Possibly on a Freedom Fighters kick, but how about talking about the various men who have called themselves Black Condor? I was reading that the original was a Congressman?
The Black Condor legacy is one of those heroic legacies, like many that have sustained themselves since the Golden Age. That has never been truly prominent but also have never gone fully dormant either. It's been held by three men. Who I will speak about in turn.
(An image of Richard Grey Jr as the Black Condor)
The first to hold the title was Richard Grey Jr. The only son of Archeologist Richard Grey who was with his wife on a expedition to Outer Mongolia just after WWI attempting to document the area's history. That part of the world was unfortunately very dangerous during that era, the beginning of China's Warlord period were roving bandits were the norm. The elder Greys were killed soon after stumbling upon a strange meteorite that Junior was exposed to when left for dead by the bandits.
Grey was then discovered by a flock of highly intelligent birds (Condors aren't native to Mongolia but some species of mutant vulture is the widely held theory) that took Grey in as their own. The meteorite seems to have activated a nascent metagene within Grey who, mimicking his avian parents discovered the ability to fly without any visible wings. Living with the birds for several years and receiving a human education via a local hermit. Said hermit was killed by the same bandits who took the lives of Grey's birth parents and so Grey made his first debut as the Black Condor to disband the violent thieves den. Grey eventually became curious about his distant homeland and made his way to America.
It was in America that he stumbled upon the assassination of senator Thomas Wright (R-California) who was a dead wringer for Grey himself. Grey then simply...assumed Wright's position while no one was the wiser. Wright had no family to speak of and while its fraudulent in basically every sense of the word the deception was only discovered DECADES later after Grey's death which created a general sense of fait accompli, namely, what the hell was anyone supposed to do about it now?
As the Black Condor, Grey eventually answered the call of the All Star Squadron where he became a close member of Uncle Sam's Freedom Fighters. Close enough that he was one of that team's core members in their travels to Earth X to root out that dimension's victorious Nazi empire where he remained for several decades. Upon his return Grey simply...faded away. Telling his teammates he wished to return to his true family "at the top of the world" and never being seen since. What revelation he might have gained about the inexplicably intelligent birds that raised him we will probably never know.
(Ryan Kendall's Black Condor alongside Hawkman during his early career)
The second Black Condor was a man named Ryan Kendall. Born to the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape people of New Jersey, Kendall was born the grandson to mad scientist and general crank Creighton Kendall a member of a mad scientist "collective" called the Society of the Golden Wing.
The Society of the Golden Wing is what's usually termed a "Metahuman Cult", a group, sometimes spiritual sometimes not based in the idea of either creating, harnessing or exploiting metahumans in general or some certain class of metahuman. In their case, the Society of the Golden Wing hoped to mutate humanity into a flighted form for some kind of grand utopian purpose with Ryan being one of their most intensive subjects. Experimented upon from fertilization until the age of 21, Ryan finally escaped from his grandfather and the Society into New Jersey's famous Pine Barrens which offered him the first sanctuary he had ever known while also showing him that the Society's experimentation had been successful.
Kendall is notable for his original insistence that he was NOT a superhero, feeling a spiritual calling to protect and defend the Pine Barrens that had sheltered him. Clashing with evil doers and criminals primarily on ecological grounds rather than grounds of justice at least so he would repeatedly insist.
Eventually though Kendall found the heroic ideal calling to him more and more, telling his Freedom Fighters cohorts that his ultimate epiphany came from a heart to heart what the spirit of Richard Grey. He eventually moved to Opal City, Maryland and fought alongside the Jack Knight Starman as well as joining with the then modern version of the Freedom Fighters.
It was there that Kendall would eventually make his final stand against the Secret Society of Supervillains, losing his life in combat with the alien warlord Sinestro. He is laid to rest at Valhalla Cemetery in New York alongside many other Golden Age heroes and their descendants.
(An image of the 3rd Black Condor)
The current man to hold the mantle is the one we know the least about, for the obvious reason that his secret identity is still in use. He first appeared alongside the most modern version of the Freedom Fighters in the aftermath of that team assembling to oppose shady government activity in the aftermath of Bludhaven's near destruction by the same Secret Society that claimed the life of his predecessor.
What is known about the man currently calling himself the Black Condor is that he is also of Native descent, though he's Navajo by birth and his powers come from the Navajo spirit known as the Spider Woman or Spider Grandmother. There is some debate whether the arcane nature of his powers is literally true or only true in his own spiritual perspective. I take the opinion that it truly doesn't matter and its not my business to pick at someone else's religious convictions.
He has said his two predecessors have been great inspirations to him and has also made himself available to the people of Opal City after Ryan Kendall became a fixture in the city's superheroic identity.
The unifying "theme" of the men who have called themselves the Black Condor seems to be some spiritual attachment to the wind and open sky. Whether it be the steppes of Mongolia, the rustling Pine Barrens or the Great Plain of the America interior all 3 men have found themselves called to defend those who live under that blue and open sky. And we can only hope that far into our future the Black Condor will continue to soar wherever his shadow might need to fall.
