Longshadow
14 years ago - Tye Longshadow is born.
1 year ago - 13-year-old Tye's powers begin to manifest chaotically as he hears the call of the Manitou Stone. He contacts Manitou Dawn., and they vision quest together, contacting the spirit of Standing Bear using a fragment of the Manitou Stone to help him control his powers as he begins to hunt to reassemble the stone.
This is an interesting character, because even though he has a long history in DC, he's not really a comic character at all. The explanation is a convoluted one, but in the end we wind up with a character that practically screams to be included in our timeline, where we just so happen to have the perfect place for him. I love this one.
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Longshadow's Animation HistoryThe Super-Friends were a whole series of animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera that ran from 1973-1986 featuring a collection of DC superheroes and villains. There were a few original characters added over the series, all of them a pretty transparent (but successful) attempt to add diversity to the show. Among them was Apache Chief, a Native American stereotype able to grow in size when he said his catchphrase "inuk chuck". He was usually limited to about the size of a small skyscraper, but in one episode he actually used the Atom's technology to grow to the size of a planet. Cartoons can be weird.
Apache Chief really is a cool character concept, but he wasn't actually owned by DC, since the show was by Hanna-Barbera. (HB actually has a pretty impressive catalog of superhero characters; Blue Falcon, Space Ghost, Mightor, The Herculoids and so on). In 2002, writer Joe Kelly created the character Manitou Raven in the JLA, and outright stated that he was meant as a homage to Apache Chief, who remains a slice of DC history. |
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Only a few years later in 2004 a whole new homage showed up in the animated series Justice League Unlimited. We were introduced to the Ultimen; cloned superheroes created by a shady government organization, all of which were obvious allegories to the original characters from the Hanna-Barbera Superfriends. All-new character Longshadow was the stand-in for Apache Chief and was obviously meant to be the breakout character of the group, going so far as to actually join the Justice League by the end of the episode, and to show up in the series finale.
Fast forward ten years to 2012, in the second season of the animated Young Justice series. A new group of characters, this time all teens, are introduced, again all mimicking the powers of the Hanna-Barbera Superfriends, although they're given much more interesting stories this time, particularly "Tye Longshadow", a Native American teenager whose story we follow as he discovers his powers. This time, instead of growing to titanic height, he goes into a trance and manifests a gigantic energy body around himself. Generally speaking, because Tye had a much larger role to play in his series, when someone mentions the character Longshadow, you can assume that this is the one they're talking about. |
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Our Longshadow StoryWe're going to use a version of the Young Justice character for our timeline, but rather than dip into the whole alien invasion plot of that series, we're going to have Tye be part of a larger legacy of Native American heroes that we're establishing in our timeline, connecting him to Manitou Dawn and to Standing Bear, our re-imagined take on the classic western hero Super-Chief. Tye isn't going to be limited to manifesting his giant spirit-body; he should be able to access the enhanced strength and stamina that also empowered Standing Bear, but still be discovering how to use it.
We should say here; it's always a little tricky when you start building super-powers out of cultures that actually exist in the real world. It's totally possible to actually insult someone's culture by pretending they're mystical fictions. "Manitou" is an actual word in the Algonquian theology describing the spiritual life force of all things. So while we're using the word in our fictional universe for our fictional superheroes, we should remember that this is also a real-world religion, and not to disrespect the people practicing it. |
Longshadow & The Teen TitansWhat makes Tye feel like such a great inclusion in our timeline is that he's perfect to join the young group of heroes that will one day come together and become the newest incarnation of the Teen Titans. Tye is a little bit older than his future teammates, and as of our current timeline, has already begun using his powers, so he will be one of the more experienced members of the team.
We want this new Titans team to focus around building up Damian into a stronger character, and so everyone on the team needs to have a unique relationship with him. While Damian has older brothers in both Dick Grayson and Tim Drake, there is still something special about having an older big-brother-style friend who doesn't have to act like a mentor, but still manages to be one anyway. Tye is going to be learning how to manage his anger the same way Damian is, but he'll be under the guiding hand of his spirit-guide, Standing Bear, and his influence on Damian will probably be huge. I just imagine them both growing by leaps and bounds together. Also, Tye is just going to fit so well into the legacy of the Teen Titans. He can fight alongside them with his enhanced strength and durability, but when things go sideways, he goes into a trance and manifests his giant spirit body. He's similar to Cyborg, Donna Troy, Raven... He just feels like a Titan. |
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