J-FORCE

HISTORY

J-Force, short for Justice Force, is a New York-based hero team made up of former members of the New Conglomerate and Ameriforce. Seeking to start a super-hero team that was not beholden to corporate interests like the Conglomerate, billionaire Michael Bennet took the core of his incarnation of the Conglomerate and set them up as an entirely independent team. The fledgling team soon gained several more experienced heroes when the civilian members of Ameriforce, who had grown disillusioned with that government-sponsored team and had quit, signed on. The new team was named Justice Force, shortened to just J-Force by the media after the team's first appearance.

As Justice Inc., the predominant New York-based hero team, began expanding to take on a more global role the team of J-Force has picked up the slack fighting crime in the Big Apple. Since forming J-Force has teamed up with Justice Inc. on several occasions to battle threats that neither team could manage alone.

CYBERHAWK

PERSONAL DATA

HISTORY

Michael Bennett is a billionaire and CEO and majority shareholder of multinational corporation Global Industries. As a child Michael had worked part time in his father's grocery store in small-town New Hampshire. When a Lex-Mart megastore opened outside of town his father's store was driven out of business. Teenage Michael had shown a skill in business and finances, and even managed to help streamline costs at his father's store, but ultimately it was not a match for the anti-competitive methods used by Lex-Mart.

The Bennett family was driven into poverty, forcing Michael to drop out of high school to help support his family. When he was nineteen Michael received a small inheritance from a distant relative, enough to supplement the family while allowing Michael to attend university. Michael completed his GED and was accepted into Hudson University where he graduated with a business degree. His inheritance included some investments that continued to provide Michael with revenue, and he was able to leverage his skills to rapidly increase his own wealth with additional shrewd investments.

Starting with a small services company, Bennett worked his way up through mergers and acquisitions. By his mid-30s Bennett was head of Global Industries, a multinational corporation whose subsidiaries encompassed a wide range of interests. Bennett started taking an interest in super-heroes when a conflict between the New York City based team Justice Inc. and the villainous Ultra-Humanite wound up involving some Global Industries resources due to the Humanite's manipulations. Bennett initially tried to outright take over Justice Inc. by attempting to acquire the corporation that provided financial backing to the team. When that failed Bennett acquired controlling interest in the corporate-sponsored super-team called the Conglomerate, creating a new incarnation directly under his control.

To have a close hand in the running of the New Conglomerate, Bennett worked with engineers at his high-tech subsidiaries to develop and build an advanced suit of powered armor. The finished suit was dubbed the Cyberhawk Armor and was initially worn by a trusted Global employee and military veteran named Bryce Davies. Wearing the armor and his true identity known only to Bennett and a few trusted advisors, Davies became Cyberhawk and served as the field leader of the New Conglomerate.

Bennett got more hands-on when he worked directly with the Conglomerate alongside Justice Inc. to combat the time villain Extant, who was generating time anomalies to produce a massive temporal explosion that would destroy New York City. In order to prevent the explosion a crude time machine in the form of a Time Gate was created and the heroes, including Bennet, traveled to different time periods to deal with the sources of the anomalies. Bennett was with a group that went to the future where they succeeded in stopping the anomaly in that era; however during their return to the present the Time Gate was disrupted and Bennett was struck with a massive surge of time energy.

The energy split Bennet into seven versions of himself and scattered them through time. One version successfully arrived in the present, one went to the future, and the other five were sent to different periods in the past. It was not apparent to the other heroes what had happened, as Bennett appeared fine. However, with concentration Bennett realized he could communicate with the other parts of himself in the different time periods. In the past he began laying the foundation that would generate the wealth that the younger Michael had inherited from a distant relative, now revealed to be entirely due to the actions of his past selves. Bennett's future self had arrived in an era that was a post-holocaust world recovering from a nuclear war. Due to this he was not able to learn much of his own fate in the present, but Bennett's future self was still able to acquire details of some surviving future technology which he shared with his past and present selves. Bennett would use some of this future knowledge as a basis for new advancements to be developed by Global Industries and its subsidiaries, further increasing his wealth.

