Director Bones
40 years ago - Bones is born as the result of a failed mutogenic test by S.H.A.D.E. He is kidnapped by Doctor Love, the scientist in charge of the test, and raised as his experiment.
21 years ago - 19-year-old Bones is used as a weapon by Doctor Love.
19 years ago - 21-year-old Bones turns on Doctor Love & his experiments and hands himself over to the DEO where he soon becomes an asset.
14 years ago - 26-year-old Bones & Frankenstein are stripped of their positions with the DEO by Amanda Waller, made to instead work with Argus as part of the new Freedom Fighters.
6 years ago - 34-year-old Bones gains control of the Freedom Fighters when Amanda Waller loses her poistion as tactical director of Argus. He consolidates his authority and becoming the head of the DEO, moving the Freedom Fighters to the DEO's control.
Director Bones is a pretty obscure character to causal comic fans, which is a shame because he's such an immediately striking character concept. Truthfully, he's a fairly traditional "director of the government organization" character. It's a pretty well-worn concept; ever secret agent character there's ever been (The Six-million Dollar Man, James Bond, Maxwell Smart...)has has their version of it. Even Nick Fury is just a version of this concept, just with an airship instead of an office. Simply updating that character with an awesome visual like making him an animated skeleton really takes the idea and makes it dance... and whoever came up with the idea to make him constantly smoking is just brilliant. It turns him into some sort of specter of death behind a desk. the juxtaposition is just great.
If this design was just a single, original concept, that would be pretty cool. But somehow this idea actually evolved over time. Mr. Bones was an Infinity Inc villian, a member of the villainous group Helix. There's an element of the vintage public domain superhero Black Terror's costume in his look, but the exposed skeleton was entirely original. It was explained by saying that his skin and soft tissue was all transparent, which is honestly a pretty weak explanation, but the result is so cool we can give it a pass. Exonerated as a minor, Bones would go on to work alongside the members of Infinity Inc. We can't quite reach consensus that he ever joined the team or not, but he became a regular part of their lineup |
The Crisis of Infinite Earths left most of Infinity Inc in the lurch, having removed the reality they were from. The popular members of the team found new homes in different part of the new timeline. As best as we can tell, Bones first appeared as the director of the Department of Extra-normal Affairs in the pages of JSA, which means the design was likely conceived by James Robinson or Geoff Johns. It's jut a slam dunk.
In our effort to flesh out our timeline, we wanted to make sure there was a clear timeline in the various government organizations and the teams they supervise. One of the keys to this was the transfer of control over Checkmate from the American government to the United Nations, and the structuring of the Freedom Fighters, the Global Guardians, and the Suicide Squad. We've made Bones a HUGE player in all of this, because it's a great role for him. The idea that he was a villain's biological weapon that actively turned against him, became a government operative, and proved himself in the field until he was able to take direct control over various organizations and take an active role in the restructuring of those groups and the teams they supervise is just awesome. |