Over the past few weeks, several friends have privately messaged Scourge to introduce the Pied Piper from DC.
Pied Piper is inspired by the folklore of the medieval town of Hamelin in Lower Saxony, Germany, "Pied Piper of Hamelin".
Folklore about the pied piper has a great influence in European and American cultural circles, and more than a dozen live-action film and television dramas about the pied piper have been released so far.
Many singers, bands, and groups have written and sung songs based on the Piper, the most recent of which is the Pied Piper EP released by the Korean idol group BTS in 2017.
The Piper's story has also been adapted into novels and comics and other literary forms many times, and even in the 80s of the last century, an American comic company called "Pied Piper Comics" was established, which published comics such as "Shaolin Beast Warriors" and "Pre-Mutants".
Piper's comic "The Beast Warriors of Shaolin"
In the forties of the last century, DC Comics, and even Fawcett Comics, which later joined DC, and Quality Comics created a number of Piper villains by referring to and borrowing from "The Pied Piper of Hamelin", but these villains were all one-time characters who disappeared after one appearance, and they did not even appear by name.
It wasn't until 1959 that the comic book "The Flash" #106中 "Piedman" Hartley Latser was born, and he became a very important character in the DC Universe.
Originally, Hartley Latser was an enemy of the second-generation "Flash" Barry Allen, and also joined the Rogue Gang. But then Barry died in the big event "Crisis on Infinite Earths", Hartley also abandoned evil and became a superhero, and he became good friends with Barry's successor, the third generation of "The Flash" Wally West, and his wife Linda Parker, and helped Wally many times.
Let's talk about the past and present lives of the DC Piper.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
The legend of the "Pied Piper of Hamelin" in the small town of Hamelin, Lower Saxony, Germany, dates back to the Middle Ages.
In 1284, there was a rat plague in the small town of Hamelin, and a pied pied dressed in colorful clothes, who called himself a rat catcher, appeared. The town hired a piper and promised to pay him 1,000 guilders.
The Pied Piper lured all the rats into the Weser River with a magic pipe and drowned.
Although the Piper succeeded, the mayor paid him only 50 guilders, accusing the Piper of bringing the rats to Hamelin for extortion.
The Piper leaves town in a rage, vowing that he will return for revenge.
On the "Day of St. John and Paul" (an important Christian holiday, June 26) the townspeople all went to church, and the piper returned, playing the flute, and attracted all the children in the town to a cave, after which no one saw these children again, only a lame, a deaf and a blind man, and three small children survived to tell people what had happened.
From then on, playing and dancing were not allowed on the streets of Hamelin.
Many people believe that the legend of "the Piper of Hamelin" is an image of the death of children due to natural causes such as hunger and disease, and the Piper symbolizes death. This is a common medieval trope.
There is also a theory that the "Pied Piper of Hamelin" reflects the phenomenon of "immigration" at that time. In the thirteenth century, the overpopulation of the Hamelin region led to the fact that only the eldest son of each family could inherit land and power, and the others could only become serfs. Most of these children are trafficked to the Baltic Sea region. Pipers, of course, are child traffickers.
This theory of migration is supported by many historians.
In addition to this, there are many who believe that this folk legend reflects the conflict between pagans and Christians, as this event takes place on the special day of "St. John and Paul Day" and also mentions that children were taken to the mountains. This is exactly the day and manifestation of the pagan Midsummer celebration.
In 1803, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote a poem based on this legend, and Hugo Wolf later composed the soundtrack for the poem.
Goethe also quoted this legend in his masterpiece Faust.
The Brothers Grimm included this story in the German Tales, published in 1816. In the story of the Brothers Grimm, a blind man, a crippled man, and two children who fail to keep up with the team stay.
Robert Browning also wrote a poem called "The Pied Piper of Hamelin", which was included in the "Dramatic Lyric Poems" published in 1842.
The legend of "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" has been adapted into countless versions of live-action films, animated series, animated films, comics, novels, plays, video games, and more.
Even not only in the European and American cultural circles, in the Japanese animated film "Sailor Moon Super S Movie" released in 1995, a pied player who uses a flute to hypnotize children appeared.
The Clown Emperor in the first season of the 1999 animated series Digimon was also created based on the Pied Piper, who uses the flute to control other people and Digimon and follow his commands.
