Vandal Savage

Vandal Savage, formerly known as Hath-Set, (c. 1700 B.C.) is a former ancient Egyptian priest under service of Ramses II who became ambitious and desire to rule himself. He was also in love with the priestess Chay-Ara but she was in love with Prince Khufu, and when Hath-Set learned of this he was consumed with jealous rage. After attempting to murder them both the three were caught in the crossfire of a meteor shower with a mutative element, which granted Hath-Set immortality while Chay-Ara and Khufu reincarnated but Hath-Set would be required to kill them both in each lifetime they live. At some point he chose the name "Vandal Savage" and begun killing each of their incarnations in each life time, and achieved this 206 times over the next 4000 years all while manipulating world leaders into starting wars to prime the world for his own eventual rule. By 2166 Vandal succeeds in conquering the world and leaving billions dead and he is currently pursued through time by Rip Hunter and his team to stop his reign of terror before it begins.

Origins


Hath-Set was born in the Middle Kingdom of Egypt in 1700 B.C. and became a priest and adviser to Ramses II but Hath-Set despised the pharaoh and secretly wished him dead. As the priest it was his job to make offers to the Egyptian God Horus, along with the Priestess Chay-Ara, and spare the land of his wrath from the celestial rocks (meteors). Hath-Set fell in love with Chay-Ara, but she was in love with the pharaoh's son Prince Khufu. Hath-Set was almost killed by an assassin he'd nickname "Gareeb", but he was able to stall him long enough for his guards to overpower the man. Despite questioning him, the assassin escaped. However Hath-Set never forgot the man's face and would pass down the story of this assassin to his cults one day.

One day after addressing Ramses II on the meteors and the dangers they posed Hath-Set saw Chay-Ara and Khufu together and became consumed with rage towards both. The following day, Hath-Set walked into Chay-Ara's bed chambers where he saw her and Khufu together and attacked them. He fatally stabbed Khufu before stabbing Chay-Ara. As both lay dying, another storm of meteors fell from the sky and begun laying waste to the kingdom. Hath-Set prayed to the gods for Khufu and Chay-Ara to suffer, whilst Chay-Ara prayed for Horus' protection. Their prayers were both fulfilled as the meteors possessed a special radiation, which affected the three of them. Hath-Set was granted immortality while Khufu and Chay-Ara's souls were reincarnated into new lives.

For Hath-Set to retain his immortality, he would be forced to kill every incarnation of Khufu and Chay-Ara and absorb their life-force. However since the blade Hath-Set used to kill the two was also affected it remains the one weapons that can actually kill him but only if it is used against him by Chay-Ara herself, not Khufu. At somepoint during their incarnations Khufu and Chay-Ara decided to use the powers they gained from the meteors to aid people under the monikors "Hawkman" and "Hawkgirl" respectively, though Hath-Set always laughed at their efforts and their uniforms.

Next 4000 years
For 4000 years Hath-Set hunted down Khufu and Chay-Ara, killing them in all of their reincarnations and by the 21st century would achieve this 206 times. At some point Hath-Set abandoned his original name and adopted the new identity "Vandal Savage". Vandal also grew ambitious and desired dominion over the entire planet but knew the current resources of his time were insufficient to achieve such a goal, and secretly begun influencing various powerful figures of authority into war to further the development of weapons and scientific technologies and prime the world for his eventual rule.

Vandal became associated with Julius Caesar and guided him through the Gallic Wars which he most likely had a hand in causing, and later met Genghis Khan and Savage served him as his most trusted adviser. Vandal was also taught how to resist pain by Robin of Locksley while in turn Vandal taught Robin the skills of archery. Vandal was also apparently used the aliases Niccolò Machiavelli and Nostradamus.

At some point hunting down the current incarnations of Khufu and Chay-Ara, Vandal traveled to China in 1887 but for reasons unclear encountered difficulty and instead caused the Yellow River to flood to kill Khufu and Chay-Ara and succeeded, whilst also killing 2 million other civilians.

In Victorian London, Savage received tutorage from Jack the Ripper on how to dissect a body. A few years later Vandal once met Harry Houdini and taught him how to get out of locked handcuffs.

In 1914 Vandal met and manipulated Gavrilo Princip into assassinating Franz Ferdinand which led to World War I.

