Kyle Nimbus

*For the drug of the same name, see The Mist.*

"*Take your last breath!*"
—Kyle Nimbus to Team Flash[src]
**Kyle Nimbus**, nicknamed **the Mist** by Cisco Ramon, was a former hitman of the Darbinyan crime family. He was affected by the S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator the night he was supposed to be executed via gas chamber and gained the meta-human ability to transform himself into deadly poisonous gas. Kyle later became the first inmate of the makeshift particle accelerator prison under S.T.A.R. Labs. However, he, along with the rest of the imprisoned meta-humans, were eventually freed by Leonard Snart and Lisa Snart.

## Biography

### Original multiverse

#### Supposed execution

 File:An article on the supposed execution of Kyle Nimbus on Central City Times.png
Kyle Nimbus worked as a hitman for the Darbinyan crime family until they betrayed him and testified against him in court. He was arrested by Detective Joe West and sentenced to death by Judge Theresa Howard. On December 11, 2013, the night Kyle was to be executed, the S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator explosion hit the gas chamber he was in and the dark matter fused his molecular structure with the toxic gas, hydrogen cyanide. Thought dead, he escaped from the morgue of Iron Heights Prison and gained the ability to disassemble his molecular structure to the point where he becomes a giant living cloud of deadly poison gas.

#### Rampage through Central City

Kyle began a murder spree against the people who were responsible for his arrest, starting with the Darbinyans. Posing as an employee of Amarasia Oasis, where the family was dining, Kyle jammed the door and massacred the entire crime family with his poisonous gas as revenge for their testimony against him.

Next, Kyle targeted Judge Howard for convicting him. He tracked down and killed Howard at the Central City Shopping Mall in a closed elevator. As Kyle left, he was confronted by The Flash, who demanded to know why he killed Howard. Kyle warned the speedster to stay out of his way before incapacitating him.

 File:The Flash runs from The Mist.png
The final target of Kyle's revenge spree was Detective West for arresting him, who ironically enough was visiting Iron Heights at the time. After beginning to kill West, Kyle escaped from the prison with The Flash in pursuit, who was able to suffocate him by using his super speed to keep him in gas form, thereby depriving him of oxygen, until he fell unconscious. Once he awoke, Kyle discovered that he was a prisoner of the particle-accelerator-turned-makeshift-meta-human-prison under S.T.A.R. Labs and furiously tried to get out, to no avail.

#### Time in the Pipeline

When "Harrison Wells" was extracting a sample of the deceased Farooq Gibran's blood, Kyle was still attempting to escape from his cell before he saw Wells. Wells simply smiled and put his finger to his lips, signaling Kyle to keep quiet.

 File:Barry Allen's team monitoring meta-humans in their cells.png
Kyle tried to kill his jailer, Cisco Ramon, numerous times when he tried to feed him while he was an inmate in the accelerator, eventually forcing Caitlin Snow to suck him up in a vacuum cleaner. Cisco once resorted to attempting to use one of Brie Larvan's robotic bees to feed Kyle, but Kyle simply destroyed the bee.

#### Escaping imprisonment

After being sedated by having knockout gas sprayed in his cell, Kyle was moved out of S.T.A.R. Labs in a truck with the other imprisoned meta-humans. He and the other metas awoke and began squabbling, with Kyle picking a fight with Mark Mardon and Jake Simmons in particular. However, Leonard and Lisa Snart sabotaged the truck, and Kyle and the others escaped. In the ensuing battle, Kyle tried to kill Barry, but he vibrated his arms at a fast enough speed to create a large wind that kept Kyle at bay until he grew exhausted and had to revert to his normal form. Mardon soon struck Barry with a lightning bolt and knocked him to the ground, and Kyle took the opportunity to escape.

#### Anti-Monitor Crisis

During the Anti-Monitor Crisis, Kyle as well as everyone in the multiverse except for the seven Paragons, was killed in an antimatter wave by the Anti-Monitor on December 10, 2019, only to be restored a month later, after the Paragons and the Spectre created a new universe.

### New multiverse

Kyle's name is seen amongst *Cisco's Who's Who? Binder*.

## Powers and abilities

### Powers

* **Meta-human physiology:** After Kyle was struck by the energy of the S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator explosion, this altered his DNA and supercharged his cells, augmenting his physiology based on whatever foreign substance he came in contact with at the exact moment he was exposed to the dark matter, which in this case would be poison gas used for federal execution.
	+ **Gas mimicry:** Kyle is able to transform himself into a deadly cloud of hydrogen cyanide mixed with a sedative used for prisoners on Death Row. His gas form was able to change to any shape and form and even expand his mass, allowing him to produce the chemical his form is made of and not lose any of his own mass in the process of poisoning his victims. Kyle can use his gas form to fly and can propel himself independently of other forces, though not as high a speed as the Flash could.
		- **Limited intangibility:** Due to his gaseous powers, Kyle can phase through or around certain kinds of objects, such as when he changed into his gas form to move through a chain link fence to break into Iron Heights when seeking to kill Joe West. He also did this to avoid getting punched while fighting the Flash. He can also selectively alter the density of the construct he creates in his gas state, as evident when he was able to punch The Flash with solid fists when first confronted even in his gas form.

