Resurrection Man #1

History

The concept germinated while writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning were still at Marvel, where they had been discussing a potential revival of the Great Lakes Avengers; dissatisfied with the idea that Mr. Immortal's sole power was simply not dying, Lanning proposed a character who would gain a brand-new superpower with each resurrection. When the British writing duo transitioned to DC Comics, they pitched the idea to editors — the original character proposal was reviewed and signed off on by Archie Goodwin, Denny O'Neil, and Mike Carlin — and it was accepted with the deliberate creative mandate that Mitch Shelley would reject superhero conventions: no costume, no team affiliation, introduced as an amnesiac to keep his origins mysterious. Artist Jackson 'Butch' Guice — already well-known for his work on the Death and Return of Superman storyline — came aboard as a last-minute addition to complete the creative team, contributing both interior art and cover work for the series.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First appearance of Mitchell 'Mitch' Shelley, the Resurrection Man — a former mob-connected lawyer rendered immortal by nanotechnology ('tektites') injected by a shadowy organization called 'the Lab,' who returns from each death with a new, death-contextual superpower.
• First appearance of the Body Doubles (Bonny Hoffman and Carmen Leno), female assassins dispatched by the Lab to recapture Shelley, who became the series' most persistent antagonists and later starred in their own DC miniseries.
• Created by writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (later architects of Marvel's cosmic renaissance via Annihilation, Nova, and Guardians of the Galaxy) with artist Jackson 'Butch' Guice — all three credited as co-creators.
• Cover date: May 1997; on-sale date: March 19, 1997. The issue features a lenticular (3D disc) cover by Butch Guice — a production flourish common to mid-90s debut issues.
• A second printing of issue #1 was produced, distinguished from the first by a Roman numeral 'II' printed beneath the credits on the front cover.
• The story is set in the fictional town of Crucible — a name the creative team chose deliberately, as it is in Crucible that Shelley discovers his powers and commits to using them for good.
• Issue #1 was collected in the 2012 trade paperback Resurrection Man Vol. 1, which reprints issues #1–14 of the original series.
• The original series ran 27 issues (May 1997–August 1999), was critically acclaimed but not a commercial hit, and has since been followed by a New 52 volume (2011–2012, 13 issues) and a DC Black Label miniseries, Resurrection Man: Quantum Karma, launched in 2025 and written by Ram V.

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Variants (1)