Shadow-Thief

Carl Sands was a career criminal who gained the ability to become an intangible, living shadow after obtaining an alien device called the Dimensiometer. Using this technology, he could slip through solid matter and strike without warning, becoming a recurring foe of Hawkman.

Few villains from the Silver Age carry an air of mystery quite like Shadow-Thief, who slipped onto the scene in The Brave and the Bold #36 in 1961, conjured by the legendary team of Gardner Fox and Joe Kubert. A DC creation through and through, this eerie figure has haunted the pages of Hawkman and Showcase across five decades, making life difficult for some of the publisher's most iconic heroes — including Hawkman, Green Lantern, and even Superman himself. That kind of company speaks volumes: Shadow-Thief isn't a footnote but a persistent, genuinely unsettling presence in the DC universe, the sort of Silver Age original whose dark concept never really goes out of style.