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Quote1 You throw Digger Harkness... and he just comes back stronger. Quote2
Captain Boomerang src

George "Digger" Harkness, better known as Captain Boomerang, is an Australian criminal who specialized in throwing boomerangs with deadly accuracy. He was formerly a member of the Flash's Rogues before he was captured and sent to Belle Reve to join the Suicide Squad.

Origin

Digger Harkness grew up with his mother in a town in the Australian outback, abandoned by his father. Though he liked to make up fake stories about his origin, the truth was, from an early age, Harkness taught himself how to carve and throw boomerangs extremely well, having known his absentee father was especially proficient with them. Young Harkness believed that, if he could become better with boomerangs, it would somehow impress his father if they were to ever meet again.[1] His mother, an Aboriginal Australian, taught her son the myth of Bobbi-bobbi, a snake god and inventor of the first boomerang. Harkness' skill with the weapon grew violent, and he took to killing both animals and other people.[2]

When he was older, Harkness moved to Central City in the United States, determined to become a master thief with his boomerangs, and became the costume criminal "Captain Boomerang". However, his plan went awry when he was contested by the vigilante speedster the Flash, who constantly put Harkness behind bars. Captain Boomerang allied himself with the Flash's Rogues gallery, but, still, even their combined efforts were no match for the Flash.[3] With Mirror Master and the Trickster, Boomerang participated in an attempted bank robbery foiled by the Flash, who bound the Rogues and delivered them one-by-one to the Central City Police Department.[4]

Harkness worked as a killer-for-hire, taking a contract for Wong Fon Yay, or "Asp" of the terrorist organization Basilisk, and impaling her through the heart with a boomerang.[5] Boomerang killed Jack Drake, father of Robin Tim Drake, in similar fashion, though he was shot by his target in the process.[6] He became acquainted with Floyd Lawton,[7] a fellow costumed assassin who operated under the identity of "Deadshot."[8] Harkness was taken into police custody, imprisoned, and—after killing three fellow inmates with boomerangs fashioned from sharpened spoons—transferred to Belle Reve Penitentiary. There, he was selected by Amanda Waller to be a member of the Suicide Squad, a team of supervillain convicts pressed into government service to reduce their sentences. [2]

New 52

Early Missions

 Main article: Suicide Squad Vol 4

Captain Boomerang and teammate Yo-Yo were deployed to take the place of Squad casualties Voltaic and Black Spider[7] for a mission to recover Basilisk scientist Doctor Elisa Visyak. Though Harkness believed that he had been placed in command of the Squad and given a detonator for the nanite bombs implanted in its members to ensure compliance by Waller, the detonator was inert and he was in reality a bargaining chip, to be traded to the terrorists for his killing of Asp in exchange for custody of Visyak. After capturing the doctor and revealing to his teammate Harley Quinn that her former partner-in-crime the Joker was believed dead, Captain Boomerang was betrayed to Basilisk's Grey Lora and shot in the hand by Deadshot, the Squad's true leader.[5]

However, Harkness' capture had been arranged by Waller to place an operative within Basilisk. Joining the organization to survive, Captain Boomerang reported on its action and recruited allies among its disaffected personnel. In Mexico, Boomerang led Basilisk forces in recovering the Suicide Squad from their local captors and delivered them to Regulus, the terrorists' leader. In a mock battle, Harkness freed Deadshot and turned on Basilisk, activating his confederates and leading the Squad to Regulus. Though he was electrocuted[9] by an impostor disguised as Squad member Black Spider, he recovered and returned to the Squad with an army of freed Basilisk prisoners in tow. Confronting Regulus, Deadshot fired through his own chest to hit his target,[10] seemingly killing himself in the process. While Harkness saw Lawton's body as dead weight, Harley Quinn insisted against leaving him behind. Harkness was shocked and incapacitated once again, now by Grey Lora, who was killed by Quinn, allowing the Squad to escape.[11]

