Vandal Savage (born c. 1700 B.C.) , formerly known as Hath-Set, known under the names Curtis Knox[1] in 1958 and Sasha Mahnovski in 1975[2], is a former ancient Egyptian priest in the service of Ramses II who became ambitious and desired power for himself. He was also in love with the priestess Chay-Ara, but she only had eyes for Prince Khufu, and when Hath-Set learned of this he was consumed with jealous rage.

After Hath-Set attempted to murder the lovers, the three were exposed to a mutative element during a meteor shower; as a result, Chay-Ara and Khufu were reincarnated each time they died, and Hath-Set was granted immortality with the condition that he kill both the priestess and prince in each lifetime they lived in order to maintain his powers.

At some point, Hath-Set assumed the name "Vandal Savage" and began his lifelong quest to kill each of his enemies' incarnations in each lifetime, managing to do so 206 times over the next 4000 years to maintain his own immortality.

Savage became more ambitious and sought not to only rule Egypt, but the entire world, and over the course of time gradually began to manipulate world leaders into starting wars to prime the world for his own eventual rule. In the current timeline, Vandal succeeds in conquering the world by 2166, leaving billions dead and the future of Earth One in peril. He is currently pursued through time by Rip Hunter and his team, who are attempting to stop his reign of terror before it begins. Vandal also has a deep hatred for Rip for trying to murder him in the past and has made it one of his life's missions to get revenge on his foe.


Ancient Egypt


Hath-Set in Ancient Egypt.

Hath-Set was born in the Middle Kingdom of Egypt in 1700 B.C. and became a priest and adviser to Ramses II but Hath-Set despised the pharaoh and secretly wanted his power. As the priest it was his job to make offers to the Egyptian God Horus, along with the Priestess Chay-Ara, and spare the land of his wrath from the celestial rocks (meteors). Hath-Set fell in love with Chay-Ara, but she was in love with the pharaoh's son Prince Khufu

One day after addressing Ramses II on the meteors and the dangers they posed Hath-Set saw Chay-Ara and Khufu together and became consumed with rage towards them both. The following day, Hath-Set walked into Chay-Ara's bed chambers where he saw her and Khufu together and attacked them. He fatally stabbed Khufu before stabbing Chay-Ara. As both lay dying, another storm of meteors fell from the sky and begun laying waste to the kingdom. Hath-Set prayed to the gods for Khufu and Chay-Ara to suffer, whilst Chay-Ara prayed for Horus' protection. Their prayers were both fulfilled as the meteors possessed a special radiation, which affected the three of them. Hath-Set was granted immortality while Khufu and Chay-Ara's souls were reincarnated into new lives.

Despite this newly bistowed gift for Hath-Set to retain his immortality, he would be forced to kill every incarnation of Khufu and Chay-Ara and absorb their life-force. However since the blade Hath-Set used to kill the two was also affected it remains the one weapon that can truly kill him but only if weilded by Chay-Ara and no one else. [3] Sometime after Khufu and Chay-Ara's deaths Hath-Set was attacked by an assassin he'd nickname "Gareeb" who managed to overpower him and held a knife to his throat, but hesitated and Hath-Set fought back. Hath-Set was able to stall Gareeb long enough for the guards to apprehend him and questioned him demanding to know his name but Gareeb was able to escape. However Hath-Set never forgot the man's face and would pass down the story of this assassin to his cults one day who considered him a devil to Hath-Set's story. 

Next 4000 years

For 4000 years Hath-Set hunted down Khufu and Chay-Ara, killing them in all of their reincarnations and by the 21st century would achieve this 206 times. At some point Hath-Set abandoned his original name and adopted the new identity "Vandal Savage". Vandal also grew ambitious and desired dominion over the entire planet but knew the current resources of his time were insufficient to achieve such a goal, and secretly begun influencing various powerful figures of authority into war to further the development of weapons and scientific technologies and prime the world for his eventual rule.

