Real Name: Dr. Edward Lansky
Occupation: Ex-physics professor, ex-vice chancellor of Empire State University.
Identity: Publicly known
Legal Status: Citizen of the United States with a criminal record
Former Aliases: None known
Place of Birth: New York, New York
Marital Status: Single
Known Relatives: None
Group Affiliation: Partner of Kraven and Tarantula
Base of Operations: New York area
First Appearance: SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #3

History: Edward Lansky, vice-chancellor of Empire State University, concocted a criminal plot against the New York City government to prevent budget cuts for higher education, which would have harmed E.S.U. Lansky used his scientific knowledge and university lab facilities to design a special body-suit capable of harnessing the power of light. Calling himself Lightmaster, he enlisted Kraven the Hunter and the Tarantula to kidnap three city government officials. The plan was thwarted by Spider-Man, who was enrolled at E.S.U.'s graduate school in his civilian identity as Peter Parker. Spider-Man defeated Lansky by running a current of electricity through him in an attempt to short-circuit his body-suit. Instead, it interacted with the experimental components of his suit to transform Lightmaster into a being of unstable energy. Weeks after the accident, Lightmaster's energy-mass began to dissipate into the surrounding atmosphere. Forced to surround himself with light at all times merely to stay alive, he sought revenge against Spider-Man. In battle with Spider-Man at his headquarters, a converted warehouse for a defunct manufacturer of light-display signs, Lightmaster accidentally overloaded New York's power system, causing a brief black-out. With Manhattan plunged into darkness, Lightmaster's bodily substance dissipated, banishing his essence into what he termed a "light dimension.'' He escaped this state twice by gathering enough psychic strength to harness a powerful light source in the physical world. The first source was the mutant Dazzler, who drove him back to non-physical existence with Spider-Man's aid. The second source was the alien energy-bands worn by Quasar. Taking over Quasar's body, Lightmaster designed and built equipment to reverse the accident that transformed him into light. Despite the interference of Quasar and Spider-Man, he succeeded in turning himself back into a normal man with no superhuman powers. Currently serving a prison sentence, Lightmaster still has hidden away the plans for his light-powered body-suit, and perhaps working models of the suit itself.

Height: 5 ft. 11 in.
Weight: 175 lbs
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Brown

Strength Level: Lightmaster possesses the normal human strength of a man of his age, height, and weight who engages in minimal regular exercise.

Known Superhuman Powers: Lightmaster currently possesses no superhuman powers. All of his capacities are derived from his special body-suit.

Weapons: Lightmaster wears a full body-suit with a padded inner lining (which enhances the appearance of his average physique) containing special circuitry that enables him to manipulate photons (discrete packets of light which act like a wave-form of energy). The suit uses a high-density light-switch computer (which uses photons instead of electrons) linked to his brain which enables him to control photons for a variety of effects. Lightmaster's suit in some as yet unexplained manner enables him to bind photons to some unidentified particles in order to create solid, low-mass objects. The shape, size, and relative velocity of these objects are determined by numerous pre-programmed responses within the controlling computer, triggered by coded thought-patterns. The objects are limited in complexity to those which he pre-programs. They are limited in speed by the speed of light. Lightmaster can also generate low mass "beams" of light which he can direct from his hands as concussive force. He has been observed to deform one-inch thick steel and propel a human being standing ten feet from him about fifteen feet. The limits of the suit's capacity to manipulate light for various effects are not yet known.

Lightmaster can fly by surrounding himself in an aerodynamic nimbus of light to which he attaches a complex spiral of solid light which he rotates at several hundred revolutions per second like a propeller. This enables him to travel through the air at a maximum speed of approximately 140 miles per hour. The nimbus of light surrounding him protects him from the atmospheric effects of friction and wind. He can carry with him in flight any load he can carry in his arms.