In my head I joke that Oren is my OC and Aleea is the character so underdeveloped by canon that she might as well be my OC.
For all the continuity nightmare that is Thanagarian lore, Oren's formation in my head always felt very organic, because a lot of the material that inspired him is pretty much all from the year 2000 on. It has its stutters and retcons, but overall there's a consistent vibe that I'm amalgamating him from. Meanwhile with Aleea I'm fighting for my life against multiple radically tonally different representations of Adam Strage and Planet Rann. Hawkman Lore may have 500 retcons, but almost every iteration of Adam Strange/Planet Rann lore feels like a volley in the meta-battle for the character and world's soul.
So, the thing about talking about Oren's lore is, I don't think it's really possible to have any Thanagarian Lore without basically starting from scratch. So before we get to Oren, let's talk about Thanagar.
Planets are old, but as far as civilizations go, Thanagar was "Worshipping Lovecraftian old gods" old. Worshipping the Elder God Icthultu (Original Dwayne McDuffie Character Do Not Steal!), Thanagarian civilization was able to claw its way up to a respectable level on par with, something close to Mesopotamia. But then they discovered they had Nth metal, and dropped their old gods, getting cool new gods with bird heads, named "The Seven Brothers and Seven Sisters." Arguably they kind of made these gods in their own image, but since Nth Metal is part of the firmament of the universe... they kind of... accidentally made actual gods.
So, yeah. Thanagarian gods are real, and they're actually a problem for earth a lot more often than you'd think because Thanagar kind of colonized us way way way back in the Middle Kingdom of Egypt--but don't get me wrong! This isn't an ancient aliens thing where we wouldn't have figured out how to build pyriamids without Thanagar, it's really more like... our planet was a storage unit for screwy holy biproducts of Thanagar's Nth Metal-created gods. In fact, Thanagar wouldn't have shawarma without us, and Thanagarians love shawarma, so you're welcome, Thanagar.
Anyway, thanks to Nth Metal, Thanagar established a massive interplanetary empire, but, shocker! It turns out empires are generally unsustainable, so they had to keep conquering and colonizing and generally being jerks. So let's fast forward to the point where Thanagar finally decides they actually have to invade earth. We were just kind of... 'there' for them for a really long time, but then they're like, "Okay I know we were storing Thanagarian Satan here who we also accidentally invented, but it would be really efficient if we basically turned this planet into a giant corpse-battery to power a massive Nth Metal Mass Effect Relay to slingshot our warships into Gordanian space. But there's also way too many resources on this planet to outright scorch its surface dead, so we need to conquer the local populace."
Long story short: We kick their butts with the power of friendship (and incredible violence) but our ability to repel the Thanagarian invasion basically kicks off a chain reaction in the empire where colonized planet after colonized planet rebels, and in barely a decade of Earth time, the Thanagarian empire is left a fraction of its former self.
The thing about any empire in decline is, they get weird.
You get a lot of grifters and a lot of straight up assholes trying to "make it great again," chasing an image of the past that never really existed. One such asshole was Sh'ri Valkyr, a death cultist who co-opted Rannian technology and, following a bunch of convoluted comic book what-have-you, basically nudged Thanagar too close to its sun, Polaris. Thanagar's atmosphere ignited, and it has since then been uninhabitable.
Which brings me to my boy, Oren. He wasn't on the planet at the time. He was in the "Hol's Feather" program, one of many desperate and highly morally dubious attempts of the Thanagarian empire to reclaim its former glory. Genetically modified to have biological wings, at 5 years old, Oren was basically in a shitty boarding school that was also lowkey a lab when Thanagar's atmosphere ignited.
(I know. I'm going along with the "Thanagarians don't naturally have wings" canon and then giving my OC biological wings, anyway. I know how convoluted this is.)
But at the time, he was on a planet named Naarith, one of Thanagar's older and more remote colonies that basically saw it generally had more to lose than to gain by attempting secession from the Thanagarian empire, and, through its harsh terrain and general lack of resources, was largely used as a training ground for the Thanagarian legions. Naarith was very cold and very dry, pretty much all of its water locked up in permafrost, glaciers, and ice caps. Think steppes, tundras, high deserts, with the planet's 'tropical zone' being largely mediterranean in climate at best. Really what made it valuable as a training planet for Thanagarian forces was its screaming deadly winds, which either immediately killed you when you took to the air, or made you have to learn how to fly, and fly really well, really quickly.