Inspired by these events, Bennett decided to take a more active role as a hero. Bryce Davies, the original wearer of the Cyberhawk armor, had been injured helping fight off a recent alien invasion so Bennett decided to don the armor himself and become the new Cyberhawk. He divided his time between continuing to run his business empire and acting as a hero alongside the New Conglomerate. Bennett kept the existence of his past and future selves a secret until it was revealed during the Revelations crisis. During a confrontation with the Antithesis the evil entity psychically attacked Bennett, who had been able to resist the creature's telepathic influence thanks to psionic shields in the Cyberhawk armor. The attack destroyed Bennett's mind, but only that of his present self. Thanks to the existence of his other selves his present day self was able to completely recover from what otherwise would have left him a vegetable, but as a result his secret was revealed.

Soon after, with the help of Justice Inc. and allies of theirs with more time travel expertise, Bennett's other selves were reintegrated with his present day self, however he still retained the memory of all that his other selves had learned and experienced in the other time periods. The New Conglomerate disbanded around this time, but a short time later Bennett would form the new super hero team Justice Force (aka J-Force) with former members of the New Conglomerate and Ameriforce. Bennett continues to divide his time between running Global Industries and acting as a super hero as part of J-Force.

POWERS & WEAPONS

Michael Bennett is highly intelligent and an expert in the world of business and high finance. He has a gift for coming up with or identifying ideas that can be developed into valuable technologies or similar products and making sure these reach their full potential. While he has little practical experience with building technology, he has a background in engineering which he applies to his natural gift that has led him to conceiving of many technological breakthroughs that the skilled technicians at his various companies are able to then help materialize.

As Cyberhawk, Bennett uses an advanced suit of powered armor that he helped develop. The Cyberhawk suit enhances the wearer's reaction time and provides superhuman strength, and is capable of rocket powered flight at 500 miles per hour. The armor itself is strong enough to shrug off the damage from automatic weapons fire and small explosives. Offensive weapons built into the suit include mini-rocket launchers, laser blasters, and razor-sharp blades on the forearms, lower legs, and along the edge of the suit's wings. The entire suit is powered by an advanced micro-fusion reactor system which can provide short-term bursts of power to augment the suit's strength, flight or energy blaster capabilities. The Cyberhawk suit has built-in encrypted radio communications, radar, telescopic vision, enhanced hearing, thermal and nightvision capabilities, and can provide a fully sealed environment to the wearer for up to an hour with the built-in air supply.

Bennett keeps himself in reasonably good physical condition and has had some martial arts training. He has also received training in the flight and weapons systems of the Cyberhawk armor from the suit's former wearer, Bryce Davies. As an aftereffect of his time-travel accident Bennett retains his memories of existing in different time periods, giving him an in-depth understanding of each of the specific time periods he briefly existed in.

STARBURST

PERSONAL DATA

HISTORY

Jennifer Cray's father was an American diplomat and her mother came from a well-connected Washington DC family, so it was a surprise when Jennifer chose to study science rather than something that would lead to a career in government. Jennifer was working on her Masters in Physics when late one night, in the middle of one of her experiments with a new advanced type of laser, there was a massive power outage. Plunged into darkness Jennifer was panicking about how to safely close down her experiment with no power and unable to see anything. When something slowly started to illuminate the lab Jennifer was shocked to realize the light was coming from her. Calming herself, Jennifer safely shut down the rest of her experiment then left the darkened building.

Outside, Jennifer could see that the blackout appeared to be widespread and that people were starting to panic. Wearing a hoodie and donning a crude mask to hide her identity, Jennifer went out into the night to see if she could be of help with her strange new abilities. Over the course of the evening she stopped some looters, saved some people from muggers, and rescued a person from a fiery car wreck; slowly discovering the extent of her newfound powers over the course of the night.