Vandal became associated with Julius Caesar and guided him through the Gallic Wars which he most likely had a hand in causing, and later met Genghis Khan and Savage served him as his most trusted adviser. Vandal was also taught how to resist pain by Robin of Locksley while in turn Vandal taught Robin the skills of archery. Vandal was also apparently used the aliases Niccolò Machiavelli and Nostradamus.


Around 1831 Savage encountered the current incarnations of Khufu, now Hannibal Hawkes, and Chay-Ara, though her name at the time is unknown and stole back Chay-Ara's original bracelet. Sometime later Savage caught up to them and murdered Hannibal while his wife managed to escape but lived out the rest of her life alone until her death sometime around 1871.

At some point hunting down the next incarnations of Khufu and Chay-Ara, Vandal traveled to China in 1887 but for reasons unclear encountered difficulty and instead caused the Yellow River to flood to kill Khufu and Chay-Ara and succeeded, whilst also killing 2 million other civilians.[4]

In Victorian London, Savage received tutorage from Jack the Ripper on how to dissect a body.[5] A few years later Vandal once met Harry Houdini and taught him how to get out of locked handcuffs.[4]


In 1914 Vandal met and manipulated Gavrilo Princip into assassinating Franz Ferdinand which led to World War I.


In 1925 Vandal hunted the latest incarnations of Khufu and Chay-Ara, Joe and Edith Boardman, who had already spent years running from Savage. Vandal found them in the middle of the night at a rundown motel in North Carolina and murdered Joe and Edith in the hotel they were staying in unaware they had a son, Aldus, who was hiding in the cloest and who would spend his whole life studying the story of Khufu, Chay-Ara and Hath-Set in the hopes of one day achieving vengeance for his parents.

1930s - 1940s

At somepoint between the 1930s and 1940s Vandal was also a member of Adolf Hitler's Nazi party and served in World War II, which he also most likely played a role in causing. 


Around 1950, he became a close friend of Joseph Stalin. In exchange for his tactical knowledge, Savage was taught how to successfully torture a person and was given a unique torture device as a gift from Stalin.

Before 1958, Savage left the U.S.S.R. and moved to Harmony Falls, Oregon. He assumed the name "Curtis Knox" and fabricated an identity as a psychiatrist, seeking employment at the local insane asylum. He soon became the head of Hallway H, a top secret wing of the facility that Savage would use to focus on highly dangerous experimentation. During this time, he also married a woman named Gail, and the two lived together in a residential neighborhood.

One night he felt a meteor calling to him, drawn to its landing site because it was comprised of the same compounds that granted him immortal life. Several teenagers came across the meteor as well, after one couple crashed their car along the side of the road next to the meteor while drag racing. He abducted several of the teens with the help of the local sheriff and took them to Hallway H, giving his newly acquired test subjects concentrated doses of Nth metal from the meteor in an effort to recreate his immorality. He only succeeded in turning them into monstrous bird-like creatures, reminiscent of the physical manifestation of Chay-Ara's and Khufu's abilities.

A week later, Rip Hunter's team arrived in Harmony Falls, investigating a string of violent murders that they believed Savage was behind. Kendra and Ray, posing as a married couple, unknowingly moved into the house across the street from Savage, believing that doing so would help them better establish their presence in the community so that they could discover what had really transpired.

A week later Savage sensed Chay-Ara's supposed current reincarnation Kendra Saunders when she and her "husband" Raymond Palmer moved into the neighborhood, and later that night Savage and Gail visited Kendra and Raymond offering a casserole as a welcoming gift. However Kendra didn't appear to remember her past with Savage but Savage remained open to the possibility she could be faking it. Feigning ignorance, he invited them to a mixer that he was holding that night at his home, where he began to flirt with Kendra in an attempt to learn how much she knew. He was shortly called back to the asylum when one of his monsters attacked and killed an orderly.

