Thin Man (comics)
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The Thin Man (Bruce Dickson) is a fictional comic book character from the Golden Age Timely Comics company, the predecessor of Marvel Comics. He was one of the first "stretching" superheroes, predating the more famous Plastic Man by more than a year.
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[edit] Fictional character biography
[edit] Mystic Comics
In the 1930's, explorer Bruce Dickson attempted to climb Mount Kalpurthia, in the Himalayas. There, he encountered the lost civilization of Kalahia, which possessed extremely advanced technology (this was at a time when pulp stories of 'lost civilizations', not to mention the exploits of real-life explorers, were quite popular). The Kalahian people altered his body to give him the same physical abilities they had: eternal youth, and tremendous physical resilience and flexibility, including the ability to become "thin", or rather, flat.
Bruce also learned much of their advanced technology, and fell in love with Olalla, daughter of the Kalahians' leader. He and his new love travelled to the outside world and became crimefighters. The Thin Man was a contemporary of heroes such as Captain America, the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner.
[edit] Invaders
The Thin Man was later retconned to have been a member of the Invaders and the Liberty Legion during World war II. These stories were mainly written by Roy Thomas.
[edit] Marvel Comics Presents
The Thin Man next showed up in Marvel Comics Presents #34, along with Captain America. The Thin Man told Cap that at some point, Olalla returned to the hidden valley, while Dickson continued to serve his country during and after World War II. However, when he returned to Kalahia after the war's end, he discovered that the Nazis had located the valley and brutally slaughtered all its inhabitants, including his wife. After this, he became an obsessed Nazi hunter for decades. Eventually he discovered that an old foe, the Nazi called Agent Axis, had been responsible for the destruction. With the help of Captain America, he tracked down and confronted Axis. The war criminal bragged that since he had been brought to America under Operation Paperclip, he could not be prosecuted for his wartime activities, no matter how heinous. The Thin Man became so outraged that he wrapped his pliable body around Agent Axis and snapped his neck. Shocked, Captain America immediately arrested him for murder.
[edit] New Invaders
In the Avengers story arc "Once an Invader...", he was eventually pardoned so that the U.S. government could get his knowledge of advanced Kalahian technology. He was made a member of the New Invaders, and began to contribute his knowledge to the group. Unfortunately, the entire operation was actually a ruse by the ex-Nazi villain, the Red Skull, who had disguised himself as the Secretary of Defense. Once this deception was revealed, Dickson decided to go ahead with the plan to create a new Invaders unit armed with Kahalian technology, specifically to thwart the Red Skull and his organization, the Axis Mundi, in their goals. He designed a battleship called the Infiltrator, which was designed to travel through multi-dimensional space, effectively allowing it to teleport long distances. However, the Infiltrator was sacrificed when it was rammed into a doomsday weapon in order to protect the Earth from another WWII-era supervillain, U-Man. The Invaders disbanded shortly after, and have not been seen since.
[edit] Powers and abilities
Bruce Dickson has been genetically modified to be able to shift and distort his body's molecular structure partially out of phase with three-dimensional reality. He can stretch or twist himself, absorb impacts such as bullets without harm, and become nearly two-dimensional by shifting part of his body mass into alternate dimensions. His limbs can effectively become infinitely-sharp blades in the process.
He does not age and is seemingly immune to all known diseases. Thin Man has tremendous knowledge of the advanced sciences and technology of Kalahia, but only what he could memorize or take with him. All else is now lost.