Jennifer spent the next few days trying to figure out where her powers had come from. Her experiment had been nothing special, so she doubted it had played any role, and in the end she had to give up. Her investigation had helped her refine her knowledge of what she could do, but Jennifer remained frustrated that she could not explain how she had gained these abilities. Instead Jennifer began to ponder what she should do with her powers. She had felt good about how she had helped so many people during the blackout, but she was not certain if she wanted to become a costumed super hero.

In the end the decision was taken out of Jennifer's hands. Early on she confided in her parents, telling them what had happened, and when her father got wind that the government was forming a public super hero team he passed on Jennifer's name to the people behind the new initiative. So it was that Jennifer Cray wound up working for the government after all, being reluctantly recruited as a super hero in the new government-sponsored team called Ameriforce. Wanting to keep her real name a secret, Jennifer was provided with a costume to conceal her identity and given the code name Starburst.

As Starburst, Jennifer battled several superhuman threats alongside Ameriforce. The team would occasionally work with other super hero teams when there was a danger greater than either group could handle on their own. One of these teams was Justice, Inc., something that would soon prove significant to Starburst. Jennifer developed a close relationship with some members of Justice, Inc. and they would occasionally call on her for assistance. It was during one of these adventures alongside that Jennifer learned something that would answer some of her questions about her origins.

On this adventure Jennifer learned that her mother had been adopted, and that her birth mother, and therefore Jennifer's maternal grandmother, was in reality Danette Reilly, who had operated as the second Firebrand during the Second World War as part of the wartime All-Star Squadron. Danette had possessed fire-based superhuman powers, meaning that Jennifer had very likely inherited the metagene from her and that would explain why Jennifer herself had developed powers (though what had triggered those powers to manifest remained a mystery).

Jennifer also learned that the reason her mother had been put up for adoption was because she was illegitimate, the result of an affair Danette had with her wartime colleague the Tarantula, aka writer Jonathan Law. This led to a period of awkwardness with some of Justice Inc., specifically the hero named Tarantula, who was the grandson of the original. The two had flirted with each other on some adventures, so learning that they were actually cousins caused a little distress for both of them; though it also served as a source of amusement for Tarantula's teammate Quiksilver who would use the revelation to tease the former on several occasions.

Starburst continued to serve as a member of Ameriforce, though Jennifer was always uncertain about some of the covert assignments the team was sometimes dispatched on by the government. When one of these assignments nearly resulted in a war breaking out, Starburst and the other civilian members of Ameriforce chose to quit the team. A short time later she and her former teammates were invited by Michael Bennett to join his new hero team, Justice Force. Having grown accustomed to the role of super hero, Jennifer decided to accept the offer and continues to operate as Starburst.

POWERS & WEAPONS

Starburst possesses several light and energy-based powers. She can project light in a variety of forms, from gentle illumination to a blinding flash, and can focus the light she projects into a powerful laser beam. Starburst can also move at superhuman speeds, her body supercharged with energy; and by directing some of that energy she is able to propel herself through the air as well. Starburst also has protection from some forms of light and some other wavelengths of electromagnetic energy; her body is resistant to heat and her eyesight is able to adapt to a variety of light conditions, enabling her to see in light that would blind a normal person.

Jennifer is a trained physicist, having completed her Masters, and she is working on her Doctorate part-time. She is also a quite acrobatic, having competed in gymnastics while at public school; a skill that she puts to use with her flight and superhuman speed. Jennifer also received basic self-defense training in hand-to-hand combat while part of Ameriforce.

HARDLINE

PERSONAL DATA

HISTORY

Armando Ramone is the younger brother of deceased Justice League member Vibe. Like his older brother Paco, Armando had been part of a street gang in Detroit. When his brother was killed on a mission with the Justice League, Armando decided to leave the gang and try and follow in his late brothers' footsteps as a hero. Armando revealed that he had similar powers to his brother and was soon recruited into the original incarnation of the corporate-backed super-hero team the Conglomerate, where he took the name Reverb.

