George Harkness

## Background

### 1972 - 2000: George Harkness

Australian housewife, Betty Harkness married Ian Harkness & together, they lived in Korumburra, Australia. During the 1970s, she engaged in a romantic relationship with the American toymaker W. W. Wiggins, that resulted in the birth of a son. She raised the son as hers & Ian but he always knew that it wasn't his blood that ran through his veins. He hated the boy & made George's life miserable.

In school one day, Harkness crafted a boomerang for a class project. He discovered he had great skill with the aboriginal weapon & often used it for mischief with his best friend, Mick Wentworth.

They continue to rob stores undetected well into George's college years. At the age of nineteen, Digger & Mick robbed a general store and escaped with the money they obtained. Nonetheless, his stepfather banished him from the house as a result of the incident but Betty bought her son a plane ticket to Central City & told him to get in touch with his biological father.

During the search, Harkness learned that Wiggins Game Company had been searching for a spokesman & took the chance to audition under the alias George Green for the job which he landed. As a spokesperson, he constantly travelled around the states & seduced women as he went along. Wiggins became impressed with the man's boomerang-throwing skills & gave him the title Captain Boomerang but George had other plans for his new alter ego. Instead, he began a string of jewelry thefts that came to the attention to the police, who arrested the criminal. Boomerang later escaped the prison & returned to Australia. There, he robbed every single bank in the continent at least once before working as a mercenary, selling his skills to the highest bidder for the next three years. But eventually George decided to return to the United States for a fresh target start.

## Romantic Relationships

* Meloni Thawne: Fling (1992)
* Shelia Upforit: *Missing data.*

## Powers & Abilities

* **Deception:** Digger is a highly skilled deceiver, having deceived his bank robber partner, who he swiftly killed with one of his boomerangs. He also attempted to feign innocence in front of Rick Flag, claiming that he had been undeservingly apprehended, but without success.
* **Hand to Hand Combat:** Captain Boomerang is a highly formidable hand-to-hand combatant & thus can cut down multiple people in mere seconds when using the bladed edges of his boomerangs as close-quarter weapons. He is capable of taking down a Navy SEAL with just a single blow, swiftly recovered from a blow from Killer Croc & has 51 counts of aggravated assault to his name.
* **Marksmanship:** He has displayed exceptional accuracy with his hurled boomerangs as well (swiftly killing his bank robber partner), though he is rivaled in accuracy by Deadshot.
* **Reflexes:** He has honed his reflexes throughout years of throwing and catching his boomerangs.
* **Thief**: A self-proclaimed "asset relocation specialist," he is a prolific & extremely skilled robber & thief. He has 98 counts of burglary to his name, being known for having robbed every bank in Australia at least once & several more in the US.
* **Boomerangs:**  Captain Boomerang's primary weapons, with each of them a steel-made curved blade, sharpened on both sides. When thrown, his boomerangs spins about an axis that is perpendicular to their flight direction & are designed to return to the thrower. He is a very formidable opponent when armed with his trick boomerangs, using them both as ranged and close-quarters weapons. He uses Explosive Boomerangs, Collapsible Boomerangs, Lightning Boomerangs, Scanning Boomerangs, Rocket Boomerangs & Razor Boomerangs.

### Ratings

* **Intelligence:** 4 - Trained / Learned
* **Strength:** 3 - Average / Basic
* **Speed:** 3 - Average / Basic
* **Occult:** 1 - Nonexistent
* **Weapons:** 6 - Expert / Advanced
* **Range:** 5 - High / Exceptional
* **Strategy:** 4 - Trained / Learned
* **Combat:** 5 - High / Exceptional
* **TOTAL:** 96 - Threat Level 2 / Low Threat

## Trivia

* He was sent by Carlton Duquesne to kill Jackson Drake. He did the job with a razor boomerang.
* His nickname "Digger" is a slang word for "soldier" for local Australians.
* In his psychological profile, it is stated that George Harkness is perhaps the most well-adjusted member of the Suicide Squad. He is perfectly content with who he is, but he is "an unprincipled sociopath with little or no moral sense of right and wrong."
* When he came to the states, he also frequented Keystone City, where he started a shirt affair with Meloni Thawne. When he got arrested & eventually escaped to Australia, he did not know he left behind a pregnant Meloni. Twenty two years later, he met his son Owen Mercer after he posed as a criminal himself to set up a meeting. Realizing he was in fact in his son, Boomerang decided to take the man underneath his wing, determined to make up for their lost years. The pair bonded for some time & Boomerang began to train him, even giving him the nickname of Boomer in the place of his namesake.

## Notes

* In *Robin*v4, 132 (December 2007), Captain Boomerang is also the one to kill Jackson Drake.