Comic Book / Resurrection Man

The legend is true. His name is Mitchell Shelley, and he's wandering the Earth, trying to do good by others where he can. Every time he dies, he comes back with a new superpower.

Mitch was originally the star of his own DC Comics ongoing back in the 1990s, created and written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (later known for Annihilation, Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy). His first appearance was actually Resurrection Man vol. 1 #1 (May, 1997). The series lasted for 27 issues, from May 1997 to August 1999. Focusing on his search to discover the truth about himself and his powers.

Since the end of his original series, Mitchell has had guest appearances in various titles. He returned to the spotlight in a new series by Abnett/Lanning as part of DC's New 52 relaunch in September 2011. The new series only lasted for 13 issues, ending with a Zero Issue where Mitch learned his origin.

Notable appearances of Resurrection Man

Resurrection Man provides examples of:

• Adaptive Ability: Whenever Mitch is killed by something, he is reborn immune to the way he died. In fact, when he was killed by extreme pain, he came back as a woman, because women are supposedly more resistant to pain.
• Amnesiac Dissonance: Turned out Mitch wasn't a very nice guy in his pre-Resurrection Man life, a corrupt lawyer deep in mob business. He seems to have been better in previous incarnations.
• And You Were There: In the storyline "Cape Fear", Mitch has an induced hallucination in which he's a "proper" superhero. All his enemies are reinvented as costumed supervillains: his murderous ex-wife Paula becomes The Widowmaker; Mr Fancy becomes the Joker-like Fancy Pants; the Body Doubles become the two-headed Body Double, and Hooker becomes the monstrous Bonehead. Kim Rebecki, meanwhile, is cast in the Loves My Alter Ego role.
• Arch-Enemy: The Body Doubles are Mitch's most frequently reoccurring foes. Also, Vandal Savage, as he and Mitch have constantly clashed in the long span of their lives, up until the 853rd Century.
• The Atoner: A touch of this after he finds out who he used to be.
• Back from the Dead: Again, and again, and again...
• Badass Longcoat: Mitch usually wears a brown longcoat.
• Body Surf: The Rider.
• Born-Again Immortality: It was eventually revealed that Mitch had had this before he got his nanotech based Resurrective Immortality, leading to the Forgotten Heroes thinking he was the new incarnation of the Immortal Man.
• The Cameo: Two panels of Abnett and Lanning's Elseworlds oneshot The Superman Monster, feature an (unnamed) actual resurrection man (i.e. a grave robber), with Mitch's shoulder-length hair and broad-brimmed hat.
• The Cape: Pretty much, even though he normally doesn't wear one.
• Civvie Spandex: Typically doesn't wear a costume, favoring a black hat, black coat, black shirt and whatever trousers he can grab.
• Death Activated Super Power: Mitch Shelley has the ability to come back to life with a new power when he's killed.
• Death by Origin Story: Mitch Shelley's power involves him dying and then being resurrected by nanotechnology with a new super power, usually related to the manner of his death.
• Discard and Draw: Mitch Shelley has this in addition to well, resurrecting. Every time he returns he has a different power of wildly varying usefulness For example take: Resurrected with: Quantum telekinesis, including sensory expansion on a near-cosmic scale , flight, molecular disintegration of targets, also includes an undefined resistance to 'reality warp'. Now compare that with: Resurrected with: Is a woman. The "catch" being that the power he gains would've prevented his previous death. Ex: he drowns, he can breathe water (or doesn't need to breathe all) when he revives.
• The Drifter: Mitch spends his time as a drifter, trying to remember who he was and what happened to him.
• Electronic Eyes: When the Forgotten Heroes make a guest appearance, Silver Age spelunker Cave Carson has a cybernetic eye, a high-tech version of Eyepatch After Timeskip which is never explained.
• Evil Counterpart: Hooker, initially.
• Exiled from Continuity: An aversion in Mitch's first ongoing (when the Vertigo embargo was still in force), as the Dreaming's Cain and Abel show up in one issue.^note  Possibly because both are characters from older series that Gaiman integrated into his book instead of characters of his own creation.
• First-Episode Resurrection: Subverted. Mitch's resurrection abilities were already in place by the time we first met him.
• Future Badass: In DC One Million, Mitch's future self has gone from a relative nobody with famously unreliable powers into one of the strongest heroes of the 853rd Century. Not only has he developed tons of experience and prestige, but he's completely mastered his powers to resurrect immediately and gain the powers he needs, which he even exploits by poisoning himself for an instant whenever he wants to switch powers.
