Mister Terrific (Michael Holt)

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  In June 1997, Spectre volume 3, issue 54 introduced Michael Holt, the DC Comics hero known as Mister Terrific. John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake created him. He has no superpowers. His mind, his machines and a code of conduct he inherited from someone else do all the work. Holt is most often drawn as an African American man with a relentless drive toward excellence. His background shifts from one telling to the next, yet one thread keeps returning. A man who seems to have everything is brought low, and then rebuilds himself around helping others. What broke him? Whose name did he take, and why did that name matter so much? And how did a hero without powers end up crossing into other universes and reaching the movie screen?

  22232

• 2. A Borrowed Name

  ›

  As a child, Michael Holt could read the work of physicists Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein, Max Planck and Richard Feynman and actually understand it. He grew up alongside his older brother Jeffrey, who was mentally challenged and whom Michael loved dearly. Jeffrey died at the age of 12, and Michael was devastated.

  As an adult, Holt became a self-made multi-millionaire. Then his wife Paula and their unborn child were killed in a car crash. Sunk in depression, he contemplated suicide. The trauma also made him an atheist, and it strained the beliefs he had held before.

  At that low point, the Spectre, whose human identity is Jim Corrigan, told Holt about Terry Sloane. Sloane was the Golden Age hero called Mister Terrific, and he had died years earlier. He had faced circumstances much like Holt's own. The story frames this meeting as a kind of divine intervention. Holt took Sloane's life as an example, adopted the codename, and embraced a principle called Fair Play. He also decided to honor Paula, a humanitarian, by helping other people.

  The new Mister Terrific did not stay alone for long, because a seat among the heroes of the Justice Society of America was waiting for him.

  911131523

• 3. Chairman and Betrayal

  ›

  Hawkman, a former chairman of the Justice Society, and Sand, the sitting chairman, once clashed over who should lead the team. Holt's teammates settled the matter by electing him chairman, even though he had not sought the office. He held the post until the team disbanded after the "Infinite Crisis" storyline. He also joined the organization Checkmate, and that role led him to hand his position as chairmate to Power Girl.

  In the third volume of Justice Society of America, a low-level villain named Tapeworm takes several hostages and demands that Wildcat show himself. The rest of the team rushes off to help Wildcat. Inside Mister Terrific's lab, All-American Kid stabs him in the back and claims to have been under mind control.

  Terrific is mortally wounded. Alan Scott slows time around his body, hoping he can be healed before he dies. Doctor Fate then heals him. Terrific turns on All-American Kid, who is revealed to be the villain Kid Karnevil in disguise.

  Holt also served on the Justice League and later led a team of his own called The Terrifics, whose first adventure took him somewhere far stranger than a lab.

  1617182526

• 4. Dark Multiverse and Family

  ›

  In The Terrifics, Simon Stagg schemes to open a portal to the Dark Multiverse, using Metamorpho transmuted into Nth Metal. Mister Terrific tries to make Stagg close it with help from Plastic Man. Both are pulled through, and Plastic Man shields them from the energy of the Dark Multiverse. They land on a lifeless world.

  There they meet Phantom Girl, who is trapped in her intangible form and knows nothing about sending a signal. The four find a computer in the gut of a dead giant creature. A hologram of Tom Strong greets them and says they are needed to save the universe. Back on Earth, they learn that the Dark Multiverse energy has bonded them. If they try to stay apart, they are forcibly drawn together.

  In The New Golden Age, Holt adopts Quiz Kid, the former sidekick of Terry Sloane, after the boy is transported to the present day.

  Later, Granny Goodness kidnaps Wally West's newborn son Wade, and West organizes a rescue team that includes Mister Terrific. On Apokolips, the team discovers that Goodness has been training superhuman boys as the Furious, an all-male counterpart to the Female Furies. One of them is Jeffrey Holt, Michael's son. He was taken from the womb of a dying Paula and raised as an orphan. Once freed, Jeffrey moves in with Michael and Quiz Kid and takes the moniker Fairplay.

  That household now holds a remarkable collection of talents, beginning with the credentials of its head.

  192072421

• 5. Tools of the Trade

  ›

  Fourteen Ph.Ds stand behind Michael Holt's name before he ever pulls on a mask. His degrees span fields that include medicine, engineering, law, mathematics and physics. He has been called the most intelligent member of the Justice Society and the third-smartest person in the world. He also owns a self-made cyber-tech company and is regarded as a natural leader.

