Vandal Savage
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Vandal Savage is a fictional character and supervillain in the DC Comics universe. Savage first appeared in Green Lantern # 10 in 1943, and was created by Alfred Bester and Martin Nodell.
Savage is immortal, and has plagued the earth with crime and violence since before the beginning of recorded time. He is a brilliant tactician with immense technological prowess. He is one of DC's most persistent villains and has fought many different heroes throughout history.
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[edit] History
In the days of prehistory, 50,000 BC, Savage was a caveman named Vandar Adg, leader of the Blood Tribe. He was bathed in the radiation of a mysterious meteorite, which gave him incredible intellect and immortality. An observer from the Bear Tribe would later approach that same meteorite and became Savage's eternal nemesis, the Immortal Man, possessing the power to resurrect as a new persona every time he is killed.
Savage's first mark in the "history" of the DC Universe came when he and a select group of people successfully undermined and destroyed the lost city of Atlantis. That group of people became known as the Illuminati, with Savage serving as its leader, then and ever since.
He claims to have ruled hundreds of civilizations under hundreds of names: Khafre, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar (though he has also claimed to have participated in the murder of Julius Caesar), Genghis Khan, Blackbeard, and Vlad the Impaler, to name a few. He has also worked as close friends and advisers to the likes of Erik the Red, Napoleon Bonaparte, Ra's al Ghul, Otto von Bismarck and Adolf Hitler.
During the Golden Age, Savage battled the Justice Society of America. Savage's first Silver Age appearance was in Flash # 137 in 1962, in which he attempted to capture the members of the Justice Society out of revenge, but was thwarted by the Golden and Silver Age Flashes (Jay Garrick and Barry Allen). Savage would continue to make various attacks on the Justice Society in later stories. He was also one of the founding members of The Injustice Society, and briefly formed a group of villains called Tartarus. He is one of the main villians in the JLA: Year One storyline, working against the recently-formed JLA, and harboring a deep hatred towards superheroes and the alien Applexians. Savage also mentions that he shut down the Justice Society with "a few well-placed senators."
[edit] Immortal Man
Ultimately, Savage's enemy the Immortal Man erased himself from existence to save the world during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, and Mitch Shelley, the Resurrection Man, an amnesiac with similar powers, took over as Savage's nemesis. However, Savage's list of foes is not limited to those two characters. Having lived so long, Savage has butted heads with possibly every single hero featured in the DC Universe, past, present, and future, most notably the Justice Society of America and the Justice League of America. At present, in DC universe, Savage is about 52,000 years old.
[edit] DC One Million
Savage will possibly meet his end in the year 85,271 A.D. (as seen in the DC One Million storyline), when he is sent back in time to 20th century Montevideo, Uruguay, seconds before it is obliterated by a nuclear weapon, an action that was, ironically, ordered by Savage himself. This is, however, only one possible future for Savage. These events may change due to the tampering with the forces of the universe by Alexander Luthor, Jr. and Superboy-Prime during the Infinite Crisis.
[edit] Villains United/Scandal Savage
Vandal Savage was seen in the final two issues of Villains United. Originally Savage was a member of Lex Luthor's Society, but he quit the Society and told Lex not to contact him for any reason. While no reason was given it is likely Vandal quit because his daughter Scandal was working against the Society as part of the Secret Six. When the Society lodged a final ambush against the Six, Savage threatened to kill Luthor if he didn't call off the attack, saying that he couldn't allow anyone to harm his daughter. This was shown to be due more to ulterior motives than fatherly love, as in issue three of the Secret Six miniseries it was revealed Savage wants his daughter to produce an heir with Catman, and he's been putting bounties on the Secret Six's heads as a warning of what will happen to her lover if she refuses him.
[edit] Flash and JSA
Savage was seen in the final story arc of Flash (vol. 2) as leader of a doomsday cult. He attempted to use a device to pull an asteroid into the Earth, but was thrown into space with the asteroid itself when the Flash reversed the polarity of the device. Eventually the asteroid fell back on Earth with Savage, who found his power greatly diminished. His immortality completely drained, he's still able to survive otherwise fatal wounds, but a brain tumor and a strong decay of his biological function are leading him to a fast death, with an estimated life span of eleven days. Savage tried to capture Alan Scott by baiting him with a grotesque (and disguised) Wesley Dodds clone, who, in fact, was his own clone. After a failed attempt to steal Scott's DNA, Savage was left alone in the rubble of his former secret base. Realizing that his clone could be considered his own offspring, and that the blood of his descendants has always renewed his strength, Savage cooked and ate his clone, renewing his energies at least for another year.
