Pre-Crisis
In his debut story, Vandal Savage manipulates the Green Lantern and his secret identity Alan Scott into helping his schemes, later revealing he knows they are the same person. Savage explains that he is "one million years old" and was once a Cro-Magnon man who was the chief of his tribe. After being exposed to gases from a meteor, Savage is rendered comatose for months and awakens to discover that he has gained eternal youth. Savage does not reveal his original name to the Green Lantern, but claims that over the years he has lived under many identities, including an ancient king of Sumer, Cheops, Julius Caesar, and Genghis Khan. When he realized he could still die from injury, he decided to no longer act as a public man of power and instead would serve as an advisor to powerful leaders including Napoleon Bonaparte, Otto von Bismarck, and Adolf Hitler; gaining resources and political influence while others could be the target for assassination. Now in the modern-day, he wishes to become a powerful figure in the government and war industry. In the end, he is defeated when Green Lantern opens a seemingly bottomless pit beneath him, causing him to fall out of sight. [3]
Years later, he is revealed to be alive and recruited to the original incarnation of the Injustice Society, a group dedicated to defeating the heroic Justice Society of America. During this adventure, he targets and captures JSA member Hawkman. The Justice Society proves victorious, however, and Vandal Savage is imprisoned. [4]
By the early 1950s, the Justice Society members largely retire. Years later, Jay Garrick, the Flash (a founding member of the Justice Society), is visited by Barry Allen, the Flash of a parallel universe and a founding member of the Justice League. Barry designates his own home as Earth-One and the world of the Justice Society and Injustice Society as Earth-Two.
After 16 years of prison, Vandal Savage has his freedom again and lures the Justice Society members out of retirement, capturing them. He accidentally attracts the attention of Barry Allen, who aids the older heroes against the villain. As a result of the adventure, the Justice Society decides to return to semi-active duty. [5] Starting in this same story, Savage is now said to be 50,000 years old rather than one million, and his original name is revealed to be Vandar Adg. The stories now say the meteor that mutated him did so through radiation rather than exotic gases, and that it did not actually explode but warped through space and time. A later story reveals that a fragment of the same radioactive meteor is recovered by a caveman named Klarn of the Bear Tribe, an enemy of Vandar Adg, who then makes it into an amulet. With this amulet, Klarn gains a unique reincarnation ability; every time he is killed or dies, he quickly reappears elsewhere on Earth in a new body, fully clothed, and with his memories of all past lives intact. Becoming one of Savage's most frequent enemies over the millennia, he is known to many as the Immortal Man. [6]
Following his failure to hold the Justice Society prisoner, Vandal Savage realizes he is not only aging but completely losing his immortality. He learns that the meteor that made him immortal in the first place did not explode into ash as he thought but actually warped through space and time, crossing through dimensions and into Limbo. Savage manipulates Jay Garrick and Barry Allen into helping him free the meteor back into Earth's atmosphere, hoping another exposure will recharge his immortality. Instead, it seemingly destroys him. [7] Since Savage was shifting between the dimensions of Earth-One and Earth-Two just before the meteor impacted with him, he is now stuck in a partial existence between both worlds, only able to achieve tangibility in one while being a shadow form in the other. He also temporarily gains the ability to project messages and images into the minds of others. Though he regains his full state of physical being later and returns to Earth-Two, he still fails to regain his immortality. [8] Later on, he uses the Superman of Earth-Two as a power source to recharge his immortality. Savage hopes to also take all of Superman's power, but Earth-Two's heroes arrive and foil the scheme. [9]
Later on, Savage, once again immortal, alters the history of Earth-One so that he has been its ruler for centuries, with Superman serving as his trusted enforcer. Realizing Savage is a cruel leader who censors news media so only good things are said about his rule, Superman joins the rebellion against the villain and then restores the original history. Traveling back in time to when he first gained his power, Savage is seemingly destroyed by the radiation of the meteor that made him immortal. [10] Later, his body rebuilds itself from the ash, either due to his healing always being this powerful or because the meteor's radiation temporarily enhanced his immortal abilities. Deciding to conquer the world through technology, Savage remains on modern-day Earth-One and creates the technological research corporation Abraxas in Metropolis, pretending to be an altruistic scientist and businessman while secretly continuing his plans for conquest and battling Superman. [11] Later on, the Immortal Man (having apparently relocated to Earth-One) recruits a team of Forgotten Heroes to combat Savage's schemes. [6]
Post-Crisis