  His body matches his mind. Holt is a natural athlete in peak condition, cited as an Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon. That fitness makes him a capable martial artist, with black belts in six different disciplines.

  His uniform carries real technology. The mask doubles as a communication system and lets him detect various forms of light. Nanotechnology in the costume cloaks him from "technology", so radar and audio sensors cannot pick him up.

  His best-known inventions are the T-Spheres, remote-controlled floating robotic spheres. They can project holograms, hack into other machines and release bursts of energy. On television, a different inventor gets credit for those spheres.

  22232436

• 6. Cancellation and Alternates

  ›

  In 2011, DC rebooted its continuity under the banner of The New 52, and Mister Terrific received a self-titled ongoing series. Eric Wallace wrote it and Roger Robinson drew it. Cully Hamner designed a new costume for Holt.

  On the 12th of January 2012, DC cancelled the series along with five other titles with low sales. The final story displaced Terrific to a parallel universe, which led to his appearances on Earth-2.

  Other versions of Holt tell different stories. An Earth-2 Michael Holt in Justice Society of America volume 3 is a college professor. He became a devout Christian after his wife was nearly killed in an accident. Another alternate universe version appears in "Flashpoint".

  The darkest counterpart lives in DCeased: A Good Day to Die. That Holt searches for a cure for the Anti-Life Equation virus. An infected Big Barda kills him before he can finish.

  242725268

• 7. Curtis Holt

  ›

  Echo Kellum plays Curtis Holt, a character based on Michael Holt, in the CW's Arrowverse. Curtis arrives in the fourth season of Arrow as a member of Palmer Technologies. He is in a relationship with a man named Paul, who created the T-spheres, and he is a fan of the Green Arrow.

  In the fifth season, Curtis joins "Team Arrow" in its vigilantism. He takes the name "Mister Terrific" in honor of his favorite wrestler, Terry Sloane. In the sixth season, he starts an online business and breaks away to form a separate group with Dinah Drake and Rene Ramirez.

  During the seventh and eighth seasons, Curtis leaves Star City for work in Washington D.C. He returns to help Team Arrow fight the Ninth Circle and Grant Wilson. He also helps the Green Arrow find a weapon capable of killing the Monitor, rescues William Clayton, and attends the Green Arrow's funeral after the hero dies averting the Crisis.

  Curtis also appears in the animated series Freedom Fighters: The Ray. He is a playable character in Lego DC Super-Villains through the "DC TV Super-Heroes" downloadable pack.

  329

• 8. Voices and Casts

  ›

  Michael Beach voices Michael Holt in Justice League Unlimited, where he is a member of the Justice League. He eventually becomes the group's mission coordinator after J'onn J'onzz resigns from active duty. In the Beware the Batman episode "Hunted", Gary Anthony Williams voices a version who is a businessman. Hannibal Buress voices him in Justice League Action, as a self-proclaimed third-smartest person in the world, a former child prodigy, and the college roommate of Martin Stein. He also makes a cameo in the Peacemaker episode "The Ties That Grind".

  In the film Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, an alternate version named Mister Horrific has a non-speaking cameo as a minor member of the Crime Syndicate under Superwoman. In Justice League: Gods and Monsters, with Arif S. Kinchen voicing him, Holt is a scientist in Lex Luthor's "Project Fair Play". That program is a contingency plan to counter their universe's Justice League. After three fellow scientists are killed, Holt and the rest try to regroup, but the Metal Men kill them.

  Kevin Michael Richardson voices him in Justice League vs. the Fatal Five, as an associate of the Justice League. Edwin Hodge voices him in Injustice, and Ato Essandoh does so in Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths.

  Other formats have picked him up as well. Injustice: Gods Among Us shows him in a cameo via the Watchtower stage, and Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure lets players summon him. In Smallville Season 11: Chaos #3, he is a billionaire, the CEO of HoltCorp, and an associate of Bruce Wayne and Ted Kord. In the crossover miniseries DC X Sonic the Hedgehog, he belongs to the Justice League and runs the Watchtower. Toy collectors can find him in the DC Universe Classics line and in a Target-exclusive Justice League Unlimited line.

  In the 2025 film Superman, Edi Gathegi plays him as a member of Maxwell Lord's Justice Gang. Gathegi is set to return in Man of Tomorrow.

  2830313233