The next day he came home to find that his private office had been broken into and that the Amon Dagger had been stolen from a chest of his possessions, and realised that Kendra did remember her past lives and was planning on killing him. That night, Savage again allowed his experiments to roam the town. Tommy Fuller, one of the teenagers from the meteor crash site, ended up attacking his girlfriend and Jefferson Jackson while the two were out on a date. The sheriff, still under the employ of Savage, kidnapped Jefferson and took him to Hallway H, where Savage injected him with the Nth serum. He was soon called away by a staff member at the asylum, who informed him that Kendra was awaiting him in his office. Though she presented herself as wanting to continue their discussion from the night before, Savage knew what she was plotting and discreetly stole the dagger from her purse while she was trying in vain to distract her. As Kendra tried to reach for the dagger Savage dropped the act and attempted to kill her with the Dagger, but Ray blasted Savage out the window using a gauntlet from his A.T.O.M. suit.[1]


In 1963 Vandal was present in the crowds in Dallas the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated implying he possibly had a role in JFK's death.


In 1975, Savage was located in Norway where, under the alias "Sasha Mahnovski", he had set himself up in a rich mansion where he kept numerous artifacts collected through the ages including the dagger, and commanded a sizeable militia of terrorists.

Savage stole a prototype nuclear warhead from the military and explained to his men that humanity only further's their cause during times of strife, such an example was splitting the atom which wasn't even thought of until World War II occured. Savage then put this warhead on sell at the black market which attracted the most notorious of terrorist organisations, including Damien Darhk of H.I.V.E.. As the potential buyers placed their bids Savage sensed the presence of Khufu and Chay-Ara nearby, and sold the nuke to a new comer, Professor Martin Stein, whom neither Savage or Darhk was familiar with. At that moment Savage begun to suspect Stein wasn't a terrorist and offered a 25% discount to whomever killed him and his companions. At that point Stein's companions Leonard Snart/Captain Cold, Mick Rory/Heat Wave and Sara Lance/White Canary attacked Savage's men while and were soon joined by Firestorm and a younger version of Ray than the one encountered in 1958,, and the five laid all out war to Savage's men. Amidst his awe Vandal was confronted by Carter Hall/Hawkman and Kendra Saunders/Hawkgirl, Khufu and Chay-Ara's future incarnations though this Kendra was a younger version of the one encountered in 1958, but Savage activated the nuke to distract the others and give himself the chance to escape. 

However the auction was not a complete loss as Savage's men managed to obtain a piece of Ray's equipment and begun reverse-engineering it's mechanisms to develop weapons, while Savage discussed the incident with his right-hand man and Savage deduced that the attackers had technology unheard of and deduced they must be from the future. Savage ordered his engineers to discover the mechanisms of the suit within 24 hours but one of them expressed doubts and Vandal used the piece of technology to blast the engineer and threatened to do the same to the rest if they failed.

Vandal Savage kills Carter Hall

Savage kills Hawkman

Later that evening Savage discovered that Leonard, Mick and Ray had broken into his mansion and Snart and Ray had ben caught in a trap in his gallery room, and Savage found Mick and held him at gunpoint. He demanded Leonard call his companions and order them to come face him but Savage grew tired of waiting and was moments away from killing Mick, until Firestorm intervened. Though he blasted Savage he recognised him as Jefferson Jackson from 1958 and a large fight between Savage's men and his opposes broke out outside his mansion. Whilst attempting to flee Savage was confronted by Hawkman and Hawkgirl and Hawkman wielded the blade that murdered their first incarnations and the two fought and Hawkman managed to impale Savage with it, only for Savage to be unharmed and turn the blade on him and stabbed him in the heart. Savage reminded a dying Hawkman that the blade belongs to Hawkgirl and she is the only one that can wield it against him. When Carter died his lifeforce was transferred to Savage and a vengeful Kendra attempted to avenge him but was hopelessly outmatched against Savage and was stabbed in the chest. As he moved in on her he confessed how much he truly loved her but reminded her they are bound by a curse of life and death that will forever separate them, but before he could deliver the fatal blow Atom blasted Savage away and they were able to escape with her alive.