In 1928 Vandal hunted the latest incarnations of Khufu and Chay-Ara, Joe and Edith Boardman, who had already spent years running from Vandal, and had hidden in North Carolina. Vandal found them in the middle of the night and murdered them in the hotel they were staying in unaware they had a son, Aldus, who saw the whole thing and who would spend his whole life studying the story of Khufu, Chay-Ara and Hath-Set in the hopes of one day achieving vengeance for his parents.

Vandal was also present in World War II where he was a member of Adolf Hitler's Nazi party. He was also a close friend of Joseph Stalin who taught him the art of torture.

Sometime around 1950 Vandel met with Joseph Stalin to be taught how to break a man.

In 1963 Vandal was present in the crowds in Dallas the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated implying he possibly had a role in JFK's death.

1975
In 1975, Savage was located in Norway where, under the alias "Sasha Mahnovski", he had set himself up in a rich mansion where he kept numerous artifacts collected through the ages including the dagger, and commanded a sizeable militia of terrorists.

Savage stole a prototype nuclear warhead from the military and explained to his men that humanity only further's their cause during times of strife, such an example was splitting the atom which wasn't even thought of until World War II occured. Savage then put this warhead on sell at the black market which attracted the most notorious of terrorist organisations, including Damien Darhk of H.I.V.E.. As the potential buyers placed their bids Savage sensed the presence of Khufu and Chay-Ara nearby, and sold the nuke to a new comer, Professor Martin Stein, whom neither Savage or Darhk was familiar with. At that moment Savage begun to suspect Stein wasn't a terrorist and offered a 25% discount to whomever killed him and his companions. At that point Stein's companions Leonard Snart/Captain Cold, Mick Rory/Heat Wave and Sara Lance/White Canary attacked Savage's men while and were soon joined by Ray Palmer/The Atom while Professor Stein and his partner Jefferson Jackson merged into Firestorm and the five laid all out war to Savage's men. Amidst his awe Vandal was confronted by Carter Hall/Hawkman and Kendra Saunders/Hawkgirl, Khufu and Chay-Ara's future incarnations, but Savage activated the nuke to distract the others and give himself the chance to escape.

However the auction was not a complete loss as Savage's men managed to obtain a piece of Ray's equipment and begun reverse-engineering it's mechanisms to develop weapons, while Savage discussed the incident with his right-hand man and Savage deduced that the attackers had technology unheard of and deduced they must be from the future. Savage ordered his engineers to discover the mechanisms of the suit within 24 hours but one of them expressed doubts and Vandal used the piece of technology to blast the engineer and threatened to do the same to the rest if they failed.



Later that evening Savage discovered that Leonard, Mick and Ray had broken into his mansion and Snart and Ray had ben caught in a trap in his gallery room, and Savage found Mick and held him at gunpoint. He demanded Leonard call his companions and order them to come face him but Savage grew tired of waiting and was moments away from killing Mick, until Firestorm intervened and a large fight between Savage's men and his opposes broke out outside his mansion. Whilst attempting to flee Savage was confronted by Hawkman and Hawkgirl and Hawkman wielded the blade that murdered their first incarnations and the two fought and Hawkman managed to impale Savage with it, only for Savage to be unharmed and turn the blade on him and stabbed him in the heart. Savage reminded a dying Hawkman that the blade belongs to Hawkgirl and she is the only one that can wield it against him. When Carter died his lifeforce was transferred to Savage and a vengeful Kendra attempted to avenge him but was hopelessly outmatched against Savage and was stabbed in the chest. As he moved in on her he confessed how much he truly loved her but reminded her they are bound by a curse of life and death that will forever separate them, but before he could deliver the fatal blow Atom blasted Savage away and they were able to escape with her alive.

