Over the past two decades, the authors and artists of DC comics have produced one enduring adversary after another. Dark, gritty, complex, and above all, powerful enough to compete with superheroes like Batman and Superman, DC villains are infamous for these qualities. We present to you yet another DC villain in this video who is a formidable foe for our beloved heroes.
Do you recall The Devil Nezha? His significant presence in the five-part series Batman/Superman: World’s Finest by Mark Waid, Dan Mora, Tamra Bonvillain, and Aditya Bidikar demonstrates his brutality, ruthlessness, and threat despite the fact that he is a relatively new villain in the DC Universe. Do you find this red-skinned brute interesting? Watch to learn all about him!
Exploring the origins of Devil Nezha from the comic series and what happened to him
An elixir that gave a Chinese warlord known as “The Devil Nezha” the gift (or curse, depending on how you look at it) of immortality was used to revive him after his death in the 16th century BCE. He clashed with Batman and Superman and lived into the twenty-first century.
Batman/Superman: World’s Finest’s second issue introduces The Devil Nezha. The Doom Patrol finds a sword at the start of the tale— actually, they free it from a crazy man named Zahil. The sword was supposedly made in the Zhengzhou region during the Shang dynasty, circa 1600 BCE. We discover that the sword belongs to Nezha, a seasoned Chinese warrior. He was Li Jung’s (China’s most potent warlord) son.
The young warrior led his father’s enormous army in several wars that he won, but all of that military might was regrettably unable to save young Nezha, and he died in battle. Li Jung, who was distressed and grieving at the loss of his son, gave the order that the body be meticulously kept so that he could discover a cure— yes, you read that correctly— a cure for death. Jung made the decision to travel the globe in an effort to find a means to bring Nezha back because he wanted to bring his kid back to life.
He threatened many clever and learned men, extorted them, and tortured people for information, but to no avail. Nobody has any knowledge of how to revive corpses. He eventually resorted to buying individuals and information, dousing them in cash in the hopes that it would serve as a sufficient inducement for them to divulge their trade secrets to him.
A time came when his father solely devoted himself to resurrecting Nezha and he gave up all other endeavours. He at last started scrubbing the floors of a reputed magician in a last-ditch effort to curry his favour and after a decade of persevering, the magician finally relented and gave him the secret of the Elixir of Eternal Life. Li Jung brewed up the elixir and gave it to his son and voila!
The elixir worked, rousing Nezha from the dead and giving him eternal life. However, when Nezha heard that his father had given up everything they had, wealth, fame, fortune and respect, he beheaded his father without a second thought and set out to earn the respect that he believed his father had lost by scrubbing floors in the lair of a magician.
He killed many over the course of multiple years and finally gained all that his father had lost. He gained respect, amassed immense wealth and gathered an army that was twice the size of the one his father commanded and only answered to him. However, he was not just a warrior. Due to the mystical and magical circumstances that granted him life, he took to dark magic and started using magical weapons. With all of this, he came to be known as The Devil Nezha – cruelly cutting down all of his foes and anyone that dared cross him.
However, his terror spread so far and wide that he had to be stopped and the Noble House of Ji in China decided enough was enough. They assembled a team of magical warriors and deities. But even this dream team was unable to kill the immortal Nezha, and hence, resorted to imprisoning him. They successfully imprisoned him and now, coming back to the present again, where our heroes are dealing with multiple threats coming at them one after the other, it seems like Nezha has broken free.
Batman sends Robin, accompanied by Supergirl, to the House of Ji to find out all he can about Nezha and how they managed to imprison him all those years ago. Supergirl and Robin use the sword to travel all the way back into the history of the sword to try and seek out the leaders of the House of Ji by breaking through the time barrier. They track them down to the correct era and spot the members of the House of Ji.
However, what they thought would be a positive welcome turned out to be the exact opposite. The members attacked the two heroes because they assumed they were soldiers of Nezha due to the fact that they were carrying his sword. Robin and Supergirl quickly realised that they would be in deep trouble if they did not explain themselves well enough, because well, they were in fact carrying Nezha’s sword.
In the third issue, we see that the members of the House of Ji refused to believe the two heroes and attacked them with all their might, vowing to never show mercy to Nezha’s allies. They deal a fair amount of damage to the two of them before finally, Robin decides to speak up. He insists that they come from the future and want information and that is when we are introduced to the four magical warrior members of the House of Ji – Shui, who is as fluid as river waters, Huo, who channels the sun, Kongqi who commands the winds and lastly, Diqiu, who is one with the force of the Earth. They finally relent, however, when robin declares that they are from the future, a future in which Nezha has risen again.
Once this misunderstanding got cleared up, they got to work. Shui told them that in a hidden area on a distant island, a village full of people exhausted three generations’ worth of magic to be able to build a special tomb that would be able to contain The Devil Nezha.
The four warriors had been tasked with forcing Nezha into the tomb. They clashed with him for five days and nights, fighting him constantly without a moment of rest. They kept pushing through the pain, injuries and blood, fighting him inch by inch as they pushed him toward the tomb. They managed to push him into the tomb but the task was not over yet. They still had to seal the door shut.
