This is "Out of Sight," a feature where I explore notable comic book moments that occurred off-panel. When I say "off-panel," I'm mostly talking about a character not being around and then showing up and us learning that something dramatic happened to them off-panel. I'm flexible enough that I can deal with maybe something "in between panels," as well. You can hit me up at brianc@cbr.com if you have a suggestion for a future column!

Today, we look at the odd journey of Mister Bones from villain to sort of hero to the director of the government's superhero watchdog group!

As an aside, this is a fairly new feature, and it is new enough that I was in the middle of researching this one when I totally forgot what column this was for. "This doesn't seem to be a retcon. What column is this for?" and then I remembered, "Oh, right, the new one about stuff that happens off panel." It just amused me that I forgot my own column for a second there. Back to the story!

The whole thing started back in 1984's Infinity Inc. #16 (by Roy Thomas, Dann Thomas, Todd McFarlane and Tony DeZuniga), when Mister Bones shows up on a mission to kidnap Hector Hall. He instead finds Hector's girlfriend, Lyta Trevor A.K.A. The Fury, and they have a battle...

Tragically, during the fight, one of Lyta's pet Kangas (she is from the Paradise Island of Earth-2 and is the daughter of the Wonder Woman of that Earth) is killed as we see Mister Bones' cyanide touch in action...

As you can see from his reaction, he really isn't a total bad guy.

He escapes and we meet his gang soon after, called Helix...

You see, this crazed scientist known as Doctor Love injected six pregnant women with a special drug that mutated their babies. When they were born, Doctor Love kidnapped as many of them as he could and then locked them up in a house and raised them by himself. Since they had no outside contacts, they grew up really weird. When they learned what Dr. Love had done to them, they rebelled and Bones apparently murdered him (we later learned that Bones couldn't go through with it) and then they went off on their own as their own gang, called Helix.

They gained a new teammate, a shark-man who was also one of the experimented kids (but Doctor Love couldn't get access to him).

In a rematch with Helix, Infinity Inc. captured Mister Bones. He told the rest of the team to leave him...

He discovered that the shark guy (named Carcharo, who turned out to be cousins with Wildcat II, who was also one of the babies who was experimented on) was REALLY evil and he decided to help Infinity Inc. take him down. He ended up stabbing him but then Carcharo bit his leg off, which, in turn, killed Carcharo (because of the whole cyanide touch thing)...

The injured Bones was placed into the custody of the Infinitors and Doctor Mid-Nite (Beth Chapel) helped build him a prosthetic leg and they became friends...

He eventually kind of sort of became a member of the team with his new leg...

Ultimately, Helix rejected him for being TOO much of a good guy.

Then things took a turn for the tragic. Harlequin used her powers to make herself look like Jade. She then took Solomon Grundy's obsession with Jade to make him obey her. She had Grundy take off Bones' glove and then forced him to touch Skyman of Infinity Inc. and kill him!!

Sad. At the end of the issue, the rest of the team forgave him, but they still broke up because of the tragedy (and the book's cancellation)...

He wouldn't be seen for a DECADE. Until...

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D. Curtis Johnson, J.H. Williams III and Mick Gray did a new series called Chase, about a young woman named Cameron Chase who went to go work for the Department of Extranormal Operations. They had an unnamed director at first.

But then, in Chase #4, we see that it is Mister Bones!

Here he is again in Chase #8...

That series ended.

In a JSA Secret Files #2, Johnson and Williams wrote a story (with Rick Burchett art) about how even his own employees don't udnerstand how he went from rogue hero to the director of a major government organization!

It's just one of those things.

Okay, that's it for this installment of Out of Sight! Thanks for the suggestion, Mik! Everyone else, e-mail me at brianc@cbr.com if you have other suggestions for future Out of Sight columns!