| “ | You know those alien-hating racists been comin’ out their hidey holes? We’re gonna make them dead. | „ |
| ~ Manchester introducing his new team, the Elite and their mission. |
| “ | If you don't stand up and fight, you’ll lose everything. | „ |
| ~ Manchester to J’onn. |
| “ | You’re beautiful. | „ |
| ~ Manchester’s last words upon having successfully provoked J’onn into dropping his pacifist oath and becoming a ruthless vigilante, accepting his death with dignity. |
Manchester Black is a supporting antagonist in the Arrowverse, serving as a major antagonist in Season 4 of Supergirl and a posthumous antagonist for the rest of the series. He was the fiancee of an alien woman murdered by the rising human supremacist group, the Children of Liberty, and becomes a ruthless vigilante with the goal of wiping them out. He is the archenemy of J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter.
What Makes Him Magnificent?[]
- He has a tragic backstory. He stood up against him friends to defend the aliens Hat and Fiona, getting engaged to the latter who had helped him become a better person and even convinced him to adopt non-violence with him convincing Fiona going to the U.S. to escape anti-alien prejudice in the U.K only for Fiona to be kidnapped later on. When he finally located her, she died in his arms as a result of horrific torture by the rising American hate group, the Children of Liberty, with Black vowing to avenge Fiona’s death and prevent the Children of Liberty from targeting any more aliens.
- He posed as a anti-alien bigot and got Petrocelli drunk to get him to reveal a Children of Liberty plot happening on Columbia and Fourth, informing his new friend J’onn and stopping an staged alien attack on the police station with Team Supergirl, effortlessly taking down his opponents without even laying a hand on them.
- He is quite affable and charming whether friend or foe to Team Supergirl, always managing to be a smooth operator with an amazing British accent.
- He dons a classic Union Jack shirt and acquires numerous high-tech and alien weaponry from an illegal gun shop to start his vigilante crusade.
- He saves an alien couple from a Children of Liberty attack with Supergirl,
- He secretly kidnapped Petrocelli, mocking the Children of Liberty as cowards for hiding their faces with masks, beating him for calling aliens “roaches”. He gave him the chance to give up the info before he (offscreen) tortured him to death to get him to reveal a nearby Children of Liberty location.
- He went to and waited for unwitting Children of Liberty goons to come to an alien house they had targeted before revealing himself in a Children of Liberty mask to mock them before taking out his gun and forcing the cowards to flee, apologizing to Fiona that he couldn’t do this the non-violent way before pulling the trigger, heavily implied to have killed at least a few goons.
- He defended some alien workers from Children of Liberty goons in a hostage situation in a factory, acting as a human shield for the workers and defeating the goon with the help of Supergirl and unmasking him. He convinced Supergirl to let him help her after the goon told them about a Children of Liberty plot about a cargo shipment. He convinced her to looking past any ruthless moments from him and upon discovering with her a Children of Liberty plot to blow up Shelley Island with explosives from the shipment, convinced her to go in with him stealthily to stop them instead of going in guns blazing with the DEO and alerting the Children of Liberty from a mile away. However, once they got to Shelley Island and Supergirl’s sun grenade didn’t work to restore her powers against the island’s power dampeners, Manchester ambushes her with the Children of Liberty, revealing the entire supposed lead on the shipment was a plot from him to trick her all along and lead her to get captured by the Children of Liberty in exchange for them taking him to meet Agent Liberty, having successfully and epically conned the Girl of Steel herself.
- He deduced that the Children of Liberty had not held up their end of the bargain and that the Agent Liberty he met was an imposter, taking out his guards and using the opportunity to threaten the decoy Agent Liberty into giving up the real one’s true identity as Ben Lockwood.
- He took down several Children of Liberty agents by the lonesome and freed Supergirl since the Children of Liberty had not held up their end of the bargain, saving her life and allowing her to save Shelley Island from being blown up.
- He conned J’onn when he tried to stop him from going to kill Agent Liberty, immobilizing him with an empathy amplifier and revealing how he had tortured Petrocelli and killed several Agent of Liberty goons before escaping scot-free.
- He pretends to be an old friend of Ben Lockwood’s and convinces his wife to let him into their home for a brief reunion, chatting with her until Lockwood arrived and forcing Lockwood to play along with the charade until the time was right. He proceeded to reveal and prove Lockwood’s identity as the murderous, xenophobe Agent Liberty who murdered his fiancée and countless aliens to her before attempting to kill them both, only failing due to the psychic intervention of J’onn which he cleverly outsmarted by cutting himself to subject J’onn to pain and stop his psychic attack.
- He chases a fleeing Lockwood down to defunct Lockwood family factory, dodging his surprise attack and restraining Lockwood against the wall, nearly killing him had Supergirl suddenly rushed in to intervene.
- He detonates a mysterious substance against Supergirl, causing her to violently cough and get inflamed, revealing the substance was moondust which was powerful enough to cut through Kryptonian DNA, expressing sarcasm at her idealism and correctly pointing out that while she may try to be a hero, Lockwood and his followers would only ever see her as alien filth even if she saved them. He then revealed an alien electric weapon which he pointed at Supergirl seemingly to kill her, but instead aimed at a Nth metal container to release the fluid material and cement Supergirl to the ground. He then ambushed Lockwood and his wife and nearly killed them if not for the unexpected intervention of Nia Nal.
- He was only mildly disappointed at Supergirl after being arrested and taken away, and took his imprisonment in stride, reading a book when J’onn phased through his cell to talk and later pressing himself against the wall to learn of the dozens of bigoted protestors calling for Lockwood’s release.
