Arsenal

FIRST APPEARANCE: Adventure Comics #246 (March 1958)
FIRST APPEARANCE (POST-FLASHPOINT): Red Hood and the Outlaws Vol. 1 #1 (November 2011)
APPEARANCE OF DEATH: Heroes in Crisis #1 (November 2018)

The original version of Roy Harper debuted during the Golden Age of Comics. This teen version of Roy operated as Speedy alongside Green Arrow and served as a member of the team called the Seven Soldiers of Victory.

Throughout the different versions of Roy Harper’s continuity, one element remained consistent: he was orphaned at a young age and adopted by the local Navajo shaman Brave Bow, who raised him on a reservation (now established as the Spokane Indian Reservation).

Growing up on the reservation, Roy showed great aptitude for engineering and mechanics, as well as a natural skill with the bow and arrow. He also constantly got into trouble for breaking rules and taking risks, and developed a drinking habit in his teens. Following the death of Brave Bow (which the teen incorrectly believed he himself had caused while he was drunk), Roy fled the reservation and wound up living on the streets of Seattle as a thief.

Eventually, Roy came across wealthy businessman Oliver Queen, who was also secretly the Green Arrow. Seeing potential in the boy, Oliver decided not to turn him over to the police and instead offered Roy a home and a job as his engineer. The boy, whom Ollie nicknamed “Speedy,” accepted and developed the now-famous trick arrows of the Green Arrow. After training with Ollie for some time, Roy became the hero’s official sidekick. Using his nickname as his original costumed alias, Roy felt a true calling to be a Super Hero, fighting crime and helping others with his natural talents.

Roy Harper’s history involved him serving with the Teen Titans for several years before, as an adult, learning he’d fathered a child, Lian, with the assassin named Cheshire. While raising Lian, Roy joined the Central Bureau of Intelligence, then transferred to the government agency Checkmate before leaving to become a Super Hero again. Roy also formed an incarnation of the Outsiders and briefly served in the Justice League under the name Red Arrow. Later in his life, he lost an arm in battle with the villain Prometheus, who, along with the villain Eletrocutioner, then destroyed Star City and killed Lian in the process. These events, however, don’t apply to the current canon of the DC Universe, in which Roy has never been a father, as far as he knows.