Ragman (comics)

Ragman
Artwork for the cover of Ragman: Suit of Souls vol. 1, 1 (October, 2010 DC Comics). Art by Jesús Saíz.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Ragman #1 (August/September 1976)
Created by	Robert Kanigher Joe Kubert
In-story information
Alter ego	Rory Regan
Team affiliations	Shadowpact Sentinels of Magic
Abilities	Enhanced physical attributes Enchanted costume Limited flight Skilled in the use of magic.

Ragman is a fictional DC Comics mystic vigilante and superhero who first appeared in the short-lived comic-book series named after him. He is one of a number of Jewish superheroes, and his continuity is tied to that of DC Comics' Golem, derived from the Golem of Prague of Jewish folklore. Ragman was created by writer Robert Kanigher and artist Joe Kubert.

A Vietnam veteran, Rory Regan had grown up helping his father, a junk man who owned a pawn shop named Rags'n'Tatters. His father always dreamed of making a better life for Rory and constantly promised that someday he would make Rory rich. While drinking with his friends one night, his father discovered 2 million USD stuffed inside an old mattress that had been pawned just recently. He and his friends decided to hide the money for Rory, since they were too old to truly benefit from it. The money turned out to be the loot from an armored car heist and when the hoods came to the shop to get it, they shot down some electrical wires and used them to torture Rory's father and his friends into revealing where the money was hidden. Rory arrived soon after and seeing his father in agony attempted to free him from the wires. A final shock of power ran though the old men and grounded out at Rory, knocking him unconscious. When he regained consciousness, his father and friends were dead and the hoods responsible were gone. Using a costume made out of old rags (his father had bought it from a stranger before he died and left a note saying Rory could wear it to a costume party) he became Ragman, "The Tatterdemalion of Justice." Rory appeared to have gained the physical abilities of the men who were electrocuted as they were all touching when the final blow of electricity flew through them and into Rory. He had an acrobat's agility, a strongman's strength, and a boxer's skills.

In his pre-Crisis incarnation, Rory Regan was Irish, not Jewish, as explicitly stated in the letters page of Ragman #3.

Rory Regan is a ragman, doing good in his community by buying used items from people who need money. The suit of rags that he wears, as mentioned above, was originally just a costume made from materials found around the rag shop, Rags'n'Tatters, that he shared with his father. This was retconned in a 1991 limited series, and currently each of the patches in the suit is made from the soul of an evildoer that the Ragman had punished and absorbed.