• Gender Bender: Mitch spends a couple of issues resurrecting as a woman, after being tortured to death several times (with each time being more painful than the last). His persecutor has the theory that, as a woman, Mitch's pain tolerance is higher, allowing him to bypass a gate that normally emitted so much pain it caused him to pass out (opinions differ as to the amount of Truth in Television therein).
  Mr. Bland: Women have appreciably higher pain thresholds than men. If Shelley reconfigures from each termination in a form suited to "protect" him from that method of death, then a female version would make sense.
• Ghost Memory: Mitch used to get flashes of his previous incarnations when he was little (and again when possessed by the Rider).
• I'm a Humanitarian: Hooker.
• Immortal Life Is Cheap: Mitch Shelley gets this a lot, naturally. One issue has a confused Batman trying to figure out why the same guy keeps getting murdered by Gotham City criminals. A crossover with Hitman sees Hitman repeatedly shooting him over and over until he gets a useful power. In the 853rd century, even Resurrection Man himself gets in on the act, wearing a gauntlet that lets him commit instant suicide.
• Inner Monologue
• Lovely Angels: The Body Doubles, a pair of bounty hunters.
• Meaningful Name:
  • In Mitch's very first issue, the town where he discovers his powers, and decides how he's going to use them, is called Crucible.
  • Appropriately for a man who can come Back from the Dead, Mitch has the same surname as Frankenstein author Mary Shelley.
• Missing Mom: Mitch's mother died when he was young.
• Mistaken Identity: Mitch, and the Forgotten Heroes, conclude he's the long-lost Immortal Man. As it turns out, he's not.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Mitch Shelley's powers are literally dictated by the plot; anytime he dies, he'll come back immediately possessing some power that would have allowed him to survive what killed him. Drop him off a cliff, now he can fly, shoot him, now he's bulletproof, etc.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Every time Mitch Shelley dies, he comes back to life with a new superpower. When combined with nanotech regeneration, it gets interesting. It may be possible to kill Mitch permanently. No one's succeeded.
• Perma-Stubble: Mitch.
• Plausible Deniability: In one issue, Mitch Shelley confronts a bunch of mobsters and crooked cops while appearing in a monster-like form. One of the witnesses was later confined to a mental institution for reporting what she saw.
• Playing with Syringes: "The Lab" is a secret private weapons contractor developing Super Serum for the US government, going into war zones and using wounded American personnel as guinea pigs. Their concoctions created the Body Doubles, Director Hooker, and Mitch Shelley, but not the way Shelley wanted.
• Quest for Identity: The series follows Mitch in quest to find out who he was.
• Rasputinian Death: Occasionally gets this from people trying to make sure he stays dead. It never works.
  • In a Crossover with Hitman, Tommy Monaghan kills Mitch over and over and over again until he comes back with a power useful to their situation.
• Reality Warper: Mr Skism.
• Resurrective Immortality: Mitch Shelley has this power, coming back to life each time he's killed, apparently thanks to nanotechnology. Mitch's soul has been around at least since Ancient Egypt (and he finds an image of Vandal Savage's origin familiar...). In DC One Million, Mitch survives until the 853rd century.
  • It becomes a plot point in the 2008 storyline Way of the World when Supergirl thinks Resurrection Man's power might be used to save a boy who's dying from cancer.
• Stock Superhero Day Jobs: Mitch Shelley used to be a lawyer on the take from the mob.
• Superhero Episode: The "Cape Fear" storyline started with Mitch in a virtual world created by his subconscious, in which he was a Silver Age caped superhero, and all the people who had tried to kill him were costumed supervillains. He was still wearing the costume from this scenario when Superman invited him to join the Justice League. He eventually decided it wasn't for him.
• Superpower Lottery: Anything from creating holographic butterflies, to shapeshifting, to pyrokinesis, to astral projection - typically, the circumstances of his death will shape the power (e.g. getting blown up in a nuclear explosion turned him into a living shadow).
  • One issue had Hitman repeatedly shoot Mitch in the head for multiple lotteries, until he finally got a power that Hitman decided was good enough.
• The Slow Path: In the DC One Million Crisis Crossover, various Justice League members exchange places with their successors in the 853rd century. However, due to his abilities, Resurrection Man is already there.
• Two First Names: Mitchell Shelley. On an interesting note, the name he goes by depends on his current gender.
• Walking the Earth: Mitch walks the earth as a drifter trying to find out who he is.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Mitch certainly believes this, having died more times than he can count and being hounded by all manner of supernatural horrors that want to make sure he stays dead. Even worse is in DC One Million that he's destined to live at least until the 853 century!