Fastball (comics)

Fastball is a DC Comics supervillain.^[1]

Publication history

Fastball first appeared in Justice League of America #234 and was created by Gerry Conway and Chuck Patton.

Fictional character biography

Fastball (whose real name is John Malone) was a former baseball player whom the Overmaster equipped with an exoskeleton, gloves and the requisite wrist bands to enable him to pitch potentially deadly explosive spheres.^[1] He was drafted into the Overmaster’s first Cadre, but after their defeat at the hands of the Justice League, Fastball went underground and was largely forgotten. Another villain with a similar motif, named Overthrow, was often mistaken for Fastball. The real Fastball finally returned to a life of crime, rejoining the Cadre under the leadership of Doctor Polaris in San Francisco. The villains were defeated by the Power Company. ^[2]

In Infinite Crisis, Fastball was a member of the Secret Society of Super Villains. He was later killed by an OMAC.^[1][3]

Fastball has been identified as one of the deceased entombed below the Hall of Justice.

Powers and abilities

Fastball throws explosive spheres, thanks to a cybernetic exo-skeleton.

In other media

Television

• Fastball (alongside Cadre members Black Mass, Crowbar, and Shatterfist) appears in Justice League Unlimited. He and his fellow Cadre members are shown being defeated by Superman and Batman. He later returns as a member of Gorilla Grodd's Secret Society. Fastball later sides with Gorilla Grodd during the mutiny against Lex Luthor (after Lex Luthor uses him as a human shield against Grodd). He is frozen by a turncoat Killer Frost.

References