Vandal Savage first appeared during the Golden Age of Comic Books in Green Lantern #10 (December 1943), created by writer Alfred Bester and artist Martin Nodell.

Whenever the Immortal Man died or was killed, his powerful amulet allowed him to quickly materialize in a new body elsewhere on Earth, without having to literally be born again and with his memories intact.

The same issue showed that the meteor which made Vandal Savage immortal also enhanced his intelligence and altered his body, explaining why he resembled a modern Homo sapiens when other stories claimed he was originally Cro-Magnon.

In the New 52 series Demon Knights, it was said that Vandal Savage worked alongside several heroes and warriors during the Dark Ages, fighting evil rather than causing it.

In his debut story, Vandal Savage manipulates the Green Lantern and his secret identity Alan Scott into helping his schemes, later revealing he knows they are the same person.

Savage does not reveal his original name to the Green Lantern, but claims that over the years he has lived under many identities, including an ancient king of Sumer, Cheops, Julius Caesar, and Genghis Khan.

A later story reveals that a fragment of the same radioactive meteor is recovered by a caveman named Klarn of the Bear Tribe, an enemy of Vandar Adg, who then makes it into an amulet.

With this amulet, Klarn gains a unique reincarnation ability; every time he is killed or dies, he quickly reappears elsewhere on Earth in a new body, fully clothed, and with his memories of all past lives intact.

Savage manipulates Jay Garrick and Barry Allen into helping him free the meteor back into Earth's atmosphere, hoping another exposure will recharge his immortality.

[7] Since Savage was shifting between the dimensions of Earth-One and Earth-Two just before the meteor impacted with him, he is now stuck in a partial existence between both worlds, only able to achieve tangibility in one while being a shadow form in the other.

Realizing Savage is a cruel leader who censors news media so only good things are said about his rule, Superman joins the rebellion against the villain and then restores the original history.

[18] As he grows older, Savage realizes he has three human enemies who constantly reincarnate, though unlike the Immortal Man they do so in the traditional sense, needing to literally be reborn as children again following each death.

Savage's other reincarnating enemy is a man named Mitchell Shelley, who is repeatedly reborn again and usually recalls the events of his past lives, leading him to remaining the same person.

[19] Vandal Savage claims to have been several noteworthy figures of history, but it has been shown that at least some of these boasts are false, a means of taking credit and seeming more important.

In 1951, the House Un-American Activities Committee openly questions if the JSA members are secret spies and Communists, pressuring them to reveal their identities and serve the U.S. government.

By this time, Savage has begun funding clandestine terrorist organizations and advanced scientific research, both to increase his resources and due to his realizing his immortality is weaker than it used to be.

Wally West, the latest hero to be called the Flash, realizes Vandal Savage is hiding under the alias of Burt Villers, an art dealer.

When a tektite-empowered creature emerges from a time-warp, apparently from the same source that produced the meteor that gave Savage and Immortal Man their power years ago, it causes chaos and starts to disrupt reality.

[25] The members include the Red Panzer, Gorilla Grodd, Lady Vic, Siren, and Cheshire (both an enemy of the Titans and the mother of Roy Harper's child Lian).

Deciding that the planet is overpopulated and no longer an enjoyable place for him to live, Savage intends to use the Summoner to force the Thanatos asteroid to crash to Earth, causing an apocalypse event and "thinning out the herd" of the human race.

Believing he will die soon, Savage decides to try one last act of revenge against Alan Scott, the first superhero he ever fought and his first true enemy of the modern era.

[30] Savage later returns as the mastermind behind a group of superhuman Neo-Nazis called the Fourth Reich, targeting the heirs of several Golden Age superheroes.

[31] In Final Crisis: Revelations, the Order of the Stone (who worship Cain from the Bible) comes in possession of the Spear of Destiny, a magical item which Hitler once used to keep superheroes from entering Nazi-occupied territories.

[34] The superhero team known as the Outsiders meet a group calling themselves the Insiders, members of Savage's tribe who were also exposed to the power of the meteor he encountered, all gaining immortality as a result.

The Insiders seek out meteorite fragments of the original meteor, while Savage forms a temporary alliance with the near-immortal terrorist cult leader Ra's al Ghul to thwart the group.

In the modern day, Vandal Savage attempts to create a new Injustice Gang, but his plans are thwarted by Lex Luthor, who decides to form his own Legion of Doom.

Luthor then seemingly beats Savage to death with a doorknob made from a piece of the Totality, the oldest energy source in existence, and one of the few things that could successfully kill the immortal cave man.

[41] Thanks to the conclusion of Dark Nights: Death Metal, Vandal Savage has been restored to the present day, becoming a member of the joint hero/villain collaboration on the space station "The Totality".

[42] Vandal Savage's long life has allowed him to become a master of hand-to-hand combat, an expert in military tactics and a variety of weapons, and familiar with many cultures, languages, and fields of science.

Sometimes he employs swords, knives, and maces, while other times he wields advanced technology, such as energy-based weapons, a suit that allows him limited flight, or a pen-sized sonic device that can immobilize people with super-speed.