He put an ad in the paper that attracted successful yuppies, whom he used to do his bidding by giving them Velocity 9 so they could perform high speed crimes. However, these junkies aged at magnificent rates and suffered strokes very easily. Savage wished to use the heroin distribution network of mob boss Nick Bassaglia to distribute Velocity 9 to lawyers and stockbrokers, hoping to gain financial control of New York. However, Flash, who had gone looking for Bassaglia after he was kidnapped by Savage, was injected with Velocity 9. After giving him a short spurt of incredible speed, it took away his powers. Hoping that a second dose would make him another one of his junkies, Savage told Dr. Conrad Bortz to inject the Flash, who instead injected Savage, who ran away. He reappeared later, wanting money to leave the country. This money he attempted to acquire by kidnapping Rosie, the daughter of Wally's landlord, Mr. Gilchrist, with a ransom of five million dollars. He set many traps for the Flash, who was looking for Rosie, that led him to Barry Allen's grave, where Rosie was being kept. However, throughout all of this, Savage never showed his face. He is one of the main villains in the "JLA: Year One" storyline, working against the recently formed JLA, and harboring a deep hatred towards superheroes and the invading alien Appellaxians. During one confrontation with the aliens, Savage claims to have designed Stonehenge itself, which the aliens have just partially demolished. Savage also mentions that he shut down the Justice Society with "a few well-placed senators". Ultimately, Savage's enemy the Immortal Man erased himself from existence to save the world during the "Crisis on Infinite Earths", and Mitch Shelley, the Resurrection Man, an amnesiac with similar powers which actually came from nanobots, took over as Savage's nemesis. However, Savage's list of foes is not limited to those two characters. Having lived so long, Savage has butted heads with possibly every single hero featured in the DC Universe, most notably the Justice Society of America and the Justice League of America. Original Green Lantern Alan Scott (in comics, his very first opponent) has been portrayed as one of Savage's main enemies, as well as the original Flash, Jay Garrick. It has been revealed that Savage refers to Hawkman—who has been reincarnated for a few millennia—as "the cockroach". At present, in the DC Universe, Savage is about 54,001 years old, although different numbers have been given in the past, from one million years in his first depiction, to 31,637 years in recent issues of "JSA: Classified".