Rory Regan

"Yeah, and I stopped hiding behind a mask. But I didn't stop doing good because people need help. It's just that simple. Is that all?"

—Rory Regan^[src]

Rory Regan is a vigilante who initially sought revenge for the destruction of his home, Havenrock, of which he was the sole survivor. However, the Green Arrow convinced him to cease his crusade and use his powers for good. For some time, Rory operated as a member of Team Arrow, using the mystical rags of Devarim to fuel his magic, using the codename Ragman, as suggested by Rene Ramirez. After absorbing a nuclear explosion, the rags seemed to stop working, causing Rory to leave the team until he can restore his bond with the rags. Retiring from vigilantism, he turned towards helping the disenfranchised in other ways, before being hunted by the mask-hunter Chimera, leaving his ultimate fate unknown.

On Earth-Prime, Rory returned to acting as Ragman and attended Oliver’s funeral to honor the man who gave him a chance to be a hero. He was given back his Earth-1 memories so he could remember being part of Team Arrow.

Quick Answers

What tragedy made Rory Regan become a vigilante?

Rory Regan, also known as Ragman, turned to vigilantism following the devastation of his hometown, Havenrock, where he was the lone survivor. His father had shielded him from the disaster using mystical rags from the Devarim era. Initially seeking vengeance, Rory was persuaded by the Green Arrow to channel his abilities for the greater good, leading him to join Team Arrow.

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What powers does Rory Regan gain from the mystical rags of Devarim?

Rory Regan, known as Ragman in the DC universe, possesses a telepathic link with the Devarim rags, enabling him to manipulate them. Despite their fragile appearance, these ancient rags can grip, lift, and throw objects, even fully grown humans. They initially lost their power after absorbing a nuclear blast, but Rory managed to restore their mystical abilities over time.

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How did the Green Arrow influence Rory Regan's actions?

Rory Regan, known as Ragman, was driven by vengeance after Havenrock's destruction. Green Arrow, or Oliver, intervened, convincing Rory to abandon vengeance and join Team Arrow. Influenced by Green Arrow, Rory used his powers, derived from the mystical Devarim rags, for good. After a nuclear explosion rendered the rags ineffective, Rory retired from vigilantism until he could reconnect with the rags.

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What was Rory Regan's role in Team Arrow?

Rory Regan, known as Ragman, was a key figure in Team Arrow. Initially seeking revenge for Havenrock's destruction, his character matured to show understanding and calmness. He disclosed his Ragman identity to teammates Rene, Curtis Holt, Felicity Smoak, and Evelyn Sharp. Even after discovering Felicity Smoak's part in Havenrock's demise, he maintained civility and comprehension.

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What is the significance of Havenrock in Rory Regan's story?

Rory Regan, the lone survivor of Havenrock's annihilation by Amertek Industries' missiles, initially sought revenge on the company's CEO, Janet Carroll. Oliver convinced him to join Team Arrow instead. Felicity's confession of her indirect role in Havenrock's destruction initially deterred Rory from assisting the team.

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Biography[]

Original multiverse[]

Early life[]

Rory Regan was born and raised in the town of Havenrock to a Jewish family and became a skilled inventor in his youth. By age 11, Rory's father started giving him the family's homebrew schnapps, despite him being well under the drinking age. Rory's family owned possession of ancient mystical rags from the time of Devarim, granting its user the ability to extend them like limbs.^[1]

Destruction of Havenrock[]

In early 2016, on Genesis Day, as a missile was inbound for their town, Rory's father wrapped him in the rags, telling him they held a power greater than most people could imagine, but needed to respect the power it brought. Moments after, Havenrock was destroyed by the missile. Rory's family, along with the town's entire populace, was killed, but he was protected from the blast wave by the rags. In the aftermath, Rory was left the sole survivor of the city.^[2]

Revenge on AmerTek[]

Later that year, with the knowledge that a subsidiary of AmerTek Industries developed the missile that destroyed his town, Rory sought revenge on the company and traveled to Star City. He first targeted Evan Wender, the Vice President of AmerTek. Rory used his rags to suffocate and seriously injure Wender. The following day, Rory ambushed a medical clinical event held by Mayor Oliver Queen and attacked Janet Carroll, AmerTek's CEO. Rory pinned Caroll to the wall and tried to strangle her with his rags. However, Rene Ramirez intervened, ripping off a piece of Rory's rags, before he fled. The next night, Ragman, as he became known, attacked an arms deal between Carroll and Tobias Church, going after the former. The Green Arrow appeared, helping take down Church's thugs, before convincing Rory to let Carroll get away. Later, Rory met with the Green Arrow, who revealed himself to be Oliver. Oliver convinced Rory to give up his quest for vengeance and make his father's memory proud by joining the former's team.^[2]

Joining Team Arrow[]

