Lobo (character)

• 1. Introduction

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  Lobo is a DC Comics antihero whose name, in his alien tongue, roughly means he who devours your entrails and thoroughly enjoys it. The name is not a boast. He comes from a planet called Czarnia, and he roams the galaxy as a mercenary and bounty hunter, killing whoever a client names.

  His career is stranger than that name suggests. He began as a villain that his own writers quickly abandoned, and by the 1990s he was one of the publisher's loudest stars. How does a character fall out of use and then come roaring back? Why did readers cheer for a creation that was meant to mock the heroes they loved? And how does a hired killer who prizes his word survive reboots, death, and even a stay in Hell?

• 2. A Forgotten Villain

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  Omega Men #3, published in June 1983, was the first comic to show Lobo. Roger Slifer and Keith Giffen created him for a series that had spun off from Green Lantern and Teen Titans stories.

  The first Lobo was not a Czarnian at all. He was a Velorpian whose entire race had been wiped out by beings called Psions. He was partnered with a man named Bedlam, whom he later killed. That origin was eventually rewritten.

  As a hardened villain, he soon fell out of use with writers. A well-received appearance in Justice League International gave him a second chance. From there he became a regular in L.E.G.I.O.N. and in its successor series, R.E.B.E.L.S.

  Vril Dox, the founder of the interstellar police force called L.E.G.I.O.N., tricked Lobo into nominally joining it. Lobo kept working on his own, which often brought him to Earth and into conflict with its heroes. He stayed loyal to Dox even after Dox's son seized the leadership. Then an altercation between the two led Dox to release him from service, and Lobo went back to full-time bounty hunting.

  The Lobo of those early issues would be barely recognizable today. He was thin, he wore an orange-and-purple leotard, and his hair was neatly trimmed and purple-grey.

• 3. Satire Taken Seriously

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  In 1990, a four-issue miniseries called Lobo: The Last Czarnian rebuilt the character from the ground up. Giffen plotted it, Alan Grant wrote it, and Simon Bisley drew it. It swapped the old Velorpian backstory for a new one. Now Lobo was the last Czarnian, because he had violently killed every other member of his species.

  Bisley's exaggerated, dynamic style is often named as a key factor in the revival. His own biker lifestyle shaped the design. The leotard gave way to black leather biker gear, and Lobo became a chalk-white, heavily muscled figure with red pupilless eyes and blackened eyelids. His hair kept changing over the years. It went from a gray mane to long, straggly gray-black rocker hair, then to dreadlocks, and more recently to a pompadour. His outfits ranged from the robes of a putative Archbishop to pirate gear and a sleeveless flight suit.

  The writers meant this Lobo as a parody. He was a send-up of Marvel's Wolverine and of the 1990s appetite for grim and gritty superheroes. Giffen explained it in a 2006 interview: "I have no idea why Lobo took off... I came up with him as an indictment of the Punisher, Wolverine hero prototype, and somehow he caught on as the high violence poster boy. Go figure". He also said that Lobo and Ambush Bug both grew out of Lunatik, a character he invented in high school.

  Fans of the trend embraced Lobo enthusiastically instead of laughing at him. DC gave him a much higher profile from then on. His own DC series ran for 64 issues, from 1993 to 1999. Stan Lee named Lobo his favorite DC Comics character.

• 4. Specials and Crossovers

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  Lobocop, a parody of RoboCop, was one of a wave of specials that followed the 1990 miniseries. In Paramilitary Christmas Special, the Easter Bunny hires Lobo to assassinate Santa Claus. Blazing Chain of Love sends him to a harem on a job. Convention Special pokes fun at comic book conventions. Unamerican Gladiators puts him in a televised deadly game show. In Infanticide, he kills his daughter and the other offspring she gathered to try to kill him.

  Lobo also crossed over with characters from other publishers, including the Mask, Judge Dredd, and the Authority. In one Authority story, Jenny Quantum finds a comic book describing Lobo's murder of Santa. She reacts with rage and confusion and breaks the barrier between her dimension and his. Lobo ends up in a fight with the Authority.