Harkness attended a funeral held for Lawton which came under attack by the recently-returned Joker, who had come to retrieve Harley Quinn. Knocked out by a rain of Joker Venom, Boomerang was discarded as a victim by the Joker due to his lack of emotional connection with Quinn. Harkness later was revived[12] and released by Waller from the Belle Reve penitentiary from which the Suicide Squad operated for his compliance, but not before witnessing the arrival of Harley Quinn, who had fled the Joker's custody to rejoin the Squad.[13]

Boomerang was among the supervillains gathered at the ruins of the Justice League Watchtower in Happy Harbor, Rhode Island by the Crime Syndicate to proclaim the deaths of the Justice League and recruit for their Secret Society.[14] Later, he rejoined Waller's Suicide Squad, recruited from a bar due to his underhanded nature for a mission to recover the OMAC weapon from the Rocky Mountains, and promised revenge on Waller by Deadshot in return. Harkness, Lawton, and Harley Quinn located OMAC in a mountain facility only to encounter the Unknown Soldier, Power Girl, Steel, and Warrant—agents recruited by supervillain the Thinker in the guise of Amanda Waller to likewise retrieve OMAC and bring the weapon to Belle Reve, which had fallen under his control.[15] In the ensuing battle, Harkness targeted the other group—and Deadshot—with an exploding energy boomerang, but was restrained by Steel, who threatened to crush his skull if he did not stand down. Deadshot, his gun to Steel's temple, explained that they had been sent to Waller. The ruse uncovered, Boomerang was released, and noticed that Harley Quinn had left with OMAC. Betraying both teams to the Thinker, Quinn used the weapon to bring down a mountain upon them before leaving for Belle Reve.[16]

However, Harkness and the others—united by a desire for revenge—survived under rubble held up by the super-strong Power Girl. Providing illumination with a glowing boomerang, he voiced a pessimistic appraisal of the situation, but was freed by Steel, who he followed up a staircase, seeking a way out of the ruined facility. Breaking through the mountain's surface and failing to contact Waller,[2] the group were flown via wrecked aircraft held aloft by Power Girl to Belle Reve, parachuting down to engage OMAC, now host to the mind of the Thinker. When Boomerang's fear of heights kept him from following his allies, he was forcibly shaken from the craft, and reached the ground only after OMAC had defeated the Unknown Soldier, Power Girl, and Steel.[17] Dismissed as a threat, Harkness attempted to strike OMAC in the eyes with a boomerang, but missed as explosives planted by the Soldier sent OMAC through the prison floor, and was saved a retaliatory eyebeam by the interception of Power Girl. Harkness was injected with a "magic bullet," a technology provided by Waller which granted temporarily enhanced strength and stamina, in reality merely side effects of nano-bombs it implanted. His boomerang finally struck its mark, knocking OMAC into "the Toilet," an interdimensional portal under Belle Reve, just as its host identity of Kevin Kho reasserted control of the body from the Thinker. With the "magic bullet" explosive in his system, Harkness was forced to return to the Suicide Squad under Amanda Waller's control.[18]

Harkness and the Squad were deployed to West Africa[19] to rescue diplomat Doctor Amadou Mambety from terrorists, joined in the field by Waller, who had been lured there by her former teammate the Black Canary.[20] After reaching Mambety, the Squad came into conflict with Canary's superhero team the Birds of Prey, who also sought the doctor. Making a run for Mambety, Harkness was attacked by Strix of the Birds of Prey, and had his boomerang intercepted by a batarang thrown by her teammate Batgirl. Following a brief ceasefire, Black Canary fled with Waller, forcing the Squad into action to preserve her life—and their own, via the nanobombs in their blood.[21] Boomerang fought Batgirl until the two groups were forced to cooperate by the arrival of terrorist reinforcements. When their mutual foes were defeated, Waller returned having overcome her differences with Canary, and ordered the Squad to turn Mambety over to the Birds of Prey and pull out.[20]

New Suicide Squad

 Main article: New Suicide Squad Vol 1

Roy Harper Cry for Justice
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Rebirth