An early pied piper in the DC Universe
DC's first pied piper appears #48中 the 1942 comic book Action Comics, where he is a henchman of Queen Bee who uses his flute to hypnotize rich people and follows him into Queen Bee's secret bunker, where Queen Bee extorts ransom from their family.
In the end, Mr. America defeated the queen bee and the piper.
The second Pied Piper appeared in the 1944 comic Lightning Comics, #59中 Hawkman's enemy who was easily defeated by Hawkman by using the flute as a weapon.
DC's third Piper appeared #143中 the 1949 comic Detective Comics, where he opened a pipe shop, made pipes of various functions, and led his men to raid a series of shops with pipes, eventually attracting the attention of Batman and Robin.
Batman and Robin catch the Piper.
In addition, #2中也创造了一个吹笛手 Fawcett Company's 1942 comic book "Little Captain Fantastic", he used flute hypnosis to help the Nazis capture children.
Captain Fantastic leads his kidnapped children to defeat the Pied Piper and the Nazi Army.
#6中也创造了一个吹笛手 the 1943 comic book Uncle Sam Quarterly, he uses a flute in a remote village in Serbia to hypnotize a child and follows him to a cave, where Uncle Sam defeats the piper and frees all the children.
There is no evidence that the Pied Piper was related to the Nazis in Europe.
Later, both Fawcett and Quality Comics were acquired by DC, so the two pipers also belonged to DC's villains.
The above DC pipers are all one-off characters, and after the incident, they have never appeared again, and none of them have appeared by name.
And in the 1966 comic "Space Mystery", #110中 DC also created a Pluto piper, this Pluto piper is an alien tyrant, but because of each failure, no one is willing to follow him or cooperate with him, he began to use the alien flute to control humanity and follow him to a "perfect world" where no one is around. Eventually, the indigenous guardian of Pluto defeated this Pluto piper.
The Pied Piper of Pluto, like the Pied Piper mentioned above, is a one-off character and has no name.
These pipers are all based on the piper from the German folklore "The Pied Piper of Hamelin", and they are all good at using the flute to hypnotize others.
In addition to Batman's villain, but Batman's villain Pied Piper uses a pipe to commit crimes, which also fits the characteristics of the legendary Piper, who uses a pipe to lure rats into the river and drown.
The birth of Hartley Latsway the Piper
Hartley Latser first appeared in the 1959 comic book The Flash #106. He was a radical departure from those of his predecessors and became the first pied piper in the DC Universe for a long-term role
Hartley was born deaf, but his family was so wealthy that his father funded scientists to make him an aid. On the contrary, his hearing is better than that of ordinary people.
Hartley was obsessed with music from an early age, but struggled to make music, so he began to learn how musical instruments make sounds.
He is not interested in anything other than sound.
Eventually, Hartley created instruments with a higher range and a perfect mix.
He also learned that musical instruments can hypnotize humans.
He also discovered ways to use musical instruments to cause deadly resonances.
Feeling in control for the first time in his life, he became a piper and began to use instrumental hypnosis to commit crimes.
However, Piper meets "The Flash" Barry Allen, who is defeated by The Flash several times.
Eventually, Piper joins the Rogue Gang, a villain team made up of The Flash's enemies.
Become a heroic pied piper
In 1985, DC launched the big event "Flashpoint" to restart the universe, and "The Flash" Barry Allen died in the event in order to save the world.
After the incident, the piper also changed his ways. He renounced his identity as a villain and became a guardian of the homeless and other vulnerable groups in New York.
During this time, he became good friends with Barry's successor, Wally "The Flash" West, and his wife, Linda Parker.
When Wally decides to move to Rock City, Piper's parents are kidnapped by a mob who beat Wally. The Piper led several homeless people to rescue Wally and his parents, defeating the mob.
The Pied Piper realizes that he is a gay man when he finds himself attracted to the male lead actor Rod Lauren while watching the horror film "The Crawling Hand" released in 1963.
The Pied Piper has been helping The Flash with technical problems and going undercover.
During the outbreak of the virus at Iron Mountain Prison, Piper helps Wally West infiltrate Iron Mountain Prison, where only Piper has ever successfully escaped.
In the 2001 comic book The Flash V2 #170, the Piper receives an email from his father asking him to come home.