**Abilities**

* **Skilled hand-to-hand combatant:** As a top-tier hitman for hire, Kyle is a skilled warrior. This is evidenced when he got into a brief conflict with Mark Mardon and when he overpowered Jake Simmons who is also a fairly talented combatant.

### Weaknesses

* **Speed vacuum:** Since gas is the least stable form of matter, if Kyle moves too fast or is caught in wind, the air currents can strain him and force him to return to his original form. When the Flash was fighting Kyle at the Ferris Air Testing Facility, he created vacuums by rotating his arms at high speeds, draining Kyle of his gas particles and forcing him to recharge/recoup.
* **Suffocation:** Ironically, Nimbus's own body still needs to be able to breath, and when he's in his gas form, he can't. As pointed out by Harrison Wells, gas is the least stable form of matter. If he doesn't reform his body after a while, it will suffer the consequences of being unable to utilize oxygen normally. This ultimately proved to be his undoing when Barry was able to exhaust him to the point of unconsciousness and he was wrapped up for the Pipeline prison.
* **Lung protection:** The true lethality Nimbus has on a person is the ability to compromise their ability to utilize oxygen, meaning that his powers are useless if he can't get through to a person's respiratory system. If someone is wearing a gas mask or any other sort of protection that seals off access to their lungs, Nimbus cannot enter their bodies via their mouths/noses while in his gaseous form.
* **Airtight enclosures:** Kyle's gaseous state is no exception for true intangibility. Whatever he is phasing through must have some sort of permeability for his molecules to float through or move past. For instance, his cell in the S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator is reinforced with airtight walls and solid glass, effectively rendering his powers worthless.
* **Magnetic feilds:** Kyle's molecules cannot dissipate very far while in the presence of an ultra-strong electromagnet with a polarity charge near identical to Earth's magnetic field, meaning that his gas state will be compressed to a near point-blank range if the electrostatic charge is strong enough. That, combined with airtight enclosures made his pipeline prison cell inescapable.
* **Fire:** If Nimbus is set on fire while in his gaseous state, he gets burned all over his body, as shown when Joe West and John Diggle tried to take Kyle down using this method.
* **Chemical footprint:** There are slight traces of DNA left over in his victim's lungs when Nimbus uses his powers, making him easy to track down.

## Appearances

### *The Flash*

Season 1
* "Things You Can't Outrun"
* "Going Rogue" (mentioned)
* "Power Outage"
* "Fallout" (mentioned)
* "Rogue Air"

Season 2
* "The Fury of Firestorm" (indirectly mentioned)
* "Flash Back" (pictured)

Season 5
* "Seeing Red" (indirectly mentioned)

Season 6
* "Marathon" (pictured)
* "Death of the Speed Force" (pictured)

Season 7
* "Good-Bye Vibrations" (pictured)
* "Masquerade" (pictured)
* "Rayo de Luz" (pictured)

### Novels

* *The Flash: The Haunting of Barry Allen*

### *The Chronicles of Cisco*

* Post 4 "Chapter Three: The Mist" (mentioned)
* Post 5 "Chapter Four: Cinema Cisco" (mentioned)
* Post 8 "Chapter Six: Brie Larvan" (mentioned)
* Post 11 "Chapter Nine: Cisco Disco" (mentioned)
* Post 12 "Chapter Ten" (mentioned)

## Behind the scenes

* Nimbus is the Latin for "aura", as in the cloud type cumulonimbus, a warning sign for thunderstorms. This is an obvious reference to his powers.
* Anthony Carrigan played Victor Zsasz, a Batman villain, in the television series *Gotham*, which is also based on characters from DC comics. Both Nimbus and Zsasz are hitmen for crime families.
* In the DC comics, the Mist was a man whose real name was unknown, with similar abilities but a completely different backstory.
	+ The character's other aliases included "Nimbus".
	+ The character had a son named Kyle and then a grandson sharing the same name.
	+ The character, however, was not a foe of the Flash, but the archenemy of another superhero, Ted Knight/Starman.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 "Things You Can't Outrun"
2. ↑ "Power Outage"
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Post 4 "Chapter Three: The Mist"
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Rogue Air"
5. ↑ "Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Three"
6. ↑ "Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Four"
7. ↑ "Marathon"
8. ↑ *The Flash: The Haunting of Barry Allen*

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