Blockbuster (Mark Desmond)

Mark Desmond, a slight but brilliant chemist, subjected himself to his own experimental formula seeking physical power to match his keen intellect — the process left him a towering, superhumanly strong behemoth at the cost of his mental faculties. He first clashed with Batman, whose face held an inexplicable, almost primal hold over the transformed Desmond.

Few villains carry the raw, lumbering menace that Blockbuster has brought to DC Comics since his Silver Age debut in Detective Comics #349 in 1966, conjured by the legendary team of Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino. Across six decades of DC storytelling, this bruiser has shared the page with the heaviest hitters in the universe — Batman, Bruce Wayne, The Flash, and Green Lantern among them — which tells you everything about the caliber of threat he represents. His footprint stretches from Justice League of America to DC Universe: Legacies, and his inclusion in Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe cements his place as a genuine piece of DC's furniture, the kind of character serious collectors and continuity lovers love to track down. With a key issue to his name and a publishing history that runs right up to the present day, Blockbuster is a Silver Age original who has never stopped being relevant.