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Mitch Shelly works to find who he is, and find his lost memories. He fights against Suriel, an agent of Heaven, who wants his soul. After he escapes her, he goes to his fathers nursing home, where he meets the Transhuman. Soon after the pair of them fight against the Body Doubles. The fight concludes with Suriel killing him resurrecting him somewhere else.
Mitch and Kim travel to Viceroy, South Carolina while following the trail of a tracking device that belongs to the Transhuman. They manage to slip into the Soder Company factory only to discover that the Lab had been hiding their headquarters there all along using some type of holographic projectors or cloaking devices to hide the tall building. While inside, the pair manage to find the Transhuman. It is revealed to them, however, that the Transhuman was willingly being used as bait and he attacks them. The Body Doubles return to the scene at this time, under the direction of Director Hooker to capture Mitch. After killing him once, they manage to knock him unconscious.
Origin
Mitch Shelley was an seemingly ordinary lawyer from Viceroy, South Carolina. He was unwillingly tested on using experimental nanotechnology involving Tektites, microscopic machines that can reconstruct or repair damaged cells. These Tektites gave him the power to not only revive himself, but to return with a new ability derived from the circumstances of his death.
Creation
Resurrection Man is the creation of writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning and artist Jackson Butch Guice. There have been several artists step in for Guice but the creative writing team of Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning have been involved in every issue of Resurrection Man.
Major Story Arcs
Original Series
At first Mitchell Shelley was a corrupt lawyer who was unwillingly tested on. He was a subject for nanotechnology experimentation, the nanomachines known as tektites. The company who experimented on him was only known as the Lab. At first, the experiments rendered Mitch amnesiac. The tektites caused Mitch’s deaths to only last a few seconds, then he would come back with a new super power.
After leaving the Lab he fought an incarnation of Amazo. Resurrection Man defeated Amazo and it caught the attention of the JLA. Mitch has been chased by the Body Doubles, two female assassins who work for the Lab.
It was later revealed that the Lab only gave Mitchell the ability of instant resurrection. His past reaches far back to the time of cavemen. Through all the time he has lived, he has always encountered Vandal Savage. Resurrection Man has always foiled Savage’s schemes before dying. Mitchell Shelley is the counter-agent of Vandal Savage.
Phantom Stranger considers Resurrection Man to be a friend of his even though Mitchell does not recall ever meeting him before. Forgotten Heroes recruited Resurrection Man thinking he was the latest incarnation of Immortal Man. Shelley revealed to the group that he was not Immortal Man, but something completely different.
By the end of the Resurrection Man series, he helped face down a threat to the multiverse that the JLA, JSA, Young Justice, and the Forgotten Heroes could not face. The threat had to do with Mitch’s origins, Vandal Savage, and Immortal Man. The threat was stopped when Immortal Man sacrificed himself to save the multiverse. Since then, Resurrection Man wanders the DC universe helping others and fighting crime outside the Mainstream DC universe.
Post-Flashpoint
Resurrection Man ‘resurrects’ into a new original series by the writing team of Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning as part of the release of 52 all new series. His first foe is an angel from Heaven named, Suriel. She is looking to collect his soul which has long since been overdue. Suriel is not the only one looking for Mitch Shelley. The Body Doubles are also hot on the trail of the Resurrection Man. After a battle takes place outside the residence of Darryl Roth, Mitch is thrown into an ambulance and taken to Arkham Asylum. At Arkham, Mitch Shelley stops a prisoner breakout and then escapes himself.
While on the run from the police, Mitch lays low in an apartment complex but the building is raided by the Metropolis Police. The police are raiding a meth lab in the building but they come under attack by Mr. Untouchable who is using the same energy shield that Resurrection Man remembers from his dream of his past. Mitch fights Mr. Untouchable, defeats him, and then escapes to find out more about his past.
Mitch travels to the Metropolis Library to find out more about his past. While transversing the hallways of the library, Mitch runs into Kim Rebecki who has been following him. Mitch questions Kim but is interrupted by The Butcher, a necromancer and agent of Hell. After the battle, when it seemed that Resurrection Man had escaped permanent death yet again, he is shot in the head by Deadshot. It appears the Suicide Squad is also after Mitch Shelley.
Before the Suicide Squad can extract Mitch and return him to headquarters, Mitch resurrects. Mitch battles and defeats the Suicide Squad but ends up falling to his death when he is chasing down Deadshot. Before Deadshot could cut up Resurrection Man, thereby preventing resurrection, he is attacked by the Body Doubles who have finally caught up with Mitch again.
Another battle ensues and Deadshot manages to extract Mitch and transport him to Amanda Waller. Waller uses Kim Rebecki, the one person that Mitch Shelley remotely trusts, to get Resurrection Man to throw down his guard. Amanda Waller kills Mitch but she lets him go as part of her agreement with Rebecki but not before she cuts off one of his hands. Waller also secretly implants a nano-bomb in Kim’s neck so that she would be compliant the next time their paths cross.
Mitch and Kim wake up in the middle of the forest and set off to continue Mitch’s mission to rediscover the rest of his past. Kim uses her powers to figure out where they should go next. They discover a hidden location that used to be a hideout for the Transhuman, a friend of Resurrection Man. What they discover here is that the Transhuman has a tracking device implanted on him and that they can use to locate him and the organization known as the Lab. It is at this moment that Suriel, the agent of Heaven, has caught up with Mitch and demands that he surrender and return to Heaven with her. Outcast, an agent of Hell, appears not long afterwards and demands that Mitch return to Hell with him instead. Mitch convinces the two celestial beings to give him one week to rediscover the secrets of his past and then he will give himself up to one of them. They both agree to these terms and disappear. Now Mitch and Kim have a week to track down Transhuman and the Lab so that he can figure out who he really is.
