DER SWASTIKA

PERSONAL DATA

• Alter Ego: unknown
• Occupation: Global Terrorist
• Group Affiliation: The Allies, Vendetta
• Known Relatives: None
• Base of Operations: Bogatago
• Known Aliases: Iron Swastika, Masked Swastika

HISTORY

The Swastika was perhaps the greatest tactical leader the German army had during the Second World War and was perhaps their finest soldier. His original identity was a secret of the Nazi regime, but it is suspected that the Iron Swastika (as he was originally known) was the result of secret experiments to produce a super-soldier, and that he was the only test subject to survive. Clad in what appeared to be a suit of medieval armor and wielding a sword and shield, the Swastika was the scourge of Allied forces in the theaters of Western Europe during the war. He led a team of Axis superhuman operatives called Vendetta.

The Swastika escaped capture after the fall of the Reich and, emerging from hiding in 1948, he formed a new team called the Allies as a means to rebuild his power base and strike back at his enemies. Having lost his armor, or left it behind, he began referring to himself as the Masked Swastika during this period. With the Allies at his side the Swastika amassed a small fortune and for much of the 1950s and into the 1960s devoted his efforts to destabilizing the western powers. Despite having kept himself in good physical condition, age began to catch up to the Swastika by the mid-1960s. The Allies disbanded and the Swastika retreated to a South American hideaway. A little over a decade later the Swastika emerged again, but his efforts to sow global chaos were thwarted by a new generation of heroes, notably the members of the Freedom Brigade. He would recruit a new team of super-powered villains which he named Vendetta after his wartime team, but they would achieve little success.

In the early years of the Modern Age of Heroes the Masked Swastika came out of hiding one more time, again aided by his second Vendetta team. The Swastika and his super-team suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the children of the Freedom Brigade, who had banded together as the Inferior Five. Into his eighties by this point, the benefits of whatever experiments had been performed on him during World War II had long since worn off and the Swastika was facing his own mortality.

Desperate to stay alive, the Swastika dug into old Nazi records where he uncovered research done by German scientists experimenting on concentration camp prisoners. With nothing left to use the Swastika subjected himself to a radical experimental procedure. The procedure restored his body to the condition it had been in his prime during the war. With his new lease on life the Swastika has begun to expand his influence again. From his base in the South American nation of Bogatago, where the military dictatorship has sheltered him for decades, the Swastika is building a network of allies and offering his services in the aim of gaining power and sowing chaos.

POWERS & WEAPONS

The Swastika is in peak physical condition and is a master of modern weaponry. He probably one of the most skilled soldiers in the world, a master tactician trained in the use of all forms of armed and unarmed combat. The Swastika has acquired a new suit of armor and sword, with a stylized Teutonic appearance but made from the most advanced materials available.