At a young age, Michael Holt showed remarkable intelligence, reading and assimilating the works of Bohr, Einstein, Planck and Feynman, the pantheon of theoretic physics, at the age of six. He studied advanced science, space and time “while other children struggled through Sesame Street.”
Holt displayed as he called it, “a natural aptitude for having natural aptitudes,” easily picking up and retaining complex skills and abilities that other men spent their entire lives perfecting. Before he began his career as a superhero, he already possessed 14 Ph.D’s (two in Engineering and Physics — including assorted doctorates and masters in degrees in Law, Psychology, Chemistry, Political Science and Mathematics). He was a self-made multi-millionaire with a high tech firm called Cyberwear (later Holt Holdings Inc.) and was a Gold-medal winning Olympic decathelete.
While contemplating suicide after the death of his mentally handicapped older brother and the accidental death of his wife and unborn child, Holt was met by the Spirit of God’s Vengeance, known as the Spectre (ironically, Holt is an atheist), who told him about Terry Sloane, the “Golden Age” superhero known as Mister Terrific [1]. Inspired by Sloane’s life story he took the name Mister Terrific and later joined the current Justice Society of America, eventually serving as its chairman.
