Eclipso
| Eclipso | |
|---|---|
 Eclipso possessing Jean Loring Art by Justiniano | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | House of Secrets #61 (Aug. 1963) |
| Created by | Bob Haney Lee Elias |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Eclipso |
| Team affiliations | Jean Loring (current host), God, the Spectre, Alex Montez (previous host) |
| Notable aliases | Prince of Darkness, Vengeance Demon, The Lord of the No-Man's Land Between Light and Darkness |
| Abilities | Possession, Energy-vision, Superhuman Strength, Speed and Stamina, Near-invulnerability, Flight |
Eclipso is a fictional character, a villain in the DC Comics Universe. He is portrayed as having been the incarnation of the Wrath of God, the Angel of Vengeance who turned evil and was replaced by the Spectre.
Character history
Bruce Gordon
Eclipso's early comics debut is tied to another character, Bruce Gordon, a scientist specializing in solar energy. While in the jungle in order to view a solar eclipse, Bruce was attacked by a tribal sorcerer named Mophir. Before plunging to his death off of a cliff, Mophir managed to wound Bruce with a black diamond. After this, Bruce would find himself transformed into the villanous Eclipso whenever he was in the presence of an eclipse. An off-color (blue-grey or purple) circle would appear covering the rightmost two-thirds of his face, reminiscent of a partial eclipse. From this point on, Bruce would go through many Jekyll-and-Hyde-style misadventures in House of Secrets. During this period, Eclipso was portrayed as a more conventional villain, possessing super-strength, partial invulnerability and eye blasts (aided by his black diamond). Eventually it would be found that Eclipso could be summoned by any type of eclipse: lunar, solar, or any other object blocking out a light source. This was countered by the relatively easy way of banishing Eclipso; any bright flash of light would turn him back into Bruce Gordon.
The Darkness Within
In the early 1990s, DC revamped Eclipso in a company crossover built around the miniseries Eclipso: The Darkness Within. Here it was retconned that Eclipso was not simply Bruce Gordon's dark half, but a vengeance demon who had possessed Gordon.
He lived on the dark side of the moon and Lar Gand discovered the Black Diamond on it from which the demon was banished. After Lar Gand freed him from his domain, he used hate as a trigger to possess other beings so when someone who has the black diamond gets mad, he instantly takes control of that particular person from his lair who then uses an eyeblast to take control of others.
Eclipso series
Following this successful miniseries, Eclipso received a solo series where he conquered a South American nation. Bruce Gordon tried leading a counterattack with a group of heroes dubbed Shadow Fighters, but in issue #13 of the series, Eclipso defeated them conclusively, killing Wildcat II (Yolanda Montez), Dr. Midnight, the Creeper, Commander Steel, Manhunter IV (a Mark Shaw ringer), and Major Victory. (Manhunter and the Creeper have since returned to action.)
The Peacemaker was also involved in this action, but died when he crashed the helicopter he was flying, in order to destroy some Eclipso-controlled tanks. These tanks were attacking the sole surviving member of the Shadow Fighters, Nemesis.
Later in the '90s, the series The Spectre gave key revelations about Eclipso. The Spectre was not the first embodiment of the wrath of God, but was Eclipso's replacement. Series writer John Ostrander chose to portray this as a distinction between the Spectre's pursuit of vengeance and Eclipso's pursuit of revenge. In a historical context, Eclipso was responsible for the Biblical Flood, while the Spectre was the Angel of Death who slew the first-born Egyptian children.
Alex Montez
After the end of his series, Eclipso appeared as the villain in several storylines. Teaming up with Mordru and Obsidian, he participated in the "Princes of Darkness" storyline opposite the JSA.
In this arc, Yolanda's cousin, Alexander Montez, had gathered the black diamonds the world over, and with the help of witchcraft he learned on Diablo Island, contained Eclipso's entity--in effect, gaining his powers while retaining his own personality. As the new Eclipso, he joined the short-lived team of loose-cannon heroes assembled by Black Adam, which was the subject of the subsequent storyline "Black Reign".
