Lightmaster

Lightmaster (real name Dr. Edward Lansky) is a fictional character, a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.

Fictional character biography

Edward Lansky was born in New York City. He was a physics professor and vice-chancellor of Empire State University who turned to crime and became a criminal mastermind as a way to prevent budget cuts for higher education that would have negatively affected the university. As the Lightmaster, Lansky employed Kraven the Hunter and the Tarantula to help him kidnap several government officials of the city of New York who had initiated the budget cuts. The three were defeated by Spider-Man, who foiled the plot. Spider-Man ran a current of electricity through the Lightmaster's body suit.

However, Spider-Man had inadvertently caused Lightmaster to become a being of unstable energy, dependent on constant exposure to light just to survive. Seeking revenge on Spider-Man, Lightmaster accidentally causes a blackout in New York City, causing his own unstable body to dissipate into what he called a "light dimension." Lightmaster attempted to harness the powers of the mutant Dazzler's powerful light source as a means to regain his physical form on Earth. However, he was driven back to his non-physical existence by Dazzler and Spider-Man. He again attempted to regain his physical form, this time by harnessing Quasar's quantum bands and taking over Quasar's body. On this latter occasion, Lightmaster succeeded in returning himself to a normal physical existence, despite Spider-Man's interference.