  The DC vs. Marvel crossover series pitted Lobo against Wolverine, the very character he had been designed to mock. Fans voted on the winner, and Wolverine won. In the JLA/Avengers crossover, Lobo is seen fighting members of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard. The outcome is not shown, but a line mentions that the Guard had trouble containing him.

  Within DC, Lobo has both clashed and cooperated with Superman. He has met Batman a couple of times, and one of those meetings took place in an Elseworlds continuity. Guy Gardner has fought beside him more than once, and Lobo often drinks free at Gardner's bar, Warriors. His fight with Aquaman began when a space dolphin visiting Earth was killed by Japanese fishermen. Lobo stopped fighting once he learned that Aquaman was raised by dolphins. He could not hurt a fellow dolphin lover, but he showed the fishermen no mercy.

  Imitation followed fame. Issue #41 of Marvel's Deadpool parodied him as Dirty Wolff, a large blue-skinned man on a demonic motorcycle. Image Comics ran a parody in Bloodwulf, and Topps Comics offered Bolo in Satan's Six. Lobo the Duck, a fusion with Howard the Duck, turned up in the Amalgam Comics universe.

• 5. A Strict Code

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  Miss Tribb, Lobo's fourth-grade teacher, is both one of his targets and one of the few Czarnians still alive. Lobo killed most of his species with a scorpion-like creature. Later stories revealed other survivors: Miss Tribb, a former military officer, and the population of a city that Brainiac stole centuries earlier.

  Lobo is arrogant and self-centered, and he loves mindless violence and intoxication. He treats killing as an end in itself. Yet he has a personal code. He will never break the letter of an agreement, though he may gleefully ignore its spirit, and he delivers exactly what he promised, no more and no less. Once he takes a contract, he finishes it. If a rival offers a counter-contract for more money, he fulfills the new one instead.

  Space dolphins are the surprising exception to his cruelty. Lobo feeds some of them from his home. When a few were killed in separate incidents, he avenged them with his usual violence.

  His friends include Jonas Glim, a fellow bounty hunter, and Ramona, a bail bondswoman and hairdresser. Then there is Dawg, a bulldog that Lobo claims is not his whenever it causes trouble. In Lobo (vol. 2) #58, Lobo stomps Dawg to death while telling Superman, for the final time, that the dog is not his. Somehow Dawg later turns up beside him again when Lobo goes to Earth to fight Green Lantern and Atrocitus.

  His enemies include the superhero parody Goldstar, Loo, Bludhound, Etrigan the Demon, and General Glory. Superman and Deathstroke are his main targets.

  Al's Diner is where Lobo goes to eat, and where he flirts with the waitress Darlene Spritzer. He protects Al and Darlene from frequent danger, yet he keeps destroying the diner. Eventually he levels the entire city except the diner, which leaves hordes of construction workers with only one place to eat lunch. Business booms. He also wrecks a diner that Al gives him as a birthday present.

  Lobo has also tried money-making schemes such as working as a priest and as a pop-rock idol. Most of them end with nearly everyone involved dead. The diner would turn up once more in what looks like his final adventure, in 1998.

• 6. Powers and Contradictions

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  Lobo's strength has no fixed ceiling, and it shifts with each artist. In some stories he can barely lift a mid-size vehicle overhead. In others he matches Superman. He has been a match in strength for Etrigan the Demon every time they have met. His legs give him leverage and leaping ability under any planetary atmosphere.

  Durability is just as inconsistent. Conventional bullets can hurt him in some stories. In others he stands toe to toe with Superman, survives unprotected in deep space, and shrugs off powerful explosions. Gaseous chemicals are a particular weakness. In one tale he was declared immortal. After he died and went to Hell, he proved too much for the demons. Sent to Heaven, he caused so much havoc that he was banished from the afterlife for good.

  His healing factor repairs damaged or destroyed tissue quickly and with little apparent pain. He does not age and cannot catch diseases. He can even regenerate out of a pool of his own blood, apparently recycling the cells. His senses are sharper than most. Once he catches the scent of a mark, no place in the universe can hide them, and his hearing reaches across great distances. He also has a special, unspecified sense that detects any opponent's weak point.

  A large titanium alloy chain with a gutting hook, often called the garrote, is his favorite weapon. He keeps it wrapped around his right wrist. He also uses high-grade explosives, edged weapons, and advanced firearms.

  Despite his loutish manner, Lobo shows a genius-level intellect for destruction. He can make complex virulent agents and the matching antidotes. In one version of his backstory, he released a plague on Czarnia as a school science project. The entire population died within a week, and he gave himself an A. He is fluent in many alien languages, 17,897 by his own count. He once destroyed a whole planet because he could not find a cigar he liked.

  The Last Czarnian and other stories say that healing and survival in the vacuum of space are traits shared by all Czarnians. It is not fully known whether his other powers are common to his race or unique to him. His space-faring motorcycle, the Space Hog, is of his own design. It shields those nearby from the hazards of space and lets them breathe and speak. After he scavenged parts from a destroyed time hopper and attached them to the bike, it became a working time machine.

• 7. Rewrites and Resurrections

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  In 1998, Lobo (vol. 2) #1,000,000 depicted what looks like his last adventure. Lobo is obese and working as a carnival attraction, scaring tourists out of their money. A sexy client offers him one last job, finding the legendary evildoer Malo Perverso. The client turns out to be Darlene, who wanted to see him in his prime instead of watching him sink into sloth. Perverso proves to be Clayman in disguise, and the real one has gone into a black hole. Lobo follows, and the diner blows up yet again.

  In the year 2000, a magical accident turned Lobo into a teenager who joined Young Justice. On Apokolips he was killed in combat, but the accident had restored his ability to grow clones from a single drop of blood. Millions of Lobos rushed into battle and defeated the Apokoliptian soldiers. Then they turned on each other until only one remained, who regrew to adulthood. One weaker teenage Lobo had hidden from the fight and rejoined Young Justice as Slobo. His body later degenerated and left him blind. Darkseid then moved him to the 853rd century and turned him into a sentient, immobile statue.

  The 2006-07 miniseries 52 found Lobo stranded in space with Adam Strange, Animal Man, and Starfire, and he surprised everyone by not killing them. He claimed to have found religion and had become the spiritual leader of Sector 3500, as well as caretaker of the Emerald Eye of Ekron. After helping the heroes defeat Lady Styx, he delivered the Eye to a triple-headed fish god. The god released Lobo from his vow of non-violence in exchange. Lobo then used the Eye, the one thing that could kill the god, to blast him.

  The Reign in Hell miniseries revealed that Lobo's soul had been in Hell since a deal with Neron in the 1995 Underworld Unleashed storyline. His suffering powered Neron's entire castle. A battle between Etrigan the Demon and Blue Devil freed him, and he rampaged through Hell seeking revenge. During that rampage he cut off Zatara's head, and Zatara's daughter Zatanna sent him to the Abyss, the soul death. Later, Lobo aided the JLA on its mission into Hell, where he helped Fire defeat the god Plutus.

  In the 2010 "Brightest Day" storyline, Lobo came to Earth to collect a bounty on Atrocitus. Atrocitus had staged the fight himself, and as payment he gave Lobo a Red Lantern ring. Vril Dox later recruited Lobo from a bar to help in the R.E.B.E.L.S. series. Lobo helped save the planet Colu and became a senior member of Dox's Legion on the planet Rann. He was key to defeating Starro the Conqueror, but the series ended before the Psions' plan to clone Lobo and revive the Czarnian race could play out.