The Black Vault

 Main article: Suicide Squad Vol 5

While on a mission in a super-prison in the Arctic, the Suicide Squad were discovered a portal to the Phantom Zone, which Captain Boomerang wasn't smart enough to stay away from. While staring at it, Boomerang was zapped by a blast of heat vision from the newly freed General Zod, killing him.[1] However, his consciousness was somehow transported back in the form of a ghost within the power systems of Belle Reve that was discovered when the Squad member Hack was digging through them. Hack then proceeded to rematerialize Digger, making him human again to help stop the rampaging General Zod.[22]

Justice League vs. Suicide Squad

 Main article: Justice League vs. Suicide Squad Vol 1

When the Justice League found out about Amanda Waller's Suicide Squad operations, the team intervened on one of the Squad's missions in Badhnisia, intending to put an end to Task Force X.[23] Trying to split up the Justice League to avoid being captured by them, the Squad each took their respective heroes - Captain Boomerang being chased by his long time nemesis the Flash. Despite the Flash catching Boomerang, the Justice League was ultimately defeated when Squad member Killer Frost used a mighty blast of ice to freeze the Justice League long enough to be detained and taken to Belle Reve.[24]

Later, Amanda Waller revealed that the members of her original Suicide Squad, which had been kept in a secret underground facility, had been broken free by the mastermind Maxwell Lord and that she needed the Justice League and the new Suicide Squad to work together to stop them.[25] Captain Boomerang and the Flash, now working side-by-side, together fended off inter-dimensional monsters summoned by the villain Johnny Sorrow.[26] Even after Lord managed to summon the demon Eclipso with the Heart of Darkness, Captain Boomerang helped fend off the mind-controlled masses with the remaining members of the Suicide Squad and Batman before defeating Lord and saving the day.[27] [28]

Doomsday Clock

Harkness mentioned the Suicide Squad went on a mission to Kahndaq and he was the only one to escape.[29]

Death Metal

During The Batman Who Laughs' invasion of the Earth, Boomerang and the Suicide Squad fought the cthonic Bathomet over the world's oceans, but were unable to prevent the beast from conquering Atlantis. Later, they were deployed by Waller to the United States of America's west coast, irradiated by the destruction of Captain Atom and dubbed the "Arkham Wastelands." Harkness was transformed by the fallout into a musclebound mutant and attacked his one-time teammate Harley Quinn while she searched for the Squad, only to be eaten by a giant hyena that came to her rescue.[30]

Infinite Frontier

Aftermath

After the crisis' conclusion, Harkness resurfaced, alive, seemingly unmutated, and claiming amnesia, and was taken into custody by the Department of Extranormal Operations. DEO director Mister Bones, dubious of Harkness' apparent reversion to normalcy, interrogated him at his headquarters in Bludhaven and exposed him to a gas that caused him to return to his mutant form. Empowered by radiation, Boomerang was able to escape his cell, but was lured by Bones to a chamber designated L-23, in which an untested shock protocol reverted his transformation.[31]

War for Earth-3

Boomerang was recruited into Rick Flag's Suicide Squad, assembled to oppose Amanda Waller's takeover of Earth 3. When the Squad infiltrated a Titans Academy safehouse to secure the Titans' support in their mission, Boomerang, not trusting his team, split off on his own and fought Nightwing and Starfire of the Titans before Flag arrived to deescalate tensions.[32] Together, the Suicide Squad and Titans traveled to Earth 3, where Boomerang contributed to the battle against Waller's native allies, the Crime Syndicate. Along with members of both teams, he confronted Waller, but was forced to stand down by the revelations that she had secured the allegiance of former Squad members as backup and taken the Titans Academy's students as hostages. Harkness helped in the reconstruction of the Phantom Zone Projector, which trapped the Crime Syndicate's rampaging Ultraman, before returning with the Squad to their own world, leaving Earth 3 under the control of Amanda Waller.[33]

Captain Boomerang returned to the Rogues, who kidnapped reporter Iris West to lure the Flash into a trap. However, the hero handily defeated them, freezing the villains together with Captain Cold's Cold Gun.[34]