Reverb served with several incarnations of the Conglomerate over the next several years, eventually changing his heroic codename to Hardline. When the latest version disbanded, Hardline and several of his teammates followed the team leader Cyberhawk over to the new independent hero team that the latter was forming, Justice Force.

POWERS & WEAPONS

Armando possesses the power to project powerful vibratory blasts in the form of shock waves that can shatter stone. He does not possess his brother's artistic talents, but has some combat skills learned from his time running with a gang in Detroit.

PULSAR

PERSONAL DATA

HISTORY

Academy Award-nominated actor Brent Nicholson was a Hollywood A-lister who had gotten his start as an action star before breaking into more dramatic movie roles. While filming on location in Death Valley, one night Brent was struck by a strange beam of energy from the sky, the origin of which has yet to be identified. The beam transformed Brent, giving him superhuman powers.

While initially uninterested in using his powers as either a hero or a villain, Brent was approached by the US government to be part of a public super-hero team they were forming. They wanted a public figure like Brent to be one of the prominent members of the team to help the team be accepted by the American people. Brent agreed and adopted the costumed identity of Pulsar; he did not keep his true identity secret, instead announcing to the public his new heroic career and involvement in the team at the press conference where Ameriforce was unveiled to the public.

As part of Ameriforce, Pulsar participated in several public missions. Most of these were against superhuman threats where the government chose to dispatch Ameriforce, sometimes because there were no other hero teams able to deal with the threat and other times because specific government facilities were under immediate threat. The team was also occasionally sent on more covert missions to help defend American interests, though Pulsar was not always part of these missions due to his higher public profile.

Ameriforce crossed paths with the heroes from Justice Inc. on a few occasions, usually providing assistance during major crises. During the Mageddon crisis, corrupted government figures sent Ameriforce to allegedly defend American interests in South America despite it being a blatant violation of international law. This brought the team into conflict with the Enforcers of Justice, who were attempting to prevent an escalation of hostilities in the region. When the crisis ended most of the civilian members of Ameriforce, including Pulsar, left the team. It was shortly after this that Pulsar and his other former teammates were invited to join Justice Force, an offer he and the others accepted.

POWERS & WEAPONS

The strange beam that struck Brent transformed his body into an energy battery. Pulsar could absorb energy and use it to project energy blasts and fly. His transformed body also had a higher than normal density, which gave him greater resistance to damage, and he could also heal from injuries at several times the rate of a normal human.

Brent is a highly skilled actor and very charismatic, though he could also be somewhat arrogant at times. During his time with Ameriforce he received basic training in hand-to-hand combat and how to operate a variety of land, water, and airborne military vehicles.

ATOMIK

PERSONAL DATA

HISTORY

As seniors in high school, Richard and his cousin John were on a field trip to a S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator when the accelerator destabilized in the middle of an experiment. Lab technicians rushed the students and others to a shelter, with Richard and John holding back to make sure their classmates were clear before racing for the shelter themselves. They made it, but not before being briefly struck by some of the exotic particles leaking from the destabilized accelerator. The pair were checked out by doctors who could find no ill effects from the exposure so Richard and John were sent home with the rest of their class.

In reality the two had been affected by the exposure, but neither realized it for some time. After high school Richard went to art school in New York, graduating and eventually finding work as a graphic designer at an ad firm. He discovered his powers by accident when, short of materials for a project he miraculously discovered some as if it had appeared out of thin air. When the art project he'd used the new material on later fell apart when the material vanished a few hours later Richard was at first puzzled, then discovered that it really had appeared out of thin air and that he was the one that had done it, transforming the air molecules into the rare bonding agent he had needed.

