This article is about Hartley Rathaway from Arrowverse. For Shrek character, see Pied Piper (Shrek).
| “ | Hartley Rathaway: "I used to be a meta-criminal, a Rogue, as they say. I used to hurt people all the time, and I enjoyed it." Khione: "What changed you?" Hartley Rathaway: "Oh, Roderick, okay?" Khione: "Roderick. You changed to keep him safe? That's beautiful." |
„ |
| ~ Hartley Rathaway and Khione |
Hartley Rathaway, also known as the Pied Piper, is a supporting character in The Flash.
He is a physicist who formerly worked at S.T.A.R. Labs as "Harrison Wells"' protégé, who was fired by the latter after attempting to warn him about his particle accelerator exploding. After gaining superhuman hearing from the explosion, causing him constant pain, he attempted to take revenge on Wells using sonic weaponry, only to be stopped by The Flash. He would later redeem himself and become an ally of Team Flash. In season six, he began dating his former henchman Roderick Smith.
He was portrayed by Andy Mientus
Biography[]
Pre-Crisis[]
Past[]
Hartley Rathaway was born in Central City to Osgood and Rachel Rathaway. He was set to eventually take over the family business, Rathaway Industries, founded by his grandfather. After coming out as gay to his parents, Hartley was disowned by them. Hartley was estranged from his parents by the time he and "Harrison Wells" met.
Original Timeline[]
New Timeline[]
Post-Crisis[]
Past[]
On Earth Prime, Rathaway returned to villainy because of the changes due to the multiverse. In the new timeline, Hartley fought the Flash on a bridge with his merry men band of outlaws. However, during the chaos, Roderick was injured severely by a mixture of Hartley's vibrational tech and the Flash's lightning, resulting in his molecules becoming unstable and essentially taking on a non-solid form. Hartley, who everything that happened in the original multiverse, blamed both himself and the Flash for accidentally sending his boyfriend Roderick into a coma during their fight on the bridge. While he was sent to Mercury Labs and stabilized there for five years, Pied Piper turned back to the life of crime.
Season 6[]
Barry, who remembered that Hartley became an ally of Team Flash was surprised when he caught Hartley trying to steal from a store. Due to being cut off guard by Hartley's return to villainy because of the changes from the Crisis and Hartley's ability to emit a supersonic scream, Barry fails to capture him.
Five weeks later, the evil speedster from the future Godspeed returned and began using vibrational frequencies to steal Barry's speed. The Flash suggested bringing in Hartley for help, even though he knew he was a villain again despite everyone's protesting. Despite this, Hartley refused to help Team Flash, remembering the time he and Barry when both injured Roderick. Instead, Team Flash decided to help cure Roderick regardless of Hartley's anger towards them. He was further vexed as to why Team Flash would want to save his boyfriend after seeing them transport him from Mercury Labs
After eavesdropping on Cisco and Barry's conversation, Hartley changed his deposition and decided to help Team Flash defeat and capture the Time remnant of Godspeed, who was just a drone. Both Flash and the Pied Piper combined their abilities to take out the Godspeed clone. The defeated villain bled from the sound, the cure Roderick needed. With the use of a Godspeed clone's blood, Cisco was able to synthesize a cure for Hartley's boyfriend. Roderick's molecules were able to be permanently stabilized and he was able to awaken from his coma. It appears that he has no memory of his time in the coma (as is normal for most normal coma patients). Overjoyed the two lovers were finally reunited after 5 years of separation. After Roderick fully recovered, the two made their way out of the exit with Hartley forgiving Team Flash after helping bring Roderick out of his coma. Before departing, Hartley gave Barry some advice before the two parted ways.
Season 9[]
Hear No Evil[]
Eventually, Roderick and Hartley ran their night club together Krakatoa Club, where he bid his lover and followers good night. However Hartley was attacked by the Fiddler in the parking lot, who wanted his Piper gauntlets for the Red Death's treadmill. After being outnumbered when Hartley's crew and Roderick showed up to defend their boss, Hartley fled to STAR Labs, hoping for Caitlin help. However Barry and Iris ran into the medical ward themselves, where Hartley was suffering from a headache attack. Barry told the other man that Caitlin was gone but helped him nonetheless by retrieving a pressure cuff and gave it to Hartley. The device stabilize him and Hartley warned Iris and Barry that a woman with a fiddle attacked him. They showed him a picture of Izzy Bowen, the only medicine they knew who could manipulate sound waves with her fiddle. Hartley told the couple that it was someone else and the West-Allen's realized that the new Fiddler and New Captain Boomerang were somehow within together and probably supplied by a benefactor. Feeling exhausted, the cantankerous and sarcastic reformed criminal told Barry and Iris to leave so he could regain his strength and sleep.
