Knowledge Waits is a feature where I just share some bit of comic book history that interests me.

The other day, I wrote about Metamorpho's various deaths and resurrections, and I noted that one of the deaths that he suffered was during DC's 1988 crossover, Millennium. The idea of that story was that a group of Earthlings were being chosen to be the New Guardians of the Universe and the Manhunters, who hated the original Guardians, wanted to stop that from happening. They had received a store of information that let them know the secret identity of every superhero on Earth and so they placed spies close to the various superheroes so that when the time came, they could stop the superheroes from helping create the new Guardians, either by convincing the heroes to leave well enough alone or by actually physically attacking the heroes.

In other words, every DC superhero title had to pick a supporting cast member and have them turn out to be working for the Manhunters. That's a big ask, right? And so the various DC writers each had different reactions to the request, with a lot of them going for cop-outs, but a few actually sacrificing legit supporting cast members. Alphabetically (by the title of the book), I'll reveal the various Manhunter traitors and I'll note where they stood, cop-out wise.

Batman #415 (by Jims Starlin and Aparo)

Traitor: Commissioner Gordon

Cop-Out Level: 10 out 10

Here's the biggest cop-out of the bunch, where Batman shows up at Gotham City's police department and Jim Gordon starts shooting at him...

But then it turns out that Gordon was actually an android created by the Manhunters who filled in for the real Gordon...

If the goals of the Manhunters was just to keep an eye on superheroes, then pretty much any Gotham City cop would work here, right? And then you would have a character who was a legitimate Manhunter agent and not a fake android of Jim Gordon. I guess the problem was that there were so few big names that they had to toss in a cop-out like the Jim Gordon android to keep themselves from having no "oh man, THAT person is a Manhunter?!" shocks besides Suprman's Manhunter (which we'll get to later).

Blue Beetle #20 (by Len Wein, Ross Andru and Danny Bulanadi)

Traitor: Overthrow

Cop-Out Level: 6 out of 10

Blue Beetle's Manhunter turned out to be a villain who was a relatively minor member of Beetle's Rogues Gallery, Overthrow...

Wein gets some credit for going in a surprising direction, but he loses a lot for it being such an unimportant character overall.

Booster Gold #24 (by Dan Jurgens and Ty Templeton)

Traitor: Dirk Davis

Cop-Out Level: 1 out of 10

Booster Gold was one of the books most heavily involved in Millennium, since Booster seems to join the Manhunters (don't worry, he doesn't really).

He realizes that one of his staff is a Manhunter when he arrives at his home and it begins to attack him...

It turns out that his Manhunter was Dirk Davis, his manager. Dirk had been Booster's manager since the series started and he appeared in the very first issue of the book, so this was a major character in the series...

Jurgens played as fair as you can with his choice, but to be fair to the other titles, Millennium also marked the end of Booster Gold's series, so Jurgens had room to be more aggressive with his cast changes, since the series was ending anyways.

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Captain Atom #11 (by Cary Bates, Greg Weisman, Pat Broderick and Bob Smith)

Traitor: Harry Hadley

Cop-Out Level: 4 out of 10

Hadley was General Wade Eiling's assistant. He was a very minor character, but I will give Bates and Weisman a little credit in that at least Hadley HAD been with the series since the first issue .

Flash #8 (by Mike Baron, Jackson Guice and Larry Mahlstedt)

Traitor: Rudy West

Cop-Out Level: 2 out of 10

They made the Flash's dad a villain! Damn, that's cold!

So you would think that that would make it the lowest cop-out level, as, well, it's the Flash's dad! However, he wasn't actually a supporting cast member in the series and we didn't really know much about him, ya know? So it really didn't have all that much of an impact from a betrayal standpoint. Granted, it did bring Wally's mom into his life as Rudy tried to kill her but she survived. William Messner-Loebs later tried to redeem Rudy, but the character was a bit of a mess. One of the downsides of tying someone so close to a hero into a crossover is that the connection is going to be awfully untimely after a few years. "That's your dad? Yeah, he used to be a Manhunter. They were big 20 years ago."

Firestorm #67 (by John Ostrander, JJ Birch and Sam De La Rosa)

Traitor: Bernard Ferguson

Cop-Out Level: 9 out of 10

"Oh no, not Chief Ferguson!" shouted no fan when they discovered that Pittsburgh's Chief of Police was secretly a Manhunter...

The only reason this didn't merit a full 10 out of 10 is because at least this WAS a character who had appeared in the series for over a year, so it wasn't like the ultimate cop out of it not being the real person.

Firestorm had recently gone through a major change in his life, so he was so disoriented that the Manhunters were able to actually turn him to their side for a while.

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Green Lantern Corps #220 (by Steve Englehart, Bill Willingham and Mark Farmer)

Traitor: Mr. Smith

Cop-Out Level: 6 out of 10

Mr. Smith had been a part of the series (as a top executive at Ferris Air) since Green Lantern #175, well before Steve Englehart took over the series, but, well, come on, he was a very minor character...

