Infinity, Inc. #16
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeInfinity, Inc. #16 marks the debut of Mister Bones — a transparently-skinned, cyanide-sweating villain who speaks in doggerel rhyme and leads the Dr. Love-engineered metahuman group Helix — a character who would arc from antagonist to reluctant ward of the team and, decades later, to Director of the Department of Extranormal Operations, making him one of the most durably reinvented figures to emerge from the Copper Age JSA corner of the DC Universe. The issue also provides the reader's first extended look at Yolanda Montez, Ted Grant's goddaughter, whose feline metahuman abilities and connection to both the Wildcat legacy and the Helix gene pool would become pivotal plot threads through Crisis on Infinite Earths and beyond. Taken together, the two introductions seeded a years-long sub-mythology — the Helix 'family,' the moral ambiguity of children shaped by mad-science rather than heroic lineage — that gave the series its most distinctive thematic texture and set it apart from a simple next-generation-team concept. The issue is simultaneously an early chapter of Todd McFarlane's career biography: his unconventional page architecture on this run directly preceded his transformative work on Spider-Man and the creation of Spawn.
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The story, titled 'They Call Him… Mr. Bones!' and cover-dated July 1985, was written by Roy Thomas with co-plotting by Dann Thomas and penciled by Todd McFarlane — who had taken over as regular penciler starting with issue #14 after the untimely death of artist Don Newton in 1984 — with inks by Tony DeZuniga, colors by Carl Gafford, and letters by David Cody Weiss. Roy Thomas introduced McFarlane to readers in an earlier issue's pin-up note as 'a young Canadian living in the state of Washington' who had volunteered to lend the title 'a very talented hand for an issue or two,' a tenure that ultimately ran from #14 through #37 (1985–1987) and constituted McFarlane's first sustained professional body of work. Mr. Bones' skeletal visual design was a deliberate Golden Age homage by Thomas, fashioning the character's costume after the Golden Age public-domain hero the Black Terror. The issue was reprinted in France later in 1986 as part of the Arédit-Artima anthology Les Défenseurs #6.
Trivia · 9 facts
- First appearance of Mister Bones (Robert Todd), a metahuman with transparent skin and a cyanide-secreting touch, created by Roy Thomas, Dann Thomas, and Todd McFarlane (Infinity, Inc. #16, July 1985).
- Mister Bones is introduced as the leader of Helix, a group of six metahuman youths created through prenatal genetic experimentation by the villainous Dr. Love; the character speaks in rhyming couplets throughout his early appearances.
- The issue's story — 'They Call Him… Mr. Bones!' — centers on Helix kidnapping Fury (Lyta Trevor) in an extortion scheme against the Infinitors, bringing the two groups into direct conflict for the first time.
- Yolanda Montez, Ted Grant's (Wildcat's) Mexican-American goddaughter and future second Wildcat, appears in the issue; her first appearance in the series had been issue #12, but #16 is a notable early appearance alongside her godfather Ted Grant.
- Marcie Cooper (future Harlequin) has her last name revealed for the first time in this issue.
- The cover and interior art are by Todd McFarlane (inked by Tony DeZuniga), representing one of McFarlane's earliest professional ongoing assignments; he took over penciling duties from issue #14 after the death of Don Newton and would remain on the book through issue #37.
- Mr. Bones' visual design is a deliberate Roy Thomas homage to the Golden Age public-domain hero the Black Terror, fitting the series' overarching theme of legacy and generational inheritance.
- The issue was reprinted internationally in the French anthology Les Défenseurs (Arédit-Artima) #6, dated October 1986.
- Mister Bones later appeared in the CW television series Stargirl, voiced by Keith David, and received a McFarlane Toys DC Direct Gold Label 7-inch action figure explicitly tied to his Infinity, Inc. #16 debut.
Cast · 17 characters
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Reprinted in Les Défenseurs #6 (1986)
Key issues in Infinity, Inc.
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