The Hat
28 years ago - Haruto Satou is born homeless in Japan.
12 years ago - 16-year-old Haruto first becomes a street magician, feeding his growing alcoholism, always looking for more magical power.
6 years ago - 22-year-old Haruto inadvertently releases Rampotatek, a powerful chaotic earth elemental that dominates Haruto & takes control of his body.
4 years ago - 24-year-old Haruto Satou (Rampotratek) Joins the Elite, and battles Superman. He is imprisoned.
3 years ago - 25-year-old Haruto Satou (Rampotratek) is freed by Manchester Black, and is the only member of the original Elite that stays by his side. In the ensuing battle, he is killed by his former teammates Pamela Donjia & Paul Booker.
Of the four original members of the Elite, the Hat is definitely the one with the most limited lasting effect and is probably the weirdest. The only member of the team not to carry over into Justice League Elite (save for Manchester Black himself, although he gets more of a pass since the entire narrative of the team revolved around him.) The Hat basically remained a quirky visual trick that brought a unique and yet still classically Wildstorm energy to the team, but his style and characterization were so singularly limited that he just didn't have a place beyond that original story.
We're not going to do a lot more with him beyond the Elite's original storyarc. If you look into his backstory, there's actually some pretty cool stuff in there, so we're just going to shore it up a little and give it some teeth, but otherwise we're just going to keep him as-is. By making him the sole member of the Elite to remain loyal to Manchester when Vera leads the rest of the team against him, it gives us a very clear out to take with the character. While there's an element of tragedy to him, the fact is there's something monstprous about the entire notion of the character, and ending his story with his death in that battle actually feels pretty satisfactory. |