Long Shadow

Long Shadow was a former member of the Ultimen. As with the rest of the team, he was genetically engineered by the Project Cadmus to be a powerful superhero obedient to the U.S. government, unlike the Justice League.

History[]

Notably unlike his teammates, Long Shadow was more cool-headed, humble and didn't let superhero fame go to his head. He still retained his admiration for the Justice League, considering them as his role models and wanted an alliance with them.

Long Shadow wanted his team to join the League, but the other Ultimen, despite some of whom originally also admired them, were against it. Rather, the group had been enjoying their newfound fame, wealth, and popularity, while Long Shadow earnestly wanted to join the League to help more people and be a better hero. His efforts were constantly rebuffed and mocked by his teammates.

After helping the League, Long Shadow developed somewhat of a crush on Wonder Woman. While the attitudes of the rest of the Ultimen and the Justice League were at odds with each other, Long Shadow's humility and admiration earned a good friendship with Wonder Woman, who became a sort of mentor figure to him. They even worked together to take on Bizarro and Giganta, where he took out Giganta while Wonder Woman took on Bizarro.

Long Shadow had memories of having been born unusually sickly and small, and his parents, being scientists experimenting with growth hormones, had developed a growth formula that in time gave him the power to become a giant. However, Long Shadow later learned that these had been implanted memories and he had only been alive for about a year.

Then one night, the team was being held over for examination by Project Cadmus after Wind Dragon abruptly developed a new superpower in their earlier mission, surprising everyone (including himself). While waiting in their shared examination room, Long Shadow suddenly developed a new power of his own, super-hearing. This allowed Long Shadow to eavesdrop on a conversation between Maxwell Lord, Professor Hamilton and Amanda Waller, revealing that they were all suffering from cellular breakdown and according to Waller, were expendable.

The group broke into the lab and found cloned versions of themselves in suspended animation. After confronting Lord, he admitted that they were genetically engineered and with implanted memories as part of a project to create a team of superheroes loyal to Cadmus.

Upon discovering this devastating news, Long Shadow and the other Ultimen rebelled, at one point storming an office building, threatening the lives of its civilian occupants, but Long Shadow did not join his teammates in this, choosing instead to rescue the civilians. When the Justice League confronted the Ultimen, Long Shadow chose to side with the former, and convinced Wind Dragon to stand down, just as Wind Dragon was about to defeat Superman.

When Amanda Waller showed up to take the captured Ultimen away, the League chose to stand with Long Shadow, refusing to let Waller's soldiers take him away. Waller eventually relented, but not before taunting Batman by calling him "rich boy," an indication that she knew of his secret identity.

Though he was forced to part with his original team, Long Shadow finally achieved his dream when the Justice League formally inducted him into their ranks in gratitude for the courage he had shown. It is unknown how long he lived due to his cellular breakdown, but an earlier estimate by Professor Hamilton gave him as little time as a month. Presumably, he was able to live the rest of his short life as a hero among the Justice League.

Although Long Shadow was forever remembered as the Ultiman who became a hero, his name and legacy would not be entirely spotless as long as the notorious Project Cadmus continued to exist. After Long Shadow was out of the picture and presumed dead, Cadmus manufactured an army of Ultimen clones, including Long Shadow, in order to support Galatea's attack on the Justice League Watchtower. While retaining the Ultimen's powers and expertise in using them, the clones were essentially mindless, possessing no free will so as to be used only as living metahuman weapons of destruction -- a realization of what the original Ultimen feared the government really wanted. The clones served to distract the League while Galatea went after the Watchtower's reactor. However, the assault failed, as the League successfully defended their base in a massive battle.

Powers and abilities[]

• Size alteration: Long Shadow had the ability to grow beyond his normal size, much in the same way that super villainess Giganta did. It is unknown what his maximum size was, but he was able to stand one (giant) head over Giganta during a prison break. Despite his super-size ability, he usually fought at human size where his naturally large body frame gave him a degree of superhuman strength in his own right.

Clones[]

Before the Ultimen escaped their base, they discovered fully grown clones of themselves, inside of test tubes. During the Ultimen invasion of the Watchtower, dozens of Ultimen teams were unleashed against the Justice League when Superman went against the Cadmus Project, but were all defeated.

Background information[]

• Like the other members of the Ultimen, Long Shadow was based on an original character from the Super Friends show. In that respect, Long Shadow was an update of the Native American superhero Apache Chief. The character of Apache Chief was meant to add racial diversity to the team, but is ironically regarded as a racial stereotype today.

• Unlike his Super Friends counterpart, Long Shadow required no phrases to activate his powers (Apache Chief would shout the magic phrase "Eh-neeek-chock" to activate his power and grow to fifty feet tall).

• A version of Long Shadow was later adapted by the animated series Young Justice, with Gregg Rainwater reprising his role. In that series, the character's full name is "Tye Longshadow."

Appearances[]

Justice League Unlimited

• "Ultimatum"
• "Flashpoint" ^(clone)
• "Panic in the Sky" ^(clone)