The climate, the teachers and instructing officers, and Oren's peers were all very unforgiving. The food, frankly, was awful. The entire experience was a crucible of an increasingly destabilizing empire that had just had its heart ripped out. Plenty of the kids in the Hol's Feather program were Downsiders, kids whose parents were poor and desperate enough to subject themselves to a still-refining genetic experiment if it meant possibly getting a better life for themselves and their children. This made the children desperate as well--everything to prove, nothing to lose. In the midst of this, Oren cultivated a reputation of quiet competence. Don't get a big enough mouth to draw attention to yourself, be able to kick the shit out of someone if they try to make a name for themselves by punching down on you. The other thing he had going for himself was unusual quality of observance. He watched everything. He took notes on everything. Wind currents, how the position of Naarith's distant twin suns affect the thermals, what pisses off that instructor faster than anything, where to stand in the food line so that you don't end up with just the water on top of the stew or nothing if you're too far back in line, the shifting alliances of his peers, how the different builds of his classmates affect the speed and strength of their martial styles. He recorded everything in notebooks and squirreled them away for years. When the youths of the Hol's feather program were nearing the completion of their training, finally, one of Oren's instructors found one of Oren's notebook caches.
While plenty of the instructors got pissed off at the impertinence of Oren's notes on them, the more seasoned among them saw the potential. When the graduates (survivors...) of the Hol's Feather program were sorted into their respective positions in Thanagar's legions based on their talents, Oren Koth was placed in the Survey Legion, scouts and spies, now more important than ever now that millions of Thanagarians were displaced in the universe and looking for new homes to settle.
He spent a few years in this survey legion, seeing the universe, becoming more and more starkly aware how Thanagar had made the universe hostile to it through its own actions, how Thanagar's past may have doomed its future, but still he and the rest of the Survey legion searched. Perhaps, he hoped, there could be a future. Perhaps there could be redemption.
Then the Metal Wars happened, and you would think Oren and his survey legion squad would be in too remote an area of space to be affected by it, but no. An entity calling itself "The Hawkbat," clawed its way out of the dark multiverse.
This was a version of Batman from a universe where the Thanagarian invasion of earth succeeded, where the Justice League, and indeed, much of humanity were wiped out in the fight for the planet. Batman, broken by betrayal, and bereft of his family once more, swore to turn the Thanagarians' victory turn to ash in their mouths. And he succeeded in that, sabotaging the Nth Metal Stargate/Mass Effect relay to the point where it obliterated Thanagar. He himself was twisted by Nth Metal in the process, growing his own pair of tarnished gold-and-bronze batwings. Now a monstrous shell of his former self, he swore to hunt down all remaining Thanagarians to the ends of the universe--and he went past those ends. Into our universe.
And that was where he slaughtered Oren's team.
To this day, Oren couldn't tell you why, exactly, he survived. Some might theorize that because Batman, regardless of the universe, uses fear as a tool, he needed to leave someone alive to tell the tale, to strike fear through all the Thanagarians of this universe. But Oren fears the truth is something much worse. He remembers a terrible dream as he lay bleeding out on that lonely asteroid. He remembers sinking into darkness, and something in that endless dark claiming him for a greater purpose.
Oren awoke on an unfamiliar ship with bandaged wounds, though was disturbed to notice that his wounds did not seem as dire now as they had when he was attacked by the Hawkbat. He soon found that he had been rescued by the Omega Men, a ragtag group of Space rebels sworn to fight the oppressive reach of the Citadel. Figuring that, as far as the Thanagarian empire knew, he was dead, and also more sickened than ever at the aspect of empire itself, he decided to join in their fight.
Oren's stint with the Omega Men ended up pretty short-lived, though, as he found himself frequently butting heads with the Omega Men's other newest and youngest member (as well as his actual rescuer), Aleea. Aleea was already on thin ice because her parentage basically painted a target on the Omega Men's back, though this was kept a secret from Oren as well for as long as possible.
So when Oren discovered, and in the process accidentally revealed in a crowded spaceport that Aleea was in fact Aleea Strange, the half-human half-Rannian hybrid and the Granddaughter of Rann's chief scientist, Sardath, the Omega Men basically cut their losses and ditched both Oren and Aleea on earth.
And that's where they are now! Both pissed off at each other, both fishes out of water, and now, possibly, our newest defenders against interstellar and dark multiverse threats! (If they can stop bickering long enough to stay alive...) What adventures lay ahead of them? Will Rann and Thanagar ever be able to resolve their bloody and distrustful history? Will Earth ever be a home?! Time will tell!
Hair: Coffee-black, straight but voluminous, shoulder length.
Skin tone: Beige-tan
Eyes: Amber. REALLY bad eye-bags.
Age: Developmentally 22 in comparative human years, but actual chronological age is unclear due to Thanagarians' different rates of aging and different scale of years/months/days compared to earth. Definitely chronologically older than he looks, but still a pretty young adult by Thanagarian standards.
Gender: Male (He/Him pronouns)
Base of Operations: Opal City
Abilities:
Thanagarian Physiology: Oren has highly enhanced sight and hearing, as well as a significantly higher strength, stamina, and pain threshold than most humans.
Thanagarian Martial Training: A talented and intuitive cadet in the Thanagarian Military, Oren is skilled at both armed and unarmed combat, as well as some basic vehicular skills.
