DeMarr DavisDoorman

The mutant known as Doorman is a hero through and through, using his Darkforce Dimension teleportation abilities to help his teammates on the Great Lakes Avengers protect the world from threats.

A Doorway to the GLA

A mutant able to create portals through solid objects using his body’s link to the extradimensional Darkforce dimension, DeMarr Davis completes college and attends graduate school, thanks to his parents’ financial support. At some point, Davis responds to a newspaper personal ad seeking other costumed adventurers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. As Doorman, Davis, along with the malleable Dr. Val Ventura, AKA Flatman, supermodel and super-obese powerhouse Ashley Crawford, AKA Big Bertha, and the pterosaur-like Dinah Soar, met with the advertiser, the self-resurrecting Craig Hollis, AKA Mister Immortal or Mr. I; another responder, the nonsuperhuman Gene Lorrene, AKA Leather Boy, is ultimately dismissed when the others learn he is a leather enthusiast, thus misunderstanding the ad. The would-be heroes set up shop as the Midwestern branch of the Avengers (who then had East and West Coast branches), maintaining a coastal theme as the “Great Lakes Avengers” (GLA). 

At some point, Doorman reveals his super-heroic activities to his father, who is unimpressed with his son’s decisions and “stupid powers,” believing being Doorman was a waste of Davis’ life and the higher education he and Davis’ mother provided for him. The team becomes aware of Doorman’s father’s disapproval and is sympathetic.

Revolving Door

Doorman’s body is a portal (“door”) to the Darkforce Dimension, allowing people or items to pass through him or walk through any solid objects Doorman stands against; when creating a door through an object, Doorman is often surrounded by floating black spheres that also create an outline of his body on the opposite side of any object. Doorman’s Darkforce portal is constant, allowing people and items to enter the Darkforce dimension against his will. He has passed his own arm through himself to reach through an obstacle. 

As Oblivion’s herald, Doorman cannot be physically harmed, possesses enhanced cosmic knowledge, and can create solid objects from Darkforce, such as ski poles and skis that allow him to fly at light speed or travel to the afterlife. Doorman has some hand-to-hand combat training and is an experienced card player.

Wolf at the Door

Doorman has a handful of notable foes, by and large gained through his membership with the GLA, and include Anton Mogart, AKA Midnight Man, the criminal mercenary Wade Wilson, AKA Deadpool when he’s not an ally, Professor Orson Kasloff, AKA Asbestos Man, the Masters of Evil, and geneticist Maelstrom. The latter of whom takes his life.

Hold the Door

Doorman’s closest friends are his teammates on the Great Lakes Avengers. He goes from comparing them to the Avengers but grows to love each of them and discover their value. With this team that he protects, he also helps protect the world from its destruction.

As Oblivion's herald, Davis is required to usher the dead to the great beyond, so their relationship is one of necessity since Oblivion is responsible for Davis's resurrection.

Doorman’s Diary Entry

After the GLA received media attention for subduing a group of would-be bank robbers, the Avengers Clint Barton, AKA Hawkeye, and Bobbi Morse, AKA Mockingbird, confronted the GLA for unauthorized use of the Avengers’ name, but soon decided to train the GLA to be a real team. During one training session, Mr. I was knocked into Doorman and disappeared, shocking all present as Doorman’s power had previously only been used while he stood against solid objects. When Dinah Soar rescued Mr. I from within Doorman, Mr. I emerged complaining about being extremely cold; Hawkeye vowed to help Doorman learn the full extent of his abilities. Despite aiding in rescuing several Avengers from the collective sentience That Which Endures and battling the extraterrestrial Terminus alongside the Avengers, the GLA was never fully accepted or endorsed by the real Avengers; Hawkeye and Mockingbird eventually left the team.

Later, when the Avengers and many of Earth’s prominent Super Heroes were believed dead following a battle against the malevolent psychic entity Onslaught, the GLA rebranded itself the “Lightning Rods,” to align the team with New York’s popular Thunderbolts, unaware they were secretly Super Villains posing as heroes. While visiting the Bay City Aquarium, the Rods battled criminal mercenary Deadpool, during which a freak interaction between Deadpool’s teleportation technology and Doorman’s power cast Deadpool and his associate Althea, AKA Blind Al, back in time, diverging Reality-9712, where Deadpool replaced that reality’s Peter Parker, AKA Spider-Man, in several adventures. While Deadpool worked to fix his device in the past, Doorman suffered from extreme pain and indigestion as Deadpool’s weapons supplier Weasel tried to rescue Deadpool and Al by periodically reaching inside Doorman, who asked that no one tell his girlfriend; Doorman’s suffering finally ended when Deadpool and Al were rescued. 

After the Thunderbolts were exposed as villains, the Rods wanted revenge for their disgrace by association with them. The team cooperated with the United States government, which assigned them to help the peacekeeping agency S.H.I.E.L.D. capture the fugitive Thunderbolts. However, the Thunderbolts defeated the Rods in their first encounter, then during a later battle between both teams, a rampaging Hulk robot and gravity-controlling villain Franklin Hall, AKA Graviton, the Rods were so badly beaten they were forced to let the Thunderbolts escape. Returning to the GLA nomenclature, the team fought Dr. Tannenbaum and his giant robot snowman in Muskego, Wisconsin, and protected citizens near Medina, Ohio, from a Masters of Evil attack. GLA member Dinah Soar was later killed during a battle with Inhuman/Deviant geneticist Maelstrom, emotionally devastating the team.

