Fictional Character Biography
Deadman is a ghost, formerly a circus trapeze artist named Boston Brand who performed under the name Deadman, a stage persona including a red costume and white corpse makeup. When Brand is murdered during a trapeze performance by a mysterious assailant known only as the Hook (in fact his last words were "Gee, from up here it almost looks like that guy with the hook for a hand has a gun..."), his spirit is given the power to possess any living being by a Hindu goddess named Rama Kushna (a corruption of Rama-Krishna), in order to search for his murderer and obtain justice. It is established in Green Arrow Vol 4, #4, that Deadman believes Rama is the supreme being of the universe.
The origin story involved the hero fighting narcotics smugglers, in the first story to involve drugs with the permission of the Comics Code Authority. The criminals used the traveling circus they worked for to smuggle "snow" (either heroin or cocaine).
In the pages of Nightwing (issues #102 and #103) it is implied that Brand got the idea for his costume from Johnny Grayson, father of Dick Grayson (the original Robin who renames himself Nightwing).
At the end of the Neal Adams story line, Deadman seems to discover the truth behind his murder and we learn the ultimate fate of Hook, who killed Deadman as part of an initiation into a society of contract killers who then kill him to silence him. However, in 1972 writer/artist Jack Kirby was told by the DC editors to put a Deadman crossover into his book The Forever People. Kirby had never heard of Deadman, but he obligingly included the character in The Forever People #9 and 10. Mark Evanier pointed out to Kirby a problem with the original story that he could use for the crossover. In the origin story, Hook has his hook on his right hand. Yet in the penultimate Neal Adams story, where his secret is revealed and he meets his fate, the man we think is Hook has his hook on his left hand. This was probably just an artist's error—in the final Neal Adams Deadman, in the synopsis of the previous issue, the hook is back on the right hand again. Kirby, however, uses this clue to reopen the case of Deadman, with the real Hook one among many one-handed men who work for an organization known as "The Scavengers". This group steals advanced technology for a profit.
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