George DIgger Harkness is an extremely skilled marksman and thrower, a former special agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and one of the founding members of the Avengers. Known for his use of the boomerang his primary weapon and an extremely keen eyesight and accuracy that earned him the codename Boomerang, Harkness had become one of the best S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, responsible for the recruitment of Black Widow, whom he developed a strong friendship with. Assigned by Nick Fury into watching over the Tesseract, he was brainwashed by Loki and used as his pawn in his attempt to become king of Midgard. However, following their Attack on the Helicarrier, he was freed from Loki's mental controls by Black Widow and joined the Avengers to fight against Loki and the Chitauri army in the battle of New York, ending Loki's invasion, before Hawkeye returned to his work at a S.H.I.E.L.D.
Early life[]
- "You'd need at least two reams of paper to print out his full rap sheet."
- ―Nick Fury[src]
George Harkness was born on September 12, 1985, in Kurrumburra, Australia, to Betty Harkness, where he was raised in poverty as the illegitimate child of W. W. Wiggins, an American toy manufacturer. His stepfather, Ian Harkness, hated the boy and subjected him to abuse and cruelty. As a child, George learned how to craft sophisticated boomerangs and even developed them into weapons. At some point he came to own a pink unicorn stuff toy named Pinky, a toy which he would keep well into his adult years.
During his teens he had a relationships with Mallory Ryan, a girl from Bindoon. There was friction between Digger and Mallory's father, the policeman Stanley, who considered Digger a liar, a cheater, and a thief hailing from a family of liars, cheaters, and thieves. That friction was resolved more than a decade later when Digger threw a boomerang into the tail of Stanley's helicopter mid-flight, causing it to crash. Stanley was killed, and his daughter joined the police force in his stead.
The clerk went to stop Edith, so she grabbed his rifle out, but dropped it on the floor, so Harkness picked it up. Harkness aimed the boomerang at the clerk, and was told by his mother to shoot, but he could not do it, and instead shot the window. The police arrived and arrested Edith, and as she was escorted to a car, Harkness apologized for missing, but she stated that he never missed. Now on his own, Harkness did get to go to high school, but he never finished. However, he continued to possess his nature ability for marksmanship, becoming most proficient with with boomerang's
Joining S.H.I.E.L.D.[]
Recruited by Nick Fury[]
- "Fury helped me set this up when I joined. He kept it off S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files."
- Digger Harkness[src]
In 2004, Harkness was hand-picked by Nick Fury for his skills, becoming one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s most skilled agents. Harkness served in S.H.I.E.L.D. together with his colleague, named Laura, whom he eventually married. When she retired, Fury, the only one Harkness told of his relationship with Laura, excluded her from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files in order to protect them, as well as setting up a farmhouse for the couple in Iowa. Digger and Laura had two children, Cooper and Lila, who were raised in secrecy at the farmhouse. During one of his missions for S.H.I.E.L.D., Harkness had been targeted for assassination by Marcus Scarlotti, who came closer than anyone else to killing Barton, although he had still failed. Captain Boomerang was tasked with tracking down an assassin, known as the Black Widow, who had recently appeared on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar as a potential threat to global security. Captain Boomerang was assigned to Russia, where he would carry out the assassination of Black Widow. However, once Captain Boomerang had tracked down Black Widow and confronted her, he saw her true potential and made a decision to let her live. Black Widow provided S.H.I.E.L.D. with the information about the Red Room, a clandestine organization that operated using Black Widows, which forced her to work for them, so Captain Boomerang was assigned on the operation to take down the Red Room together with Black Widow.
Media[]
Appears in Thor, The Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron,Captain America: Civil War,Avengers: Endgame,Black Widow