Metamorpho

Rex Mason was an adventurer hired by business tycoon, Simon Stagg, to explore a pyramid to find a rare artifact.   He found the artifact, the Orb of Ra, but was knocked unconscious by his fellow traveler, Java.  Rex Mason was left for dead.  However, exposure to the artifact, once a meteor, transformed him into a multi-coloured freak with the power to transform his body, in whole or in part, into any element or compound found in the normal human body.  Encouraged by his lover, Sapphire Stagg (whose father had arranged for Mason's intended death), he became a hero and adventurer, teaming up with the Outsiders and later the Justice League.  He has fathered a son, Joey, and recently gave his life to save his Justice League team-mates from certain death. However, Metamorpho can never truly be labelled as 'dead', but rather 'inert', and has returned from the grave to act as a hero once more.

When billionaire Simon Stagg sent adventurer Rex Mason to Egypt to retrieve the Orb of Ra from a pyramid, he never expected him to return.  Stagg's henchman, Java, cleaned Rex's clock.  Left for dead, Rex fell into a hidden chamber and was exposed to a radioactive meteorite.  The radiation changed Mason into a bizarre looking shapechanging element man, Metamorpho.  Manipulated by Stagg to do tasks for the corrupt billionaire, Metamorpho maintained his integrity and battled bizarre forces of evil.  Many a battle was also fought between the 'Element Man' and Java for the affections of Sapphire Stagg with Rex always coming out ahead.  Regardless of Rex's looks and self-conscious feelings, Stagg's daughter Sapphire would have no other man than Rex Mason, whom she eventually married.  
 
Metamorpho later joined the first Outsiders group, where he really came into his own as a team player, and together they went on many adventures and to fight crime on Earth.  Later however, he seemingly died on one of their missions.  However, during the Invasion crossover, Rex was revived when the Dominion dropped the Gene-bomb on Earth.  Suffering briefly from amnesia, Metamorpho joined Justice League Europe, and later learned that Sapphire had re-married after his supposed death.  Luckily, a few years later, they were reunited, and had a son, Joey, who inherited mutagenic powers from Metamorpho, though he was later cured of these powers.  He briefly had a crime fighting partner, Element Girl, but he would end their relationship, in part due to the fact that she had a strong attraction to him, and he was, of course, seeing Sapphire.
 
Metamorpho went on to join the American branch of the Justice League, the first time he had joined after declining a membership years before, and seemingly died once again when a group of White Martians attacked Earth, during which time he was trying to save the JLA by turning himself into a makeshift spacecraft in which to carry them, which was more than he could endure, and he ended up in a coma, as an inert mass for a time, but thanks to the efforts of S.T.A.R Labs, has once again been brought back to life.  However, a bit of himself that S.T.A.R first found and researched grew into a de-facto duplicate of Rex, and took on a life of its own.  It would've done Rex no good to have tried to re-merge the now independant lifeform with himself, which is why he decided that, besides accepting this new duplicate's existance, he would also let him take over his own role as a crimefighter of the elemental kind on Earth as Shift.  Rex would later agree to re-absorb Shift into himself because the duplicate could not handle his role in killing his former friend, Indigo.

Rex briefly retired from crimefighting, and spent much of his time with Sapphire and Joey.  However, Metamorpho has recently returned to action as a member of the Outsiders once more.