Nth Metal Affinity: Like most Thanagarians talented enough to make it into the martial ranks, Oren is skilled with Nth metal as weapon, armor, and wings. He wields an Nth metal poleax and light armor and is an extremely agile and powerful flyer with his Nth Metal wings.
Nth Metal-Aided Flight: Oren comes from later generations of Thanagarians who were genetically modified to have biological wings that largely exist to help develop the physical musculature to accommodate Nth metal wings. While technically capable of flight without Nth Metal, he doesn't have nearly the same speed or maneuverability, and even with Thanagarian stamina gets winded very very fast.
Divine Metal Affinity: A chance and nearly deadly encounter with Dark Multiverse entities has granted Oren a mysterious (and inconsistent and unreliable) ability to interact with other divine metals from the world forge in ways other beings can't. He claims they 'sing' to him. The actual effects of this ability vary greatly upon the type of metal and how it is manifesting in our universe. Also, unfortunately, the divine metal he seems to run into the most is Dark Metal, which is kind of a pain in the ass.
Dark Multiverse Sensitivity/Endurance: This same near-deadly encounter with Dark Multiverse entities permanently affected Oren's mind and senses, giving him the ability to sense incursions from the Dark Multiverse and a stronger will against the despair of these dark realities. Unfortunately with his mind more exposed to the Dark Multiverse than most, he suffers frequent nightmares of alternate realities. It also frequently causes him to self-isolate, believing himself to be a harbinger of terrible events (hence... Stormcrow.)
Likes: Metal music (firmly believes it is earth's greatest contribution to the multiverse), pigeon-keeping, everything bagels with red pepper cream cheese, Museums.
Dislikes: Being caught up in the edgy alternate universe elseworlds bullshit of people he has never even heard of, which is unfortunately a frequent occurrence.
Additional Gear:
Transmat Harness: Rannian technology adapted for Thanagarian physiology specifically to blend in on earth. Creates a pocket dimension to hide his wings.
Team Affiliations: The Omega Men (briefly), The Strange Family.
I thought it would be fun to compile a list of media that helped inspire Oren's character for me, along with some notes on how they factor into his character (...and maybe how worth your time they are)
The Dark Knights Metal Saga by Scott Snyder/The Batman Who Laughs miniseries by Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV
Honestly these are both pretty mid in terms of actual emotional hooks but on a worldbuilding and aesthetic level, they had me hooked. I just loved the 'Metals of the World forge' aspects of it, anmd the incorporation of "The Bleed" from Superman: Beyond in Final Crisis. For me, The Dark Knights Metal Saga really only works as kind of a meta deconstruction of just how overpowered and oversaturated Batman has become in the DC universe, and now Batman has to confront himself as the biggest threat to the DC universe. Actually I read the TBWL miniseries before I actually read the Dark Knights Metal Saga because my dumb ass thought that would be the introduction of the character and not its own spin-off story. Honestly I love James Tynion's Non-DCU stuff way better than what I've read of him in the actual DCU (Please check out The Nice House on the Lake and W0rldTr33!!) but I LOVED the mechanics in the TBWL spin-off as well, with Dark Metal as this incursion into our world.
2. Murder Falcon by Daniel Warren Johnson
While not actually a DC story, this story informed a lot of Oren's character with the emphasis of Metal music as a vehicle of hope and raw expression. I'm in love with both the raw emotion of the story and scrappy, yet lovingly rendered art.
3. The Death of Hawkman by Marc Andreyko
This is the story that introduced to me all the potential of a Rannian/Thanagarian duo between Adam Strange and Carter hall, even if Adam Strange is from Earth, he very much identifies with Rann. Basically the reason Oren came about as a character was, I once received a blog ask that was like, "What's your ideal Teen Titans lineup?" and I said, "Well no matter what I want Aleea Strange on it because she's never been developed past being a child and a vehicle for her parents' angst, so I'd like to see her actually have a coming of age story." And then my brain immediately went, "AND she has a Thanagarian love interest." And thus Oren was born. Boren.
4. Justice League Episodes 41-42: "The Terror Beyond."
AKA "I now have an excuse to incorporate as much cosmic horror as I want into Oren's writing."
5. Justice League Episodes 50-52: "Starcrossed"
Look: I'll be honest: I'm just straight up scared to even begin to get into Hawkman/Hawkgirl/Hawkwoman's absolute shitshow of comics continuity. I'm still trying to figure out what comics to read to untangle that Gordian knot, but in the meantime, this three episode arc is Good Hawkgirl Angst and it still informs a lot of the vibes I get from Thanagar in the comics as I move through them, which is, "Beefing with this many people at once is simply not sustainable, Thanagar."
6. Adam Strange: Between Two Worlds
This compiles some wildly tonally different Adam Strange runs but as a result gives you a pretty solid overview on Rann and how it's fucked up.
Anyway I'm going to post all of my Thanagarian OC stuff that I've been posting in that community to my *actual* blog, because I realize posting them to that community might as well be throwing them down a hole.