Aligned with Team Arrow, Rory used his magic powers to greatly assist the team, for example, in defeating Derek Sampson. At first, he almost refused to join after hearing the truth about the Havenrock incident from Felicity Smoak, uneasy with being on the team with a person whose very existence would remind him of the tragedy. However, thinking it through, he agreed with assisting Oliver, and took part in later missions.^[3] He was the one to save Adrian Chase from Tobias Church and his thugs, using his extreme durability to take all shots for the team, as well as using his rags as "tentacles" to catch bullets shot at his allies.^[4] Ragman took part in the final assault of Team Arrow on Tobias's operations, once again using his rags to take down multiple thugs.^[5]

Rory, along with the rest of the recruits, disapproved of Oliver's secrecy policies when it was revealed that he's been hiding the List from his new allies, along with his earlier identity as the Hood, since even Curtis Holt, a more or less veteran team member, did not think that the Green Arrow was the same person as the Arrow. Rory specifically said that he figured out Prometheus's message, explaining to Oliver that the villainous vigilante means to show that Oliver Queen is the real serial killer. Later, when the recruits went to discuss the revelations, Rory presented his teammates with jars of his family's homebrew schnapps, which he's been drinking himself since the age of twelve. Rory also visited a concert organized by the Star City Mayor's office, with Evelyn Sharp noting that he's finally started to smile a little.^[1]

Rory, like the rest of the team, was training in a hideout when Felicity received a report to deliver the bodies of two criminals - Nathan Sierra and Pablo Estevez - to the police station, indicating that a new vigilante has appeared in the city, killing criminals. Sometime later, the team was summoned to the bank, which became the target of The Spooky Crew. When they got there, they only found Jenkins bleeding out on the floor, who died in the hands of Spartan. After deliberating in the hideout, the team decided to interrogate one of the street criminals, thanks to which they could predict the next location of the Spooky Crew attack. They were interrupted by the new vigilante, who intended to kill criminals. Seeing the threat in the warrior, the heroes decided to pretend to be criminals and attract the man's attention, but he understood their plan and stunned Artemis sitting in the car in front of the building, then beat Curtis and took him with him. At the bank, he demanded a meeting with Green Arrow, threatening Holt to kill him. When the Vigilante was about to make a fatal shot, the archer stopped him and captured him, but thanks to a controlled blast he escaped.^[6]

Rory was training in the hideout when Felicity brought Cisco to help the team find the team members kidnapped by the Dominators. For that, it needed a device from Van Horn Industries that Cyberwoman had stolen. By working with Supergirl and Flash, they managed to get the item they were looking for, thanks to which they discovered that the enemy's data was encoded in a language similar to Hebrew. With this, they determined the locations of friends who were in outer space.^[7]

In December, Rory, Diggle, Rene, Evelyn, Lyla Michaels, and J.J. celebrated with a Christmas Eve dinner in the Arrowcave. As a present, Evelyn gave them all stockings with their vigilante names labeled on them. When Curtis was injured and poisoned by Prometheus, Oliver identified it as Tuberculosis, a virus that broke out 4 years ago which Justin Claybourne used it to turn a profit and Oliver expressed his suspicion that Prometheus was Claybourne. Team Arrow went to confront Prometheus as Claybourne's office, but Artemis revealed she was in league with him and they escaped. Fearing Evelyn told Prometheus about their loved ones, John suggested Rory and Rene supply the names of those closest to them to move into A.R.G.U.S. security. While Felicity left to attend to other business, she left Rory and Rene to examine cremated ashes found in Claybourne's office using a DNA sequencer. While waiting Rene expressed hope that maybe in Flashpoint, he and Thea were together, but Rory doubted it. After the sequencer finished they confirmed the ashes were actually Claybourne's. Later Felicity's boyfriend Billy Malone sent a picture of a baby from Claybourne's office which Rory commented was strange. When Billy was reported missing the team, Ragman included, were sent out to search for him but ordered not to engage. Rory initially suggested that perhaps Barry Allen try Flashpoint again, but Rene told him Dig might end up with 5 kids instead. After their searches proved fruitless the team returned to the Arrowcave, but Oliver returned with the horrifying revelation that he unintentionally killed Billy, who was staged as Prometheus. Though Oliver told everyone in the team they should leave they all stood by his side, certain they were where they needed to be.^[8]