Richard experimented further and discovered his energy projection powers. He tried to keep it a secret but unfortunately for him the explosive nature of some of his tests of his abilities attracted the attention of Federal authorities tasked with monitoring metahuman activity. The authorities confronted Richard, who admitted that he had powers. The American government was at the time in the process of creating a new public-facing hero team and so they offered Richard a position on the team. The government created the costumed identity of Atomsmasher for Richard, naming him after particle accelerator accident that had given him his powers, and he joined the new sanctioned hero team Ameriforce. As part of his deal with the government Richard received guarantees that they would not go after his cousin John, who at the time had not shown any indication of having any metahuman abilities.

While serving with Ameriforce, Richard was allowed to retain his civilian identity so continued in his job as a graphic designer, though he switched to being a freelancer to better cover his disappearances when operating as Atomsmasher. Atomshmasher served with Ameriforce for several years as the team battled various superhuman threats to the United States, occasionally crossing paths with other super hero teams like Justice Inc. On occasion Ameriforce would be sent on more covert missions, and some of the actions required on these did not always sit right with Richard, but he still continued to be a member of the team as he felt the good they did made up for the occasional shady activity.

The final straw came when Ameriforce was sent on a mission to South America that nearly resulted in a war. Despite some mitigating causes due to the mission's relation to the Mageddon crisis the civilian members of Ameriforce were left disillusioned and they all left the team. While trying to decide what to do next the now-former members of Ameriforce, including Atomsmasher, were approached by Michael Bennett and invited to join his new team, Justice Force. All three agreed and Richard joined the team using the new code name of Atomik.

POWERS & WEAPONS

The exposure to exotic energies gave Richard the ability to absorb and generate large amounts of energy. With the generated or absorbed energy Richard, as Atomik, can fly, project powerful energy blasts and, most importantly, affect matter at a quantum level. By channeling energy into an object, Atomik can change the atomic and molecular makeup of the object and can also reshape it into different forms.

The complexity of the new form is based on the amount of energy Atomik uses, his level of concentration, and his level of knowledge of the desired target structure. As he has no formal scientific or engineering training, Richard usually keeps the transformations simple. Some of his preferred tactics include transforming his opponent's weapons into a harmless form, transforming obstacles into a gas or liquid form so it no longer obstructs him or his allies, or conjuring up simple forms from the air to create barriers or shields. The changes to the molecular structure and shape of objects are only temporary. The energy that forces and maintains the changes fades within two hours if not actively maintained by Atomik and the object reverts to its original composition and shape.

Richard is a reasonably talented artist, and received basic self-defense training in hand-to-hand combat during his time with Ameriforce. Richard is also a skilled driver, having taken up amateur auto racing as a hobby in his spare time.

ECHO

PERSONAL DATA

HISTORY

Terri Eckhart was a host and VJ (video jockey) on one of Global Broadcasting Systems cable music channels and was an aspiring singer when she was recruited into becoming a member of the original incarnation of the corporate-sponsored super-hero team the Conglomerate. Terri has never disclosed the origins of her metahuman powers, and up to her recruitment by the Conglomerate had mostly kept her powers a secret. It is not known how the Conglomerate learned of Terri's powers, but it is possible that team leader Booster Gold might have been aware of them due to his knowledge of future events.

Terri remained a member through most of the later incarnations of the Conglomerate, operating under the code name Echo but not keeping her true identity a secret. She used the corporate connections membership gave her to launch a moderately successful singing career on the side. When the last version of the Conglomerate disbanded, Echo agreed to join former team backer Michael Bennett (who also operated as a member of the Conglomerate as Cyberhawk) when he decided to form a privately-funded non-profit super-hero team he called Justice Force. Echo still operates as a hero as part of J-Force while trying to revive her singing career and has been auditioning for several Broadway musicals thanks to the team's base of operations being in New York City.

POWERS & WEAPONS

Echo possesses the power to alter vectors, meaning she can change the direction and intensity of any moving force. Echo primarily uses this power defensively, deflecting incoming attacks such as bullets, though her power is equally effective against energy-based attacks. She will often attempt to redirect the attacks such that they are reflected back on the attacker. Terri has also learned to use her power on gravity, enabling her to appear to lift and throw heavy objects when she is in fact changing the direction the force of gravity is acting against the object on. She can use a similar effect to fly. Echo continues to refine her control over her power, with her newest effort being bending light around herself to render herself invisible.

