The Art of War
Prologue- The Immortal
The army marched in perfect formation, the brutal desert sun gleaming on their weapons. They did not march to war- not yet- but rather to show their might and discipline to the man who had trained them, the man who led them now, the man who watched from a rocky rise. The oldest man on earth. As he stood there, watching those who would implement the final stage of his centuries of scheming, that man allowed his thoughts to wander down long unused paths to where it had all begun.
He was born in a kingdom that had not existed in thousands of years- was so old, in fact, that history long ago forgot it. He was the greatest servant of the king of that land, leading his forces to victory time and again. But though he grew mighty, the king also grew old, and he came to fear death more than any enemy. And so the loyal soldier had volunteered to help his master find the secret of eternal life.
Well he remembered the day, so many millennia later upon the rock. The king had summoned all his sorcerers and alchemists and priests, and they had laid the soldier upon an altar, attending to him with their prayers and spells and potions. He didn't know which had done it- or what combination- but when he awoke his body had aged to a withered thing, more like the mummies the Egyptians had just begun to create than a living man. But his mind and body remained as strong as ever- and from that day forward, he never aged again.
The king was overjoyed, but the process could not be replicated. The king died like any other man, and in time history forgot he had ever existed. But the soldier lived on far beyond the span of human life, accumulating such knowledge of war as no mere mortal could ever know. He traveled the world, fighting and learning, until he became a legend. Now kings and emperors came to him, begging for his advice and wisdom. He commanded the armies of the Pharaohs against the Hittites and the Nubians; he aided Augustus in his ascension to the imperial seat of Rome; he advised Sun Tzu when he wrote one of the great strategic works of all time.
Millennia later he adapted to new weapons and strategies, becoming a master of military technology as well as strategy. He was strongly drawn to the militarism of the German Empire, and he aided the madman Hitler in his quest for world domination. But in the end Hitler's obsession with his racial dreams led to his downfall, and the immortal soldier fell with him. He remained in prison for decades, charged as a Nazi war criminal.
But he had time to spare, and so he waited with a patience that only an immortal might know, and at least he was freed. His benefactors were unusual, even by the standards of the ages- a disembodied brain and a talking gorilla. But the old soldier knew an opportunity when he saw it, and so he became the head of the military arm of the international organization called the Brotherhood.
In the end, the Brotherhood was brought low- not by their old enemies, the Doom Patrol, but by a group of young upstarts called the Titans. The immortal went to prison again, but this time he had arranged for a swift breakout. Many Brotherhood soldiers had also escaped; they formed the core of his new army, an army that would soon scour the globe. Too long he had been a servant of others- now was the time to take matters into his own hands. The world had become a strange, broken place since his imprisonment in the forties. It was time someone set it back on its proper course.
He had picked up many names over the centuries, this old soldier. They called him the Immortal; the Forever Soldier, and other things of much the same meaning. He collected names as other men collected hunting trophies- or in this day and age, he mused, something ridiculous like postage stamps. But the name he favored now was the one that the Brain had given him. This was the name that would soon make the world tremble.
General Immortus.