Savage took Carter's body to his followers in Africa to perform the ritual to give them all an extra hundred years of life using his blood. Before he begun he was interrupted by the arrival of Sara and his archenemy the Gareeb, Rip Hunter. Savage remarked on their previous encounter in Egypt but questioned Rip as to why he was trying to kill him, and why he despised him so much. Savage then searched Rip and found a locket watch with a photo of his wife and child and quickly deduced that he must have killed them in the future, and expressed excitement towards this notion. Savage then demonstrated the ritual to Rip and Sara by bleeding Carter's body into a goblet and drinking from it, increasing his own lifespan further and passed the cup to his followers and increased their own lifespan. However the meeting was interrupted by the arrivals of Leonard, Mick and Jax who immediately attacked Savage's followers and Rip and Sara were able to get loose too and took part in the counterattack. Savage, enraged, used the Amon Dagger to channel his powers and blast them with a large beam that also caused a shockwave then applied to the floor. Admits this however he was attacked by Rip who managed to subdue Savage and fatally stab him in the chest in vengeance for Miranda and Jonas, his wife and son, but unintentionally revealed their names to him. Before dying Savage told Rip he knew their names now and vowed that one day he would rise to power and that he'd wait until they are alive, and he'd kill them. Savage then died, temporarily, but the others had gone by the time he came back.

1986
For the next 11 years Savage began focusing his efforts on creating his own version of Firestorm and defected to the Soviet Union to utilize their resources, but was unable to balance the equation of Firestorm and many test subjects died as a result. After years of failing Savage eventually employed Russian physicist Dr. Valentina Vostok who came closer to solving the equation but still lacked the skills to achieve the final step, that Firestorm is made of two people merged into one body.

After Valentina had captured Professor Stein, Ray and Mick from 1975 Savage visited the gulag they were being held at and attempted to torture answers out of Stein, but with no result. Savage also remarked stories of his old friend Joseph Stalin and the skills of torture Stalin showed him. After torturing Stein yielded no results Savage took to torturing Ray and Mick instead by electrocuting them and eventually using a hammer on them. After seeing them in pain for so long Stein finally decided to aid Savage and gave his side of the equation. Savage later returned to the prison when Rip Hunter and his team attacked it looking for Stein and he ran into Kendra, but rather than kill her he offered her a place by his side promising to prolong her life but she angrily declined. Before Savage could harm her Rip encountered Savage again and demanded his locket back but Savage told Rip he'd memorized Miranda and Jonas' faces, and reminded him he would kill them. However as Rip left he set of an explosion that temporarily killed Savage yet again.

2015
30 years later In 2015, Vandal stowed aboard a ship bound for Central City in his search of Chay-Ara's latest reincarnation. When he was captured and about to handed over to the CCPD, Vandal slipped his cuffs onto the ship captain before killing him, his crew and the arresting police officer. Vandal found Chay-Ara, now Kendra Saunders but an earlier version of the one previously faced in the past, and Cisco Ramon at CC Jitters. However, Cisco summoned the Flash, who quickly knocked Vandal down. Vandal recovered and threw a knife at Cisco. The Flash distracted himself to catch the knife, enabling Vandal to escape.

As the Flash and Cisco took Kendra to Star City to seek the aid of Team Arrow, Vandal gave pursuit. He stormed Thea Queen's loft as both teams were celebrating. He threw a flurry of knifes at all, but as Barry attempted to catch them all, he throw an extra knife, managing to knock Barry down. He then caught the arrows shot at him and engaged Oliver in close combat. He knocked him down and threw a knife which Barry caught. Oliver and Thea speed shot a barrage of arrows at him. He was able to block most with his fan. However he took three to the chest and fell off of the balcony.

Realizing he was outmatched, Vandal returned to Central City to find the Staff of Horus. He finds the staff before the Flash and Green Arrow arrive to stop him. Utilizing the staff, he was able to keep both heroes at bay. Acknowledging them as worthy opponents, Vandal was about to utilize the staff's full power when he sensed Kendra awakening her past lives. Regaining his bearings, he used the staff to destroy the church, although both of his foes managed to escape.

Malcolm Merlyn, the current Ra's al Ghul, organized a meeting with Vandal, along with Green Arrow and the Flash, in which he expressed his wish to have Carter Hall and Kendra Saunders, or he would destroy both Star City and Central City. They eventually agreed to hand them over, not knowing that they plan to use the exchange as a means to defeat him.

