MANTICORE

PERSONAL DATA

HISTORY

His real name is Cedrick Vandergauss; at least that's what the people at the orphanage in Paris told him it was. Cedrick himself knew nothing about who his parents are or where he was really from. At the age of 10 he ran away from the orphanage and made his way to Marseilles in the south of France. There he was able to survive on the street by begging and picking pockets of tourists. The young boy's success as a pickpocket brought him to the attention of Jacques La Main Gauche. Jacques controlled a group of young thieves that operated in Marseilles and, recognizing the boy's talent, quickly recruited him into the gang. It soon became apparent to Jacques that his new recruit was wasting his talent performing simple pick pocketing so he took the boy under his wing. Under Jacques' tutelage young Cedrick learned quickly and by his early teens was one of the most accomplished thieves and spies operating along the Mediterranean. Cedrick's skills were much in demand and, with Jacques as his agent, he began to work for more and more prominent clients. Initially Cedrick had been spying on rival street and criminal gangs but now found himself operating increasingly in corporate and government circles.

Cedrick's stealth and martial arts skills did not go unnoticed. Agents of the World Crime League began to take an interest in the young protégé. Working through intermediaries the WCL agents hired Cedrick to infiltrate the offices of a major corporation and steal information on the company's president. What Cedrick did not know was that the agents were watching him. Inside the corporate office building Cedrick was attacked by a masked martial artist. Skilled as he was, Cedrick was no match for the master he was facing. When he regained consciousness Cedrick found himself locked in a cell, where he was confronted by the masked man who had defeated him. The man removed his mask and introduced himself as Shoji Itano, a Kenjutsu master and loyal servant of the World Crime League. Shoji told Cedrick that the last assignment had been a test set up by the World Crime League and that the young man passed. Cedrick was offered a position within the World Crime League and was told they would continue his training to realize his full potential. Seeing this as an opportunity to further excel in his current field Cedrick agreed and was taken to the island nation of Sabah in the South Pacific, the home base of the World Crime League.

In Sabah, Cedrick began rigorous training in martial arts under the tutelage of Shoji and other League agents. He was also taught a variety of espionage-related skills, including computer hacking and disguise. As his training progressed, Cedrick began to manifest metahuman powers, including enhanced agility and limited psychokinetic abilities. The WCL moved Cedrick into a more advanced training regimen, one reserved for those destined to become members of the League's Warrior Elite. It was during this advanced training that Cedrick earned his new name: Manticore.

As his formal training ended Manticore was sent on missions for the League and, though his powers and physical skills seem to indicate a strength as a spy, thief or enforcer, it was infiltration missions that held the most interest for the young man. The prospect of assuming a new identity, a new life, to infiltrate a company or other organization held a strange fascination for Manticore and he reveled in the missions that allowed him to use these abilities. It was on one of these infiltration missions that Manticore's life changed forever.

While infiltrating German hi-tech firm, Manticore struck up a friendship with one of the senior executives. The new life he had built for the mission became increasingly intoxicating to Manticore and he began to lose himself in his adopted role. He even began a relationship with his new friend's secretary and founnd himself falling in love with her. To prolong the mission Manticore began making up excuses to keep from having to complete it. Eventually the World Crime League tired of the excuses and ordered Manticore to abort the mission and to kill the company executive he had befriended. Up to this point, Manticore had never had to kill anyone. Even on his enforcer missions he had never had to resort to lethal force. Now he was not only being asked to kill for the first time, but also to kill someone he considered a friend.