During the GLA’s subsequent New York City recruitment drive, Marc Spector, AKA Moon Knight, mistook Doorman for his enemy Midnight Man and attacked him; Doorman offered him GLA membership, but Moon Knight refused. Doorman and Flatman were rejected by dozens of heroes before they were saved from muggers in Central Park by Doreen Green, AKA Squirrel Girl, and her sidekick squirrel Monkey Joe, both of whom then accepted GLA membership. Moments later, the heroes encountered Batroc’s Brigade battling Doug Taggert, AKA Grasshopper, and joined the struggle. Grasshopper accepted an offer of GLA membership but was killed seconds later when a sai thrown by weapons master Zaran passed through Doorman and impaled Grasshopper. Upon returning to Milwaukee, Doorman created a photo tribute to GLA members who had died in action, including Grasshopper, and tried to scare away Squirrel Girl in order to protect her by recounting how previous members were killed; when Flatman called him on this, Doorman apologized to Squirrel Girl.

After a confrontation with disgruntled former member Leather Boy (who killed Monkey Joe), the team invaded Maelstrom’s underwater base to stop him from destroying the universe with a doomsday machine. However, Maelstrom’s force field atomized Doorman when he created a portal for Mr. I to battle Maelstrom. In the afterlife, Doorman apparently encountered a number of deceased GLA members playing cards and apologized to Grasshopper, who seemed indifferent. Sensing Doorman’s link to the Darkforce, Oblivion, the cosmic embodiment of self-destruction, resurrected Doorman to serve as his avatar of death, tasking him with retrieving the souls of the deceased—a position formerly held by Deathurge. After Doorman reunited with his friends, the team bowed to a cease and desist order from the Maria Stark Foundation to stop using the Avengers name and capitalized on the fact they were all mutants by rechristening the team Great Lakes X-Men (GLX) in honor of the mutant heroes.

Later, on Christmas Eve, Doorman left the GLX Christmas party to collect the soul of his own father, who had died while hanging Christmas lights on his roof. Unaware he was deceased, Doorman’s father’s spirit remained unimpressed as Doorman (as Davis) recounted some of the GLX’s recent victories, choosing to lament his son’s not “joining the real world” despite the sacrifices he and his wife made for Davis’ education and future. Excusing himself, Doorman collected a number of other deceased spirits (including a new Grasshopper who had unintentionally misused his super-suit and died in orbit around Earth) in hopes of delaying the inevitable collecting of his father’s soul, and briefly encountered Santa Claus performing his Christmas Eve duties; Santa could offer no advice for establishing a bond between father and son. Davis eventually returned to his father’s house and revealed his new existence as the Angel of Death, sadly telling his father that he was dead and had come to collect him for Oblivion. To Davis’ great surprise, his father was immensely impressed with his son’s new position and excitedly voiced plans to brag about Davis to their deceased relatives in the afterlife. After rejoining the GLX’s party, Doorman gave Squirrel Girl a cap mimicking his costume’s mask and decided not to tell them the shooting star they joyously watched was the deceased Grasshopper’s corpse re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.

Doorman and the GLX took part in a Super Hero poker tournament where they were mentally influenced by X-Man Rachel Grey, AKA Marvel Girl, to stop using the X-Men name. After Flatman won the tournament, the team decided their name should be Great Lakes Champions (GLC). 

Doorman and the GLC registered as Super Heroes when the U.S. government passed the Superhuman Registration Act and briefly clashed with Deadpool again. During the ensuing Super Hero Civil War, the group became Wisconsin’s official super-team, the Great Lakes Initiative (GLI), after joining the U.S. super-heroic Initiative program, later battled Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.) alongside Deadpool and resisted an extraterrestrial Skrull posing as Grasshopper during a Skrull invasion. After the Initiative program disbanded, the team returned to the GLA nomenclature, but Squirrel Girl soon quit, believing she was holding the team back from their true potential.

During Cul Borson, AKA the Serpent’s fear-inducing assault on Earth, the GLA was attacked by a panicked mob, including a woman who blamed Doorman for her uncle’s death after Doorman collected his soul post-mortem; the team escaped via Doorman’s teleportation. 

Soon after, despite being an angel of death, Doorman refused to battle the cancer-stricken Asbestos Man for fear of his super-asbestos armor. The team instead promised to declare Asbestos Man one of their top-five villains if he were to peacefully surrender. Observing this, the mob decided not to be afraid of the GLA any longer, instead choosing to ignore them for being inept.

Doorman continued to help his GLA teammates against such foes as councilman Dick Snerd, AKA Nain Rogue, Dr. Nod. He also continued his role as Oblivion’s emissary of death, especially after Oblivion pulled him into the Dark Dimension and inquired about his recent absence. Davis was also seen as the doorman to former teammate Squirrel Girl’s funeral, but it turned out that a foe had faked her death, so her demise was greatly exaggerated. Doorman later helped the GLA team defeat Aleksei Sytsevich, AKA Rhino, by allowing the mighty behemoth to pass through him and into a water tower. Davis continued to serve as Doorman on the GLA, Oblivion’s Grim Reaper, and most recently an online influencer.