During the exchange, Green Arrow suddenly turned on him and attacked. Vandal incapicated Green Arrow and killed Carter with his knives. He then killed Kendra who was unable to use her wings, absorbing the life force of her and Carter and becoming so strong that the arrows shot at him by Green Arrow bounced off. Barry tried to use his staff against him, but Vandal used his magic and used the staff to kill Oliver and incinerate the city with everyone in it, including Team Arrow and Team Flash. However, Barry escaped and used time travel to go back a day and come up with a better plan.

Having the exchange again, they had learned from the alternate future failure. They handed him Khufu and Chay-Ara. However, before he could kill them, Green Arrow shot their bonds, freeing both Chay-Ara and Khufu. During the fight, Team Arrow managed to stall Vandal long enough for the Flash to take his staff. The Flash and Green Arrow used a glove of Nth metal to channel the power of the Staff of Horus, in turn defeating Vandal Savage and turning him to dust. Malcolm later collected his remains and said that he would owe him one. Due to his end not being at the hands of Carter and Kendra, Vandal was able to somehow be restored from the ashes left in his wake and continued his plans.

2166
By 2166 Vandal's plans for world domination succeeded and left billions dead, his reign was so significant that dictators such as Julius Caesar and Adolf Hitler were considered amateurs in comparison. Whilst in a killing spree of rebels in London England during the Second Blitz Savage kept true to his promise to Rip and found Miranda Coburn and murdered her then confronted Jonas Hunter, and after Vandal remarked how foolish Jonas's father was, he proceeded to shoot and kill the boy.

Personality
Vandal is cold, ruthless, brutal and obsessed with being immortal, even if it meant killing Chay-Ara and Khufu for the rest of his life even if it meant in different lifetimes, regardless of how many people were caught in the crossfire. Vandal took no restraint in avoiding the deaths of innocent people, he was totally amoral and capable of destroying two cities filled with innocent people simply to drove Chay-Ara and Khufu out of hiding. Once Vandal even flooded the North China Plain, killing two million people. As he has killed Khufu and Chay-Ara 206 times in the past Vandal has become quite arrogant in the present, thinking that they were no longer a challenge for him and could believing that he could defeat the combined forces of the Flash and Green Arrow by himself. Though he was almost proven right, as he did kill them all in an alternate timeline, his underestimating of their capabilities is what lead to his own downfall as he was killed by Green Arrow and Flash using his own staff. Though this still didn't stop him from returning.

Vandal is also very vengeful and also has a deep love for Chay-Ara despite the affection not being returned and seeing her with Khufu made Vandal so consumed with rage, thus his motive for murdering them in the first place. However Vandal has still expressed his love to her in each life time and says he always will love her, but views them both as tortured souls imprisoned by a circle of death and they can never be together. Vandal also despises Rip Hunter for trying to murder him in Egypt and waited 4000 years to get revenge by murdering his wife and son.

Vandal's ultimate goal however one he has pursued his whole life is complete subjugation of the entire planet. To achieve this Vandal has worked with the most nefarious of warlords throughout history, guiding Julius Caesar through the Gaelic Wars, becoming Genghis Khan's most trust adviser, becoming a close ally of Joseph Stalin and was also a member of Adolf Hitler's Nazi part. He also manipulated people into starting conflicts for him, manipulating Gavrilo Princip into starting World War I and is implied to have played a role in John F. Kennedy's assassination. The ultimate outcome of these manipulations is to further the development of weapons technologies and scientific advancements to prime the world for his own rule. Vandal himself sees himself as the savior of the world trying to make it a better place, one war at a time.

