Oswald Loomis AKA The Prankster is a DC universe super-villain who uses prank-themed weaponized gadgetry. Traditionally he is a villain for Superman but as of the New 52 he was reimagined as an enemy to Nightwing and Batman.
History[]
Pre-Crisis (Golden Age & Silver Age)[]
Oswald Loomis AKA The Prankster was a Metropolis criminal and recurring enemy of Superman. He used gadgets which were made to resemble practical-jokes like squirting lapel flowers, RC explosives, and pop-guns. He considered Superman to be his favourite victim for pranks due to his invincibility.
Post-Crisis (New Earth)[]
Following Crisis on Infinite Earths, Oswald was given a backstory as having been the host of a WGBS-TV early morning children's program called, "The Uncle Oswald Show". When ratings began dropping, Oswald started making his pranks more and more dangerous. After his show was cancelled, he used the pranks to try and get revenge on the people of Metropolis, making him an enemy of the Man of Steel.
New 52 (Prime Earth)[]
Origins[]
Oswald Loomis was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois to a father named Harold Loomis. Harold was an engineer who made a deal with two men known as the Cole brothers to bring a train-line through Harold's neighbourhood. On Halloween night, the deal went sour and the Coles murdered Harold when Oswald was out trick-or-treating. When Oswald came home, he found his father's corpse spraweled out across the floor and chose to declare vengeance.
Prankster's classic appearance
Of the Cole brothers William and Wallace, William was arrested but never testified against Wallace who would go on to become mayor. When William was in prison, Oswald sent his Halloween mask to the jail as a reminder that his punishment wasn't over.
The Prankster[]
As an adult, Oswald donned a mask and costume to become, The Prankster. By now, Oswald had become a genius engineer, coder and hacker and aimed at torturing and murdering the corrupt political and business officials who allowed for Wallace Cole to become mayor.
Oswald would get his vengeance by forcing them into death-traps meant to be ironic in some way. For example, he forced a human-trafficker to burn all of his illegally obtained money in a bonfire as a means of keeping a ferral wolf on the other side of the fire at bay, and murdering a lighting/insulation con-artist by rigging wiring to deliver a lethal dose of electricity to his body. When Nightwing (who was in town hunting down his parents' killer Tony Zucco) intervened to try and stop him, Oswald hacked into Nightwing's mask to blind the hero.
Soon, both Oswald and Nightwing became targets of the Chicago Police Department as apparently the city has a, "No masks" law to prevent the operations of superheroes and super-villains. This forced Oswald and Nightwing to team up against a common enemy to try and escape. After escaping, Nightwing and Oswald somewhat bonded and Nightwing asked for Oswald's computer assistance for tracking down Tony Zucco. After Prankster did so, Nightwing handcuffed him to the roof-top they were on for the authorities to find. Oswald managed to escape from them before they could do so however.
Prankster's final scheme in the city was to detonate a bomb with him announcing he would do so unless the government of Chicago returned the 52 million dollars they stole from their citizens. Nightwing was able to stop him, strangely enough by teaming up with Tony Zucco and moving on from the hatred he held in his past. Loomis was then arrested, still obsessed with revenge as he was unable to move on himself.
Batman Eternal[]
When the Cluemaster was recruited by Owlman to destroy Gotham City from the inside, Prankster was one of several criminals recruited by Cluemaster for his inner circle. Other members of this inner-circle included: Lock-Up, Ratcatcher, Firefly and Signalman.
Cluemaster's inner-circle worked to exploit how the authorities and superhero vigilantes would almost always pass-over chasing after C/D-tier criminals as-long as there was a more notorious super-villain commiting a crime, even if the notorious villain's crime was less urgent or violent. Because of this, Cluemaster's team would be the real power-players wearas more reputable super-criminals would act as red-herrings outside of Gotham to distract the bat-family.
In this scheme, Prankster was given the job of hacking into Gotham's electrical-grid to cause massive blackouts. Ultimately of-course the scheme proved unsuccesful due to Owlman's interference in Cluemaster's plans and because of the best-efforts of the bat family.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Genius Intellect for Engineering:
- Genius Computer Expert:
- Expert Hacker:
Appearances in Other media[]
- The New Adventures of Superman:
- Superman (TV animated series):
- Lois & Clark:
- The Flash: