Known Relatives: Roy Harper Sr.(father, deceased), Jim Harper (alias the Guardian, uncle, deceased), Lian Harper (daughter)
Group Affiliations: The Titans, Checkmate, U.S. Government
Base of Operations: Formerly Star City, later mobile; Los Angeles, New York; Metropolis recently, now based at Titans Tower, New York City
First Appearance: as Speedy, MORE FUN COMICS #73 (November, 1941), as Arsenal, NEW TITANS 98.
History:
Roy Harper was not quite two years old when his forest ranger father, Roy Harper Sr., died attempting to rescue people from a fire on a Navajo reservation. Orphaned, Roy was made the ward of Brave Bow, a Navajo medicine chief whom his father had saved from the fire.
Roy gerw up on the reservation feeling torn between his Anglo background and his Navajo upbringing. Embracing his adopted Navajo heritage, he studied archery and practiced long-distance running from a very early age. By his adolescene, Roy had become an extraordinary archer, and had come to idolize the crimefighting bowman Green Arrow.
A seriously ill Brave Bow realized he would not recover and began to plan for the future, seeking a new guardian for his adopted grandson. Brave Bow contacted Green Arrow, inviting him to the reservation to judge the annual archery contest, in which Roy participated.
Unknown to the boy, Green Arrow and Brave Bow gave him arrows with magnetized lodestone tips so that they veered off course when he fired them, thus disguising his true archery prowess from the audience. The next day, Roy used his archery skills to assit Green Arrow in apprehending fleeing criminals who had robbed the local souvenir shop. Impressed, Green Arrow made Roy his partner, calling him Speedy after his quick reactions in stopping the thieves. Roy also became Green Arrow's ward in his identity of Oliver Queen. Brave Bow died soon afterward, secure in the knowledge the boy would have a home.
Green Arrow and Speedy worked together for years and during this time in Roy's life, he met and joined the Teen Titans, a team of comprised of other teen-sidekick crimefighters his own age; Wonder Girl, Aqualad, Kid Flash, and Robin the Boy Wonder.
When Green Arrow left to travel about the country with his girlfriend Black Canary (Dinah Lance) and Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Roy felt abandoned and sought solace through drugs, becoming a heroin addict. With the intervention from Hal and help from Dinah and Oliver, Roy overcame his addiction.
Since that time, he has resumed his super-hero career and has especially devoted himself to capturing criminals dealing in illegal narcotics as well as done undercover work for the Central Bureau of Investigation, a federal government agency.
On a C.B.I. covert mission that took him to Japan, Speedy tangled with the deadly (and beautiful) assassin, Cheshire, with whom he had an affair. Only much later did he learn that he had fathered her infant daughter, Lian, of whom he now has sole custody.
Speedy began his time as a single parent in Los Angeles were he worked as a private investigator, soon returning to the C.B.I. where he was instructed to take command of The New Titans, assuming the new codename, Arsenal. Roy then led the Titans through some rocky times until they disbanded a short while ago.
Powers and Weapons:
Arsenal is one of the world's best archers. Formerly he employed an extraordinary array of specially designed "trick" arrows like those the Green Arrow once used. Currently Arsenal uses a variety of weapons from throwing stars to crossbows, and has recently stopped the use of firearms (i.e. pistols) in his arsenal.
Arsenal is a skilled hand-to-hand combatant and a detective of considerable skill. He has also mastered the martial art Mi Goo Gon, which allows him the ability to hit any target he chooses.