Eye (Centaur Publications)


The Eye is a fictional comic book character created by Frank Thomas and published by Centaur Publications. The character had no origin story, and existed only as a giant, floating, disembodied eye, wreathed in a halo of golden light. This powerful being was obsessed with the concept of justice, and existed to encourage average people to do what they could to attain it for themselves. If the obstacles proved too great, the Eye would assist its mortal charges by working miracles. Time and space meant nothing to the Eye and it existed as a physical embodiment of man's inner conscience.
The Eye appeared in the pages of Centaur's Keen Detective Funnies for 16 issues, in a feature entitled "The Eye Sees". The feature began with the book's 16th issue, and continued until the title folded after its 24th issue. Following its run in Keen Detective, Centaur promoted the Eye to its own book, Detective Eye, which ran for two issues before folding as well.
A copycat feature called "The Hand" appeared in Harvey Comics' Speed Comics issues #12-13, with a huge disembodied hand tapping people on the shoulder and admonishing them for their wrongdoing.

Characteristics

The Eye had the ability to fly, appear and disappear, melt solid steel and bring invisible forces to bear, but had to work with human agents to fight crime. The Eye was a magical being "to whom time and distance are nothing — who bares man's thoughts and pierces his conscience!"
Don Markstein writes:
The Eye was assisted by human Jack Barrister, who helps the Eye pursue criminals and bring them to justice."

Golden Age appearances

The Eye had eleven Golden Age appearances. They included
In 1987, Michael T. Gilbert included one of the original Centaur Publications Eye stories in the first issue his two-part anthology comic, Mr. Monster's Hi-Shock Schlock.

Revivals

In 1992, Malibu Comics revived several Centaur heroes—which by that time had lapsed into public domain—as the superhero team the Protectors. A reworked version of the Eye appeared as a supporting character throughout the series' 20-issue run through 1994.