A few hours later, Hartley desperately tried to fix his gauntlets (which was damaged by Fiddler's attack) when Khione walked into the room. Sarcastically referring to Khione as another "Snow Sister,* he tried sending her away when Khione had no medical knowledge and seemingly has no frosty powers. However he got frustrated with his gauntlets when they refused to work. When Khione asked why he was in such a hurry she sensed he was worried for someone else's safety and Hartley told her that he was afraid for his boyfriend Roderick's life. After fixing the gauntlets, Hartley confronted The Fiddler who was holding Roderick hostage. After she made him in the other members of their crew disappear, Hartley thought that Andrea killed his boyfriend and his crew mates. He came close to killing Andrea for Roderick's death but stopped when Barry arrived on the seen (as the Flash). Barry grabbed Hartley's hand and vibrated them, where it was revealed that Roderick was still alive and that he and the crew were trapped in a vibrational phase. Hartley undoes the crew's condition with his gauntlets and with help from the Flash defeat the Fiddler. However she still managed to get away with the Pied Piper's gauntlets.
Hartley later used his sonic scream to destroy the machine that Chilblaine and Caitlin used when they tried bringing Frost back so Mark couldn't force Khione to do his bidding. Angered, Mark swore revenge on Hartley for this.Barry tried warning Mark not to talk like that before the latter storms out. Later that night, Team Flash came to Hartley and Roderick's nightclub, Club Krakatoa, to celebrate.
Rogues of War[]
After this, Hartley helped Barry create his own Rogue Squadron so they could take out the Red Death and her minions of rogues. They recruited The Hotness, Goldface, and Chilblaine to steal a weapon before the Rogue did. However, the lack of trust between them all nearly failed until Barry revealed his identity as the Flash to Jaco and Keith. However, the group was betrayed by Mark when he revealed that he sided with Red Death.
When the Red Death and Rainbow Raider kidnapped both Barry and later Iris, Chester sent out an S.O.S to Pied Piper and the other Rogues. Hartley, Keith, and Jaco made it to S.T.A.R. Labs. When the group had trouble tracking Barry, Hartley showed Chester and Allegra he had a frequency tracer that could find The Flash whenever his powers were used. However, Barry is incapacitated because his powers are dampened. Hartley's invention finally picked up Barry's trail when he started running on the Red Death's cosmic treadmill after the alternate Ryan began to ruthlessly electrocute and torture Iris. As the skies turned red, Allegra showed the Rogue Squad one of Nash's tele-spheresz which she threw on the ground. The telesphere took them to Red Death's hideout. There Mark realizes he was wrong to betray Barry and Iris from before so he turns his back on The Red Death by turning Barry's organic speed against her, knocking Ryan out. As they watched the Rogues beat Mark, the Rogue Squadron refused to help him due to his betrayal from before.
Barry tried to intervene; however, the Hotness and Goldface stopped him because he was not able to stand against the Red Death without his speed. Despite Allegra, Iris, and Barry's protests Hartley took the teleportation device from Allegra's hands and threw it on the ground, transporting them back to Star Labs, leaving Mark to his fate. Both Barry and Khione scolded the Rogue Squadron for their actions but the Pied Piper and his friends stated that Mark betrayed them and if the group had not taken Barry and Iris out of there the Red Death would have killed them all.
Defeating the Red Death[]
Despite this, the Rogues squad defeated The Red Death with help from the real Ryan Wilder. She asked if things were always this complicated in Central City and the Rogue Squad replied that it was a typical Wednesday for them.
After the Red Death's defeat, Hartley likely went back to Roderick and continued his life as a night club owner.
Personality[]
Pre-Timeline Change[]
According to Cisco and Caitlin, Hartley was difficult to work with. Caitlin described him as having a challenge personality but Cisco claimed Hartley could "be a Jerk" and even a "dick." In kithe words, he could be arrogant and covky as well as sarcastic. Another possible reason for Hartley's behavior was the face that his parents disowned him for coming out as gay and jealousy towards Cisco for becoming Harrison Wells' favorite employee. He could also be vindictive, as he wanted revenge on Harrison Wells for firing him and paying Cisco back for inducing a painful headache on him.
However, Hartley is one of the few members of the Rogues to have a sense of Morality, like expressing the dangers of turning the particle accelerator on and putting a stop to the Rogues from destroying the spacetime continuum.
Post- Timeline change[]
In a post- time traveling adventure Barry came back to the present, where this version of Rathaway was more selfless, even friendly with the rest of Team Flash because of the ordeal they suffered when facing the Time Wraith. He defeated it with a higher frequency that saved Barry from the Time Wraith. Hartley was also in a better place with both of his parents, who seemed to become more accepting of their son's sexuality because he was expressing joy in having dinner with them.