Vandal Savage gathers Carter Hall&#039;s blood

Savage harnesses Hawkman's blood

Savage took Carter's body to his followers in Africa to perform the ritual to give them all an extra hundred years of life using his blood. Before he begun he was interrupted by the arrival of Sara and his archenemy the Gareeb, Rip Hunter. Savage remarked on their previous encounter in Egypt but questioned Rip as to why he was trying to kill him, and why he despised him so much. Savage then searched Rip and found a locket watch with a photo of his wife and child and quickly deduced that he must have killed them in the future, and expressed excitement towards this notion. Savage then demonstrated the ritual to Rip and Sara by bleeding Carter's body into a goblet and drinking from it, increasing his own lifespan further and passed the cup to his followers and increased their own lifespan. However the meeting was interrupted by the arrivals of Leonard, Mick and Jax who immediately attacked Savage's followers and Rip and Sara were able to get loose too and took part in the counterattack. Savage, enraged, used the Amon Dagger to channel his powers and blast them with a large beam that also caused a shockwave then applied to the floor. Admits this however he was attacked by Rip who managed to subdue Savage and used the dagger to cut open Vandal's throat in vengeance for Miranda and Jonas, his wife and son, but unintentionally revealed their names to him. Before dying of blood loss Savage told Rip he knew their names now and vowed that one day he would rise to power and that he'd wait until they are alive, and hunt them down and he'd kill them. Savage then died, temporarily, but the others had gone by the time he came back.


For the next 11 years Savage began focusing his efforts on creating his own version of Firestorm and defected to the Soviet Union to utilize their resources, but was unable to balance the equation of Firestorm and many test subjects died as a result. After years of failing Savage eventually employed Russian physicist Dr. Valentina Vostok who came closer to solving the equation but still lacked the skills to achieve the final step, that Firestorm is made of two people merged into one body.

Vandal Savage testing Martin Stein

Savage interrogates Stein.

After Valentina had captured Professor Stein, Ray, and Mick, Savage visited the gulag they were being held at and attempted to torture answers out of Stein, but with no result. Savage also remarked stories of his old friend Joseph Stalin and the skills of torture Stalin showed him. After torturing Stein yielded no results Savage took to torturing Ray and Mick instead by electrocuting them and eventually using a hammer on them in front of Stein. After seeing them in pain for so long Stein finally decided to aid Savage and gave his side of the equation. Savage later returned to the prison when Rip Hunter and his team attacked it looking for Stein and he ran into Kendra, but rather than kill her he offered her a place by his side promising to prolong her life but she angrily declined. Before Savage could harm her Rip encountered Savage again and demanded his locket back but Savage told Rip he'd memorized Miranda and Jonas' faces, and reminded him he would kill them. However as Rip left he set of an explosion that temporarily killed Savage yet again.


29 years later In 2015, Vandal stowed aboard a ship bound for Central City in his search of Chay-Ara's latest reincarnation. When he was captured and about to handed over to the CCPD, Vandal slipped his cuffs onto the ship captain before killing him, his crew and the arresting police officer.[6]Vandal found Chay-Ara, now Kendra but an earlier version of the one previously faced in the past whose powers and memories had yet to emerge, and Cisco Ramon at CC Jitters. However, Cisco summoned The Flash, who quickly knocked Vandal down. Vandal recovered and threw a knife at Cisco. The Flash distracted himself to catch the knife, enabling Vandal to escape.[6]

Team Arrow and Flash face off against Vandal Savage

Savage confronts Teams Arrow and Flash.

As the Flash and Cisco took Kendra to Star City to seek the aid of Team Arrow, Vandal gave pursuit. He stormed Oliver Queen's loft as both teams were celebrating. He threw a flurry of knifes at all, but as Barry attempted to catch them all, he throw an extra knife, managing to knock Barry down. He then caught the arrows shot at him and engaged Oliver Queen in close combat. He knocked him down and threw a knife which Barry caught. Oliver and Thea shot a barrage of arrows at him. He was able to block most with his fan. However, he took three to the chest and fell off of the balcony.[6]

Realizing he was outmatched, Vandal returned to Central City to find the Staff of Horus. He finds the staff before the Flash and Green Arrow arrive to stop him. Utilizing the staff, he was able to keep both heroes at bay. Acknowledging them as worthy opponents, Vandal was about to utilize the staff's full power when he sensed Kendra awakening her past lives. Regaining his bearings, he used the staff to destroy the church, although both of his foes managed to escape.[6]

Malcolm Merlyn, the current Ra's al Ghul, organized a meeting with Vandal, along with Green Arrow and the Flash, in which he expressed his wish to have Carter Hall and Kendra Saunders, or he would destroy both Star City and Central City. They eventually agreed to hand them over, not knowing that they plan to use the exchange as a means to defeat him.

