Copperhead
39 years ago - Nathan Prince is born to an American practitioner of an ancient Aztec martial art.
30 years ago - 9-year-old Nathan begins studying under his father.
24 years ago - 15-year-old Nathan, frustrated with not being taught the lethal elements of their tradition, kills his father and travels to the deep amazon, learning from tribal guerilla fighters.
19 years ago - 20-year-old Nathan first starts working as an assassin for Kobra.
15 years ago - 24-year-old Nathan is stopped from assassinating a state senator by Black Canary.
14 years ago - 25-year-old Nathan is released from prison by Kobra, gaining his constrictor suit. He takes the name Copperhead.
13 years ago - 26-year-old Nathan kills a city mayor in the middle of a Justice League public appearance and manages to elude them, making a bold public statement.
12 years ago - 27-year-old Nathan is one of the assassins to take the job in Gotham from Carmine Falcone to kill Batman.
10 years ago - 29-year-old Nathan Prince is tracked by Hawkman & Hawkwoman to claim the Nth metal in his suit. He manages to elude them.
7 years ago - 32-year-old Nathan Prince performs a major multi-person political assassination, catching the eye of Deathstroke, who begins building the Ravens, a group of elite mercenaries & assassins.
6 years ago - 33-year-old Nathan Prince survives the Qurac bombing.
5 years ago - 34-year-old Nathan Prince, looking to repair damage to his suit, steals the cane of Richard Swift. It is recovered by Jack Knight.
3 years ago - 36-year-old Nathan Prince is stopped from assassinating the entire Assembly of the African Union by Kendra Saunders & Mari McCade.
2 years ago - 37-year-old Nathan Prince lands a killing blow on Firestorm, managing to kill Martin Stein, put Ronnie Raymond in a coma, and disrupt the Matrix. He's arrested, but is released by a jury. Later he's killed by Kate Spencer.
Copperhead is a lethal assassin that is incredibly agile, incredibly hard to find, and uses his ability to strike when least expected. He has a costume that would be weird in real life, but looks awesome on a comic book page. He's been around for a long time but he's always worked as a straight-forward baddie that can challenge a surprisingly diverse array of superheroes.
There HAS been a new version of this character; a female assassin introduced in the Arkham video games that then went on to appear in the comics, but the original take on this villain just has a certain comic book panache, so we're going to stick with him.
There HAS been a new version of this character; a female assassin introduced in the Arkham video games that then went on to appear in the comics, but the original take on this villain just has a certain comic book panache, so we're going to stick with him.
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Copperhead's Comic HistoryCopperhead was introduced in 1968 in issue #78 of The long-running team-up series The Brave and the Bold from 1968, which might actually be the worst comic I've ever read, although that's more to do with the terrible romance plot than the book's antagonist. Copperhead is actually really great here, and in fact has pretty much always been a consistently intimidating villain, always presented as an incredibly gifted assassin who is VERY hard to catch, just like his namesake.
He made appearances in a wide variety of series, challenging heroes all over the DC universe, and was even a founding member of the Secret Society of Supervillains, who broke him out of prison by giving him a more high-tech version of his constrictor suit. He's even made regular appearances in various animated versions of DC, including a coveted role in the first Injustice League in the Justice League series. Perhaps his biggest role, however, was as Kate Spencer's first victim in the first arc of the absolutely stellar 2004 Manhunter series. |
Our Copperhead Story Strangely, because Copperhead is such a well put together villain concept, he's seen remarkably little revision in the actual comics. No one has needed to put in any work to make him fit into the world of comics, he works just fine as he is.
For our purposes, of course, we needed to expand his timeline a little by explaining his abilities as a mastery of an obscure South American fighting art coupled with being a Kobra assassin equipped with an Nth Metal-laced costume. This enables us to use him periodically as a threat for several different heroes, most notably the Hawks. Prince is also a perfect fit for the Ravens, a team of assassins and mercenaries that we're putting together around Deathstroke; a rough amalgam of a few different story ideas. He's actually SUCH a good fit that we're actually making him the reason it exists; that Slade witnessed his work and chose to build a group so they could work together. Of course, Copperhead also plays a major role in the transition of Firestorm to the new wielder of the Matrix, Jason Rusch, in that he's responsible for separating the previous wielders and for the death of Martin Stein. This leads to his arrest and eventual release in the pages of Manhunter, where new character Kate Spencer actually kills him. It's a great moment of finality that comics rarely get. |
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