Following Crisis on Infinite Earths , several universes merged into one single timeline, creating a new version of history where the Justice Society and Justice League had always lived on the same Earth, with one team forming decades after the other. In this new history, Savage is still originally a Cro-Magnon warrior called Vandar Adg, now said to have been leader of the Blood Tribe. [12] The Post-Crisis version of Savage is more bloodthirsty, and it is suggested by some that he is the first cannibal on record in human history. As with the Silver Age stories, the meteor that made him immortal is one that travels by warping through space and time, now specifically said to have originated from the future. Savage eventually learns the meteor didn't empower him through radiation but by infecting him with sub-atomic robots it carried called "tektites". These tektites make him ageless and able to heal from great damage and lethal wounds, while also increasing his intelligence, making him more human in form, and increasing his strength, reflexes, resiliency to injury, and tolerance to pain. The Immortal Man is still present at Savage's origin, and still fashions an amulet from a piece of the meteor. It is now said the presence of tektites in both their bodies allows the two enemies to sense each other and sometimes be drawn to each other. [13]
Though he is unaware of it at the time, Vandar Adg had intestinal cancer when he was made immortal. This affects the cancer cells as well, preserving them and making them unable to be removed. Throughout the centuries, the cancer causes Savage great bouts of pain and discomfort. [14]
Along with the Immortal Man, Savage makes enemies of many across history, including the early human Anthro [15] and the immortal mystic known as the Phantom Stranger. [16] At different points in history, Savage faces Batman due to the hero becoming temporarily lost wandering through time as a result of the Final Crisis . [17] Similarly, Savage often fights the time traveler Rip Hunter and his allies across the millennia. [18] As he grows older, Savage realizes he has three human enemies who constantly reincarnate, though unlike the Immortal Man they do so in the traditional sense, needing to literally be reborn as children again following each death. Two of these enemies are known as Prince Khufu and his wife Chay-Ara in their original lives, fated to meet each other and fall in love in all subsequent lives. In the early 20th century, they are reborn as Carter Hall and Shiera Saunders, Hawkman and Hawkgirl. Vandal Savage compares the two reincarnating Hawk heroes to cockroaches. Savage's other reincarnating enemy is a man named Mitchell Shelley, who is repeatedly reborn again and usually recalls the events of his past lives, leading him to remaining the same person. In many lives, Shelley fights Savage, becoming his most frequent enemy next to the Immortal Man. [19]
Vandal Savage claims to have been several noteworthy figures of history, but it has been shown that at least some of these boasts are false, a means of taking credit and seeming more important. At times he enjoys being a soldier for glory or a minor conqueror. More often, unwilling to test how much damage his immortality can repair, he is content to be an advisor behind the scenes. While temporarily living in ancient Atlantis, the center of magic on Earth, Savage founds a secret society known as the Children of the Light. This organization helps topple the power of Atlantis. Before the continent sinks, Savage's followers leave and spread across Earth, becoming known as the Illuminati. Savage serves as its secret leader for many years. [18] In Ancient Egypt, Savage is known as Khafre and makes an enemy of Nabu, who will one day merge with a human host to become the superhero Doctor Fate. [18]
As superheroes rise in the modern-day, Savage believes he has found enemies worthy of fighting directly. This leads him to confront Green Lantern (Alan Scott) in the 1940s, and then join the Injustice Society to fight the hero's comrades. When he later decides the Justice Society of America have become too formidable, Vandal Savage uses his influence on several senators to shut the heroes down. In 1951, the House Un-American Activities Committee openly questions if the JSA members are secret spies and Communists, pressuring them to reveal their identities and serve the U.S. government. The JSA choose to retire instead, which Savage considers a victory as it means an end to widespread superhero activity for decades. [20]
At some point after the retirement of the JSA, Vandal Savage fathers a daughter whom he names Scandal. As with many children he has had over the centuries, Vandal dismisses any notions of love or affection towards Scandal. However, he comes to admire her warrior spirit and talent for violence, leading him to protect her at times in the hopes that she will one day provide an even more formidable heir whom he can use.
Many years later, the debut of Superman leads to the Modern Age of Superheroes. The Justice League forms and Vandal Savage winds up opposing them. By this time, Savage has begun funding clandestine terrorist organizations and advanced scientific research, both to increase his resources and due to his realizing his immortality is weaker than it used to be. Savage starts tracking down his descendants to rely on them for organ transplants if he needs them, as his body now has a harder time regenerating full organs if they are too greatly damaged. Related to this, he funds research into cloning.
