Welcome to my new column: Voices From The Past. This column will focus on the various teams in the Vs. System, but from the point of view of continuity and flavor. How the comics connect to the cards, and what the history is behind the teams you play.

 

It will not be exhaustive, all-encompassing, or complete - that would take comprehensive essays and volumes of information to properly incorporate. Instead, it will be a synopsis of important information to help those who are less familiar or unfamiliar with the comic history to understand a bit more of that history.

 

 

 

Today's episode will take a look at the Manhunters:

 

It all started approximately three and a half billion years ago. The Guardians of the Universe - who were then not-so-humble Maltusians who had colonized the planet of Oa - saw a need to help control the Evils running rampant throughout the Universe. They created a police force to patrol each sector of the Universe - no, this force was not the Green Lantern Corps, but the Manhunters. The Manhunters were the ‘original Green Lanterns' and still think of themselves as such, even though they were - and are - androids created by the Oans. Nevertheless, they tend to think of the Green Lantern Corps as imposters.

 

The Manhunters were created to be the ultimate fighting force, warriors of perfection, each individual Manhunter geared towards the specialty skills and proficiencies of the group of Oans who created it.

 

Like a group of Gods creating ‘man', the Oans created the Manhunters in their own image, with red costumes and blue skin. Each Manhunter had his own personal power battery which, like the Green Lanterns' batteries, tapped into the Central Power Battery on Oa. And each Manhunter had an energy weapon directly connected to their battery. All of the Manhunters took a solemn oath that ‘No Evil Escapes the Manhunters' - a primitive form of the oath that each Green Lantern would take, millennia later. This oath was literally programmed into the Manhunters, alongside programs of self-recognition, self-diagnosis, and self-repair.

 

Then something went wrong. With the Oans' minds on other matters, they didn't notice as the Manunters slowly began to disappear from the Sectors they were supposed to be patrolling. The Oans assumed that any missing Manhunter was simply destroyed or out of commission, arrogantly assuming their programming was infallible. That arrogance almost cost them their existence. Like birds flying forth from the mother-nest, the Manhunters began to rebel against their programming and flock towards independence from the Oans' control. They began to believe that the Oans were actually a form of evil, and that they were actually superior to the ‘all-powerful' Oans - whose power was proving to be less than ‘all-powerful'. Rather than sacrifice their lives and ‘freedom' for the Oans' cause, they rebelled against the Oans, and declared war on Oa, with the intention of usurping control of the Universe and the stars within, from the Oans. At first, the Guardians refused to respond to the threat of war, but, after a thousand-odd years of destruction and racial extermination throughout the galaxies, they were forced to intervene.

 

The war culminated in a surprise attack and Rebellion on Oa. The Oans had predicted that this would happen and had prepared. The Manhunters overwhelmed the Oans and Oa fell. The Manhunters stole into the inner chambers at the heart of the Oan citadel, where the Central Power Battery was kept. This was the final act in the Manhunters' attempts to cast of the Oan yoke. The Oans knew that the Manhunters' weapons could not take the awesome power of the Central Power Battery - and when one Manhunter tried to recharge his battery from the Central Power Battery, his weapon and personal battery literally backfired and blew up - causing a chain reaction whereas every single Manhunter throughout the Universe lost their powers in the same manner. The Oans then punished the Manhunters by exiling them, stripped of their powers, onto the very planets they were trying to dominate.

 

The Oans would eventually become the Guardians of the Universe, and would found the Green Lantern Corps - a successful successor to the failed Manhunter experiment.

 

 

 

The Manhunters learned from their mistakes, and learnt patience and preparedness. Over the years, many changed occurred to the Manhunters, physically and mentally. They lost their blue ‘skin', the colour fading to white, and they took to wearing blue masks to remind themselves of what they lost and hoped to someday regain. They began to circulate, and Manhunters communities and clusters gathered and met each other sharing information and laying down plans for the distant future. They planted sleeper agents on thousands of worlds, and lay in wait for when the time would be ripe for revenge. And they became aware of their successors, the Green Lanterns, vowing to destroy them. Their mottoes became ‘No Man Escapes the Manhunters', taken from those who became galactic bounty-hunters, and ‘The Manhunters Are A Myth', reflecting the secretive, underground cult of Manhunters, hidden away, waiting for the resumption of conflict.

Fast forward a few billion years, and the Manhunters discovered Earth. It was the year 1066, and their numbers had grown vastly, their powers increased greatly, and they were able to travel through space unaided once more. They begin to populate the Earth, hiding in the Himalayas under their new Grandmaster, who took on a human form to blend in. They called upon more of their number to Earth in the hopes of infiltrating human society and influencing human evolution to the point where the humans could be useful to their cause against the Guardians and the Corps. As the Twentieth Century rolled around, they began heavily recruiting humans towards their cause, and planting sleeper agents among those who showed glimpses of power, beginning with the World War II-era Manhunters, Dan Richards and Paul Kirk.