Terri is a moderately skilled singer and musician, with most of her success in her music career helped by heavy post-production on her songs. She has been practicing and hopes that landing a prominent role in a musical will help quiet her critics.

AMPLIFIER

PERSONAL DATA

HISTORY

Alexis and her brother Darren grew up in a religious family in a small town in Virginia. Both children were talented musically and were members of their church choir. When they were young teenagers they were performing at the church when both their metagenes activated spontaneously and their powers emerged. The churchgoers, including their parents, were terrified and, claiming the two had been cursed by the Devil, drove the 14 year-old Darren and 13 year-old Alexis out of town.

The two scrounged money and were able to buy bus tickets to get them as far as New York City, where they were forced to live on the streets and use their powers to steal to survive. After a year on the streets the pair were approached by the villain Thrasher, who was recruiting for a music-themed villain group and had heard of the two young metahumans. With the promise of food and shelter, Alexis and Darren took up Thrasher on his offer and became members of the first incarnation of the Backbeat. Alexis was called Amplifier and Darren was given the codename Video.

As part of the Backbeat the two participated in a series of robberies, though both were reluctant criminals at best. Eventually the Backbeat's crimes attracted the attention of the super-hero team Justice Inc. and the two teams battled. During the fight several bystanders were endangered and both Alexis and Darren broke off from fighting with the heroes to help protect the innocent people from harm. After Thrasher and the rest of the Backbeat were defeated the hero Quiksilver, having seen how the siblings had chosen to protect the bystanders, decided to let them go free rather than hand them over to the police with the rest of the villains.

Quiksilver's teammate Tarantula let his friend and former Justice Society member Sandy Hawkins know about Alexis and Darren and they were invited to come stay with him. Sandy had begun training super-powered kids in how to use their abilities and the two teens accepted his offer. They became part of the group of young metahumans that had started calling themselves the Justice Subsidiary, so named because of their association with Justice Inc. As part of this group the two found a new home and began to develop into true super heroes, fighting the occasional threat alongside their new friends, often in support of Justice Inc.

The experience greatly increased Alexis' confidence in herself and her abilities. This had the unfortunate effect of putting some distance between she and her brother, as Darren had seen himself as Alexis' protector for much of their youth and felt he was no longer needed. His attitude was not helped when Alexis began dating their teammate Torch. Eventually the group's mentor chose to join the newest incarnation of his former team, the Justice Society of America. By this point he felt that his charges had learned to control their powers and so the Justice Subsidiary effectively disbanded.

For a short time Alexis found herself on a team called Generation 2000 alongside her brother and Torch, but eventually she and Darren left and they went their separate ways. Alexis tried to settle down into what she thought was a normal life, but it proved to be an ill fit. When she was approached by Michael Bennett and offered a place in his new hero team, Alexis decided to pull her costume out of storage and see if being a hero as Amplifier was what had been missing.

POWERS & WEAPONS

As Amplifier, Alexis can use her voice as a weapon, which can produce a powerful wave of sound that projects like a beam of force. At its peak, Amplifier's sonic beam has been seen to shatter solid stone and crack reinforced steel. Amplifier can also generate tornado strength winds that she can project from her hands. Thanks to the training she received while part of the Justice Subs she has learned to use this ability to lift herself off the ground and fly. Alexis is also immune to the illusion effect her brohter Video's powers produce.

Alexis is a talented singer and dancer, skills she has refined over the years. She received self-defense training with the Justice Subs leaning into her dancing skill to become skilled in Capoeira. In order to help survive on the streets, Alexis became an adept pickpocket and skilled in moving stealthily as well as escaping from ropes and handcuffs.

Warp Zone | DC Heroes | Heroes | J-Force