Fly (Archie Comics)

The Fly
Adventures of the Fly #1 (August 1959). Cover art by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby
Publication information
Publisher	Red Circle Comics
First appearance	The Double Life of Private Strong #1 (June 1959)
Created by	Joe Simon (writer) Jack Kirby (artist)
In-story information
Alter ego	Thomas "Tommy" Troy
Team affiliations	Mighty Crusaders
Abilities	Superhuman strength, flight, has all the powers of the insect kingdom, size manipulation, insect telepathy

The Fly is a fictional comic book superhero first published in 1959 by Red Circle Comics. He was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby as part of Archie's "Archie Adventure Series" and later camped up (as Fly Man) as part of the company's Mighty Comics line. He first appeared in The Double Life of Private Strong #1, however his origin story and first "full length" appearance were in Adventures of the Fly #1 (Aug. 1959).

After the first four issues of Adventures of the Fly (Simon and Kirby left the title after the fourth issue), others took on the character and made him an adult lawyer who fought crime in Capital City. He was later partnered with Fly Girl.

Adventures of The Fly was cancelled with issue #30 (Oct. 1964). The Fly also appeared in short stories in some of Archie's other titles (The Double Life of Private Strong #1, #2 both published in 1959), (Pep Comics #151, 154, 160 and Laugh #128, 129, 132, 134, 137-139) between October 1961 and January 1963. His own series was restarted as Fly-Man as part of the "Mighty Comics Group", which ran from issues #31-39 (May 1965 - Sept. 1966). The title changed again to Mighty Comics, which featured various Archie super-heroes in solo adventures for #40-50 before its cancellation in 1967.

The Fly was published again in the 1980s under the Red Circle Comics imprint, running from issue #1 (May 1983) to #9 (October 1984). The stories in this series were more similar to the previous stories in Adventures of The Fly and co-starred Fly Girl. With issue #5, Steve Ditko both wrote and drew the stories, which portrayed Tommy Troy being framed and discredited. Ditko left the series after issue #8, and another writer wrapped up the storyline in #9, which cleared Troy from any guilt.

The Fly was one of the characters used in DC Comics' revamp of the Archie characters in DC's !mpact Comics line. This series, also called The Fly, ran 17 issues (Aug. 1991 - Dec. 1992) and portrayed the Fly as a boy (named Jason Troy) who turned into an adult superhero, similar to the original version of the character.