I don’t know if any of these will count but Danny the Street, Rebis (or at least the negative energy being component of hir) and Flex Mentallo are as I understand their origins immortal.
Oh, and Plastic Man. nod
The Shade seems to be immortal, as per James Robinson’s Starman series.
Although it’s never been expressly stated, I think R. J. Brande counts. In Legion it’s been implied that he was alive during the 20-21st centuries, which explains his familiarity with the legendary heroes.
Does it matter that Bernie is dead?
Bernie only got about 5000 years before the building fell on him. He didn’t think of it as immortality.
John Constantine is still essentially immortal, isn’t he? When he made his deal with various devils in the “Dangerous Habits” storyline, he set it up so that if he ever died, hell (and all existence?) would be torn apart. In the original Gaiman miniseries of The Books of Magic, he’s there at the very end of the universe. Is this still the case? I don’t read *Hellblazer * regularly and it’s been a few years since I read any of this, so I’m not sure, but the BoM appearance made it seem like it was a situation that was going to stick.
No, IIRC, it was just Tim, E and Death at the final flicker. Constantine’s death has been prophesied a couple of times, and the three devils are certainly bright enough to find a loophole in that arrangement (like arrange for two other mortals to make the same bargain, than bag them simultaneously).
Danny The Street- I don’t know much about Danny. But AFAIK, he was never human. This would disqualify him
Flex Mentallo- Is definitely not human. He is the mental creation of a psychically gifted man. The man first dreamed him up as a kid, when he used a single crayon to create a super hero team in his own comic My Greenest Adventure.
John Constantine- As I said above, I don’t own a copy of the BoM. However, I remember Tim mentioning how much the Jester of Terminus reminded him of Constantine, but no statement that the Jester actually was Constantine.
Nah. Dead immortals are fine. If he hadn’t had that accident, he’d have kept going indefinitely, presumably.
A lot of the characters on the list CAN die, but won’t under normal circumstances.
Shade should be on the list. :smack:
Doc covered why Danny the Street and Flex Mentallo don’t fit.
Rebis came up after the furthest I’ve read in Doom Patrol (I’m working on fixing that), and the negative energy being doesn’t fit (it’s immortal by its nature), so unless Rebis non-energy portion is immortal that one doesn’t work. (Can anyone clear that one up?)
Can chaim clear up the RJ Brande suggestion? I’ve never heard this idea.
Superman doesn’t count…his immortality is not, AFAIK, canon - he certainly aged noticably in Kingdom Come (also, granted, not canon). He’s never shown up in the 30th century without involving time travel, though, so…
Plastic Man’s immortal?
Nuh-uh! The OP never says the immortals have to be human. They have to be “beings” which are not “gods, angels, demons, robots or other AIs, no Endless, no ageless races.” There’s a question as to whether a street “should be mortal” but if a street should be anything I’d say it should be mortal.
Doesn’t have to be, doesn’t fall under one of the excluded categories of the OP.
I guess I’m not understanding the “immortal by its nature” exclusion, but OK. I don’t know how you want to classify Rebis, then. S/he is a merger of mortal male, mortal female and immortal negative energy being. So is that an immortal under your criteria or does the “immortal by nature,” um, nature of one component DQ hir?
(Rajah whose name I can’t remember)- The rajah from the Sandman issue Hob’s Leviathan. He became immortal after eating a fruit which had been enchanted by a yogi.
Blood/Etrigan is the benchmark for combined beings, such as the Negative Persons. Etrigan is immortal because he’s a demon, but since Blood is housing him, he, too is immortal. Therefor Blood fits on the list.
The same with the Negative persons. The negative energy form is immortal by the nature of what it is. It doesn’t count. But if Larry, Val, or Rebis become immortal by being joined with it, they do.
From the nature of Negative Man and Negative Woman, and the fact that Larry’s seriously weakened by Val’s taking the negative energy from him, it’s clear that the mortal hosts physioligies become intertwined with - and dependant on - the negative energy. I just don’t know if they’re immortal when they have it or not.
BTW, is my assumption about Rebis correct:
S/he’s a combination of Larry Trainor and Val Vostok, to share the negative energy?
Otto. YEAH. For that matter, Abel should be on the list along with his brother Cain, cousin Eve, and his equally immortal sisters, Jumella and Aclima.
The fact that Abel is reborn in the Dreaming after Cain kills him does not (necessarily) exclude the fact that he (probably) can be reborn after death anywhere. Abel’s cycle of rebirth and death is God’s punishment and (I’m betting) that has nothing to do with the fact that they live in the Dreaming. Morpheus didn’t make it so Abel resurrects himself: Cain and Abel have both said that was God’s doing. Further, Abel has appeared on Earth in a corporeal body (albiet in titles like BLUE DEVIL – but still.)