Rory and Team Arrow went to Russia to stop Walker from selling bombs to the Markovians, Rory seemed to have stepped up much more than many other times. When Felicity blackmailed an innocent family, Rory felt that it was not right and gave a talk to her about it. That night, with the help of the Bratva, Team Arrow went to stop Walker from selling the bombs. However, they were tricked. Walker had activated the bomb that could explode within a 50-mile radius, which Felicity was unable to hack. She insisted on flying the bomb to a less populated place, but was cut off when Rory mentioned Havenrock. In that instant, he came up with the idea that if the rags could help him survive Havenrock's nuclear explosion, he could also survive the bomb, containing the explosion and radiation. Felicity questioned its effectiveness, but he had faith in his rags, sending Felicity away and sacrificing himself. He survived, wrapping his rags to the maximum around the bomb, and everyone right outside the warehouse also survived. However, the explosion was too much on the rags, so that they seemed to have lost their powers. Rory decided to leave Team Arrow to find a way to fix the issue. He bid farewell to Felicity when she visited him, promising to return.^[9]

Hunted by Chimera[]

Without his powers, Rory abandoned vigilantism, continued working towards the benefit of the disenfranchised. After giving an interview to M. Pedowitz for the "Emerald Archer: The Hood and the Rise of Vigilantism" documentary on his activities as part of Team Arrow, Rory became a target for the vigilante-hunter Chimera, obsessed with the vigilantes ever since being saved by the Hood in 2012. Apparently, the hunter took Rory's Ragman mask as one of his trophies. According to Chimera, his intention was not to kill the vigilantes, but just take their masks for memorabilia. Nevertheless, after Chimera's attack, Team Arrow and the SCPD were unable to contact Rory or Helena Bertinelli, leaving their fates unknown.^[10]

Anti-Monitor Crisis[]

During the Anti-Monitor Crisis, Rory as well as everyone in the multiverse except for the seven Paragons, was killed in an antimatter wave by the Anti-Monitor on December 10, 2019,^[11] only to be restored a month later, after the Paragons and the Spectre created a new universe.^[12]

New multiverse[]

When Oliver's son William is kidnapped by John Byrne, Rory assists in finding William and later attends Oliver's funeral.^[13]

Rewritten reality[]

In an altered reality created by the Legion of Doom using the Spear of Destiny, Rory was killed by Damien Darhk or one of his henchwomen. His ragged mask was put on display with those of other heroes and vigilantes that Darhk had killed.^[14]

Personality[]

"Why'd you give up your vengeance to save my life?"
"I don't know. I think it's what my father would have wanted me to do. He saved my life. On Genesis Day, he... wrapped me in these rags, said they were ancient, from the time of Devarim, that they would protect me from the fire. And they did. So you see why I have to avenge him."

—Green Arrow and Rory Regan^[src]

After Havenrock's destruction, Rory Regan has shown a violent and vengeful demeanor, as he bares a deep mourn for his late family and former home. Since his recruitment to Team Arrow he reveals a more level-headed and calm personality. Overall, he has shown a remarkable understanding nature. After learning of the part Felicity Smoak played in the destruction of his home, despite the agony of this knowledge, Rory was remarkably civil to it, understanding that Felicity was put in a no-win situation. Shortly afterwards, he was able to make peace with her and return a positive working relationship.

Despite his generally kind yet reserved nature several of his team members including John Diggle and Rene Ramirez deem him a "weirdo" though Rory doesn't seem to very phased by this. As noted by Evelyn Sharp though Rory hardly smiles but during his time spent with the team he has started to lighten up more. He is shown to be very talented engineer and is very faithful towards his Jewish heritage, even after meeting the meta-human Barry Allen, who he was a fan of prior to meeting, and extraterrestrial Kara Danvers.

Like the other recruits Rory understandably annoyed when they learned Oliver hadn't informed them about Prometheus. Furthermore, when Oliver revealed that he was "The Hood" who used The List to target those most corrupt in Starling City, Rory like the other recruits were quite shocked, even horrified, to learn Oliver was a borderline serial killer. Rory even made the observation that information sharing seems to be exclusive between Oliver, Diggle and Felicity and not the recruits, similar to Rene's analogy of Team Arrow having an "A-Team" and a "B-Team". However Rory does seem to have forgiven Oliver since.

Rory is very intelligent, being the first to suspect the message Prometheus was sending in his killings, was in fact an accusation to Oliver that he was the serial killer, under his "Hood" persona. He was also the first to suspect that Prometheus may not be Justin Claybourne as initial evidence implicated and was proven right.

