Did He Come To Villainy Late In Life?

From what I can tell, in the current DC Universe, all these superheroes, supervillains, aliens, and so on appeared five years ago. Morrison's Superman is set five years ago. According to Grifter, the first known appearance of the Daemonites was five years ago. I think some of the other titles are set five years ago (Stormwatch? Maybe Justice League?)

Which brings me to Darryl. He was a friend of Mitch Shelly's (the Resurrection Man) father in the Portland rest home where Mitch's father lived out his last years. He was also, if we believe him, a high-end professional supervillain known as the Transhuman. Considering his suit of what appears to be high-powered armor, I'm inclined to take him at his word.

What I'm wondering is how long of a career he could have had. If he popped up five years ago along with all these other guys, he couldn't have been at it more than a couple of years before he retired to the rest home to meet and befriend Mitch's father.

The simplest answer is his career predates all the obvious superhero, paranormal whatever. That he was at it for years before Superman showed up in his farmboy jeans, terrorizing corrupt businessmen. Which would make sense, except I thought DC wanted to set things up so Superman kicked things off again, and it feels a little strange for their to have been costumed supervillain contract killers like the Transhuman and (I'm guessing) Deathstroke already running around. If that kind of criminal activity was already going on when Clark decided to get active, I'd expect him to be dealing with that from the start.

There is the possibility he only started within the last five years, was a huge success, but retired quickly, perhaps because the idea of being a supervillain didn't occur to him until he was fairly old? He'd always been brilliant, but the idea of using his mind to create weapons that would let him kill people other people would pay to have eliminated didn't occur to him until later.

Or. . . he isn't retired at all. He's still active, and got wind of Mitch Shelly being a man wanted by powerful, wealthy people, and he saw it as a big paycheck. Big enough he was willing to play the long game. Move in to a rest home. Befriend Mitch's father. Play up at being a crazy old man who thinks he's a supervillain. Eventually the prodigal son will apear, if only to collect his father's things after his passing. And then, ka-ching!

The other possibility is Darryl just thinks he was a supervillain, but never was, but is smart enough to build a suit that looks like powered armor (and for his sake, facing off with the Body Doubles, it better be functional). Which is probably the most likely possibility. If he was successful and retired, why would he live in that particular rest home? It didn't look that great, as far as those facilities go.