Neron is one of the major demon-lords of Hell, a "Wishweaver", the "King of Hate" and the "Lord of Lies". He specializes in making deals with people for their souls in exchange for fulfilling their greatest desires. These deals are classic
Faustian arrangements made only to further his own ends, leading to either misfortune or death for the dealmakers. To approach a victim, he will either appear before them directly with a deal for their soul or send them a carved black candle, which, when lit, either summons him to them directly to make a deal or brings them to Hell. He tricks five members of the
Rogues (
Captain Boomerang,
Captain Cold,
Heat Wave,
Mirror Master, and
Weather Wizard) into causing a series of explosions in five separate places which kills all of them in green fire. When seen from the sky, the flames resemble the points of a pentagram and the symbol, combined with the deaths of the five Rogues, creates a gateway which enables Neron to travel to Earth. Many supervillains and superheroes are either approached directly with deals for their souls or sent carved black candles which, when lit, either summon Neron to them directly for them to make a deal or bring them to Hell, where they then meet him and are offered a deal. About 50 supervillains have their greatest desires fulfilled as a result. Ultimately, Neron is scheming to take over Earth and to obtain a "pure soul" which he can corrupt. Initially, everyone assumes that this refers to
Superman's soul, but he actually seeks the soul of
Captain Marvel. In the end, he is defeated by the
Trickster and the most powerful members of
Justice League America, including Captain Marvel, though not before causing mass chaos and worldwide destruction. Captain Marvel makes a deal with Neron to release Earth and all of his fellow superheroes in exchange for his soul and nothing else. Neron accepts and tries to take Captain Marvel's soul, but as the deal was made for purely selfless reasons, the soul is too pure for him to touch; Neron, however, still had to honor his side of the deal by his very nature, and rejecting the deal led to the undoing of most of his other deals.
"Hell to Pay" and afterward Two years later, the five Rogues Gallery members who were previously killed are resurrected and cause havoc in
Keystone City, causing the Flash (
Wally West) to challenge Neron for their souls. Neron offers the Flash a deal for the Rogues members' souls, but he refuses and is allowed to leave Hell with the
original Flash (Jay Garrick), whom Neron had captured earlier. Knowing that the Rogues will soon be too powerful for anyone to fight, Neron's plan is that the Flash will be forced to make a deal with him to save Keystone City. Neron refuses the offer for the Flash's soul and asks for his love for
Linda Park instead because of its purity. He gets it, and Linda's soul also, which she had made a deal for earlier in exchange for Neron not going after the Flash's soul. Neron had planned all of this to use the
Speed Force to both enter into, and to rule, Heaven, but the plan backfires and the essence of the Flash and Linda's love corrupts him, causing him to feel pity and compassion for the damned souls in his realm for the first time in his existence without understanding why and forcing him in utter desperation to frantically offer the couple another deal to take their love back. The Flash accepts the deal, in return asking Neron to truly bring the Rogues back from the dead and return their souls to their bodies – which Neron does, vowing revenge on the Flash for defeating him before disappearing.
JLA: Paradise Lost and afterward Next, Neron's ambitions to conquer Heaven are furthered when he notices chaos and "strife between the orders of angels" when
Asmodel, a renegade King-Angel of the Bull Host who has waited 1,000,000 years to rebel against Heaven, and
Zauriel, an angel who knows his secret, use Earth as their battlefield. Asmodel makes a deal with Neron to have him help him in his plans to take over Heaven, but at the last moment of the assault on Heaven, Neron abandons his support for unknown reasons and returns to Hell without any explanation. Immediately after this, he is once again defeated by the Trickster with the help of the five Rogues members whom he had been involved with twice before, the Pied Piper and Billy Hong, a 12-year-old boy who is also the Majee, a special agent of the Saravistran god Mestra sent to observe and weigh humanity's progress. As part of the deal that he makes with the demon, the Trickster orders Neron to forget all about the Rogues altogether, with the only thing that he asks for in exchange is to be always remembered as the one mortal who beat Neron at his own game. Neron informs the Trickster in no uncertain terms that he will remember this moment before disappearing.
Day of Judgment and afterward Etrigan the Demon (who is trying to cause chaos on Earth and defeat Neron) causes trouble in Neron's realm by bonding Asmodel (who is bound in Hell and being tortured by Neron) to the Spectre-Force (which is awaiting a new host after its previous host,
Jim Corrigan). Asmodel, who is trying to destroy both Heaven and Hell, uses the Spectre's powers to extinguish the hellfire font, causing Hell to freeze over. In the chaos caused by the inhabitants of Hell invading Earth, Neron uses Superman's body as a gateway to Earth and once again tries to claim the Spectre-Force for himself. He is defeated when the Spectre-Force chooses
Hal Jordan as its host and is punished by his fellow demon-lords for using Hell's power for his own pleasure. His royal status is stripped from him and he is demoted to the position of a Rhyming Demon – which had been Etrigan's plan all along.
52 and afterward Under thrall to Neron,
Felix Faust plots to deliver him
Elongated Man's soul at the moment of its greatest despair. Pretending to be
Doctor Fate, Faust attempts to convince the Elongated Man that he can resurrect his wife,
Sue Dibny, from the dead and teaches him magical skills so that he can do so, but is tricked by the Elongated Man, who has known for some time that he is not Doctor Fate and that Neron is responsible for the whole plot. When Neron appears, he is goaded by the Elongated Man into killing him, but then discovers too late that the Elongated Man has tricked him and has established a circle of binding around Doctor Fate's home, the Tower of
Nabu, which can only be undone by the person who originally created it. Neron is thus trapped in the tower with Faust. The binding does not last; Neron escapes from the tower and makes a deal with
Kid Devil, transforming him into a demonic
metahuman. Blaze, Satanus' sister, usurps her brother's position and claims the throne for herself, thus winning the war.
Ambush Bug: Year None Ambush Bug goes to Hell and asks Neron to nullify his marriage to Dumb Bunny, one of the members of the
Inferior Five (whom he married in
Las Vegas while he was drunk) – one of several alternate realities that he visits to find a way to get out of the marriage.
The New 52 In 2011, DC relaunched all of its titles in an initiative called
The New 52. Neron's first appearance in
The New 52 version of the DC Universe (as part of the DC YOU line) was in
Constantine: The Hellblazer #8–13 (March–August 2016). In this story, Neron is retconned as originally having been a minor demon who, through various unscrupulous means, became the demon-lord that he is today in the 1980s. The
Underworld Unleashed crossover event is also revealed in this story as being canon in this version of the DC Universe and is said to have occurred in the 1990s.
DC Rebirth In 2016, DC's titles were relaunched again in another initiative called
DC Rebirth. Neron's first appearance in the
DC Rebirth version of the DC Universe was in
Midnighter and Apollo #2–6 (January–May 2017). In this story, Neron is keeping
Apollo as a prisoner in Hell and
Midnighter tries to free him from Neron's clutches, ultimately succeeding in doing so, but not without a fierce struggle on both sides of the battle. ==Powers and abilities==