Powers

 * Nigh-Immortality: Due to being exposed to the radiation of a meteor, Vandal gained Immortality. Every time he kills Khufu and Chay-Ara, he became more powerful. Vandal is at least 4,000 years old and remained physically unchanged in all this time, retaining his physical health, conditioning, and appearance, making him able to live on potentially indefinitely. In order for him to maintain this state, he has to repeatedly kill the reincarnations of Khufu and Chay-ara and absorb their life force, and only after they re-awaken their respective powers and/or past memories. As he draws his immortality by absorbing bits of the energies of the meteor from their lifeforce, the only way to truly kill him is if the reincarnations of Chay-ara deal the final blow, otherwise he could still be restored. Objects from the night, he gained his powers which had been irradiated with the same meteors that made him immortal can be used to neutralize him.
 * Regenerative Healing Factor : Vandal Savage has shown the ability to recover from what would be fatal injuries to most humans extremely quickly, whether it be his throat being cut, being riddled with bullets or arrows, falling of a skyscraper, being blasted through the air and out a window with the ATOM Exosuit, being blasted by Firestorm and even being inside a room as it exploded due to a bomb. Many fatal injuries will seemingly kill Savage until his body recovers some time later. It was stated by Rip Hunter that Vandal is capable of regenerating from a single cell. But the worst the injury the longer the regeneration will take. Like when Rip Hunter stabbed him in the throat it took him eleven years to heal.
 * Enhanced speed: When a cop shot at Vandal at point blank range, he was able to dodge, disarm, and shoot him in seconds.
 * Enhanced reflexes: Vandal was able to effortlessly dodge and catch multiple arrows. He was even able to dodge bullets shot at him at point blank range.
 * Enhanced durability: Vandal is capable of withstanding large amounts of physical damage, and sustaining little, to no injury. This is likely an effect of his regenerative capabilities. After being hit by a nuclear blast from Firestorm, Vandal was only momentarily incapacitated.
 * Accelerated perception: Vandal has sight that allows him to perceive faster than a normal human. He was even able to tell where the Flash was while he was trying to catch his knives thrown in the air, and hit him.
 * Magic: Vandal is well-versed in magic and was able to link his life-force to that of Khufu and Chay-Ara. Since he was linked to the reincarnations of Khufu and Chay-Ara, he could sense their presences to find them. He is also able to use displacement spells (or at least sleight-of-hand) to seamlessly slip out of handcuffs and instantly caused them to suddenly appear on a police officer several feet in front of him.Also on Night of the Hawk when Kendra Saunders was about to stab him with the Amon Dagger he used some kind of displacing spell because he easily had the dagger in his hand without her knowing.
 * Teleportation: Savage could disappear without a trace near instantly, seemingly a result of magic. When Flash knocked him to the floor of CC Jitters and everyone's backs where turned, he vanished without making a sound or opening the door. When he fell out a window and Oliver looked out of it, he had not hit the ground and was no wear to be seen. While walking away from Oliver and Barry in the large warehouse, leaving them with the threat to destroy Central City if they did not give him Carter and Kendra, his footsteps suddenly stopped when he was halfway across it, and he had once again vanished. The range of this power is unknown, as he has not seen using it afterwards.

Abilities

 * Genius-level intellect/Master tactician: Vandal has 4,000 years of experience in tactics and tracking down Khufu and Chay-Ara. During this period he killed them 206 times. It was rumored that he was Genghis Khan's greatest adviser and had helped Julius Caesar during the Gallic Wars and even mentoring Harry Houdini in many of his magic tricks.  His tactical skills were so great he was able to raise an army in secret and conquer the entire planet. He is also very perceptive and a quick-study, able to quickly determine nature and workings of technology new to him and see through most deceptions. He also learned much about human anatomy from Jack the Ripper. He is also shown to be very charismatic, having formed an entire cult of followers who are unflinchingly loyal to him and his goals.
 * Expert escape artist: Vandal has shown that he can effortlessly break free from hand cuffs, as well as use magic to make them appear on others several feet in front of him instead of himself. He says he taught Houdini escapism.
 * Medical expert: In 1950, Vandal proved himself to be highly skilled and knowledgeable in medicine, able to establish himself as a city's top doctor.
 * Multilingual: Vandal is shown able to fluently speak English, Arabic, and ancient Egyptian.
 * Master hand-to-hand combatant/Martial artist: Vandal is a highly skilled close-range and unarmed fighter, drawing from his millennia of experience, as he was able to easily gain the upper hand in a fight against Green Arrow. He was able to fight Team Arrow simultaneously in close combat and win with ease. His skill in fighting allowed him to wield blades and other melee weapons with incredible skill, as well as to allow him to disarm others and turn their weapons against them, as he did to overpower, disarm, and shoot a police officer in seconds. In 1975, Vandal stated that he is trained in every hold & pressure point known.
 * Master knife-thrower: Vandal is highly skilled in throwing knives with deadly accuracy. His knife throwing is so fast that Khufu and Green Arrow were not able to react to it, even the Flash seemed to have a difficult time catching them. He was able to throw 5 knives in one motion and would have hit all his targets if the Flash had not intercepted them.
 * Master staff fighter: Vandal can wield the Staff of Horus like a melee weapon. While wielding the staff he was able to fight Spartan, Speedy and Black Canary simultaneously and come out on top.
 * High tolerance for pain: Vandal is able to ignore pain, unfazed by an arrow deeply penetrating his chest. This was taught to him by Robin of Locksley.
 * Master archer: In exchange for Robin of Locksley teaching him resistance to pain, Vandal claims to have taught Robin archery.
 * Occult knowledge: Vandal has knowledge of magic and mysticism, and has been shown to utilize magic. When sarcastically questioned if Houdini taught him magic, he claimed he taught Houdini.
 * Weapon mastery: Vandal is highly skilled in the use of multiple weapons including knives, staffs, metal fighting fans, archery, and presumebly much more.

