Ragman
31 years ago - Rory Regan is born.
15 years ago - 18-year-old Rory inherits the Ragsuit from his father, becoming the new Ragman.
7 years ago - 23-year-old Rory discovers that the magical abilities of his suit are far more profound than he knew, and begins to explore them with the help of other magic users.
3 years ago - 28-year-old Rory begins working with the Shadowpact.
1 year ago - 30-year-old Rory participates in the 5th Shadowpact, forging the spells that allowed Mageddon to manifest in our reality where he can be stopped by the collected heroes of Earth. The powers of his Ragsuit are completely expended, and he passes on.
When Ragman was first introduced, He was a vietnam vet that gained the abilities of a single group of men after an electrical accident. It wasn't until later on that they introduced idea of his costume housing the souls of evil men and using them to empower him to help lead to their redemption. Perhaps more importantly, Rory was depicted as an Irishman during his early appearances, not Jewish.
Rory isn't the only Jew in comics. There are actually quite a few incredibly prominent Jewish characters like the Thing, Magneto and Kitty Pryde. What makes Rory a noteworthy character is the fact that his powers are supposedly rooted in Jewish mysticism. This is an interesting conundrum, because the idea of the redemption of a deceased soul as depicted in this character concept is a rather more catholic notion. The afterlife as understood by the Jewish faith is subtler concept. Judiasm has several forms, (Reform, Conservative, Orthadox, Reconstructionist, etc) and there are just as many variant teachings on the nature of death. Trying to isolate a specific notion about death and the afterlife is a conversation meant for scholars, not a superhero website. Still, the character is a really fun idea, and it's not specifically WRONG to use his Jewish heritage as the source for these powers any more than it would be to use someone's Catholic faith to do the same. This is all fiction, after all. We've changed very little about Rory's story, focusing on his time with Shadowpact, as this is really where his story took off. He's a very powerful superhero, and while he was cool as a solo character, it's as a member of DC's premier magic wielders that he really gets to shine. |