Lord Death Man also known as Death Man is a Gotham City gangster skilled at yoga, entering a death-like state and faking his own death. He originally appeared in Batman #180 but was popularized by his appearance in Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan.
History
Earth One
Death Man is a Japanese crime lord with the uncanny ability to put himself in a yoga trance that makes him appear dead. He has a costume resembling a skeleton in a black cloak which was permanently grafted to his skin.
Lord Death Man started out in Gotham where he allowed himself to go down easy during a confrontation with Batman, choosing to fake his death before his trial and let himself be buried alive. Death Man subsequently escaped his tomb and went back to his crime-spree but when confronted by Batman he faked his death once again. Eventually Batman deduced that Death-Man was faking his deaths and confronted him once more in a fight where Death-Man got the apprehend but was supposedly killed by a lightning bolt.
New Earth
Origins
Lord Death Man fought Batman and Robin years ago and traveled to Japan as "Lord Death Man" to kill all of the Japanese super heroes to take the country for his own. While originally being able to enter death-like states through meditation and trickery, he later developed regenerative healing.
Batman Incorporated
One of his earliest targets is the original Mr. Unknown who he murders by breaking pouring acid all over him. When Mr. Unknown's body double Jiro Osamu sees the crime, Lord Death Man sends his henchmen after him, but Jiro gets away. Lord Death Man then captures Jiro's girlfriend, which leads Jiro to shoot him multiple times, causing Lord Death Man to plummet out a three story window. When Batman and Catwoman come to break up the fight, Batman concludes Lord Death Man has received some "upgrades." Those upgrades include being able to come back from the dead, as he wakes up mid autopsy, and murders many civilians in a hospital.
Lord Death Man races towards his next target, Aquazon of the Super Young Team, but is eventually defeated for good by Batman, Catwoman and Jiro. Knowing that Lord Death Man will never be able to die, thus will do anything he can to escape capture, Batman decides to give him a fate "worse than death" and launches Lord Death Man into deep space, never to be seen again. However, during the Outsiders infiltration of Leviathan Orbital HQ, they come across Lord Death Man who has seemed to off escaped Batman's deep space containment capsule. Both Lord Death Man and the Outsiders survived the explosion. Metamorpho used his elemental abilities to shield the others from the explosion while Lord Death Man's body jettisoned to Earth.
Prime Earth
This version of Lord Death Man was a thug named, "Larry" who gimmicked himself around healing and faking his death. He was able to heal regeneratively via having, "Lazarus Blood", blood which imitated the regenerative abilities of the Lazarus Pit, complete with its brain-degrading symptoms. Similar to his New Earth counterpart, Death Man became a Japanese crime-lord who killed Mr. Unknown, worked with Leviathan, fought Batman in space, and was shot into the atmosphere.
His unconscious body was recovered by Ra's al Ghul and his servants. Ra's has Lord Death Man placed in a siphoning device in order to drain the Lazarus Pit fluids from his body. Ra's intends to restore the pits and give life to his new League of Assassins who have been dubbed the Sons of Batman. The league disposed of Lord Death Man upon realizing his blood carried insanity-inducing effects.
Powers and Abilities
Powers
- Regeneration: Later in his career, he developed a genuine healing factor rather than relying on trickery. It was revealed in Prime Earth that this power stemmed from having, "Lazarus Blood", blood which replicated the effects of the Lazarus Pit (presumably stemming from the metal dionesium).
Abilities
- Yoga Training: Lord Death Man can fake his own demise by entering a state of deep meditation.
- Regeneration: Eventually, Death Man's yoga skills allowed his body to heal itself at a superhuman rate.
Trivia
- His appearance bears a strong resemblance to Skull, a villain from Cyborg 009.
Gallery
In Other Media
Batman: The Brave and the Bold
- In The Episode "Bat-Mite Presents Batman's Strangest Cases!", Lord Death Man appears in an adaptation of the manga story. The story is mostly faithful to the original, save for the implication that he parachuted to safety following a collision with power lines. Bat-Mite implicates this was a change in "the American dub", lamp shading the segment being done in the style of early anime.