When the Piper returned to Rock Castle, he was arrested by the police on charges of killing his parents.
Some time later, Wally West and Hunter Zolemont discover the truth about the murder, and the real culprit is the Mirror Master, and when Wally and Hunter arrive at the prison to deliver the documents for the release of the Piper, they find that the Piper has escaped from prison.
Join the Pied Piper of the Rogue Gang again
After escaping from prison, the Piper arrives in the office of James Jesse, the Sorcerer, and a fight ensues, and the Piper escapes.
Wally calls the trickman and asks if he has met a piper, who tells him that he has never seen a piper.
After that, the Pied Piper encountered another heat wave that prevented four robberies in a row.
The Sorcerer had long since reformed himself, and he became a federal agent. The trickster leads his men to find Heat Wave and Piper, and invites them to join his gang of scoundrels who work for the FBI.
Eventually, there was also a Rogue War, in which the Sorcerer's Rogue Gang fought Captain Cold's Rogue Gang.
During the incident, Spike modifies the Piper's brain programming in an attempt to restore him to evil.
But this is clearly not the case.
After the end of the big event "Infinite Crisis", Wally West and his wife disappeared, and Bart Allen inherited the identity of The Flash.
Due to the tragic death of his parents and the disappearance of Wally and Linda, the Piper rejoins the Rogue Gang that has been summoned by Inertia.
The Piper did not actually become evil, because he did not trust the Piper, the Mirror Master asked the Piper to hypnotize a rich merchant, let the rich merchant jump into the sea, and then put all the wealth of the rich merchant into his own account.
In fact, this wealthy businessman defrauded a large number of old people of their money, and the piper transferred the rich businessman's money into the mirror master's account and transferred it to a child welfare agency.
In an attempt to distract the Scoundrels from the Flash, the Pied Piper attempts to pit the Scoundrels against Inertia, but fails, and the Scoundrels eventually kill Bart Allen "The Flash".
Knowing that he would be found guilty like the rest of the scoundrels, the Pied Piper and the Sorcerer fled away from the limelight. He also quietly attended the Flash's funeral with the trickster.
Although they escaped the gaze of the heroes, the two were found by the multi-body and the death shooter as they fled, and they were tortured together. They fled in handcuffs.
While fleeing, the trickster is killed by the Death Shooter, and the Piper falls into the hands of Dissad, who takes the Piper to the Apocalypse.
It turns out that the Pied Piper's music has an anti-life equation, and he wants to use the Piper's anti-life equation to rule the earth.
At this time, the brother's eye assimilated the Apocalypse.
After learning that his latest series of tragedies were all behind Dissad's manipulation, the Pied Piper used the flute to kill Dissad.
Then the piper plays Queen's classic swan song, "The Show Must Go On", blowing up the apocalypse star and brother's eye that are fused together.
Miraculously, the Pied Piper, who was supposed to die when the Apocalypse exploded, then appeared in Gotham City.
During the events of Final Crisis, he intervened in the battle of the Rogues, Inertia, and Haste, incapacitating them with a flute. However, Libra appears and pierces the Pied Piper in the shoulder with a spear, but the Piper still uses the flute to hold the inertia in place, allowing the Scoundrels to kill the inertia.
The piper "after the flash point".
In 2011, DC launched the big event "Flashpoint" to restart the universe, and after the reboot, the Pied Piper did not appear too much, and DC did not give his new origin story, but changed his setting.
He was the conductor of the Midtown Symphony Orchestra when he first appeared, and he is said to have previously been a "reformed vigilante (retired superhero)".
The Piper retains the gay setting, and he is a couple with David Singer of the Midtown Police Department's Crime Lab.
He also shared an apartment with Barry Allen, and the two were roommates.
Apparently, Piper once worked as a supervillain and joined the Rogue Gang, as in the 2017 comic book The Flash V5 #14, Piper set up a support group for the victims of the Rogue Gangs to make amends for his past time with the Rogue Gang.
Little Easter eggs
In the 2007 comic Countdown, #28中 introduction to the Pied Piper appears as F106-OU812.
F106 pays homage to the comic of the Pied Piper's birth, The Flash #106.
And OU812 pays tribute to the album "OU812" released by the famous American band Van Halen in 1988.
That's all for the DC Piper.