That said, while it’s curious that when the Kindly Ones killed Abel, he wasn’t able to resurrect himself; Daniel, the new King of Dreams had to do it. I’m betting the locality of the Dreaming had something to do with that, being the realm of Morpheus and the place where the Furies were empowered by blood-vengeance to destroy-- it enabled them to supercede Abel’s ability to come back to life.
He’s the other one listed under ‘forgot the details’. All I remembered is he was a little Indian gentleman.
Hmm…was he even named?
OK, revised list:
Vandal Savage - prehistoric, encounter with meteor.
Ra’s al Ghul - no clue, Lazarus Pits.
Hob Gadling - 15th century, deal with Death and Dream
Jason Blood - reign of King Arthur, melded with a demon.
Ressurection Man - modern, nano-tech
Mad Hettie - 17th Century, hid heart from Death (or so she says…she’s mad, after all.)
Thessally - prehistoric, magic
Cain - pre-human, divine intervention/translation to story-dream.*
Eve - pre-human, translation to story-dream.*
Phantom Stranger - Unknown, at least ancient Egypt, pissed off God, or mystical accident*
Orpheus - Hellenistic era, deal with Death
Bernie Caspak - prehistoric, not mentioned
Alan Scott - modern, infused with mystic energy
Arani Caulder - modern, immortality serum
Evil Star - Don’t know, immortality device
Professor Ivo - modern, immortality serum
Baron DeWinter - don’t know, don’t know
IBAC - don’t know, deal with devil
Black Adam - Ancient Egypt, mystical (probably)
Shazamo - don’t know, magic (probably)
Dr Mist - Don’t know, magic (?)
Dr Occult - 19th century, unknown, possibly magic
Cicada - early 20th century, life-draining ability
Circe - Hellenistic era, sould soul to Hecate
Shade - 19th century, melded with shadow being.
Unnamed Rajah - not mentioned, enchanted fruit
(*Depends on the interpretation of the origin you consider correct.)
Then Metamorpho should be immortal. Element Girl was able to die when she got Ra’s permission to release being a metamorph. It was something given by a god and removed by a god, separate from the human who carried it.
Actually, digging out my copy of Dream Country - which contained the story of Element Girl’s death - she, Metamorpho and Shyft don’t count for a different reason - Metamorphae aren’t immortal. They stick around a lot longer than humans, but they eventually simply fail. Death mentioned one that Rainie and Rex saw die. They live extended lives, and are more or less indestructable, but, eventually, they just fall apart.
But their powers coming from Ra doesn’t change that they were given them by having their (physical) humanity taken away - something Rex used to angst about something awful, and which Rainie hated up until she finally worked out how to die - and they don’t regain it in death.
They should still be functionally human (or Kryptonian, Daxamite, Khundian, Thanagarian, Tamaranian, dog, cat, etc), save their inability to die.
Ressurrection Man should probably come off the list, too, since he might not be properly immortal, rather than simply indestructable.
Tengu. Some birthdates.
Ra’s Al Ghul. Most probably the 1500s, during the Renaissance.
Baron Winter. Nothing. Zipareeno. Nada. That’s frustrating. I feel like John Constantine. However, I am leaning towards the theory the Baron is not particularly mystical or even immortal at all – it’s all in his timeless and time-drifting Georgetown home.
Dr. Mist: quote, “Given immortality and sorcerous powers by the Flame of Life, Dr. Mist has watched over humanity for thousands of years.” How many thousands isn’t spelled out.
The Rajah: He is unnamed, and the story retold in Sandman is an actual Indian folktale. Dating this story which comes down through the oral tradition is tenuous, but it’s at least 2,000 years old, easily.
Tengu:
Can I explain it? Yes. Can I clear up any degree of truth behind it? No.
Essentially, there was, during the Peyer-Stern-McCraw Legion era, a lot of hinting that R. J. Brande has a secret past. He displays a degree of telepathy and a great interest in and/or knowledge of twentieth-century Earth heroes, and that, combined with pre-reboot facts that he was a shape-shifter (albeit Durlan) and from the twentieth century, led people to guess that he might secretly be Jonn Jonzz.
However, this subplot was never taken any further, and there’s no reason to believe he’s an Earth human who’s achieved immortality. He’s either Jonn Jonzz (which disqualifies him from the list, as a being from a long-lived alien species) or a being who can be assumed to be of fixed life-span with some secrets in his past.
Is Doomsday/The Ultimate still around?
A Kryptonian scientist worked on various failed prototypes until he succeeded in creating a warrior being who would come back to life if killed, and be immune to whatever had killed him.
Askia: Thanks for the dates - and the clarification of the Rajah’s tale’s origin.
chaim: Well…that’s disappointing. I wish they’d done something with it, either confirming or discounting it.
Also: Added Abel to the list, added a note to him, Cain, Eve, Ressurection Man, Phantom Stranger and Baron deWinter, who are debatable entries on this list.