The Praying Mantis-Man

A bizarre Silver Age villain, the Praying Mantis-Man is a humanoid mantis creature who battled Blue Beetle and later clashed with other DC heroes including Green Lantern, The Flash, and Robin, making him a surprisingly wide-ranging threat for such an obscure foe.

A creature of the Silver Age's wildest imagination, The Praying Mantis-Man first skittered onto the scene in 1965's Blue Beetle #4, conjured by the prolific Joe Gill and artist Bill Fraccio. This DC oddity has crossed paths with some of the publisher's most luminous figures — Green Lantern, The Flash, The Spectre, Robin, and Blue Beetle himself — which speaks to a surprisingly broad footprint for a character with a compact catalog presence. Appearing as far forward as DC Universe: Legacies in 2012, The Praying Mantis-Man endures as one of those gloriously strange Silver Age creations that remind collectors just how wonderfully weird the comics of that era could be.