Dark Crisis

Harkness joined the Legion of Doom, an assemblage of supervillains united against the forces of Deathstroke,[35] but ultimately fell under the control of the Great Darkness that likewise possessed their adversary.[36] When the Darkness was defeated by the world's heroes, the Legion of Doom was freed, and many of its members escaped in the chaos.[37]

When Amanda Waller used a Lazarus Pit to resurrect Emilia Harcourt, a Suicide Squad infiltrator killed by Boomerang, Harcourt tracked him to a café and confronted him over her death.[38] Harkness survived their encounter, but was once again incarcerated and placed under Waller's thumb. She had him join Deadeye and Vixen in Amnesty Bay to sabotage their efforts to reverse Black Manta's Star Conqueror spore mutation—for which Waller herself was responsible—under the pretext of his familiarity with Manta from their time together in the Suicide Squad. Tracking Manta, now a giant stingray, out to sea, Boomerang armed himself with harpoons and distracted their target alongside Deadeye while Vixen used her powers of animal mimicry to communicate with and soothe Manta. Boomerang broke their connection by continuing his attack, playing his disruption off as a miscommunication, while Deadeye entered Manta's body to extract the spore by hand. With the transformation undone, they returned to shore where Boomerang was contacted by Waller: though he had failed in his mission, he revealed Deadeye and Vixen's plans to create a team to oppose Waller, securing a six-month reduction in his sentence.[39]

Working once again with the Rogues, Harkness was apprehended by the Flash and his fellow superhero Plastic Man.[40]

Powers

Abilities

Other Characteristics


Weapons


  • Captain Boomerang's weapons were so dangerous, that even the Outlanders Militia wanted them for themselves; along with the rest of the Flash's Rogues' weapons.[44]

Related

Footnotes

  1. 1.0 1.1 Suicide Squad (Volume 5) #2
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Suicide Squad (Volume 4) #27
  3. The Flash (Volume 5) #14
  4. Batman: Urban Legends #17
  5. 5.0 5.1 Suicide Squad (Volume 4) #4
  6. Knight Terrors: Robin #1
  7. 7.0 7.1 Suicide Squad (Volume 4) #3
  8. Suicide Squad (Volume 4) #1
  9. Suicide Squad (Volume 4) #12
  10. Suicide Squad (Volume 4) #13
  11. Suicide Squad (Volume 4) #16
  12. Suicide Squad (Volume 4) #14
  13. Suicide Squad (Volume 4) #15
  14. Forever Evil #1
  15. Suicide Squad (Volume 4) #24
  16. Suicide Squad (Volume 4) #25
  17. 17.0 17.1 Suicide Squad (Volume 4) #28
  18. Suicide Squad (Volume 4) #29
  19. Birds of Prey (Volume 3) #32
  20. 20.0 20.1 Birds of Prey (Volume 3) #34
  21. Birds of Prey (Volume 3) #33
  22. Suicide Squad (Volume 5) #8
  23. 23.0 23.1 23.2 23.3 Justice League vs. Suicide Squad #1
  24. 24.0 24.1 24.2 Justice League vs. Suicide Squad #2
  25. Justice League vs. Suicide Squad #3
  26. Justice League vs. Suicide Squad #4
  27. Justice League vs. Suicide Squad #5
  28. Justice League vs. Suicide Squad #6
  29. Doomsday Clock #6
  30. Dark Nights: Death Metal Guidebook #1
  31. Infinite Frontier Secret Files #5
  32. Teen Titans Academy #13
  33. War for Earth-3 #2
  34. Aquaman & The Flash: Voidsong #1
  35. Dark Crisis #3
  36. Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths #6
  37. Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths #7
  38. Batman: The Brave and the Bold (Volume 2) #6
  39. 39.0 39.1 Titans: Beast World Tour: Atlantis #1
  40. DC's How to Lose a Guy Gardner in 10 Days #1
  41. Suicide Squad (Volume 5) #47
  42. New Suicide Squad #10
  43. The Flash (Volume 5) #18
  44. 44.0 44.1 The Flash (Volume 4) #19



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