Byth

1914 - Byth is born on the planet Krotan in Citadel Space.

1930 - 16-year-old Byth flees the workhouses he grew up in, becoming a thief, grifter, and drug dealer.

1937 - 23-year-old Byth steals an experimental drug derived from Nth metal, which allows him to rebuild his body in real-time, taking any strange form he can imagine. He uses his newfound ability to become one of the greatest thieves in Citadel Space.

1941 - 27-year-old Byth discovers that his altered biochemistry is consuming the Nth metal in his system. He begins searching the galaxy for the trace amounts of remaining Nth metal.

1949 - 35-year-old Byth learns about the coup fought on Throneworld, the involvement of Carter & Shiera Hall, and their weaponry. He begins tracking them across space, suspecting that they are sitting on a vast store of Nth metal.

1951 - 37-year-old Byth comes to Earth, tracking the Nth metal weapons of Carter & Shiera Hall. He threatens to consume their entire arsenal, but they use Thanagarian science to rapidly consume the Nth metal already in his system and seal him out of the vault, leaving him comatose. What's left of his body is stored in the research facilities of S.H.A.D.E.

7 years ago - Byth's remains are moved to Cadmus Labs when S.H.A.D.E. is dismantled.

now - Byth's remains are stolen by Vandal Savage and exposed to the constrictor suit once worn by Nathan Prince, allowing him to regrow his body. He is invited into Tartarus for a chance to fight Kendra Saunders and claim the Nth metal armory.

First of all, I've only very recently realized that I've been reading this character's name wrong forever. I've always called him 'Blythe' which I thought was a fantastic name for him, and even really considered using for our version of the character.

Byth is mostly associated with the Katar Hol version of Hawkman, and as such is not a character you see that often. There was a brief period in the late eighties when Hawkman was being used as a sort of Judge Dredd meets Wolverine character, and while it's certainly dated it's also something I really loved. Byth is part of that, and I'm glad we found a reason to bring him into our timeline.

Byth's Comic History

Byth first appeared in Brave and the Bold #34, in 1955. this was the issue that first introduced the Silver Age Hawkman and Hawkgirl, and Byth was not only their very first enemy but was even the catalyst for their whole story as Gardner Fox reimagined them for the Silver Age. While Carter & Shiera of the Golden Age were adventuring archeologists reincarnated from Pharaohs, the new Hawkman & Hawkgirl were Katar & Shayera, alien cops that had come to earth to pursue Byth, a thief from their home planet of Thanagar that had stolen a drug that allowed him to shapeshift.

The Silver Age Hawks saw most of their success as members of the Justice League, or in anthology series, so their standalone rogue's gallery remained pretty obscure. Byth basically didn't appear again for years, unless you count flashbacks explaining the hawk's origins.

This changed in the eighties, as DC rebuilt its continuity after the Crisis. Lots of characters were having their origin retold either within their regular series like John Byrne's Superman or George Perez's Wonder Woman, or miniseries like Emerald Dawn or Batman: Year One. Hawkman's origins on Thanagar were retold in Tim Truman's three-issue miniseries Hawkworld, which re-imagined Byth as Katar's brutal, corrupt commanding officer. The series had a gorgeous Frank Frazetta-meets-Judge Dredd aesthetic, and Byth's powers were subtly rethought to feel more twisted and horrific.

Hawkworld could have stood alone as a contained miniseries that led into existing continuity, but of course, it was followed by an ongoing series of the same name that took those characters and moved them to contemporary Earth, effectively playing havoc with the established continuity. This also essentially rewrote Byth's story, removing his original appearance and replacing it with a new far more sinister one, casting him as a shape-shifting serial killer living in plain sight among the humans. Hawkman's continuity unraveled in the '90s, leaving Byth largely unused until an appearance in the Geoff Johns series in 2003.

Our Byth Story

Given how changing his role in continuity has been, Byth is a character we might have left out unless we had a very particular use for him. Which frankly would have been a shame, because he's actually a really important character in the history of the Hawks, and his redesign in Hawkworld has always been a favorite of mine.

We have two very specific story beats that need a character like this, but for them to work within our timeline we actually need to make some specific changes to his story. First... he can't actually be Thanagarian. There are no Thanagarians. This isn't that big a deal, because this was really only ever there to tie him to the Hawks, and our second change does that in a way that actually feels way more personal. We're making the drug that gives him his powers fueled by consuming Nth metal. Given that this is a mystic and incredibly scarce relic of a lost alien species, finding the Hawks Nth metal armory and taking it from them becomes a huge motivation for him.

The first story we want him for is as the catalyst for the Hawks sealing themselves inside their Nth metal vault in suspended animation. This was done specifically to stop Byth from consuming their weaponry and becoming unstoppable. It requires a little rethinking of Byth's powers and motivation, but it does a great job of giving us the story we want to tell.

The second story is much more contemporary; as Vandal Savage is building his team Tartarus with the specific goal of mirroring the new Watchtower. Hawkgirl doesn't exactly have her own rogue's gallery, but Byth is a fantastic deep-cut character for Savage to unlock, and will actually be a fantastic threat to the entire Watchtower.

Sometimes when we add an obscure character that we all have a lot of affection for, we have to be careful that we're not going well out of our way to include them just to include them. Byth is a part of a weird, fun period in continuity that is largely forgotten, but we actually had no intention of using him until he happened to line up just right in order to fulfill certain story beats. Sometimes this stuff just works out.

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