NORTHGUARD

HISTORY

Northguard is a super-hero team sponsored and maintained by the Canadian federal government. The creation of the team was a result of the machinations of the entity called OMEGA, who was secretly manipulating governments around the world to create government controlled metahuman teams that it would use to form the core of a global metahuman army. In America, the result of OMEGA's manipulations was the creation of the DMR (Department of Metahuman Resources, now the Department of Extranormal Operations) and its public hero team, Ameriforce. In the United Kingdom the equivalent government organization was MI-7, and in Canada it was Division Zero, part of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Like its American counterpart, Division Zero was also to have a public hero team and the result was the creation of Northguard.

After OMEGA's master plan was exposed the Canadian government quietly dissolved Division Zero. Northguard was then put under the jurisdiction of the newly created Canadian Paranormal Resources Service with the National Security branch. Under this new hierarchy Northguard still performs their original function, handling metahuman and paranormal threats, but the team now also has a new training facility located near Ottawa. This facility serves both to train law enforcement officers to deal with paranormal threats and also as a training center to help new metahumans from across the country learn to control their powers. One of the recent attendees at the training center was Orchid.

In addition to the public team and the training center, Northguard also has several investigators, scientists and field operatives trained to handle the investigation and control of paranormal threats. The main headquarters for the operation is located in Ottawa with field offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax. Northguard has access to some of the most advance equipment the Canadian government has to offer, including computer systems, vehicles, and weaponry. Northguard was originally based out of a massive, maple leaf-shaped aircraft that remained perpetually airborne. The Maple Leaf, as it was sometimes called, was large enough to house its own fighter squadron, and had living quarters and recreation facilities to accommodate over 200 crew and passengers. The airship was refueled and resupplied while still in the air and personnel were transferred aboard via aircraft. The Maple Leaf was destroyed during the war with Imperiex.

CANADIAN SHIELD

PERSONAL DATA

HISTORY

Corporal Peter Clarke was a decorated soldier in the Canadian military and a veteran of several UN Peacekeeping missions when, as punishment for an unrevealed offence, he was stationed to the remote region of Canada's North. While investigating what he thought was a distress call from a bush plane when he came across a glowing meteorite. Falling ill from exposure to the meteor's strange radiation Clarke was taken to a military hospital where, after a few days, he recovered and discovered the radiation had given him super powers. After a battery of tests to determine the extent of Clarke's powers, the government then had to decide what to do with their new "asset". At the same time, the preliminary planning for Northguard was underway and the head of the project, Colonel Storm, requested that Clarke be assigned to the new organization. A code-name and costume were designed for Clarke and he made his public debut as Canadian Shield at the same press conference that announced the creation of Northguard.

Canadian Shield has been the most prominent of Canada's super-heroes since his first appearance, fighting a wide array of threats alone and as a member of Northguard. Originally just the field commander for the costumed team, Canadian Shield has taken over as overall commander of Northguard since Colonel Storm assumed his new duties with Knightwatch.

POWERS & WEAPONS

The strange radiation he was exposed to has given Canadian Shield superhuman strength, speed, reflexes, and resilience. He can also fly at over four times the speed of sound.

SLAPSHOT

PERSONAL DATA

HISTORY

Andrew Cole was a star hockey player in the minor leagues and was destined for a stellar career in the NHL when he discovered he had super powers. Knowing his future as a sports star was ruined Andrew feigned a career-ending injury and began working as a freelance sports writer for various newspapers and magazines, all the while practicing with his new abilities. When the government started looking for metahumans for its new super-hero team Andrew volunteered and was accepted with the code-name Slapshot. Slapshot claims that he gained his powers when the poutine he was eating was struck by lightning, but Northguard scientists believe that he is a mutant whose powers developed naturally, if a little later than most.

POWERS & WEAPONS

Slapshot possesses the ability to control kinetic energy. With this power he can move at superhuman speeds and change the direction and velocity of moving objects. As his control over his power has increased he has learned to perform a variety of stunts with it like accelerating himself to full speed, or coming to a complete stop from a high speed, in an instant; stopping bullets and other projectiles in mid-air; or causing flying opponents to run into obstacles by suddenly changing their direction.

SPIRITHAWK

PERSONAL DATA

HISTORY

A Native archaeologist specializing in the aboriginal peoples of the Pacific Northwest, Raymond Talltrees was exploring the wilderness of the British Columbia interior when he stumbled across thieves pillaging a Native burial site. The thieves chased Raymond down and shot him, leaving him for dead. Delirious from his wounds, Raymond sae a totem pole which he imagined was speaking to him. The totems promised him the powers of the animals they represent and he found himself invigorated. Raymond used these new powers to track down the thieves to their camp and proceeded to trounce them. Days later Raymond awakened in the hospital and the nurse told him that he was flown there by helicopter after he had stumbled, barely alive, into a village. When Raymond told the police about the thieves they informed him that forest rangers found the thieves' campsite near where Ray was found and arrested the thieves, who were all suffering from mysterious injuries. From the description the police give Raymond realized that he did not hallucinate the totem pole and powers. After recovering from his injuries Raymond discovered that by invoking the totem spirit his body would change into that of an idealized Native warrior, complete with the promised powers. After a series of adventures in British Columbia, Raymond joined Northguard.

