce Gordon, a scientist specializing in solar energy. While in the jungle in order to view a solar eclipse, Bruce was attacked by a tribal sorcerer named Mophir. Before plunging to his death off a cliff, Mophir managed to wound Bruce with a black diamond. After this, Bruce would find himself transformed into the villainous Eclipso whenever he was in the presence of an eclipse. An off-color (blue-grey or purple) circle would appear covering the rightmost two-thirds of his face, reminiscent of a partial eclipse. From this point on, Bruce would go through many Jekyll-and-Hyde-style misadventures in House of Secrets. During this period, Eclipso was portrayed as a more conventional villain, possessing super strength, partial invulnerability, and eye blasts (aided by his black diamond). Eventually, it would be found that any type of eclipse could summon Eclipso: lunar, solar, or any other object blocking out a light source. This was countered by the relatively easy way of banishing Eclipso. Any bright flash of light would turn him back into Bruce Gordon. In the early 1990s, DC revamped Eclipso in a company crossover built around the miniseries Eclipso: The Darkness Within. Here it was retcon that Eclipso was not simply Bruce Gordon's dark half, but a vengeance demon who had possessed Gordon. It was also revealed that Eclipso's soul had originally been bound inside a giant black gemstone called the 'Heart of Darkness' in Africa, until a treasure-hunter found it in the late nineteenth century. He brought it to London in 1891 and had a jeweler cut into one thousand diamond shards. This weakened the binding spell enough to allow Eclipso to possess anyone who became angry while in contact with one of the diamonds. No longer was he limited to possessing Gordon during an eclipse. This was just a pretense, so Gordon would not know the truth about the black diamonds. |
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Eclipso