Who Was the First Comic Book Character To Have a Single Glowing Eye?

CBR

By Brian Cronin

Published Mar 26, 2020

In their latest spotlight on notable comic firsts, CSBG tries to settle on which comic book character was the first one to have a single glowing eye!

In "When We First Met", we spotlight the various characters, phrases, objects or events that eventually became notable parts of comic lore, like the first time someone said, "Avengers Assemble!" or the first appearance of Batman's giant penny or the first appearance of Alfred Pennyworth or the first time Spider-Man's face was shown half-Spidey/half-Peter. Stuff like that.

Today, based on a suggestion from reader B. Serum, we look at the first comic book character to rock the "one glowing eye" look.

In general, the most famous example nowadays is Rob Liefeld's design for Cable...

B. Serum noted Arthur Adams' design for Longshot...

It is correct that Arthur Adams was a major influence for most of the artists who would later found Image (specifically Liefeld and Todd McFarlane), but I don't know whether Longshot's glowing eye was specifically an influence on Cable.

I think the Terminator's glowing eye in 1984's The Terminator had a bigger impact...

The Terminator's glowing eye was a new approach for androids, as we saw when Ash is destroyed in Ridley Scott's Alien, there is no glowing eye (while nowadays, a busted glowing eye is a gimme for any time a robot or android or cyborg is destroyed)...

It's interesting to note that when the Vision was introduced, even though he even had HEAT VISION, his eyes did not glow...

George Perez's Cyborg, in the New Teen Titans, technically had one glowing eye, but it really didn't GLOW. It was just sort of plain red. Heck, the only glow ever came off of the glint of the metal in the side of his head...

Therefore, I think the answer is likely Walter Simonson's Valance (who just had a spotlight here at CBR by Margaret Lockyer), who was introduced in 1978's Star Wars #16.

We see Valance as a regular bounty hunter early in the issue...

But then, at the end, in a twist, he reveals that he is a cyborg...

And the issue ends with him pulling off his facial mask and showing that he is, indeed, rocking a single glowing eye...

Now, four years earlier, Rich Buckler had the innovative design for Deathlok in Astonishing Tales #25, and he had a different colored eye, just like Cyborg (it is likely that Perez was influenced by Buckler's Deathlok design)...

If you count that as "glowing," then Buckler's Deathlok would be the winner.

This is a tricky one. I still lean towards Simonson and Valance, but Buckler and Deathlok has a strong case, as well.

Reader Roderick L. wrote in to note that Claw's main bad guy in Claw the Unconquered (released in 1975) was named Occulas and he had a yellow eye that might be glowing (or it might not be)...