Savage returns in the first story arc of the new Justice Society of America, the mastermind behind a group of Neonazi superpowered villains targeting the heirs of several Golden Age superhero bloodlines. In issue #4, after a battle with Wildcat & his son, Savage is defeated when hit by a fire truck.
[edit] Elseworlds
Vandal Savage was the villain in the 1997 Elseworld limited series Batman: Dark Knight Dynasty. In this story, Savage is obsessed with recovering the meteor that gave him his immortality, believing that it will reveal why he has become what he became. Over the centuries, he finds himself opposing the members of the Wayne family throughout history, starting with medieval knight Sir Joshua of Wainwright, to contemporary Bruce Wayne (Vandal saved Bruce's parents, but killed them when Bruce was an adult to stop them preventing him reacquiring the meteor, and he and Bruce died after a battle in space), to futuristic Vice President Brenda Wayne. At the conclusion of this last battle, Vandal was left drifting through space on the meteor, determined to learn the purpose of his life.
Another Elseworld story, Flashpoint, had Savage running a space-exploration corporation with the help of the crippled Barry Allen. He tried to use technology stolen from J'onn J'onzz to kill humanity (he wanted to commit suicide in the grandest manner possible), but was killed by Barry Allen, who sacrificed his life to stop the alien device.
In the limited series Kingdom Come, Vandal Savage is a member of Lex Luthor's Mankind Liberation Front, but is captured by Batman and his allies.
[edit] In other media
Savage is seen in several episodes of the animated series Justice League, where he is voiced by Phil Morris. This version of Savage, in addition to being an immortal, has enhanced healing properties in the style of Wolverine. His origin is the same as that of his comic book counterpart, except it is revealed in the episode "Maid of Honor" his age is half of that in the comics - 25,000 years.
The League first encounters Savage in the three-part episode "The Savage Time", when he manages to alter history and cause Nazi Germany to win World War II. The League (minus Batman, who was in their satellite headquarters at the time) was protected by Green Lantern energy (as he guided their space ship in for docking) and were unaffected by the temporal alteration. With the aid of this timeline's version of Batman, they traveled back in time to learn that Vandal Savage had sent himself, from the present-day to the past, a laptop that contained technologically advanced plans for weaponry, as well as information on the future plans of the Allies. This knowledge and technology allowed Savage to catapult himself to the top of the Axis authority, deposing Hitler and assuming the title of Führer. The League managed to end Savage's campaign just as he mounts a jet-powered aerial assault heading towards America, and he is forced to retreat, with Hitler restored to power in time for D-Day to succeed.
Savage's second appearance was in "Maid of Honor", in which he turned up as the fiancé of Princess Audrey of Kasnia. Savage disguised himself as his own descendant, Vandal Savage the Third. He married Audrey and used the Kasnian involvement in an international space station to set up a rail gun that shoots meteors with pinpoint accuracy. With this, he hoped to threaten the world into bowing to his authority. The League (in particular, Wonder Woman, who had become a good friend of Audrey's) dismantles Savage's plot yet again.
His final appearance was in the two-part "Hereafter". Superman, having been thrown forward to a time when the Earth's sun is red (leaving him powerless) meets Savage, the sole surviving human. Savage was responsible for the destruction of the human race, having stolen the Atom's piece of dwarf star, and using it to build a machine that would allow him to control the force of gravity. In Superman's absence he slaughtered the Justice League, but the side effects of his gravity manipulation shifted the balance of the entire solar system, killing all human life. The centuries of loneliness and isolation have caused him to regret his mad pursuits of power. He and Superman end up working together to revive a Zero Point Energy powered time machine that Savage built so that Superman can go back in time and stop Savage's past self from dooming the human race (Savage couldn't go himself as the machine couldn't send him somewhere he already existed, but Superman, having been thought to be dead, was free to go back). Once operational, the radiation from the time machine's power source also has the effect of restoring Superman to his full abilities (it's like a miniature yellow sun). Superman returns to the present and the future Savage sees the future restore itself just as he slowly fades from existence, his last words being "Thank you, my friend...".