Earth-Prime[]
In the new timeline of Earth-Prime, after Hartley witnessing his boyfriend become critically injured against the Flash, his hatred of Team Flash only grew even greater, never having made amends with them like in Earth-1, he instead became very short-tempered and lashing out at everyone, robbing jewelry stores to vent.
Ultimately, as Barry realized, Hartley was really angry at himself, unable to accept that he was largely responsible for Roderick getting harmed. When Barry approached him, able to relate in having made bad decisions, he helped Hartley accept his own guilt and decided to help Barry to make things right. Upon Roderick being cured, Hartley was finally able to made amends with Team Flash, becoming kind again.
Of course Hartley still retained his arrogance and could be cruel at times in "Hear No Evil." However, an excuse was his worry something bad will happen to Roderick after being attacked by Andrea Wozzock. Surprisingly, Hartley seems quite nonchalant about death to those not especially close to him, as upon learning of the apparent death of his ex-coworker and friend Caitlin Snow. However he opted not to bring her consciousness back, and let Khione, the new personality in her body, to live her own life because she had become a friend it was something that ever Caitlin would have wanted. He even went as far as destroying the cryo-chamber.
Powers and Abilities[]
Powers[]
Metahuman Physiology:
- Superhuman hearing
- Supersonic screaming
- Flight
- Sound immunity
Abilities[]
- Genius-level intellect/Expert tactician: Hartley is a genius of the highest caliber and is described by Eobard Thawne as one of the most brilliant minds he has ever met.
- Computer specialist/Expert computer hacker: Hartley is a capable computer hacker, he was able to hack into the computers from S.T.A.R. Labs to create a means in which to kill the Flash; that matches Barry Allen's speed frequency.
- Master engineer: Hartley is skilled enough in engineering to make a pair of sonic gloves from scratch.
- Multilingual: Hartley is capable of fluently speaking at least six languages, including English, Spanish, French, Latin, Japanese, and American sign language.
- Expert hand-to-hand-combatant:
Former weaknesses[]
- Vulnerable eardrum
Relationships[]
Family[]
- Grandfather
- Osgood Rathaway - Father
- Rachel Rathaway - Mother
- Roderick Smith - Boyfriend and Second in Command
Allies[]
- Rogue Squad - Teammates
- Barry Allen/The Flash - Former Enemy, Friend and Rescuee
- Keith Kenyon/Goldface
- Jaco Birch/The Hotness
- Mark Blaine/Chillblaine - Temporary event
- Team Flash
- Ronnie Raymond - Former Co-worker
- Grodd
- Ryan Wilder / Batwoman
Enemies[]
- "Harrison Wells"/Eobard Thawne/Reverse Flash - Former Employer
- Time Wraith † - Attempted Killer and Victim
- Speed Force
- Godspeed Clones †
- Rogues
- Ryan Wilder/Red Death
- Owen Mercer/Captain Boomerang
- Andrea Wozzeck/The Fiddler 2.0
- Michelle Amar/Murmur
- Roy G. Bivolo/Rainbow Raider
Quotes[]
- “Well, that sounds super ominous. Luckily, those jackasses will have to get in line behind me.”
- ―{{{2}}}
- “Murmur: (sign language) I've heard of you, you know. The ex-Rogue who sells temptation to the masses for profit.
Hartley Rathaway: It's a living
Murmur: We could use someone with your talents on our team.
Hartley Rathaway: I'm not a killer anymore.
Murmur: Then that makes you a corpse.” - ―Hartley refuses to join the Rogues
Gallery[]
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Trivia[]
- Hartley Rathaway was created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino, first appearing in The Flash #106.
- Harley was the eleventh villain to learn Barry was the Flash and one of the two never of the Rogues who knew his don't identity.
- In a draft of the pilot episode, "Pilot", dated February 3, 2014,
- Hartley was still a member of the S.T.A.R. Labs team at the time that Barry came out of his coma.
- He created the original costume for The Flash, claiming that he had made it for firefighters after having been involved with a fireman named Chip.
- Most of Cisco's dialogue and role within the episode itself was originally Hartley's.
- Within the episode, both Cisco and Caitlin describe Hartley as difficult to work with and unpleasant to be around.
- In the comics, Hartley was romantically tied to David Singh and was one of the Flashes, Wally West's, best friends.
- Hartley stopped using glasses by 2020. Whether he had corrective eye surgery or he uses contacts is uncertain, leaving this new alteration on Earth-Prime unclear.
- He was the first person to escape from the Pipeline in the original timeline.
- He is an avid chess player, and often incorporates chess metaphors into his speech (e.g. describing his victims as "pawns", and the Flash as a "scarlet knight").
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