Air Wave

Air Wave is a legacy name of super-heroes with energy powers. The original was a Golden Age vigilante who fought during World War II. His wife Helen Jordan took up the mantle after him to bring his killer Joe Parsons to justice. Their son Harold Jordan would eventually become Air Wave in the modern era. The name has been associated with the All-Star Squadron, the Captains of Industry and the Justice Society of America. Air Wave was created by Lee Harris, first appearing in Detective Comics #60.

Origin

Harold “Hal” Jordan was the son of Brooklyn District Attorney Larry Jordan and Helen Jordan. Larry Jordan was the World War II hero and All-Star Squadron member known as Air Wave. When Hal was three years old, his house was broken into by a criminal, Joe Parsons, who held Helen and Hal at gunpoint. Parsons was seeking revenge against Larry for sentencing him to 20 years in jail. Larry, as Air Wave, learned about the break-in over police scanner, and rushed home. Trying to protect Hal and Helen, Larry was gunned down by Parsons, who escaped. Helen, taking over the guide of Air Wave, hunted Parsons down and brought him to justice. In honor of Larry, Helen vowed to allow Hal to become Air Wave when he became old enough.

On Hal’s seventeenth birthday, his mother Helen gave him his father’s Air Wave costume, as well as all the notes that Larry had written on the development of the costume. Honoring his father, Hal donned the suit and became the third Air Wave. Helen let Hal loose in the world, where he made a name for himself as Air Wave.

Powers

While it was originally thought that Air Wave’s abilities came from his father’s helmet, research by the Sunderland Corporation revealed that Hal Jordan inherited the meta-gene, possibly from his father’s super-hero career. Jordan required the circuitry in the helmet to focus his powers, however.

Jordan could change his molecular structure, transforming himself into radio waves. As radio waves, Jordan could hijack existing radio or television waves. In this state, he could exist in a one-dimensional or two-dimensional state. He could use items like radios, telephones, and televisions as modes of transportation, converting to energy at one point and travel through phone or cable lines to another exit point. He could also patch into those transmissions, listening to them and rerouting them. He could travel on radio waves being transmitted through the air, allowing him to fly even while not in energy form, though he would sometimes leave an electrical train behind him.

After training at the Sunderland Corporation, Jordan learned how to control and generate other areas of the electromagnetic spectrum, including x-rays, gamma rays, microwave rays, and infrared rays. Jordan could generate microwave blasts, superheating their targets.

At one point, after a hit in the head, Air Wave gained the powers to use radio waves through his helmet to see a person’s thoughts. However, he lost the power shortly after.