In the meanwhile, Batman and Superman were out and about, combating all the different villains that were coming out of the woodworks to fight the heroes and wreak havoc on humankind. Now, the heroes had already assumed that all these villains were attacking them on the behest of The Devil Nezha. However, they encounter a twist that they never saw coming. Green Lantern appears while Batman and Superman fight Dr. Alchemy and tells them that Nezha is no longer using villains as his soldiers. They quickly realise that he was in fact using heroes, as Green Lantern traps them in a cage and in the last panel of the issue, we see Alfred standing under the red glare of The Devil Nezha – presumably being controlled by the villain.
In the fourth issue, things escalate as Green Lantern, under the influence of The Devil, decides to take on both Batman and Superman, as he has them trapped in a cage of his own creation. Both our beloved heroes try but are unable to break through the bars of the cage. However, Green Lantern smashes the cage as he attacks them head on. He heavily injures Superman, which should not be the case because well, the power difference between the two of them is well known. And while Batman figures out that Green Lantern’s power is being augmented by magic, he doesn’t realise it fast enough and is attacked by The Devil Nezha himself.
The Devil Nezha and Batman face off as he tells Batman that he was imprisoned for four thousand years in a magical tomb and was back now, and he wanted everything. He toiled through the years of his imprisonment and created a spell, rune by rune, syllable by syllable – a spell that would be powerful enough to break his imprisonment seal.
He said that he was only driven by the thought of the tragedy that would strike a world bereft of his guidance (messed up, right?) and believed that the world was rightfully his. He thought that he would emerge from his tomb and face terrifying forces that would oppose his rise to the position of the ruler of this world. However, that did not happen, and he was nauseated by how little civilisation had progressed – a world where humans struck down humans and, above all, a world that was in desperate need of discipline, according to him.
Thus, he began influencing people, controlling their minds and wanted to bring all of humankind under his control, making them one large indomitable army. Batman realises that the reason Nezha was forming an army and was hell bent on killing all the heroes and getting them out of his way was that he was scared that they would defeat him, just like the four magical warriors from the House of Ji had, all those years ago. When Batman vocalises this thought, it angers Nezha greatly, and he flings Batman into the air as if the Dark Knight was nothing more than a pesky little insect.
In the meanwhile, Green Lantern continued to batter Superman until Batman finally came to his aid, after having been thrown aside by Nezha. Back in fifteenth-century China, Supergirl and Robin had only just scratched the surface of the secrets that surrounded Nezha and his imprisonment. They learn that sealing the door of the magical tomb shut came with a massive price. Like all magic, this one also had a price that had to be paid.
However, the reason it was a massive price was that Nezha himself wielded a hefty amount of magic, being able to bend natural phenomena and dimensional walls to his will. He had taught himself to adapt to any attack from every known science, every known force and every known element of the Earth. He used to experiment with possession magic as well and it took all of the might of the four warriors to push him into the tomb and then subsequently, seal it shut.
The four warriors then tell Robin and Supergirl what exactly the major price that had to be paid was, and the two come back to the present with the other information that they had managed to gather. However, on their way back to the present, they encounter a time storm, an anomaly that happens when someone tries to change the course of history or steal something from the past. In this disturbance, Supergirl and Robin unfortunately get separated.
Back in the present, Batman and Superman take on Green Lantern jointly and try to defeat the force of his will power that was being controlled by The Devil Nezha using his possession magic. They manage to take his ring off and during this event, Batman and Superman merge into one entity with the help of Green Lanterns’ energy and fusion power. The suit of this hero represents elements of both the heroes, with both Superman’s signature colors and batman’s iconic emblem.
The Devil Nezha laments his decision of making Green Lantern his champion but quickly sends other heroes under his influence to go ahead and defeat this new Batman/Superman hybrid. Firestorm, Red Tornado, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, and Black Canary are among the heroes under Nezha’s control and they charge toward the BatSuper. As he fights these possessed heroes, Nezha keeps using his possession powers on regular people out on the streets, to recruit them into his army.
Finally, BatSuper (that’s what we’re calling this hybrid now) gets some good news when the Doom Patrol contacts him, informing him that they had managed to locate the magical tomb. The tomb was on a little island near Corto Maltese and they had the coordinates and it was likely that if the tomb held the devil once, it would be able to contain him once again.
BatSuper began attacking Nezha, taking him up into space and pummelling him with all they had, pushing him towards the tomb but just before the final push, the fusion fell apart and Batman and Superman became two separate entities once again.
This allowed Nezha to gain his bearings and retaliate, but before he could seriously injure them, Supergirl flew in at him, catching him unaware – pushing him into the tomb area. She tells the heroes that they have to hurry and carry out the procedure of sealing him inside and this is when she reveals the price of containing him – one of them would have to shut the door, from the inside.
The story is then continued in the fifth issue where all the heroes congregate, shocked at the price that would have to be paid for the imprisonment of Nezha. Supergirl shows them the enchanted talisman that was given to her by the warriors of the House of Ji to use as the seal for the tomb – and tells them that the talisman would have to be placed on the inside of the door to seal it, without which the door would not lock and The Devil would not be contained.
