As a wealthy and widely hailed philanthropist, the man known as Martin Li uses his financial resources to help those in need. But in his other identity, that of the ruthless underworld figure Mister Negative, he uses his extradimensional energy powers to corrupt anything he touches as the leader of a criminal empire.
Land of Opportunity
While his real name remains unknown, details about Mister Negative emerge per his own account. Previously a “snakehead slaver,” or human smuggler, he oversees the transport of Chinese citizens to the United States aboard a cargo ship called Golden Mountain. The immigrants include businessman Martin Li, of Fuzhou City. Li intends to go to the United States to join his wife, Yana, who had arrived there months earlier through a student visa. During the sea voyage, several of the passengers die of pneumonia, including Martin Li.
As the Golden Mountain approaches Queens, New York, a storm endangers the ship and disrupts an arrangement between the snakeheads and a Chinatown gang, the Dragon Lords, who were scheduled to pick up the passengers and ferry them into the city. Seizing control of the ship, the supervising snakehead causes the Golden Mountain to run aground. The crew flees in the only lifeboat, leaving the snakehead and the Chinese passengers to swim for shore. The snakehead, with a criminal record in the U.S. and China, takes Martin Li’s identity papers. He is the only one healthy and strong enough to survive and arrives safely at New York Harbor.
Seeking his colleagues in Flushing, New York, the snakehead finds them dead—killed by Maggia gangsters led by Silvio Manfredi, AKA Silvermane, who was expanding his influence over the area. Silvermane hands the snakehead over to his employee, the chemist Simon Marshall, who tests a potentially profitable synthetic drug on unwilling subjects. The snakehead undergoes experimentation against his will, along with teenage runaways Tyrone Johnson, AKA Cloak, and Tandy Bowen, AKA Dagger, among others. Through the tests, Tyrone, Tandy, and the snakehead acquire superhuman powers derived from the extradimensional Darkforce, and then escape. Tyrone and Tandy eventually become vigilantes, while the snakehead adopts the identity of Martin Li and finds anonymous work at a garment factory in Chinatown. He becomes Mister Negative, determined to become a crime lord and take revenge on the Maggia.