Equipment

 * Knives and Daggers: Vandal wears 32 knives on the inside of his coat, and has had thousands of years of experience wielding them. Vandal is a highly skilled expert with knives and daggers, especially with throwing knives. Throughout the ages, Vandal has developed a large collection of them, with his favorite being the one he first killed Chay-Ara and  Khufu  with. Some knives he has been shown to utilize are daggers and throwing knives. According to Savage himself, his favorite knife is the Amon Dagger, which he used to kill Khufu and Chay-Ara in their first lives.
 * Metal fan: Vandal wields a metal fighting fan that he used to deflect arrows.
 * Staff of Horus: The Staff of Horus is an Nth metal artifact that was used by Vandal as a melee weapon in close quarter combat, and as a mid-range weapon by shooting blue energy blasts and waves of mystical nature at his enemies. Contact with these waves meaning instant incineration. By knocking the butt of the staff onto the ground, Vandal could conjure up a magical energy blast which grows to the size of a metropolis, burning alive every human in its path. The weapon had an energy field that physically kept others from even touching the staff, sending those who tried flying through the air. Specialized gloves were made by Cisco Ramon to render this protection useless. While the user could touch the staff and even fire its energy, its energy aura was harmful to them and forced the user to release the staff before it could kill them. The staff would even resist the users ability to fire its energy, causing it to be unable to burn or harm what it was fired at. When the Flash went back in time, he revealed the failure of the gloves, allowing Cisco to create them better, allowing the Flash and Green Arrow to wield it and fire its energy without problems. This resulted in Vandal's death during the revised version of his battle with the Flash, Green Arrow, Hawkgirl and Carter Hall.

Season 1

 * "Pilot, Part 2"
 * "Pilot, Part 2"

Trivia

 * Vandal's former name, Hath-Set, is roughly translated as "maker of evil".
 * Vandal has killed Hawkgirl 206 and Hawkman 207 times over the span of 4,000 years. This means on average, he killed them when they were in their early twenties.
 * Makes one hell of a casserole

Behind the scenes

 * Vandal Savage is one of DC Comics oldest super-villains, debuting in Green Lantern #10 in December 1944. In his origin story Savage was a fifty thousand year old cave man who gained immortality and genius level intellect after exposing himself to a radioactive meteorite.
 * This portrayal of Vandal Savage is an amalgamation of the DC Comics' Savage and of Hath-Set, the long time enemy and nemesis of Hawkman and Hawkgirl.
 * The conflict between Savage, Hawkman and Hawkgirl resembles the conflict between Gentleman Ghost and Hawkman in the pre-Flashpoint continuity. Jim Craddock was an English highwayman who was wrongly murdered by the American gunslinger Nighthawk, Prince Khufu's 19th century reincarnation. As a result, Craddock became the revenant Gentleman Ghost and sets out to murder Khufu's latest incarnation in order to put his soul to rest. Unfortunately, due to the endless cycle of reincarnation which affects Khufu's soul, Craddock is unable to accomplish this feat and is forced to remain undead. Though Savage was briefly Hawkman's archenemy post-Zero Hour until Hawkman was temporarily written out of the comics.
 * In the comics Roy Harper is a descendant of Vandal Savage.

List of individuals he nicknamed

 * 1) Jefferson Jackson as Burning Man
 * 2) Rip Hunter as Gareeb'