Terra-Man and Sir Traytor were bad boys from different eras, carving niches in history both in centuries ago and today.
Throughout the centuries, these men have flown through the air with tenacity and talent beyond estimation. Toby's father, himself an outlaw of the old west, foolishly caught himself in a gun fight with an alien known as the Collector. When the elder Manning died, the Collector noticed the orphaned boy now there by his father's side. Taking young Toby and raising him as his own in the starts, the Collector granted him the ability to reach heights undreamed of by his parent. And thus, the villain Terra-Man was born.
Sir Traytor was a rogue knight of the round table in ancient Camelot, who purloined a serum that could endlessly supply life. Originally disgruntled Sir Oswald Bane, who battled the Silent Knight.. alter ego of Superman's step-ancestor, Brian Kent… Bane stole the serum from the kingdom he was suppose to protect and was thus exiled from its court. Seeking revenge, as the Dark Knight of Arkan, he was enlisted in leading an army against Camelot... sent by the man who had disguised himself as King Arthur himself, the fellow immortal Vandal Savage. However, Sir Traytor faced immediate defeat when he confronted Superman visiting from the 20th century and his Justice Society comrades, who journeyed to that era along with the Shining Knight. The combined heroes had been alerted to the fact that someone was attempting to change history, that someone being Savage and his dupe Traytor.
While Terra-Man gained the ability to ascend the ages thanks to the faster-than-light space craft of his alien patriarch, his counterpart Traytor immunity to the ravages of time thanks to the immortality concoction he would periodically ingest. Both Toby and Traytor glided through the air on the backs to winged steeds Nova and Winged Victory, although Nova willingly bonded with Terra-Man while Victory disobeyed his new temporary master Traytor after having been horse-napped from his rightful owner Sir Justin. Both men had access topowerful weaponry not-of-this-earth, from an atomic six-shooter to a lightning-discharge sword.
Manning as Terra-Man would repeatedly clash with Superman, while Traytor only met his own Man of Steel of Earth-Two when he was defeated by him in ancient Camelot. And while Terra-Man as a supervillain was a repeated failure each time he visited Earth-One, Sir Traytor has successful criminal careers throughout the ages in piracy and plunder. However, he would eventually once more meet up with his fellow court courtier Shining Knight, who like him had survived into the 20th century.
In that encounter, Traytor initially defeated the Shining Knight aka Sir Justin and his young sidekick Butch Boyle, only to lose his life when the winged steed he stole kept him from his serum. A similar but not as fatal finale happened when Terra-Man was beaten by Superman alongside his one time young sidekick Billy Anders and his pet Lynx, who had bonded with their hero in a series of strange adventures.
Interestingly, Traytor returned years after his death, on Earth-One in the year 1980. However, this was the version of the Dark Knight who existed in the late 1500s, when he went by the name Ezra Hawkins. A privateer sea captain appointed by the Queen of England to plunder the vessels of the rival Spaniards, he and his crew came into conflict with the powerful El Muchacho. Granted strange powers by his diminutive foe for unknown reasons, this led to his descendant Inza Cramer Nelson into transforming into a partial bestial being. Her husband, Kent Nelson, in his Doctor Fate persona tracked down Hawkins and his ship, which had been pulled through a portal to Earth-One due to an experimental device. This device, created by a scientist at S.T.A.R. Labs to attract sentient sub-atomic particles, ended up unleashing the former Sit Traytor upon Metropolis. Together, Superman and Doctor Fate overpowered El Muchaco and Captain Hawkins, with both of them and Ezra’s crew back to their proper Earth and time.
Oswald Bane/Sir Traytor/Dark Knight/Ezra Hawkins pretended to be his own son to keep his immortal nature a secret. Concurrently, Toby Manning’s ancestors were each counterparts of these different incarnations of Bane through the centuries.
As Hawkins had a first mate and a handful of crew accompanying him to the present, an Earth-One Spanish privateer known as Swordfish from the 15th century Caribbean along with his true love Barracuda battled Superman and Batman in the 20th century, before returning to their native era.
Terra-Man later encountered a version of himself from a parallel Earth with powers comparable to his counterpart Hawkins/Traytor. Despite their superior number, they still met with defeat at the hands of Superman.
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