POWERS & WEAPONS

When he invokes the power of the totems, Raymond is transformed into Spirithawk, a powerful native champion. As Spirithawk he can call on the powers of the animal totems, including super strength (bear totem), flight and keen eyesight (hawk totem), tracking scent (wolf totem), and speed and agility (puma totem). These are only the totem powers that Spirithawk has used to date, there are likely more, as there were more totems in his vision than his powers account for.

FLEUR DE LIS

PERSONAL DATA

HISTORY

The youngest child, and only girl, in a large French Catholic family, Nathalie learned to defend herself at an early age. A bright student and exceptional athlete, Nathalie surprised her teachers and parents when she announced she wanted to be a police officer after high school. She studied criminology and psychology at McGill University and graduated at the top of her class. She joined the Montreal police force and spent several years doing undercover work before being selected by the Quebec government as one of the candidates to be sent to Ottawa to join the newly-formed Northguard (Quebec was the only province to try and control who was on the team, most of the other members were volunteers). In the end, despite other candidates with super-powers and those with political connections, common sense one out and Nathalie was sent to join the team. Originally reluctant, she has since come to accept that she can do a lot of good in her position in Northguard. Nathalie's code-name and costume are partly an acknowledgement of her heritage and partly a result of demands by the Quebec government.

POWERS & WEAPONS

Fleur de Lis has no powers but is an accomplished athlete and detective and has a black-belt in several martial arts. When on an assignment she wears her costume, which is made of a bullet-proof Kevlar-like substance, and carries an array of high-tech James Bond-like gadgets she thinks will be useful.

IMPACT

PERSONAL DATA

HISTORY

Angela and her twin brother David are metahumans, like most of their family. They, and their older brother, are part of the Forces, a large, extended family living in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. and Canada. What makes the Force family special is that most of them possess at least the potential for metahuman powers if not actual powers. Angela's older brother William was the first of the siblings to develop powers and left home when he was 16. When David's powers first manifested a year later he went off to find their brother, leaving Angela, whose powers were only just beginning to develop, at home. It was not long after this that William returned, calling himself Reaper and working with the evil Father Lucifer. Lucifer killed the children's parents and grandmother and planned to sacrifice Angela and the returning David to the demon he served. David's teammates from the Enforcers of Justice arrived in time to save Angela, but David became possessed by the demon and left with Father Lucifer, Reaper, and the rest of Lucifer's servants. Orphaned, and because of her powers, Angela was placed in the custody of Northguard.

After months of practice Angela left Northguard, against their advice, to try and save her brother. By this point the demon had left David's body, but David's soul was still trapped in Hell while his body lay comatose. With the help of Spirithawk, and of Quiksilver, Angela (and Quiksilver) were able to travel to Hell and free David's soul from the clutches of the demon Mellikon. She and David then returned to Northguard, where both are part-time members while they attend university. Angela has adopted the code-name Impact for when she is in costume.

POWERS & WEAPONS

Where her twin brother had control over fire, Angela can control physical force. The various manifestations of this powers include the ability to fly, fire bolts of kinetic force, generate force fields, and Impact even possesses limited telekinesis. Like her brother Impact has a greater endurance and resistance to injury than a normal person. Kinetic attacks like projectiles and hand-to-hand also do less damage to Impact because of her power over physical forces.

FIRESTRIKE

PERSONAL DATA

HISTORY

Firestrike is the twin brother of Impact. Before joining Northguard, Firestrike had been one of the original members of the first Enforcers of Justice. For his full history see his main entry.

POWERS & WEAPONS

See the main entry.

COLONEL STORM

PERSONAL DATA

HISTORY

The details of Justin Storm's military career are classified, but it is believed that he was a member of a top secret Canadian special forces unit. There is even a rumor that he was a spy for Canadian intelligence for a while. When the government was forming Northguard they knew they would a tough, experienced leader to command the team and Colonel Storm's name was at the top of the list. He commanded Northguard from its inception until the creation of the United Nations backed global strike force Knightwatch. At that time he was offered command of this new organization and he accepted. He is still nominally in charge of Northguard, but it is mostly an advisory position and the command of the day-to-day operation of the team has been passed to Canadian Shield.

POWERS & WEAPONS

Colonel Storm has no super powers, but is highly-skilled in several areas. He has received special forces training and is a superb military tactician and leader. If rumors of his career as a spy are true then he would also be skilled in the art of espionage. As commander of Northguard he had access to all that organization's resources and equipment. As the commander of Knightwatch he has access to an even greater arsenal.

Disclaimer: When I came up with the idea for the Northguard team I needed a good name and used the coolest one I could find, which came from a Canadian comic book of the same name, and which also had a character named Fleur-de-Lys. Both are trademark and copyright Mark Shainblum and Gabriel Morrissette, and Mark has been kind enough to let me use the names on this web site. For more info on the Northguard comic see the Wikipedia article.

Warp Zone | DC Heroes | Northguard