The heroes quickly start arguing over who it would be that would take on the responsibility of staying inside with the devil and placing the seal. Supergirl decides that it should be her making the sacrifice, because she felt responsible for losing Robin during the time storm they had encountered on their way back. However, before any of this can be spoken about further, Superman gets possessed by The Devil Nezha and on the devil’s orders, sets out to kill all the heroes.
Chaos unfolds all around them as Supergirl desperately tries to help Superman shake off Nezha’s possession spell. But, Nezha keeps coming at her via Superman – Superman verbally berates her and tries to get into her head and it is only after Robotman punches Nezha and makes him lose his bearings, that Superman comes back to his senses. They realise that Robotman had an advantage over The Devil Nezha and that was the fact that he was made of technology that Nezha had not studied in his time and thus, was not familiar with.
However, the heroes’ hopes are dashed as Nezha quickly adapts to Robotman’s attacks as well, crushing him. Superman finally comes to the rescue. Using Kryptonian tech, he traps the Devil Nezha in the Phantom Zone. After he disappears into the Phantom Zone, Supergirl starts telling Batman about what happened to Robin when Nezha appears in front of them, having cracked and forced his way through the zone, still adapting. Superman takes the decision to take the talisman seal and lead Nezha into the tomb and try and seal him forever, sacrificing himself in the process. Before any of the heroes were able to stop him, Superman had already sealed the door shut behind him.
However, good old Superman does not do anything without a plan and Batman quickly realises that the Phantom Zone Projector was gone as well. Superman planned on going into the Phantom Zone and coming out of it through the crack that Nezha himself had forced open – a crack that was rapidly fading. The heroes rush to force the crack open and keep it open for Superman to make his way through it and they manage to pull Superman through the crack, back to safety.
With that, Superman had successfully imprisoned The Devil Nezha for the foreseeable future – at least, as far as we know.
What makes him as strong as the likes of Darkseid?
In the comic book series, Nezha put his versatility on full show for fans. It also made another observation, namely that Nezha is essentially a far more hazardous version of Doomsday.
Similar abilities include overwhelming strength and the quickness to adapt to any circumstance or a new method of attack. Even their physical characteristics have a few minor overlaps. But Nezha is more perilous because of where they diverge. Nezha’s abilities go beyond simple force, and he has the intelligence to fight for causes other than hatred, which Doomsday lacks.
Nezha is a destructive force that cannot be stopped. He is only interested in destroying. But it’s his relentlessness that makes him such a unique menace. People can see what he wants when he’s on the field, but they can do nothing to stop him. Due to his adaptable physiology, he is Superman’s equal on an even playing field and may even be his superior. What brought him down the first time won’t do so again. Physically, he is immensely strong, but his greatest power comes from his adaptable invulnerability. He quickly recovers even if he is hurt or even banished by a force he has never encountered before.
The issue demonstrated that it took Nezha only a few seconds to orient himself and strike back at Robotman, and only slightly longer to physically fight his way out of the Phantom Zone after becoming imprisoned there. His powers and abilities include decelerated aging which can be seen in how he literally looks the same even after having been imprisoned in a tomb for four thousand years, still ripped, with no damage at all, to his muscled body. He also obviously has immense control over magic, as is evidenced by him literally making up runes and syllables to make the spell that he eventually used to break out of the magically sealed tomb.
As far as his specific abilities are concerned, he is a skilled swordsman, beheading his own father in one quick movement of his sword, along with being really good at hand-to-hand combat, as is seen in almost all of the fight sequences in the comic series, especially as he kills Robotman. He is also a skilled and enigmatic leader who follows military protocol and uses magic to recruit people to join his army.
This also brings us to what one can consider Nezha’s greatest power – that of possession, which allowed him to control villains and heroes alike, even the most strong-willed of them including Green Lantern and Superman. This is an extremely scary power because using this, he can control anyone and everyone and form legions of soldiers and armies. Additionally, his notable weapon of use is his mystic sword.
Additionally. His intellect guides Nezha’s activities. Nezha’s main goal in all he does is to rule the entire planet. Without letting his fury get in the way of his ambitions, he can focus all of his might on a single undertaking. Nezha is more than simply physically strong. He possesses magic secrets learned through years of study that not only make him almost impervious to harm but also levels him with Superman, the most potent hero on Earth.
Further, Nezha has been patiently waiting for millennia for his moment to rule the planet, and his perseverance has paid off. He is scheduled to return shortly, and when he does, the world’s heroes won’t be ready. Although they may have defeated him this time, Nezha has now gauged their potential. Next time, he won’t rush headlong into a war like Doomsday. He will take advantage of their flaws and prepare himself by learning as much as he can about the contemporary environment.
Nezha considers himself to be a God and with the impressive show of his powers that we see in this series, he is damn near close to being one, we’d say! He is a terrifying villain and holds his own against all of the major DC villains, making him one of the strongest, if not the strongest DC villain to be created in recent years. The stage is all set for a lot more from this incredible villain! What do you think about The Devil Nezha? Let us know in the comments section below!