Aliases: Charles Brown (sometimes called “Charlie” or “Chuck”)
First Appearance: BATMAN vol. 1 #133, 1960

Team Affiliations: None

 

 

One of the many themed, costumed super-villains who have appeared in Gotham City over the years, Charles Brown, a.k.a. Kite Man, isn’t, like many of Batman’s foes, a criminal mastermind or a deranged killer. Instead, he’s a thief, one who uses a kite-shaped hang glider and kite-themed weapons to commit his crimes. Despite his enthusiasm for his work, Kite Man has regularly been defeated by Batman, Hawkman and other DC Super Heroes.

In 2016’s Rebirth, Charles Brown was reintroduced as a divorced man with a son, Charles Jr. The elder Brown, an alcoholic with a background in science and engineering, particularly aerodynamics, agreed to design a Jokermobile for the Joker. Soon afterward, however, the Joker and the Riddler declared war on each other, launching the War of Jokes and Riddles. Brown’s son, Charles Jr., became a target of the Riddler, who killed him by poisoning the string of a kite he was playing with. This, along with the Joker recruiting him as a suicide bomber but then giving him a fake bomb, traumatized Brown. To cope, he reinvented himself. Following the end of the war, Kite Man embarked on his criminal career, often repeating his son’s favorite cry of “Hell yeah!” The Riddler later claimed he had deliberately manipulated Brown into becoming the ridiculous-looking super-villain. As a joke.