Moonman

Moonman

A costumed criminal, possessed of awesome magnetic powers which enable him to attract objects with his right hand and repel them with his left, who commits a series of spectacular crimes having the Moon as their general theme, as when he steals a precious moonstone from a museum and an ancient silver chariot, representing the moon chariot of the goddess Diana, from an exhibition of historical vehicles. Unbeknownst even to himself, the Moonman is an astronaut named Brice Rogers, the pilot of the world’s “first manned rocket” to the moon, whose simultaneous exposure to the light of the moon and the eerie glow of a passing comet while his craft was still in moon orbit somehow produced the bizarre “chemical reaction” that now transforms him into a cunning super-criminal whenever he becomes exposed to the light of the moon.

“The glow of that strange comet,” explains Superman, “plus the moon’s light, must have had a chemical reaction that affected Rogers... which makes him a criminal only at night when moonlight touches him! During the day, he’s normal and doesn’t remember what happened the night before!” Rogers commits a series of spectacular crimes as the Moonman before he finally realizes, to his horror, that the notorious Moonman is none other than himself. Before the well-meaning Rogers can turn himself over to the authorities, however, he is abducted by a gang of harbor pirates who hope to force him to use his Moonman powers to aid them in their crimes.

Ultimately, Rogers’s Moonman powers permanently fade and vanish, and Rogers cans an amnesty for the crimes he unintentionally committed by helping Batman, Robin, and Superman apprehend the harbor pirates who had hoped to profit from his powers. Much later, the moonstone transforms astronaut trainee Stacy Macklin into Lady Lunar (WF No. 98, Dec 1958: “The Menace of the Moonman!”; WF No. 266, Dec 1980/Jan 1981: "The Last Laugh of Lady Lunar").