Mist (comics)

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Mist is the name of several DC Comics supervillains who are archenemies of the original and 1990s Starman. The first Mist is a man named Kyle, and the second Mist is his daughter Nash.

Kyle made his live-action debut on the first season of The Flash, portrayed by Anthony Carrigan.

The Kyle incarnation of Mist first appeared in Adventure Comics #67 (October 1941), and was created by Gardner Fox.^[1]

The Nash version of the Mist first appeared in Starman (vol. 2) #0 (October 1994), and was created by writer James Robinson and Tony Harris.

The first Mist's real name was Kyle. He fought in World War I as a Captain in the Canadian Army, winning the Victoria Cross. He was also a scientist and created a device that turned his body into a gaseous form; he became a supervillain, first fighting the Golden Age Sandman under the name "Johnathon Smythe", before changing his name to the Mist.^[2] In 1941, he undertook a crime wave in Opal City and was stopped by Ted Knight, the Golden Age Starman; he vowed revenge on Starman and became his nemesis.^[3]

He was a member of the Ultra-Humanite's incarnation of the Secret Society of Super Villains, and appeared during the late 1980s Starman series (chronicling the adventures of Will Payton), then using the name Nimbus.

The Mist had two children named Nash and Kyle Jr.

In the early 1990s, after Ted Knight had retired (following the events of Zero Hour), the Mist planned his final revenge on Starman and sent his son, Kyle Jr., to kill Knight's son David, as well as nearly killing his second son, Jack, demolishing his home and kidnapping the elder Knight. In exchange for his father, Jack battled Kyle Jr., resulting in Kyle Jr.'s death, which drove the Mist insane. He was like this for some time until making a deal with the demon-lord Neron, restoring his sanity and curing his senility. This allowed him to advise his daughter, Nash, on joining Simon Culp's scheme to destroy Opal City and conversely kill Culp himself when he threatened her, on the grounds he "hated dwarfs". Ultimately, he revealed he was tired and had decided to end his life, planting a nuclear bomb in Opal City set to detonate at the moment of his death and then taking poison. However, he failed to destroy the city, as a terminally ill Ted Knight used an advanced version of his Cosmic Rod to lift the entire building miles into the air; the two enemies made peace with each other just before the Mist's heart stopped, killing them both.^[4]

Nash was not initially the villain that her father or brother were, but rather a meek, stuttering girl. During her father's campaign of revenge against Ted Knight, she was in a position to kill Jack Knight, but let him go after he reasoned that she personally had no reason to kill him. After Jack killed her brother Kyle, she underwent a major personality shift and became the second Mist, exposing herself to the same process that had given her father his powers. During her first major crime wave, Nash drugged Jack and raped him, becoming pregnant. She later gave birth to a son, Kyle Theo, named after her father and Jack. She passed on a second opportunity to kill Jack, deciding to better herself as a villain while Jack worked to become a better hero. She spent much time in Europe, where she killed the second Amazing Man, Crimson Fox and Blue Devil.

She was then one of the many villains who took part in the plan to destroy Opal City during the "Grand Guignol" story arc. After this failed, her father made his own attempt to destroy the city. Since his plan would kill Nash and her son, she attempted to stop him. Her father then shot her. In her dying moments, she gave her son over to Jack to raise.^[4]

The son of Nash and Jack Knight, Kyle Knight inherited his mother's mist powers and embraced his father's heroic background.^[5]

In the pages of "The New Golden Age", Kyle was mentioned to currently be 5 years old by Stargirl when Huntress had mentioned that that he operated as Mist in her possible future.^[6]

Both Mists are able to transform into a living vapor and become tangible and intangible at will.

June 1962 saw Earth-Two's public re-emergence of Vandal Savage. He briefly terrorized a handful of important U.S. cities and was able to attack and incapacitate various members of the retired JSA.^[7] This brazen attack on major American cities and on the persons of a handful of retired JSAers resulted in the re-emergence and the re-formation of the Justice Society of America. This did not have an immediate effect on the super-scientists and criminals who operated openly in the 1940s and covertly in the 1950s, but over time this curious breed of villain did begin to re-emerge.

September 1965 found the Mist working with a gang of hoodlums along the Atlantic Coast in Park City. With his secret formulas and gadgetry he was controlling Mrs. Dinah Drake Lance, using the Drake Flower Shoppe as the means to gain access to the wealthy citizenry, and using his hypnotic influence to have the rich rob themselves and hand over their wealth to the Mist's henchmen. Though Park City did have a protector in the guise of the Black Canary, this heroine was only seen infrequently and the Mist seemed not to have been perturbed by this. Though he was using Mrs. Lance, he never discovered her dual identity as the Black Canary. By September, his crime spree was advancing nicely and was baffling the local police. Finally, a local private investigator – Mr. Larry Lance (husband to Dinah Drake Lance) figured out the connection between those robbed and his wife's flower shop. At about this time, the Lance family was visited by their friend Ted Knight; he accidentally intercepted a hypnotic sound wave sent by the Mist. Together, the three heroes went about hunting down the gang and its leader. During this crime spree, the Mist discovered how to use his inviso-solution, sound waves and a recording of motor noises from the Park City Observatory to block star-energy from reaching Starman's Cosmic Rod, in effect making it powerless; however, Starman had with him a newer, quasar-powered Rod, which proved impervious to the deactivation. In the end, the Mist and his men were defeated and handed over to the police.^[8]

In the pages of Earth 2: Society, Kyle Nimbus is the CEO of Nimbus Solutions who can make himself intangible at will where he has to be tangible to attack. In his plans, he used mind-control chemicals on Hourman's Miraclo in order for him to serve Nimbus. With help from Red Arrow and Ted Grant, Dick Grayson as Batman defeated Kyle Nimbus.^[9]

In a possible future seen in "The New Golden Age", the Kyle Knight version of Mist joined the Justice Society of America under Huntress, before being killed alongside the rest of his team by Per Degaton who aged Mist to death.^[10]

When Per Degaton was defeated by the present day JSA, Kyle and his future were resurrected and erased from the timestream.^[11]

• The Kyle incarnation of Mist appears in The Flash, portrayed by Anthony Carrigan.^[12] Introduced in the episode "Things You Can't Outrun", this version is a mob hitman named Kyle Nimbus who was betrayed by and testified against his employers. After being charged, he was put on death row. However, as he was in the midst of being executed via gas chamber, S.T.A.R. Labs' particle accelerator exploded, giving him the ability to transform into the gas that was being used to execute him.
• An original incarnation of Mist based on Kyle and Nash, Andrea "Andie" Murphy, appears in Young Justice, voiced by Daniela Bobadilla.^[13] This version is a reluctant teenage criminal and associate of Livewire and Shade who reluctantly participates in a metahuman trafficking operation before she is subdued by Nightwing, given residence at the Metahuman Youth Center, and eventually joins the Team.
• The Kyle incarnation of Mist appears in My Adventures with Superman, voiced by Lucas Grabeel.^[14] This version is a member of Intergang and the brother of leading member Silver Banshee whose abilities are derived from Kryptonian technology.

• Mist (Kyle Nimbus) at DC Comics Wiki
• Mist (Nash) at DC Comics Wiki