Randu Singh
80 years ago - Randu Singh is born in Punjab, India.
70 years ago - 10-year-old Randu's Extrasensory Perception powers begin to manifest. He struggles to align these abilities with his Sikh beliefs.
68 years ago - 12-year-old Randu opens up to his parents about his abilities. They help him uncover an old Punjabi practice called Karama dī akha or 'Eye of Kharma' to help him regulate his powers and use them in a way that adheres to his beliefs.
66 years ago - 14-year-old Randu undergoes his Dastaar Bandi, or turban-tying ceremony.
63 years ago - 17-year-old Randu first meets Gomali.
62 years ago - 18-year-old Randu attends Oxford to study international relations.
58 years ago - 22-year-old Randu earns a bachelors degree in international relations.
57 years ago - 23-year-old Randu & Gomali are married.
55 years ago - 25-year-old Randu earns a masters in international relations, and moves to New York with his wife Gomali to work at the United Nations.
53 years ago - 27-year-old Randu regularly travels as part of his work, and studies other mentalism practices from around the world, developing a familiarity with spellcraft.
51 years ago - 29-year-old Randu's oldest daughter is born.
49 years ago - 31-year-old Randu meets Jason Blood & Glenda Mark, helping them uncover hidden magic within the tombs of an ruined English castle, accidentally restoring Morgaine le Fay's youth & power. He forges the spells allowing Jason & Etrigan to change places, finally allowing Jason to remember his past lives.
48 years ago - 32-year-old Randu's second daughter is born.
46 years ago - 34-year-old Randu's third daughter is born.
43 years ago - 37-year-old Randu's son is born.
42 years ago - 38-year-old Randu helps Jason Blood recover the child of Glenda Mark and take their place in Etrigan's ritual.
30 years ago - 50-year-old Randu is elected as India's delegate to the United Nations. His youngest daughter discovers his connections to magic, and he gives his blessing for her to persue it herself
26 years ago - 54-year-old Randu's oldest daughter is married.
25 years ago - 55-year-old Randu first becomes a grandfather.
23 years ago - 57-year-old Randu's second daughter is married.
17 years ago - 63-year-old Randu's son is married.
15 years ago - 65-year-old Randu retires as India's United Nations delagate and returns to India to teach at the University of Punjab.
3 years ago - 77-year-old Randu Singh gives his New York residence to Jason Blood when he gains more autonomy on Earth.
When we went back to redo Jason Blood's page, we found that we hadn't really done a great job of bringing in the character's solo adventures. We chose to go back and adapt a few specific stories into our timeline, but in doing so we found that we really needed to bring in a few characters that really drive those tales along with Jason himself.
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Randu Singh's Comic HistoryRandu appeared for the first time in the Demon #1 in 1972 like the rest of the Demon supporting cast. While Glenda was a pretty classic romantic interest and Harry Matthews was a bumbling idiot that always spoke in the third person in classic Jack Kirby "Funky Flashman" tradition, Randu was a huge departure from the traditional comic book supporting cast character. He filled an extremely utilitarian role with his vaguely defined mysticism, but he was also a very early depiction of a South Asian character in an American comic.
What's more, while his later appearances depicted him as being very skinny and made his beard very whispy, his very first on-panel appearance clearly established that he was athletic and capable, gamefully wrestling with Jason. He was a rock of support for Jason, and I honestly think this character and the way the book treated him really stand out among depictions of non-white characters in Silver Age comics. |
Our Randu Singh StoryIncluding Randu's involvement in our adaptations of Jason Blood's solo adventures has done some interesting things to our timeline. Just by virtue of how we were laying out events, Randu has effectively become the oldest person born within the regular timeline, which we actually found pretty fitting. He's of course happily married, and we decided that instead of him being just vaguely Indian we'd specifically make him Punjabi and Sikh, which helps define the events of his life. It's already cannon that he is a U.N. Deligate, so we got to build his story around his life working in international relations.
We introduced the idea that the magic specifically allowing Jason and Etrigan to swap places (The "Gone, Gone the Form of Man" encantation) was actually forged by Randu, allowing Jason to escape from his millenium of inprisonment, finally able to take ownership of his own life. Beyond serving as this catalyst, however, We really get from Randu is this pillar of moral strength that we really enjoyed building into the timeline. We also introduced the idea that he is the father of several adult children, and that one of them is actually following in his magical footsteps. She just happens to be the exact age of John Constantine, and we can imagine a scenerio where Randu has to ask Jason to interscede because his daughter is involved in some Constantine shenanigans... |
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