Infinity Inc. #46 (by Roy Thomas, Dann Thomas, Vince Argondezzi and Tony DeZuniga)

Traitor: Marcie Cooper

Cop-Out Level: 3 out of 10

Traitor: Thor

Cop-Out Level: 5 out of 10

Marcie Cooper had been introduced into the series as a sort of superhero groupie and she eventually seemed to become Obsidian's girlfriend, but then revealed to him that she wanted him to join the Manhunters. She also became the new Harlequin...

She was a legit cast member, albeit a minor one, and this allowed Thomas to make her into a super-villain, so it all worked out well enough.

Plus, her grandfather, the original Manhunter, learned that his dog was a Manhunter android...

It was the second reveal in the book, which is more than most books did.

Justice League International #9 (by Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire and Al Gordon)

Traitor: Rocket Red #7

Cop-Out Level: 7 out of 10

You would think that having an actual member of the Justice League turn out to be their Manhunter would merit a much lower cop-out rating, but here's the thing. Rocket Red #7 was essentially a nameless cog who had just joined the Justice League two issues earlier as an addition by the Soviet Union (along with the American addition of Captain Atom) as part of a joint deal where those two countries would approve of the Justice League taking on a United Nations deal if they both were allowed to name a member to the team.

Essentially, no one knew who this guy was. I am pretty sure he did not even technically exist as an individual character until Justice League #7, two issues before this comic.

His replacement, Dmitri Pushkin, became a major character in the series (and even got his own unique Rocket Red suit of armor), but this reveal didn't mean much at all. Really great action in the issue, though. Some amazing work by Kevin Maguire.

Legion of Super-Heroes #42 (by Paul Levitz, Greg LaRocque and Mike DeCarlo)

Traitors: Laurel Kent

Cop-Out Level: 2 out of 10

This one was interesting. Laurel Kent had been around for over a decade as a minor character in the Legion, a likely descendant of Superman himself. However, by the time that Millennium came around, the Legion has lost their connection to Superboy due to the Post-Crisis Superman having never been Superboy (so the temporary solution was that the Legion's Superboy came from a Pocket Universe).

Therefore, Laurel Kent was a character that there was no real role for in the series, so she was a good choice to be a traitor, although she had barely appeared over the years....

The choice of having a tie-in to Millennium despite being set literally a millennium ahead of the other DC titles was an odd one, but whatevs...

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Outsiders #27 (by Mike W. Barr and Erik Larsen)

Traitor: Dr. Helga Jace

Cop-Out Level: 1 out of 10

Dr. Jace had been part of the Outsiders since the first issue of Batman and the Outsiders, five years earlier, and she wasn't just a background character, she factored into a number of plots, so this was a legit shock.

Again, though, like with Booster Gold, Outsiders was ending during this crossover, so Barr had a lot more leeway to go bold. He also killed off Metamorpho in the story, ya know?

Suicide Squad #9 (by John Ostrander, Luke McDonnell and Bob Lewis)

Traitor: Karin Grace

Cop-Out Level: 2 out of 10

Karin Grace was a member of the previous Suicide Squad (the original version), so her being a Manhunter was a major surprise and a major change for Rick Flag...

I only give her a sliiiiiight cop-out due to the fact that she was not used that much in the new series and, after all, the book was all about making drastic changes with characters, so it was a BIT less shocking. It was still a big shock and a great character bit by Ostrander.

Superman #13 (by John Byrne and Karl Kesel)

Traitor: Lana Lang

Cop-Out Level: Immeasurable

This one cannot even be counted, as this was just bonkers. Lana Lang is revealed to be a Manhunter...

But that obviously doesn't make sense, right? She's WAY too big of a character.

So Byrne explains in Action Comics #596 that a Manhunter agent came to Earth when Superman came to Earth and the agent had been manipulating all the children born in Smallville from that point forward to make them agents for the Manhunters...

It's just absurd. That's altering the past of Smallville way too much to tie into a crossover which, due to the nature of comic book crossovers, is going to be fleeting in the history of the characters. Why in the world would you want Smallville's history to be that tied to the freakin' MANHUNTERS? All just so that a major character could be a traitor without really being a traitor? Lana, of course, did not remember what she did as a Manhunter agent. It was just such a strange decision. I mean, for crying out loud, the Manhunters were now a rather significant part of Superman's Post-Crisis origin! Does it really make sense to tie the Manhunters into Superman's origin? No, it does not.

Wonder Woman #12 (by George Perez, Len Wein and Bruce Patterson)

Traitor: Pan

Cop-Out Level: 8 out of 10

Yes, the Manhunters somehow were able to replace PAN, of all mythical creatures, with a Manhunter android...

You would think this would merit a 10 out of 10, since this is the same deal as Gordon, as Pan was not actually a traitor, it was an android that looked like him.

However, Perez needed to work the character into a storyline of the series where having a Manhunter in there really wouldn't work, so I think he did about as good of a job as you can inserting a Manhunter agent into a storyline about the Challenge of the Gods, ya know?

Plus, the fake Pan got an awesome death in Millennium #7 (by Steve Englehart, Joe Staton and Ian Gibson)...

I could be missing a traitor here or there, but I think that's pretty much the entire list.

If anyone has a suggestion for an interesting piece of comic book history that they'd like to see me explore, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!