While trying to decide on a course of action, Manticore was approached by his lover who told him she had discovered some information that seemed to show that her boss, Manticore's friend and now target, was embezzling funds from the company. Manticore investigated this claim on his own and made a shocking discovery. His "friend" was actually an agent of the World Crime League. Not only that, but he was also one of Manticore's childhood friends from his days in Marseilles. Confronting the executive with this newfound knowledge, Manticore was horrified when his friend turned on him and tried to kill him. It appeared that Manticore's "friend" was operating on instructions similar to Manticore's own, namely to eliminate his friend. Reeling from the double-shock of his friend's betrayal and the knowledge that the League had ordered him killed, Manticore was barely able to defend himself. As the pitched battle between the two drug on, World Crime League agents who had been monitoring the situation stepped in to end things by firing a missile into the upper floor office where the two were fighting. Only his superhuman reflexes allowed Manticore to escape the explosion. Knowing the League was still after him, Manticore siphoned off as much money as he could from the accounts the League set up for him and fled Germany, leaving behind a short message to his lover, who he was not even sure survived the explosion.

After several months on the run across Europe, Manticore learned of a battle in Superior City in America where several members of the World Crime League's Warrior Elite were defeated by a local super-hero team. Deciding that any place where the League suffered a defeat like that was probably a safe place to be, Manticore made his way to the U.S. and eventually to Superior City. Once in the city, Manticore began to set up a new identity for himself and in the process he discovered what appeared to be the perfect cover, an abandoned detective agency with a partially created false identity for one of its employees. The detective agency was in fact the one formed by Enforcers of Justice members Surge and ArcAngel in their civilian identities. The agency had been abandoned after Surge was injured and ArcAngel had left the city suddenly. The partial false identity was the "Ray Chandler" name that Surge had been using until he cleared his real name. Manticore adopted the "Ray Chandler" identity and reopened the agency. His use of the agency brought him to the attention of the rest of the Enforcers of Justice, which eventually led to Manticore joining the team.

Early in his tenure with the team Manticore found himseld transported to another world with his teammate Blur where they remained alongside the then-missing Enforcer Renegade for several months before being rescued. Returned to Superior City, Manticore continued to work with the Enforcers as well as on his own. Eventually the World Crime League discovered his presence in the city and made an attempt to retrieve Manticore but failed. Later his use of the Ray Chandler identity was exposed so Manticore abandoned it in favor of his new identity as police detective Jeremy Horne. In this identity and his costumed one, Manticore dedicated himself to stopping organized crime in Superior City. Manticore fought alongside the Enforcers to thwart the assault on Superior City by the army of super-villains assembled by Carnage. Shortly after this he and the rest of the team were in involved in a series of time travel adventures.

When a major Gang War broke out between the various organized crime factions in Superior City the Enforcers got involved and eventually uncovered that the war was part of a complex plot by the World Crime League to resurrect their dead leader Shiwan Xan. During the confrontation with the World Crime League and the newly-resurrected Xan, Manticore learned that his recruitment by the League had been no accident. Manticore was in truth the produce of a project called "Shining Path", a eugenics program designed to produce metahuman warriors. Not only that, but the children who were born as a result of the project had all been fathered by Shiwan Xan himself. Manticore was not only a son of the leader of the League, but many of the League's Warrior Elite whom he had battled alongside and against were in fact his half-siblings. The Gang War was eventually stopped by the Enforcers and their allies and the World Crime League driven from the city, but with Shiwan Xan still alive and once more at the head of that organization. Manticore has chosen to leave the Enforcers and has joined up with the hero Yellow Flame, another child of Shiwan Xan and one who has dedicated his life to stopping his father's tyranny. Together the two plan on defeating their father and ending the World Crime League once and for all.

POWERS & WEAPONS

Manticore is a mutant with superhuman agility and limited telekinetic abilities. For now, Manticore's telekinetic abilities manifest in the forms of martial arts weapons. Due to his training he can focus his powers to create a telekinetic katana or a bow that fires "arrows" of telekinetic force. Manticore has been practicing to create other telekinetic shapes, the most common he attempts is a force field. Thanks to his extensive training with the World Crime League, Manticore is a master at Jeet Kune Do, an accomplished actor and master of disguise and a highly skilled computer hacker. Even before his time with the World Crime League, Manticore was a skilled pickpocket and thief, and he has recently begun training as a detective.

Warp Zone | DC Heroes | New Enforcers of Justice | Manticore