Universe Enemy

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Universal, Enemy,

Abra Kadabra is from the 64th century, at a time when science has made stage magic obsolete. However, he desires a career as a performing magician, so he goes back in time to find an audience to entertain and soon clashes with the Flash (Barry Allen). His "magic" is actually based on advanced technology, disguised with supernatural trappings (although he is now an actual sorcerer).

In one of his many confrontations with the Flash, Abra Kadabra's technology is damaged and his body becomes insubstantial and wraith-like. After his body is returned to normal, he is captured by a bounty hunter named Peregrine, and returned to his native century to serve a death sentence, although he is saved by the Flash before he can be executed. Shortly after returning to the 21st century, during the Underworld Unleashed storyline, he forgoes his technological implements and tricks five rogues into selling their souls to Neron so he can gain genuine magical powers. Abra Kadabra later kidnapped Linda Park, the girlfriend of Wally West (Barry Allen's protege and successor), during their wedding and erases her from history, though he is ultimately defeated.

Abra Kadabra is mentioned in Neil Gaiman's Books of Magic miniseries. In the fourth issue Timothy Hunter, escorted by Mister E, visits the 64th century, described by E as a time when the differences between magic and technology have become blurred. The inhabitants tell them they have selected their "date-line" to send the "Madchild Abhararakadhararbarakh". Timothy Hunter responds "Abracadabra?" and Mister E tells him not to talk to the inhabitants of this time, and so they then continue their path into the future.

In Infinite Crisis, Abra Kadabra became a member of the Secret Society of Super Villains.

In One Year Later, he and several other Rogues are approached by Inertia with a plan to kill the Flash (then Bart Allen). Though Inertia is defeated, Kadabra and the other Rogues successfully beat Bart to death, though not before Kadabra recognizes that Bart is too young to be the Flash they are used to dealing with.

Abra Kadabra is one of the villains featured in Salvation Run. Upon coming across the planet's local pygmies, Abra Kadabra deciphers its language and uses it to locate a "safe zone" for him and the other Rogues before leading the other villains dispatched there to it.

He was seen as the member of Rogues who joined the Libra's Secret Society of Super Villains.

Deadshot

Within the DC Comics universe, Deadshot is often a hired assassin, regularly boasting to "never miss." He is capable of using a large variety of weapons, but prefers using a pair of silenced, wrist-mounted guns. He initially appeared in Gotham City as a new crimefighter, but was revealed to be an enemy of Batman when he attempted to replace the Dark Knight. He was sent to jail when Batman and Commissioner Gordon publicly exposed his plot to become the king of Gotham's underworld.

After serving his term, Deadshot began hiring his services out as an assassin, changing his costume from the top coat and tails he previously wore to a red jumpsuit and distinctive metal face plate with a targeting device on the right side. He has been a major figure in the Suicide Squad in its latest two incarnations, where his skills as a marksman and his disregard for human life served to greatly further the group's objectives.

Probably his most defining trait is a great desire to die in a spectacular fashion, this being his primary motivation for joining the Squad. He feels he has no reason to continue living, and, while he does not want to commit suicide, he simply does not care if he dies. Various reasons have been cited for this, but the most common thread in them is his parents' peculiar hatred for one another, so much so that Lawton's mother tried to hire both her sons to kill their father. In the first Deadshot mini-series, it is explained that Floyd idolized his brother. His mother convinced his brother to kill their father. His brother locked Floyd outside, but Floyd, wishing to save his brother from a grim future, took a rifle to shoot the gun out of his brother's hand. He was sitting in the tree branch when it broke and Floyd accidentally shot his brother in the head. Lawton inadvertently kills the brother he loves to save the father he hated.