Powers and abilities[]

Powers[]

• Telepathic link: Rory has a telepathic link with his rags, allowing him to feel their mystical power. After absorbing another nuclear blast in Russia, Rory started to feel that the Devarim rags have lost their power, which has proven to be true.^[9] Over time, he was able to successfully reconnect with the rags once more.
  • Mystical rags empowerment: While wearing the rags as a suit, Rory's physiology seems to become enhanced, this allows him to both manipulate the rags telepathically and also grants him other superhuman abilities.
    • Mystical rag manipulation: Rory could control the numerous rags that composed his suit. While seemingly fragile and decaying, these rags were able to grip, lift, club and throw human beings with ease. Their width varies and while he preferred to launch his rags from his hands, they could come off any part of his suit. He can also use them to grapple onto and swing from structures and surfaces to quickly escape or to stalk his enemies from higher vantage points.^[2] Rory's control over his rags is perfect, as he could even extend them with immense speed and accuracy to the point, where he is able to catch a huge amount of bullets in midair.^[4]
      • Enhanced durability: While wearing his suit, Rory possesses incredible durability. Arrows are incapable of piercing the suit and according to Rory, the suit is strong enough to withstand a nuclear strike and protect his wearer from the radiation after the blast, even contain such an explosion before it goes off. It is shown that the rags extend like tentacles to absorb and catch damage from explosions and gunfire. Because of this, Ragman tends to serve as a human shield and Oliver sends him to more dangerous assignments, such as disarming the gunmen who were causing a panic during Prometheus' rampage.^[2][4] Despite this, Rene was able to tear a piece of it off, suggesting human contact could hurt Rory.
      • Enhanced strength: While wearing his suit, Rory possesses incredible strength. He can drag and lift up human beings with one hand and without any visible effort.^[2]
      • Intimidation: Rory's redoubted exterior and voice allows him to inflict psychological damage to his enemies, who become astonished and afraid of his malicious appearance, which allows Ragman to fight criminals even more effectively.
      • Voice modulation: Rory's voice is mystically distorted while he wears the suit, having no control over it. While it can serve as identity concealment, it can also be seen as a means of intimidation. His voice returns to normal if he removes the rags that conceal his face.^[2][3]
      • Energy absorption: While in Russia, Rory was able to wrap his rags around a nuclear bomb and absorb the blast, and the radiation. This however, came with a drawback the more energy he absorbs the weaker his telepathic link gets to his rags gets.
    • Tirelessness: An apparent side effect of the rags is that Rory does not need to sleep in order to stay rested and rejuvenated.^[15] This was mentioned when he was talking to Felicity Smoak at a late hour.

Abilities[]

• Expert Craftsman/Metalsmith/Welder: Rory is a skilled in using welding machine, able to create extraordinary objects from metallic rags. His mastery was enough to impress Felicity Smoak when she found his creations.^[4]
• Bilingualism: Rory is fluent in English and a Jewish language.^[7]

Equipment[]

Original multiverse[]

• Devarim rags: To protect him from the nuclear blast that destroyed his home, Havenrock, Rory was wrapped in ancient, mystical rags from the time of Devarim (the Biblical period when Moses and the Israelites wandered in the wilderness after leaving Egypt before arriving in the Promised Land). He is somehow able to control the rags and extend them out, using them like tentacles to grab targets. They are strong enough to restrain, drag, lift and throw fully grown humans with ease, as well as suffocate them. He can also use them to lift himself up to high areas. While wearing the rags, he was strong enough to drag and lift up humans with one hand, as he did with Janet Carroll.^[2]
• Homebrew schnapps: One of the few things left from his family is the homebrew schnaps recipe. Rory has been drinking this alcoholic brew since he was 11, which Rene Ramirez jokingly believes is why he is a "weirdo".^[1]

New multiverse[]

• Devarim rags: Rory wears a mystical protective suit as his alterego, Ragman.^[13]

Appearances[]

Arrow[]

DC's Legends of Tomorrow[]

Season 2[]

• "Doomworld" (suit detail)

Season 5[]

• "Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Five" (mentioned)

Gallery[]

Concept artwork[]

Ragman

Trivia[]

• Rory is Jewish.
• He appears to be a fan of Barry Allen/The Flash, and later Kara Danvers/Supergirl.^[7]
• Rory suffers from insomnia as a side-effect of wearing the rags.^[15]
• In a rewritten reality, Rory was killed by Damien Darhk or one of his henchwomen. His mask was put on display in a trophy case, along with the masks of several other heroes and vigilantes.^[14]
• Rory is the second member of Team Arrow to have magical abilities after Oliver, who learned how to use light magic to protect himself from Damien Darhk's dark magic.
• Rory is the only recruit from Season 5 who never betrayed Team Arrow.
  • He is also the only member of the team in that season who wasn't kidnapped by Prometheus's team.
• As of "Emerald Archer", the public is aware of Rory's identity as Ragman, as he seemingly revealed his identity willingly in order to be part of the documentary on vigilantism.

Behind the scenes[]

• In DC comics, Ragman is a mystic vigilante and superhero who has ties to the Jewish Golem.
• Showrunner Marc Guggenheim stated that Rory Regan was planned to return in the fifth episode ("Deathstroke Returns") of Season 6 in Arrow,^[16] but this never happened.
• In the Injustice 2 video game, Green Arrow refers to Scarecrow as "Ragman" in pre-fight dialogue.

References[]