Wally West, the latest hero to be called the Flash, realizes Vandal Savage is hiding under the alias of Burt Villers, an art dealer. The two have a brief battle. [21] Soon afterward, one of Savage's scientific projects leads to the creation of Velocity 9, a highly-addictive drug that imbues a person with superhuman speed. Savage releases this drug to criminals who then perform high-speed crimes, but the Velocity 9 causes accelerated aging and severe strokes. The Velocity 9 scheme is thwarted by Wally West. [22] Later on, Wally's friend and fellow Teen Titans founder Roy Harper (known as Arsenal) is revealed to be one of Savage's descendants. [23]
Soon after the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Savage captures the Immortal Man. He then funds the Lab, a group attempting to recreate the tektites that make the villain immortal. The Lab experiments on blood samples taken from both Savage and the Immortal Man, hoping to understand the sub-atomic technology. [24] By this time, Mitchell "Mitch" Shelley has reincarnated, now living as a lawyer in Viceroy, South Carolina. Though suffering from visions and dreams of his past lives, Shelley is unable to learn the full truth of his past before he is targeted for death by enemies. Though he survives, he wanders the streets, brain-damaged and amnesiac. Later, he is coincidentally kidnapped by the Lab, as Savage's organization is now testing its tektite technology by injecting it into homeless people and seeing if they survive lethal injuries. Shelley's ability to reincarnate and remember his past lives seems to interact with the tektites, turning him into a Resurrection Man. Now whenever he is killed, he always returns, and each time he does so he possesses a different additional super-power. After escaping the Lab, Shelley's memories return in part, and he recalls his long-time rivalry with Vandal Savage. With the Forgotten Heroes, Shelley confronts Savage and learns the Immortal Man has been his prisoner for years. When a tektite-empowered creature emerges from a time-warp, apparently from the same source that produced the meteor that gave Savage and Immortal Man their power years ago, it causes chaos and starts to disrupt reality. Shelley, Immortal Man, and Savage join forces against the creature. In the end, the Immortal Man uses his own tektite field to overload the creature's own technology, killing them both in the process. [13]
When the now-adult founding members of the Teen Titans decide to reform the group under the name the Titans, they soon interfere with one of Vandal Savage's schemes. To counter them, Savage creates his own team of villains known as Tartarus (the mythological prison of the ancient Titans). [25] The members include the Red Panzer, Gorilla Grodd, Lady Vic, Siren, and Cheshire (both an enemy of the Titans and the mother of Roy Harper's child Lian). Tartarus targets Adeline Wilson, a leader of the terrorist group the H.I.V.E., to use her blood for a new immortality serum. Before the Titans can stop him, Savage slits Wilson's throat. The Red Panzer dies in the subsequent battle. Savage then shoots Cheshire, distracting the Titans as he and his other recruits escape. The Titans then rescue their old teammate Omen from Tartarus and the tide is turned after the Siren changes sides. The villain group disbands. [26]
Soon before the events of Infinite Crisis , Vandal Savage joins the newly reorganized Secret Society of Super Villains (now simply calling itself "the Society"). Meanwhile, his now-adult daughter Scandal Savage joins the newest group to call itself the Secret Six, a team that opposes the Society's agenda. Savage later reveals that he believes Scandal and her Secret Six teammate the Catman would produce a suitable and formidable heir. Scandal, however, is romantically involved with the woman Knockout. Seeing this as defiance, Savage threatens Knockout and the team. [27]
Vandal Savage becomes leader of a doomsday cult and endows his followers with a variety of superhuman abilities thanks to a serum based on his own blood (though they lose these abilities without regular injections). His recruit Fantasia then casts illusions to trick the Flash into bringing Savage an alien "Summoner" device. Deciding that the planet is overpopulated and no longer an enjoyable place for him to live, Savage intends to use the Summoner to force the Thanatos asteroid to crash to Earth, causing an apocalypse event and "thinning out the herd" of the human race. The Flash reverses the effect of the device, pushing the asteroid away, but then Savage leaps into the path of the beam, believing he will gain greater power from the asteroid just as a meteor once gave him power before. As he is sent to the asteroid, he declares that he will protect the Flash and his family and heirs as thanks for Wally West's help in his achievement of new power. [28] As Savage vanishes, his followers are rounded up and their abilities fade. Savage's immortality allows him to survive on the meteor and he later returns to Earth by "hitching a ride" on a comet that is headed in that direction. [29]
A story in JSA: Classified #10-13 depicts Savage with his immortality and regenerative abilities now drained and suffering from a brain tumor. Believing he will die soon, Savage decides to try one last act of revenge against Alan Scott, the first superhero he ever fought and his first true enemy of the modern era. When this fails, Savage consumes a clone of himself to restore his power, at least temporarily. This story claims Savage no longer has descendants to harvest for survival and says he is only 37,000 years old, both of which contradict comics published before and afterward, leaving the story's place in canon questionable. [30]
Savage later returns as the mastermind behind a group of superhuman Neo-Nazis called the Fourth Reich, targeting the heirs of several Golden Age superheroes. They kill the heroes Minute-Man, General Glory, and Mister America, along with their families. The Fourth Reich kills nearly all of Commander Steel's family. The battle ends when the Fourth Reich is defeated and Savage is struck down by a fire truck. [31]
