Java
32,064 BCE - Java is born.
32,030 BCE - 34-year-old Java's proximity to a magical shard preserves his life when he is frozen alive.
18 years ago - 34-year-old Java is recovered by Stagg Industries. He becomes Simon Stagg's personal valet and bodyguard. He falls in love with Stagg's daughter Sapphire Stagg.
16 years ago - 36-year-old Java meets Rex Mason, and percieves him as competition for Sapphire Stagg and therefore hates him.
14 years ago - 38-year-old Java is sent by Simon Stagg to Egypt with Rex Mason with instructions to kill him when he find the Orb of Ra. He leaves him in the tomb, thinking him dead, unaware that his is being changed into Metamorpho.
8 years ago - 44-year-old Java kidnapps Sapphire Stagg and takes her to the Tomb where he & Rex Mason fond the Orb of Ra, not realizing he is being manipulated by Simon Stagg. Rex is forced to kill him to save Sapphire.
Java's StoryWe've already described how the original Metamorpho stories by Bob Haney used a trope of the era, where we're given a cast of characters that include both the heroes AND villains of the story, all co-habitating together and working to more or less the same goal. Java was a suprisingly big part of this; loyal to Simon, hopelessly in love with Sapphire, and jealous of Rex, he was a key component in getting the wheel of relationships that kept this group working. It was practically an afterthought that he was a reawakened cro-magnon. In a story that included a shapeshifting mutant chemical man, what's one caveman, more or less?
Once the stories of Metamprpho and his supporting cast were no longer featured in their own comics and became background elements of DC at large, some pretty weird changes have taken place in their relationships. For a while, Rex had amnesia and Sapphire thought he was dead so she... married Java? He's also gone on to become the new Shaggy Man at some point... It's all a little out there. For our purposes, we're sticking to the original stories of these characters, with one big culminating story in which Java overplays his hand for Sapphire's affection, forcing Rex to have to kill him to save her. |
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