Original Timeline: During the exchange as Vandal prepared to kill Hawkgirl, Green Arrow suddenly turned on him and attacked. Vandal incapicated Green Arrow and killed Hawkman with his knives. He then killed Hawkgirl who was unable to use her wings, absorbing the life force of them both and becoming so strong that the arrows shot at him by Green Arrow bounced off. Flash tried to use his staff against him, but Vandal used his magic and used the staff to kill Green Arrow and incinerate the city with everyone in it, including Team Arrow and Team Flash. However, Flash escaped and used time travel to go back a day and come up with a better plan.

Current Timeline: During the exchange as Vandal prepared to kill Hawkgirl, Green Arrow shot their bonds, freeing both Hawkman and Hawkgirl. As Green Arrow, Flash and Hawkman attacked he was distracted by Hawkgirl's sudden attack and was further tested when Black Canary, Speedy and Spartan appeared and attacked him, and together they all managed to stall Savage lone enough to steal the staff. The Flash and Green Arrow used a glove of Nth metal to channel the power of the Staff of Horus, in turn defeating Vandal Savage and turning him to dust. Malcolm later collected his remains and said that he would owe him one.[3] Due to his end not being at the hands of any of Chay-Ara's incarnations, Vandal eventually regenerated from the ashes left in his wake.


Vandal Savage tells Per Degaton the tale of Oedipus Rex

Savage and Per Degaton.

By the year 2147, Vandal resided in the Kasnia Conglomerate where he served as a tutor and advisor to Tor Degaton, and tutored his son Per Degaton. Vandal's true aim however was the use the advanced technology of Kasnia to establish the foothold of his future empire. He also sought to use their secret weapon the "Armagedon virus" to downsize the world's population, and prime it for his own personal conquest with far less threats to contend with. To achieve this Vandal manipulated and corrupted Per's mind, raising him to be ruthless and cold and to one day succeed his father by murdering him and would dictate his own desires through Per. However Vandal always sought to take power from Per when the time was right but Per truly believed Vandal considered him a son. 

Current Timeline: After a meeting with Tor where Vandal failed yet again to persuade him to use the virus, Per was abducted by Rip and his team. Savage met with Tor to discuss this and offered his assistance as he'd faced the abductors before. Savage lead a squad of soldiers and A.T.O.M. robots on Tor's orders to disable the Waverider but they were soon faced with Atom, Hawkgirl, White Canary, Firestorm and Captain Cold. During the fight Savage apprehended White Canary and threatened to kill her but offered to trade her in exchange for Rip, but Rip appeared and offered the same deal but in exchange for Per's life. Per begged his father not to give in and to elminate them now to which Vandal agreed on but Tor concented ot Rip's terms, and after Per was released so was White Canary and the team were able to escape unharmed. Shortly later Vandal was visited by Per who Savage told a story in Greek mythology of a prince who was exiled by his father in fear of a prophecy foretelling the prince murdering him coming true, only for the son to survive and return years later to fullfil the prophecy. Vandal then handed Per a knife and persuaded him that his father will make the same mistake and convinces him to murder his father. As a result of Tor's death Per was elected new chairman but due to being underage elected Vandal to be his proxy. For his first action as stand-in leader Vandal ordered the release of the Armagedon virus and killed billions, leaving it ripe for conquest.[7]


Original Timeline: In 2152 when Per was 19 he finally succeeded his father as leader of Kasnia and on Vandal's insistance, unleashed the Armagedon virus and killed billions of people and leaving the world prime for conquest. When this occured Vandal betrayed Per and murdered him to take his seat of power and become Kasnia's leader himself. Vandal would make Kasnia the foothold of his future empire. However since Rip's actions changed these events and unleashed the Armagedon virus 5 years earlier most of these events happened in 2147 instead.[7]


Savage kills Jonas

Savage murders Jonas.

