William Matthews (New Earth)

William Matthews of New Earth was a former missionary who went on exploration to Africa. While there he stumbled on the entrapped and dormant Gog. Though completely inactive, the large being's powers irradiated Matthews which gave Matthews some of its own powers. One of these powers was a vision of Earth-22 where Williams saw the Superman native to that dimension fail to protect that Earth's Kansas from a nuclear attack. Believing the Earth-22 reality to be the future for his own Earth rather than a completely separate reality happening at the same time, Williams decided to attack the New Earth Superman for what Williams believed was a future failing of the New Earth Superman. Despite being powerful, Williams was defeated through the efforts of Superman and Batman.

William Matthews recently re-emerged with his powers even greater than before in preparation for Gog's return. William Matthews began systematically murdering those who he believes were false gods as the so-called "Heartbreak Slayer" as Matthews kills his victims by directly destroying their hearts.

As Gog II, William Matthews murdered several beings with godlike power or who were named for gods, like the New Olympians and Chroma. For his crimes he was tracked by Mister America and a taskforce from the FBI, before they asked for help from the Justice Society. Ambushing the Justice Society in their own home, he accused Superman of being a false idol. However, when the fight did not go well, he used a sort of Boom Tube to escape back to the cave where he found Gog. There, he was apparently absorbed by Gog, who used him as a catalyst to make a body from the countryside.

Powers and Abilities

Powers

Superhuman strength and endurance; originally flight though has not shown himself to have this ability at present time

Abilities

Teleportation

Strength level

Comparable to the Earth-22 Superman

Weaknesses

Fatigue which will drain Matthews powers to lower levels that prevents said powers from operating properly, if at all

Paraphernalia

Equipment

Power Staff

Transportation

None as William Matthews in his identity of Gog II has the natural ability to teleport from place to place though his teleportation ability can be interfered with; originally William Matthews had the ability of flight but he has not shown this ability since his re-emergence. If he still possesses the ability of flight, he prefers to teleport rather than fly the actual distances between his locales

Weapons

Power Staff

Notes

Matthews is comparable to the Kingdom Come Magog, as he is New Earth Counterpart to the successor/advocate of Gog I in the New Earth reality, but Matthews has decided to actually take the same name of his power source unlike that of actual Kingdom Come successor.
The vision of Earth-22 that William Matthews received has been suggested to be a memory of Gog I rather than a projection, which suggests that Gog I is native to the Earth-22 dimension. The source of the vision that Matthews received has yet to clarified in detail to be a memory or a projection from Gog I.

Trivia

William Matthews' adventures as Gog were against the New Earth Superman (as shown in Action Comics #812-819) though he recognized that the New Earth Superman was not the same man in his vision and later identified the Earth-22 Superman specifically as the one who did fail to save all the people that Matthews saw to have been killed (Justice Society (Vol 3) 14)

Links and References

None.

Footnotes

Justice Society Villain(s)

This character, team or organization is or was primarily an enemy of the Justice Society, in any of its various incarnations. This template will categorize articles that include it into the "Justice Society Villains" category.