During Adam's reign in Kahndaq, Alex became romantically involved with his teammate Nemesis. However, during a battle one of Alex's binding glyphs (which kept Eclipso in control) was broken, freeing Eclipso, who asserted himself by killing Nemesis. Alex then committed suicide to prevent Eclipso from controlling him further. This was significant because after this story arc, Eclipso no longer had a limitless number of black diamonds waiting out in the world for him to utilize.
Lightning Strikes Twice
Despite the loss of the other black diamonds, the disembodied Eclipso then tried to possess Superman by antagonizing him through many deaths. He eventually possessed Superman by upsetting him via his possession of Lois Lane. At this point the Wizard Shazam stepped in by sending Captain Marvel to fight the possessed Eclipso-Superman. Eventually, Shazam himself was forced to step in and removed Eclipso from Superman by calling upon the hostless Spectre himself to do it. The Spectre forces Eclipso back into a lone black diamond. The Spectre then warns Shazam that he's made an enemy of Eclipso and that the Spectre will no longer defend him. At the end of this series, the black diamond is seen appearing in Jean Loring's cell in Arkham Asylum.
Jean Loring
In the Day of Vengeance miniseries, which tied into the Infinite Crisis event, Jean Loring, ex-wife of Atom (Ray Palmer) and murderer of Sue Dibny as seen in the Identity Crisis miniseries, discovers a black diamond in her prison cell, becomes the new Eclipso and tricks the Spectre into attacking magic-based heroes as her revenge against Shazam. After fending off multiple attacks upon herself, Eclipso-Loring was eventually teleported to a non-decaying orbit around the sun by Nightshade.
Template:Spoiler Since then in the pages of Infinite Crisis, Alexander Luthor, Jr. revealed that he had sent Superboy-Prime to recover the black diamond, and that the Psycho-Pirate delivered it to Loring on Alex's orders and manipulated Eclipso into manipulating the Spectre. This was all done in the interests of breaking magic down into raw magical energy, which Alexander could use for his own ends.
Character Analysis
Originally, Eclipso was written as a generic villain with average superpowers, who would routinely enact an elaborate plot to fulfill his desires: money, power, etc. However, the Darkness Within series established that Eclipso is an extremely evil and power-hungry entity. It has been shown repeatedly that Eclipso desires the kind of power he enjoyed while he served as a spirit of divine vengeance. He would always seek to possess beings of incredible power like Superman, Lar Gand, and Captain Marvel to achieve his ends. On several occasions, he would endanger, hurt, or even kill to achieve his goals with absolutely no remorse or hesitation. Eclipso himself is a being of spite, cruelty and hate who shows nothing but disdain for all other creatures. One of the most disturbing displays of just how evil Eclipso is was when he took control of Superman during the Lightning Strikes Twice arc. While possessing Superman, Eclipso said things to Captain Marvel like, "I'll fill the Grand Canyon with corpses!", "I'll fly to the heart of Metropolis and make a nuclear bomb seem merciful!", as well as "I'll slaughter children and wear the skins of their fathers on my back!". During the conflict, Eclipso threw an entire cruise ship (Captain Marvel managed to save the ship of people) in order to force Captain Marvel to surrender his body for possession. Ultimately, the wizard Shazam managed to summon the Spectre to banish Eclipso back to his black diamond where it later came into possession of Jean Loring.
Eclipso in other media
Eclipso has also appeared in a Justice League episode called 'Eclipsed'. Although never referred to by name, Eclipso was characterized as the collective souls of an evil race of snake people who imprisoned themselves in a black diamond to eventually destroy the human race. One of Eclipso's possessed humans appears wearing the original Eclipso costume, having been told the best way to lure out the Justice League is to "put on a goofy costume and run amok."