By 2166 Vandal's plans for world domination had succeeded and left billions dead. He was the dicator of the world and commanded legions of soldiers under his command. Savage's reign was so significant that dictators such as Julius Caesar, Adolf Hitler and Per Degaton were considered amateurs in comparison. Whilst on a killing spree of rebels in London, England during the Second Blitz, Savage kept true to his promise to Rip 4000 years ago and found Miranda Coburn and murdered her, before confronting Jonas Hunter. After Vandal remarked how foolish Jonas's father was, he proceeded to shoot and kill the boy in cold blood. Vandal murdering Miranda and Jonas promted the Rip Hunter of 2166 to hunt down Vandal in the past by gathering his team of heroes from the 21st century, thus repeating the cycle.


Vandal is cold, ruthless, brutal and obsessed with being immortal, even if it meant killing Chay-Ara and Khufu for the rest of his life even if it meant in different lifetimes, regardless of how many people were caught in the crossfire. Vandal took no restraint in avoiding the deaths of innocent people, was totally amoral and capable of destroying two cities filled with innocent people simply to drive Chay-Ara and Khufu out of hiding. Once Vandal even flooded the North China Plain, killing two million people. As he has killed Khufu and Chay-Ara 206 times in the past Vandal has become quite arrogant in the present, thinking that they were no longer a challenge for him and could believing that he could defeat the combined forces of the Flash and Green Arrow by himself. Though he was almost proven right, as he did kill them all in an alternate timeline, his underestimating of their capabilities is what lead to his own downfall as he was killed by Green Arrow and Flash using his own staff. Though this still didn't stop him from returning.

Vandal is also very vengeful and also has a deep love for Chay-Ara despite the affection not being returned and seeing her with Khufu made Vandal so consumed with rage, thus his motive for murdering them in the first place. However Vandal has still expressed his love to her in each life time and says he always will love her, but views them both as tortured souls imprisoned by a circle of death and they can never be together. Vandal also despises Rip Hunter for trying to murder him in Egypt and waited 4000 years to get revenge by murdering his wife and son.

Vandal's ultimate goal however one he has pursued his whole life is complete subjugation of the entire planet. To achieve this Vandal has worked with the most nefarious of warlords throughout history, guiding Julius Caesar through the Gaelic Wars, becoming Genghis Khan's most trust adviser, becoming a close ally of Joseph Stalin and was also a member of Adolf Hitler's Nazi part. He also manipulated people into starting conflicts for him, manipulating Gavrilo Princip into starting World War I and is implied to have played a role in John F. Kennedy's assassination. The ultimate outcome of these manipulations is to further the development of weapons technologies and scientific advancements to prime the world for his own rule. He is also very egotistic stating that he sees himself as a force of nature and a servant of will enabling destiny, trying to make it a better place at any cost regardless of how many wars it takes.