  In 2011, The New 52 reboot debuted a new Lobo in Deathstroke (vol. 2) #9, written by Rob Liefeld. This one was a Czarnian slaver who killed his race, except for his beloved Princess Sheba. A second version, who claimed to be the real Lobo, appeared in Justice League (vol. 2) #23.2. He had been bodyguard to the Czarnian royal family, and a contaminated ritual drove the royals insane, forcing him into what the story calls planetary euthanasia. A series about this version ran from October 2014 to December 2015.

  DC Rebirth, in 2016, restored a Lobo much like the pre-New 52 one. In Justice League vs. Suicide Squad, Maxwell Lord freed him, and he joined Amanda Waller's first Suicide Squad. Batman put a bomb in Lobo's brain and detonated it. Lobo regenerated his head, then learned Batman had done it to free him from Lord's control. He accepted Batman's offer to join a new Justice League to repay the favor. Meanwhile, the New 52 Lobo sat imprisoned in one of Brainiac's bottles. Guy Gardner nearly freed him, but Hal Jordan took the bottle and said it was better to leave him on the shelf.

• 8. Beyond the Page

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  Brad Garrett gave Lobo his voice in the DC Animated Universe. In Superman: The Animated Series, the two-part episode "The Main Man" has an alien called the Preserver hire Lobo to capture Superman for a collection of endlings, the last members of their kinds. The Preserver then decides to add Lobo too, since he is also an endling. Lobo and Superman team up to escape, and Lobo promises to leave Earth alone in return. In the Justice League episode "Hereafter", Lobo replaces Superman on the team after Toyman sends Superman to the future. Superman returns and ousts him.

  Other animation followed. Greg Eagles and Kevin Michael Richardson voiced him in a Flash web series, and he cameoed in the Legion of Super Heroes episode "Legacy". David Sobolov voiced him in Young Justice, Tom Kenny in DC Super Hero Girls (2015), and John DiMaggio in Justice League Action. In 2020, Olan Rogers pitched an adult animated series about Lobo and his daughter Crush to Warner Bros., but it was scrapped.

  Lobo made his live-action debut in the second season of Krypton, played by Emmett J. Scanlan. This version holds a vendetta against Brainiac, who destroyed Czarnia and stole his home city. A spin-off about him was announced, but it did not proceed after Krypton was cancelled.

  The film road has been bumpier. Andrew Bryniarski played him in the independent short The Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special. In September 2009, Warner Bros. announced that Guy Ritchie would direct a live-action Lobo film. Lobo would have come to Earth and joined forces with a teenage girl to find four fugitives. The studio reportedly wanted a PG-13 rating. Ritchie left to work on a sequel to Sherlock Holmes, and the film was put on hold.

  In 2012, Brad Peyton was attached to write and direct. Dwayne Johnson was in talks to play Lobo, but in February of the following year he left to play Black Adam in Shazam!. Jason Fuchs was later hired to write the script. In February 2018, Michael Bay was attached to direct after being inspired by the success of Deadpool. None of those versions reached the screen.

  Smaller film appearances did arrive. Warwolf, an Earth-Three version of Lobo, makes a non-speaking cameo in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. Fred Tatasciore voiced Lobo in Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Aquaman - Rage of Atlantis and in Lego DC Shazam! Magic and Monsters. In the Tomorrowverse films, Ryan Hurst voiced him first and John DiMaggio took over.

  On the game side, Ocean Software planned a self-titled fighting game, but it was cancelled. Lobo has since been playable in Injustice: Gods Among Us, voiced by David Sobolov, and in Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham, voiced by Travis Willingham. He is also playable in DC Unchained and Lego DC Super-Villains, where Sobolov returned and Lobo narrates several bonus missions. Rick D. Wasserman voices him in Justice League: Cosmic Chaos. In prose, Alan Grant wrote him into the 2006 novel DC Universe: Last Sons.

  Jason Momoa is slated to play Lobo in the DC Universe film Supergirl, set for 2026. In comics, a new ongoing series is planned for March 2026 under the "DC Next Level" initiative, with Skottie Young writing and Jorge Corona on art.