Negative Man (comics)

Negative Man
Negative Man. Art by Bruno Premiani
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	My Greatest Adventure #80 (June 1963)
Created by	Bob Haney Arnold Drake Bruno Premiani
In-story information
Alter ego	Larry Trainor
Team affiliations	Doom Patrol
Notable aliases	Rebis
Abilities	Radioactive "soul-self" is capable of flight, intangibility and can generate minor explosions upon contact with positive energy, temporally astral projection

Negative Man is a fictional superhero from DC Comics.

The Larry Trainor version of Negative Man first appeared in My Greatest Adventure #80 and was created by Bob Haney, Arnold Drake, and Bruno Premiani. Drake recalled,

I left [editor Murray Boltinoff's] office and bumped into Bob Haney in the hall. Bob was a real good friend of mine ... I asked him if he got an assignment from Bob Kanigher. He had this routine where he'd come up from Woodstock once a week and stay for two nights and get a couple of assignments from Kanigher and then go back home and write them. He said he didn't get an assignment from Kanigher, and I told him I had this assignment that I was about two-thirds through with, but I needed another character and maybe between us we could come up with something. We sat down and came up with this notion of a guy who has gone through a cloud of radioactivity and is bandaged from head to toe with these specially treated bandages that keep the radioactivity within him so he isn't injurious to others. The most novel aspect was Negative Man, the character who lives inside him who can only be outside of him for 60 seconds - and don't ask me why 60 seconds.

The original Negative Man, Larry Trainor, is a founding member of the Doom Patrol, along with Elasti-Girl, Robotman, and The Chief. Like the rest of the Doom Patrol, Trainor sees himself as a victim as much as a hero, and his superpower as an infection rather than a blessing.

Trainor's career as a superhero begins when he is accidentally exposed to a radioactive field in the atmosphere while piloting a test plane. This experience leaves him radioactive himself, but also gives him a strange superpower: the ability to release a negatively charged energy being from his body; the being, also referred to as Negative Man, or, later, as the Negative Spirit, can fly at high speed, cause solid objects to explode, and pass through solid materials. It resembles a shadowy silhouette of a human being, surrounded by a bright glow. The being is under Trainor's control and appears at first to have no mind of its own. Unfortunately, Trainor is weak and defenseless while the being is separated from his body; he can only risk sending it forth for 60 seconds at a time without risking death. After his accident, Trainor resembles the Invisible Man; he is forced to wear specially treated bandages over his entire body to protect bystanders from his radioactivity.