STRONGHOLD

HISTORY

Stronghold is a maximum security metahuman penitentiary run by the Department of Extranormal Operations (DEO). The facility is buried in the side of a mountain in the Wallowa Range in northwestern Oregon, with a security perimeter extending out for five miles in all directions to keep anyone unauthorized from approaching the prison.

While a relatively new facility compared to Slabside, Belle Reve, Iron Heights, and other prisons used to house metahuman criminals, Stronghold has not had trouble filling its holding cells. The prison serves to hold prisoners from all across the Western United States, and its proximity to a locus of superhuman activity like Superior City means Stronghold is never lacking for new inmates.

The only major incident to have occurred at the prison was when the inmates were infected with a variant of Joker venom, which led to a major riot and mass breakout. DEO forces were able to get control with the help of the New Enforcers of Justice and the escapees were eventually all recaptured and incarcerated in Stronghold once more.

FACILITIES

The three levels of holding cells are designed especially for inmates with metahuman powers. Force fields, specially reinforced materials, and a variety of more exotic technologies are all put to use in containing the prisoners and preventing them from using their powers against prison staff or to escape. The prison also contains a mess hall, though again one designed with metahuman prisoners in mind, as well as medical and psychiatric facilities. Rehabilitation efforts are made, though there have been few successes and the prison remains focused more on containment than treatment. Perimeter defenses include a sophisticated array of sensors as well as non-lethal weaponry for deterring intruders and disabling potential escapees. Given the possibility of assault on the prison to liberate inmates who are connected to powerful criminal organizations, Stronghold is also equipped with military grade defensive weaponry.

POPULATION

The prison staff consists of about a dozen administrative staff, including the warden; two dozen scientific and engineering support and research specialists in metahuman abilities and containment; a medical team of about twenty; and a security force of twenty regular guards and ten Checkmate Knights.

Stronghold has the capability to hold approximately fifty inmates. At the time of the Joker incident the following metahuman criminals were incarcerated at Stronghold:

• Astron - an alien would-be conqueror who possesses cosmic energy powers.
• Black Tornado - a superspeedster who spreads a trail of darkness behind him as he runs.
• Capacitor - a bank robber with electrical powers.
• Critical Mass - a former scientist who has become a living black hole, he can generate waves of gravity and has superhuman strength and resistance due to his body's massively increased density.
• Deathbolt
• Enforcers of Injustice - two members of this villainous team are incarcerated at Stronghold:
  • Pscreamer
  • Spectrum
• Friction - he can increase or decrease the force of friction, rendering an object nearly immovable or a surface nearly frictionless.
• Glitter - a professional thief, she can produce light emissions that can blind or hypnotize, or be focused to the intensity of a laser beam.
• Ice Fury - a literal ice queen who uses her power over cold to freeze her victim's blood in their veins.
• Landshark - a cannibalistic predator who stalks his victims by burrowing through the earth beneath them.
• Material Girl - a former fashion designer, she gained the power to manipulate all forms of fabric and used her power to try and murder her competition with designs that could kill at her command.
• Mr. Zero - formerly one of the expendable thugs who used the Chillblaine moniker, this one managed to avoid the usual fate of the others and used his stolen cold gun and other gadgets to try and set himself up as a crime lord in San Francisco.
• Napalm - an arsonist who gained the ability to generate fire from his body.
• New Olympians - associates of Gotham crime boss Maxie Zeus and perennial foes of the Outsiders.
  • Antaeus - possesses super strength that increases when he is connected to the earth.
  • Argus - has remote sensing powers.
  • Diana - an expert archer with unnatural accuracy.
  • Nox - can manifest and manipulate darkness.
  • Proteus - a shapeshifter.
  • Vulcanus - can throw balls of fire.
• Nukewarm - a thief caught in a lab accident that gave him energy powers and a deadly aura thanks to the radioactive chemicals flowing through his bloodstream.
• Pounder - a mob enforcer with superhuman strength.
• Razorback - an assassin with razor-sharp blades embedded in his arms and legs.
• Replay - a thief with limited time travel abilities that allowed him to relive the same 10-minute over and over, giving him opportunities to change his actions of the recent past to aid his capers and escape capture.
• Replica - a thief who used his metahuman ability to split into two identical copies to provide himself with the perfect alibis for his crimes.
• Rough & Tough - identical twin brothers with superhuman strength who hired themselves out as muscle.
• Shatter - a former punk singer, she gained the ability to project destructive beams of sound and went on a destructive rampage in Seattle.
• Siphon - gained the power to absorb the properties of any energy he touched and tried to use his powers to conquer Washington State.
• Sixgun
• Slime - used his metahuman ability to transform into a powerful acidic compound to break into vaults.
• Splinter - has the ability to split his body into multiple smaller versions of himself, which he used to commit a string of robberies in Zenith City.
• Strike Force: Kobra - servants of the international terrorist Kobra.
  • Elemental Woman - has powers similar to the hero Metamorpho to convert her body into different elements, but cannot reshape her form like he can.
  • Planet Master - possesses an array of costumes that can replicate atmospheric conditions of the planets.
  • Zebra-Man - had magnetic powers that allow him to attract or repel metallic objects.
• Thrust - a mercenary with the power of flight and invulnerability.
• Tiffany Jones - a jewel thief, she possesses superhuman abilities of stealth.
• Vulcan - former space pilot who gained heat powers after exposure to intense solar radiation; he was a foe of the Justice Society and most recently worked alongside the Ultra-Humanite.
• Warmonger
• Weasel (II) - a vicious animal-like killer, seemingly part-human, part-weasel; he is possibly one of the exiled Adoax.
• Windchill - she blackmailed victims with the threat of her power to project bone-chilling blasts of intense wind.
• Winter Wolf - a genetically engineered Soviet black ops agent who was placed in suspended animation during the Cold War and then forgotten. When he awakened he was horrified by what Mother Russia had become and vowed to destroy America, which he blames for the fall of the Soviet Union.