Fox Universe

Green Mask - Michael Shelby (May 1939)

First appearance - Mystery Men Comics 1, August 1939

Alter ego - Michael Shelby

Group Affiliation - Mystery Men of America.

ORIGIN

Around May of 1939, a wealthy young man called Michael Shelby first assumed the guise of the Green Mask, using only his fists and firearms as a pulp style vigilante. Green Mask was one of the earliest costumed mystery men (later called science heroes) and was predated only by the mid 1930's debuting Mystery Man, the super powered Wonderman and the mystic energy powered Flame. The magical Yarko and Zanzibar were also active in 1934 and 1935 respectively but were thought of merely as stage magicians and occasional amateur detectives.

Later in 1939, Michael was mortally wounded trying to prevent the murder of his father, crusading Senator Shelby by agents of the criminal Grim Circle. Although he was unable to do so, their family friend Professor Lascomb removed him and attempted to heal him with vita-rays (from Lascomb's untested invention). The machine overloaded, and somehow not only revitalized Green Mask but endowed him with special abilities. Although briefly exhibiting super speed, super strength and invulnerability alongside a limited capacity for flight, the former abilities soon faded from Green Mask's body, leaving only a peak athletic human like super charge and the flight (which was mainly manifested in leaps and gliding). An additional ability that the Mask unwittingly gained, was revealed years later when he noticed his aging had slowed to a fraction of normality - roughly aging one year in ten.

An encounter with the Grim Circle, some weeks later ended with the criminals attempting to use a bomb against the Green Mask. This failed, but an orphan boy got caught in the blast. Michael took the lad to Professor Lascomb (who had been attempting to fix his machine) and they tried to heal him.

Once again the machine overloaded and produced a healing and empowering effect, healing Don and giving him the same abilities as Michael, except for the flight capacity. Michael invited Don to stay with him as his ward and later adopted him. Don Shelby also joined him as his sidekick, wearing a similar costume but not bandana mask. Don instead wore a domino mask and took his name from that.

Although Domino did help in some initial cases, Green Mask effectively benched him to train the boy to a high standard. Domino, at only 13 years old debuted officially in the summer of 1940 and soon gained a reputation as a skilled fighter and athlete, utilizing many acrobatic moves in his crime fighting career.

TEAM UPS

At points in 1939 and 1940, Green Mask met and teamed up with other early science heroes, and was especially close friends with The Flame and Wonderman. Frequent team ups with the latter had the papers refer to the duo (and occasional trio with Domino) as "the finest in the world".

But his early career was marred by police suspicion - a public perception that Green Mask was a rogue adventurer and sometimes criminal, aided Michael in fooling gangs of crooks into recruiting him as an enforcer/ally, before he would take them down. He was able to use this trick to good effect before the mobs got wise to his tactic.

However the police maintained their suspicion for a few years, sometimes seeking him as a "dangerous vigilante" (The Mystery Man had suffered this in his early days, and for a while Chicago's Blue Beetle was also regarded with suspicion by cops in the Triple Cities area).

The general public had a good view of him though, and celebrated Green Mask as one of the more daring swashbuckling heroes active in the New York area. And following several team ups with other heroes and the formation of the Mystery Men (first incarnation) in 1941, he was accepted by most.

Green Mask fought many enemies such as The Grim Circle, The Professor, El Rakif, The Butcher, The Brain, Radion, Swami Zodia and the Manx, but none were as relenting in their hatred as Slink Ciconi who had two reasons to hate Green Mask. Firstly Slink was employed as a low level minion to J.J. Faken before GM busted his child thief racket, and then later Shelby took down Slink's brother, the mob boss, Frankie Ciconi.