- He requests a meeting with J’onn weeks after his imprisonment and the pardoning of Lockwood on a bigoted technicality, claiming that prison had changed him…before revealing his new stylish purple hair and telling J’onn how he believed J’onn could solve all the world’s problems if not for his pacifist promise and that he just needed motivation, before the “prison guard” behind J’onn immobilizes him and Manchester introduces J’onn to Hat, thanking J’onn for making him realize that revenge on Lockwood was too narrow and he had to broaden his scope.
- He easily takes down a squadron of prison guards using a sword and goes back for his Union Jack shirt as it was “dashing” before leaving the prison and introducing Supergirl when she arrived to the his other allies, a Morae and Menagerie who were part of his new team who would exterminate anti-alien prejudice from the world, successfully escaping from prison.
- He led the Elite to easily slaughter a foreign army base torturing aliens to broadcast a message to the world about his team and mission before stealing the Crown Jewels to make an even bigger and powerful statement denouncing Supergirl as outdated moral figure and proclaiming a new era of his team, the Elite. He suspected Supergirl was watching and challenged her to meet him alone encoding a map in the flash before the news went to commercial break that only Supergirl could see so she know where to meet, Manchester England.
- He is nonchalantly eating at a diner when Supergirl bursts in, telling her she could have just used the door and that he had Hat and Menagerie with him only for protection and if Supergirl were to try anything, the Morae would start killing. He then revealed he chose this spot so he could give back Fiona’s stuff to her family and offered Supergirl a deal of both parties not interfering with each other’s activities, acknowledging he couldn’t beat her and informing Supergirl when she accused him of being a killer that the U.S government she works for was working on Project Claymore, a satellite to shoot down any alien spacecraft entering Earth which would undoubtedly kill countless refugees, pointedly asking her how she would feel if that was her pod coming to Earth that was shot down and giving her the opportunity to get President Baker to shut down the launch before he did it his way. After the Morae came back from spying on Supergirl, Hat revealed that Supergirl had gone to Baker and he had moved up the launch to tomorrow just as Manchester had called it.
- He led the Elite to attack the launch site of Claymore at Devil’s Tower, engaging Team Supergirl and distracting them long enough for the Morae to enact his plan of redirecting the target of Project Claymore to the White House to hoist President Baker and the government by their own petard. He breaks free of being briefly restrained by Alex, knocking her out and taking a Legion ring Hat had stolen from Brainy to fly and engage Supergirl to stop her from deactivating the satellite only to laugh when J’onn came in and brutally knocked him to the ground and beat him to a pulp, stating it was nice to finally meet the real J’onn before escaping with Hat.
- He stages an assassination attempt on Lockwood on his event after being nominated by Baker to be the secretary of the newly created Department of Alien Affairs before escaping without a trace with Hat and the Morae when Team Supergirl arrived, teleporting to the Fortress of Soltitude and he found the key to break in based on info Hat’s friend Mxy had given him on the key’s location. He steals a belt and when Team Supergirl arrives, he opens the Sun-eater room to fake his death and escape with Hat, reconciling over their past argument on tactics, thanking Hat for coming back for him and revealing he had also taken Hat’s advice and stolen a hologram projector and they proceeded to attack Lockwood’s anti-alien rally with Manchester projecting dozens of holograms of himself and rallying aliens and counter protesters to start the revolution and kill the bigots. He goads J’onn into following him, and suggesting to him that perhaps he needed to lose more people he cared about to fight for justice, provoking J’onn into brutally beating him repeatedly, only to reveal that it was a Children of Liberty goon all along who Manchester had duct taped and placed a holographic projector belt on, tricking J’onn and making him realize what he had done while watching at a distance and stating that he thinks they both saw each other much clearer now before escaping the scene and deactivating his holograms.
- He revealed to J’onn that when J’onn had psychically attacked him to prevent him from killing the Lockwood’s, he had unwittingly opened a psychic link both ways which Manchester exploited to probe J’onn’s mind and learn about Martian culture specifically learning about their wrathful god H’ronmeer and the Martian people’s most powerful weapon from him, his staff which he had stolen and burnt down J’onn’s father’s grave to draw J’onn and Supergirl out and make a point claiming that J’onn was a hypocrite for claiming to be a man of peace while the god he followed was one of wrath and offered him to join him to fulfill this idea of righteous vengeance and stop hate from burning up the world like it did to Mars.
- He outsmarted J’onn when J’onn attempted to track him down psychically by subjecting him to torturous visions of a dead Alex and Kara.
- He staged an attack on National City Dam to drawn in Supergirl and J’onn to confront him, cracking a hole in the Dan to distract Supergirl while he faced J’onn and repeated his mantra that if J’onn didn’t stand up and fight, he would lose everything once more before using the staff to show him visions of what happened to his family on Mars to remind him of that, finally causing J’onn to snap, dropping his pacifist oath and telekinetically reclaiming the staff to kill Manchester. As he faded away, he simply complimented J’onn on how he was beautiful, accepting his death with complete grace and having succeeded in turning J’onn into a more ruthless vigilante.
What Makes Him a Baddie?[]
- He betrayed Supergirl to get her captured and nearly killed by the Children of Liberty.
- He broke into the Lockwood family house to kill Ben and his wife, Lydia. While Ben deserved it, his wife did not.
- He stole the Crown Jewels.
- He attempted to blow up the White House.
- He burned down J’onn’s father’s grave and stole the Staff of Kholar, using it to project torturous visions against J’onn and later attack the National City Dam, putting the lives of thousands in the city at risk to draw out J’onn and Supergirl and successfully provoke the former into killing him in cold-blood.
Trivia[]
- Ironically his initials are MB, the exact same abbreviation for Magnificent Baddie.
- He is the only Supergirl MB
[]
 Magnificent Baddies
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Franchise-Wide Arrow The Flash Supergirl | ||