 

Twenty-odd years later, when Superman, then baby Kryptonian, Kal-El, was launched towards Earth by his father, Jor-El, upon the destruction of their home planet, the Manhunters knew about this occurrence, knew that young Kal-El would develop powers under the Earth's sun, and wanted to get a hold of the child for their own nefarious purposes. This would cause the first confrontation between the Manhunters and Green Lanterns, as the Guardians sent a group of select Green Lanterns to prevent the Manhunters from intercepting Kal-El's ship. The Lanterns were successful, though the Manhunters escaped. They instead infiltrated Smallville to keep tabs on the baby Kryptonian, implanting the local doctor, Dr. Whitney, and his wife, as well as infant Lana Lang, with Manhunter control devices, forcing them all to unknowingly report to the Manhunters. When Clark Kent interacted with Lana Lang, she would send all information - including his revelation that he had super powers - back to the Manhunters.

 

It wouldn't be Superman who finally exposed the Manhunters and their plotting, nor would it be young Hal Jordan, also under Manhunter monitoring, who received the call and the ring of Abin Sur to become the new Green Lantern of Earth, It would be one of their own: Mark Shaw.

 

 

Mark Shaw was a frustrated lawyer who felt that the legal system was failing the people. His uncle, a Manhunter agent, told him about the organization and how its goals were change and progress. Interested in taking action rather than sitting on his hands, Shaw eagerly joined up and began training, earning his costume and baton - unaware that his costume was designed to brainwash him into the Manhunter fold. When the Manhunters faked their home world's destruction, making it seem as though Hal Jordan had destroyed it, they sent Mark Shaw to arrest Hal for his ‘crimes' While Hal willingly gave himself up, the Justice League of America and the Guardians were able to prevent Shaw from completing his task, and exposing the Manhunter home world, Orinda, for what it was. Shaw learnt exactly who the Manhunters were and of their goals of Universe-wide domination, and turned against them, allying himself with the JLA and betraying their secrets. His Manhunter brainwashing was too strong, however, and he eventually regressed into delinquency before eventually being capture and jailed.

 

Hunted by the Green Lanterns, the Manhunters again went into hiding, and managed to once again cloak Orinda. They decided that the time was nigh to resume their insurrection and return to the battlefield. Following the Crisis On Infinite Earths, and the departure of the Guardians of the Universe to prepare for the coming of the New Guardians, the Manhunters redoubled their efforts to infiltrate Earth with sleeper agents.

 

So began Millennium, a DC-wide crossover centered around an 8-issue mini-series, which detailed the war between the Manhunters and the heroes of Earth. These heroes discovered that the Manhunters had infiltrated their private lives, from the aforementioned Lana Lang and Dr, Whitney, to the father of the new Flash, Wally West, to Pan, fellow deity of Wonder Woman's, to Rocket Red and Booster Gold in the Justice League itself!

 

Mark Shaw was freed from jail to join the Suicide Squad, with who he helped to destroy the Manhunters' Louisiana Sonic Temple. The Justice League, shaken from the infiltration of their ranks and families, declared war on Orinda and invaded it in order to take down the Manhunters from within, and, as Doctor Fate and Superman teamed up to locate and destroy the Manhunters central intelligence systems and Birthing Chambers, they awoke the powerful Highmaster, who attempted to flee and rebuild the crumbling Orinda elsewhere. He was chased and eventually destroyed by the combined forces of the Justice League and the Green Lanterns.

 

Meanwhile, back on Earth, those Leaguers who remained behind had discovered an undersea Manhunter Spacecraft, revealing that there was a Manhunter complex deep underground. Batman led a group into this Underground Complex, where they fought against the remaining Manhunter Soldiers - including Booster Gold - and their Grandmaster. Knowing that the Highmaster was defeated and their cause was lost, the remaining Earth Manhunters decided to destroy Earth, giving up their crusade to take it over and use it in their battle against the Guardians. It would be Booster Gold, betraying those he was apparently allied with, who prevented the bomb from being detonated.

 

So ends the tale of the Manhunters. Though presumed to be shut down for good, it is doubtful that every Manhunter in the Universe was destroyed, and they are just as likely to be hiding, infiltrating and planning for another assault on the Guardians and the GLC - be it in another Millennium or another billion years.

 

Please feel free to send any questions, comments or corrections to: kergillian@hotmail.com

 

Also known by his screen name, Kergillian, Ben Kalman has been involved in the Vs. community since Day One. He started the first major player in the online community, the Vs. Listserv, through Yahoo! Groups, which now boasts well over 1600 members! For more on the Yahoo! group, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Marvel_DC_TCG.