Powers and abilities


  • Immortality: Due to being exposed to the radiation of a meteor of Nth metal substance, Vandal became immortal. From this, has remained alive after over 4,000 years of existence, unable to rot, wither, or degrade from the passage of time. To which addition, he remains physically unchanged, retaining his peak physical health, conditioning, and vitality as well as youthful appearance. He is also immune to all illnesses, diseases, and detrimental contaminants, nor does he require rest, nourishment, or air to survive. However, as Khufu and Chay-Ara also absorbed some of the same radiation, both gaining the power of reincarnation, Savage needs to periodically kill and the reincarnated couple and absorb their life-forces to maintain his immortal status or else his powers will gradually become negated.
  • Regenerative Healing Factor: Vandal Savage is able to automatically recover from what would be fatal injuries to most humans instantly. It was stated by Rip Hunter that Vandal is capable of easily regenerating from a single cell. If the damage is severe enough, it will render Savage seemingly dead until his body recovers some time later. But the worse the injury, the longer the regeneration will take.
  • Enhanced speed: When a cop shot at Vandal at point blank range, he was able to dodge, disarm, and shoot him in seconds.[6]
  • Enhanced reflexes: Vandal was able to effortlessly dodge and catch multiple arrows. He was even able to dodge bullets shot at him at point blank range.
  • Enhanced durability: Vandal is capable of withstanding large amounts of physical damage, and sustaining little to no injury, likely an effect of his regenerative capabilities. After being hit by a nuclear blast from Firestorm, Vandal was only momentarily incapacitated, but unscathed.
  • Enhanced senses: Vandal was able to notice Oliver and Barry even as they were hidden in the dark.
  • Magic: Vandal is well-versed in magic and was able to link his life-force to that of Khufu and Chay-Ara. with this link he could sense their presences to find them anywhere. He also seems to possibly be able to use displacement spells (or at the least sleight of hand) to seamlessly slip out of handcuffs and instantly caused them to suddenly appear on a police officer several feet in front of him.[6] Also, when Kendra Saunders was about to stab him with the Amon Dagger in 1958, he used some kind of spell to easily summon the dagger to his hand without her knowing,[1] while this may have also been sleight of hand. On his first appearance, he was able to vanish without a trace, such as when Barry knocked him to the floor of CC Jitters and when his back was turned, Vandal had disappeared. He performed this again when he fell from the window of Thea Queen's loft, and when Oliver immediately looked out of it, Vandal had not hit the ground and left no sign of where he went. Lastly, after giving Oliver and Barry the ultimatum of relinquishing Kendra and Carter to him to spare Central City from destruction, he walked halfway across the warehouse before his footsteps abrubtly stopped and he was nowhere to be seen.


  • Genius-level intellect: Vandal has total recall and can instantly remember anything in perfect detail, such as recalling events from 4000 years ago easily. He is very perceptive and a quick-study, easily capable of picking up complicated skills quickly and perfectly/permanently retaining them. He is a polyexpert in all fields. He's able to instantly determine nature and workings of technology new to him and see through any deceptions. He also is a master of surgery and biology,learning much about human anatomy from Jack the Ripper Vandal has 4,000 years of experience in tactics and tracking down Khufu and Chay-Ara. During this period he killed them 206 times. It was rumored that he was Genghis Khan's greatest adviser and had helped Julius Caesar during the Gallic Wars and even mentoring Harry Houdini in many of his magic tricks.[6] His tactical skills were so great he was able to raise an army in secret and conquer the entire planet.  He is able to manipulate meteor radiation to experiment on various people. He is very charismatic, having formed an entire cult of followers who are unflinchingly loyal to him and his goals.
  • Master tactician: Vandal is a great tactician as he manages to take over the world in 2166.
  • Master​ escape artist: Vandal has shown that he can effortlessly break free from hand cuffs, as well as use magic to make them appear on others several feet in front of him instead of himself. He claims to have taught Houdini how to escape difficult situation.
  • Master hand-to-hand combatant/Martial Artist: Vandal is a highly skilled close-range and unarmed fighter, drawing from his millennia of experience, as he was able to easily gain the upper hand in a fight against Green Arrow. He was able to fight Team Arrow simultaneously in close combat and win with ease. His skill in fighting allowed him to wield blades and other weapons with incredible skill, as well as to allow him to disarm others and turn their weapons against them, as he did to overpower, disarm, and shoot a police officer in seconds.[6] In 1975, Vandal stated that he is trained in every hold & pressure point known, a skill which allows him to easily restrain and capture formidable fighters like Mick Rory and Sara Lance.
  • Master knife-thrower: Vandal is highly skilled in throwing knives with deadly accuracy. His knife throwing is so fast that Khufu and Green Arrow were not able to react to it, even the Flash seemed to have a difficult time catching them. He was able to throw 5 knives in one motion and would have hit all his targets if the Flash had not intercepted them.[6]
  • High tolerance for pain: Vandal is able to ignore pain, unfazed by an arrow deeply penetrating his chest. This was taught to him by Robin of Locksley
  • Occult knowledge: Vandal has knowledge of magic and mysticism, and has been shown to utilize magic. When sarcastically questioned if Houdini taught him magic, he claimed he taught Houdini. 
  • Master archer: Vandal Claims to have taught Robin of Locksley how to aim a bow and arrow. 
  • Weapon mastery: Vandal is highly skilled in the use of multiple weapons including knives, staffs, metal fighting fans, archery, and presumably much more. 
  • Medical expert: In 1950, Vandal proved himself to be highly skilled and knowledgeable in medicine, able to establish himself as a city's top doctor. 
  • Multilingual: Vandal is shown able to fluently speak English, Arabic, and ancient Egyptian. 