Powers
Resurrection Man has to die in order to access his powers. Each time he resurrects, he returns with a new power. The new power usually manifests itself based on the circumstance upon which he dies. It acts somewhat like a defensive ability by giving Resurrection Man abilities that can prevent that same type of death again.
In the DC One Million future it is a natural ability that he has been able to control for thousands of years. By choice, he maintains a default setting of flight and enhanced strength. The Resurrector device on his arm holds a Zerophon Ichneumid, an alien larvae armed with a lethal neurotoxin. By activating it, he can administer a dose and die for a second. That brief death allows him to choose one custom power to go along with the default powers.
Chronological List of Deaths and Powers
Resurrection Man, Volume 1
| Issue | Type of Death | New Power Gained |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gas explosion | Flight |
| 1 | Shot and fell to death | Air Manipulation |
| 1 | Tank truck explosion | Pyrokinesis |
| 2 | Fell to death after saving people | Empathetic Powers |
| 4 | Rat poison | Rat/Human Hybrid |
| 4 | Stabbed multiple times by Bessly | Unknown (did not live long enough) |
| 4 | Shot in head by Keach | Unknown (did not live long enough) |
| 4 | Decapitated by Keach | Hardened Skin |
| 6 | Shot in head by Leno | Flame Emission/Blasts |
| 7 | 3 separate deaths (offpanel) | Energy Blasts |
| 8 | Hit by car | Shapeshifting |
| 9 | Car explosion | Skeletal Form (Eldritch Flames) |
| 10 | Shot to death in shootout | Create Butterflies |
| 10 | Shot in head by Hitman | Chameleon Powers |
| 10 | Shot in head by Hitman | X-Ray Vision |
| 10 | Shot in head by Hitman | Cosmic/Atomic Powers |
| 14 | Nuclear Explosion | Shadow Form |
| 13 | Stabbed (flashback issue) | Psychometry |
| 13 | Electric Chair (flashback issue) | Unknown |
| 15 | Killed by Lawn lights (while in shadow form) | Density Manipulation |
| 15 | Shot to death | Turn anything into glass |
| 16 | Hit by train | Transform into Bat-like Creature |
| 16 | Blimp explosion | Transform into Gargoyle-like Creature |
Supergirl, Volume 3
| Issue | Type of Death | New Power Gained |
|---|---|---|
| 24 | Impalement | Super Speed |
| 24 | Shot in head | Transform into Stone Golem |
| 24 | Killed by Supergirl | Turn anything into phantom form |
| 24 | Died in fight with the Rider | Early Warning Sense |
Resurrection Man, Volume 1
| Issue | Type of Death | New Power Gained |
|---|---|---|
| 18 | Died in Coma | Unknown |
| 1,000,000 | Resurrector Device | Ionic Rays |
| 1,000,000 | Impaled by Savage | Bio Molecular Flux |
| 1,000,000 | Bio-Mech Virus | None (died) |
| 19 | Unknown (in reality warp) | Quantum Speed |
| 19 | Weapon Explosion (in reality warp) | Telekinesis |
| 19 | Shot to death (in reality warp) | Subzero Ice Power |
| 20 | Impaled by Bonehead (in reality warp) | Psychic Shield |
| 20 | Killed by Angel of Death (in reality warp) | Quantum Telekinesis |
| 22 | Explosion caused by DeWitt | Unknown |
| 22 | Dies 47 times by Lab experiments | Gender Dimorphism, Pain dampening/cancelling |
| 24 | Shot in head by Hoffman | Metallic Skin |
| 26 | Shot in back by Savage | Dense Crystal Form, Channel Light Energy |
DC Infinite Halloween Special
| Issue | Type of Death | New Power Gained |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Unknown (before story) | Electricity Control |
| 1 | Impaled and eaten by Killer Croc | Organic Form, shapechanging |
Supergirl, Volume 5
| Issue | Type of Death | New Power Gained |
|---|---|---|
| 28 | Shot to Death | Unknown |
| 29 | Blasted by Luzano | Healing Ray |
Resurrection Man, Volume 2
| Issue | Type of Death | New Power Gained |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Unknown (before start of issue) | Electromagnetic Manipulation |
| 1 | Sucked into a plane turbine during a plane crash caused by Suriel | Water Mimicry |
| 2 | Electrocuted by Carmen Leno | Armored Skin |
| 3 | Shot with armor piercing bullets by Bonny Hoffman | Sonic Scream |
| 4 | Shot by Suriel with an energy blast | Electric Manipulation |
| 6 | Neck snapped by Sumo | Super Strength |
| 6 | Shot in the head by Arkham guard Fletcher | Plasma Manipulation |
| 7 | Shot multiple times in the back by Mr. Untouchable | Psychokinesis |
| 8 | Stabbed by The Butcher | Unknown (did not live long enough) |
| 8 | Shot in the head by Deadshot | Electromagnetism and Energy Absorption |
Suicide Squad, Volume 2
| Issue | Type of Death | New Power Gained |
|---|---|---|
| 9 | Fell to death during a fight with Deadshot | Poly Alloy/ Liquid Metal Body |
Resurrection Man, Volume 2
| Issue | Type of Death | New Power Gained |
|---|---|---|
| 9 | Shot in the back by Amanda Waller | Shadow Manipulation |
| 11 | Fell to death during a fight with Carmen Leno | Optic Blasts |
| 12 | Shot and fell to death by a Gotham P.D. helicopter (In Simulation) | Telekinetic Explosive Blasts |
| 12 | Stabbed to death by Aquaman (In Simulation) | Optically Generated Photon Blasts |
| 12 | Unknown (In Simulation) | Lava Form |