The Persuader

Silver Age villainy rarely comes with a more ominous calling card than The Persuader, who first stalked the pages of DC's Blackhawk #229 in 1967, conjured by the creative team of Bob Haney and Dick Dillin. This DC figure has proven surprisingly durable for a character with roots in the late sixties, with appearances stretching across nearly six decades and a presence in The Brave and the Bold and even the landmark reference work Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe — the kind of immortalization reserved for characters worth knowing. The company The Persuader keeps is genuinely impressive: Green Lantern, The Flash, The Emerald Empress, and Sarya all share pages in this character's history, signaling a place in some of DC's more cosmically ambitious storytelling. With a key collector's issue among their appearances, The Persuader is one of those rewarding Silver Age discoveries that reminds you how deep and strange the DC universe truly runs.