  • Knives and Daggers: Vandal wears 32 knives on the inside of his coat, and has had thousands of years of experience wielding them. Vandal is a highly skilled expert with knives and daggers, especially with throwing knives. Throughout the ages, Vandal has developed a large collection of them, with his favorite being the one he first killed Chay-Ara and Khufu with. Some knives he has been shown to utilize are daggers and throwing knives. According to Savage himself, his favorite knife is the Amon Dagger, which he used to kill Khufu and Chay-Ara in their first lives.
  • Staff of Horus: The Staff of Horus is an Nth metal artifact that was used by Vandal as a melee weapon in close quarter combat, and as a mid-range weapon by shooting blue energy blasts and waves of mystical nature at his enemies. Contact with these waves meaning instant incineration. By knocking the butt of the staff onto the ground, Vandal could conjure up a magical energy blast which grows to the size of a metropolis, burning alive every human in its path. The weapon had an energy field that physically kept others from even touching the staff, sending those who tried flying through the air. Specialized gloves were made by Cisco Ramon to render this protection useless. While the user could touch the staff and even fire its energy, its energy aura was harmful to them and forced the user to release the staff before it could kill them. The staff would even resist the users ability to fire its energy, causing it to be unable to burn or harm what it was fired at. When the Flash went back in time, he revealed the failure of the gloves, allowing Cisco to create them better, allowing the Flash and Green Arrow to wield it and fire its energy without problems. This resulted in Vandal's death during the revised version of his battle with the Flash, Green Arrow, Hawkgirl and Carter Hall.


The Flash

Season 2


Season 4

DC's Legends of Tomorrow

Season 1


  • Vandal's former name, Hath-Set, is roughly translated as "maker of evil".
  • Vandal has killed Hawkgirl 206 times and Hawkman 207 times over the span of 4,000 years. This means, on average, that each time he killed them they were in their early twenties.
  • Savage must have been able to hide his association with the Nazis from Joseph Stalin.

Behind the scenes

  • Vandal Savage is one of DC Comics oldest super-villains, debuting in Green Lantern #10 in December 1944. In his origin story Savage was a eighty thousand year old cave man who gained immortality and genius level intellect after exposing himself to a radioactive meteorite.
  • This portrayal of Vandal Savage is an amalgamation of the DC Comics' Savage and of Hath-Set, the long time enemy and nemesis of Hawkman and Hawkgirl.
  • The conflict between Savage, Hawkman and Hawkgirl resembles the conflict between Gentleman Ghost and Hawkman in the pre-Flashpoint continuity. Jim Craddock was an English highwayman who was wrongly murdered by the American gunslinger Nighthawk, Prince Khufu's 19th century reincarnation. As a result, Craddock became the revenant Gentleman Ghost and sets out to murder Khufu's latest incarnation in order to put his soul to rest. Unfortunately, due to the endless cycle of reincarnation which affects Khufu's soul, Craddock is unable to accomplish this feat and is forced to remain undead. Savage was briefly Hawkman's archenemy post-Zero Hour until Hawkman was temporarily written out of the comics.
  • In the comics Roy Harper is a descendant of Vandal Savage.
  • In "Night of the Hawk", Savage assumed the alias Curtis Knox, referencing a character in the TV series Smallville that was based on Vandal Savage.


  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Night of the Hawk"
  2. "Pilot, Part 2"
  3. 3.0 3.1 "Legends of Yesterday"
  5. "Blood Ties"
  7. 7.0 7.1 "Progeny"