RENEGADERENEGADE
History:
While most of the world thought him dead, Jonathan Law Jr. (a.k.a. The Tarantula) quietly established a new life for himself as bookstore owner Joshua Chambers in Superior City. Once settled into his new life Joshua, along with his lover Katherine (Arachnia) Robbins in her new identity as his wife Kaitlin, discovered that it was not easy to give up their careers as heroes and both created new heroic identities for themselves in their new home. Joshua redesigned his old Tarantula equipment (removing any obvious spider-related items) and adopted the name Renegade, based on half-remembered stories from his childhood. To keep others from suspecting the two new heroes were connected Kaitlin decided to use the code-name Solitaire and the two debuted a month apart.
Several months later Renegade and Solitaire teamed up with Zodiak and several members of Justice Inc. (who were unaware Renegade was their former teammate) to battle Death Spider, the reason Jonathan Law Jr. had to let the world think he was dead. After defeating Death Spider and his allies Renegade revealed to the members of Justice Inc. present; Mindblade, Cat, Metalmorph, Torch, and ArcAngel; who he really was and they agreed to keep his secret.
Shortly after the battle with Death Spider, while investigating a drug-smuggling operation, Solitaire was brainwashed by agents of the Silver Path. When Renegade went after the Silver Path he soon found himself joined by a teenage psychic, and his former teammate ArcAngel, along with an amnesiac woman that ArcAngel had rescued from the Silver Path and who had similar cybernetic powers to the Path's agents. After the four rescued Solitaire and thwarted the Silver Path's major drug operation, they then found themselves involved in a plot by Death Spider to take revenge on Renegade and Zodiak.
After Death Spider's plan was thwarted an alien calling herself Mercy, who claimed to be looking for Renegade and ArcAngel's former teammate Nemesis, arrived in Superior City. By this time ArcAngel had temporarily relocated to Superior City from New Orleans, as had the amnesiac woman, who went by the name Mystère when using her powers in public, and Renegade proposed that they form a permanent team based in the city. Recalling the first hero group he had belonged to as Tarantula, Renegade called the team the new Enforcers of Justice. While Renegade was content in his new identity, Solitaire was not. Reasoning that since Death Spider knew where they were anyway, there was no point in her maintaining the charade and went back to her real name, leaving Renegade to return to her old job as a zoologist in San Diego. Renegade was disappointed, but turned his attention to the newly formed team to distract himself from the loss.
The new public profile of the team led Renegade to learn that the childhood stories he had taken his name from were based on a real vigilante named Renegade who had operated in Superior City in the late 1800's. That Renegade had in turn inspired another one in the 1940s, who had been a member of Superior City's resident team of mystery-men, the Adventurers. This made Joshua the third Renegade to operate in Superior City. When his costume and much of his equipment was destroyed during a confrontation with the Ultra-Humanite, Renegade designed himself a new outfit and gear modeled on the two-gun, trenchcoat-wearing theme of the two previous Renegades.
At the urging of his employees at his bookstore, Joshua decided to take the store,
Erratic Thought Patterns, on-line. The creation of erraticthoughtpatterns.com has quickly
turned Joshua into a dot-com millionaire. Things have not gone so well for his heroic life though.
The Enforcers have suffered through a string of defeats and have lost several members due to injury,
personal problems, and death. Just recently Renegade learned that Arachnia had disappeared, but just
before he could set out to help look for her he and the other Enforcers were drawn into a fight with
members of the World Crime League. During the battle Renegade was attacked by
Abyss, who used his powers to trap Renegade in another dimension. Trapped on
Otherworld, Renegade sought out the rebel
forces that he and the original Enforcers had helped years
earlier, hoping they could find a way to get him home.
While Renegade was missing, Zodiak came to Superior City and began posing as the missing hero on some missions with what was left of the Enforcers. During one of these missions Zodiak was killed, which led the public to believe that Renegade was dead. After several months on Otherworld, Renegade was able to return to Earth with the help of some of his fellow Enforcers. On his return he learned that Zodiak had died but that the body had disappeared. He also learned that his lover, Katherine, had adopted the Tarantula identity. Shortly after his return Renegade was shocked to find himself literally disappearing! Something was affecting the timestream and he was periodically finding himself in a timeline where he did not exist. During the brief periods while in this alternate timeline Renegade was able to discover that in the new history he had not survived his first battle Death Spider. This appeared to be because there was no Zodiak in this new timeline. Realizing this was connnected with the disappearance of Zodiak's body, Renegade eventually discovered that the body had been taken by the Wilde Family and, thanks to advanced technology provided by a mysterious source, had been removed from the Time-Space continuum. Renegade was able to free the body and learned from the 853rd century android Hourman that Zodiak was a temporal anomaly that had to be removed. In order to preserve Zodiak's memory, Renegade had himself merged with his temporal duplicate. The merging corrected the timestream, and also resulted in Renegade having all of Zodiak's memories (including those of his death).
Powers and Abilities:
Renegade possesses no metahuman abilities, but is in excellent physical condition. He is trained to near-Olympic acrobatic ability and is a black belt in Aikido. He is also an expert marksman with several different weapons, especially his custom designed pistols.
In addition to his athletic abilities Renegade also has a vast arsenal of high-tech weapons and tools at his disposal. Originally, Renegade wore an armored costume augmented with several enhancements, many taken from his original Tarantula costume. These enhancements included hydraulic systems in the legs that allowed Renegade to jump over 30 feet and special "wings" that allowed him to glide several hundred yards. His visor was equipped with night-vision capability and his gloves were rigged to deliver powerful electric blasts. Lastly, Renegade's original outfit also included a mini-crossbow mounted on the left glove and several aerodynamic disks he could throw at opponents to stun them. Later, after the death of the time traveling Knight 2146 of the 853rd century Justice Legion K (aka the P.A.L.A.D.I.N. Corps), Renegade "inherited" the Knight's Steed, a futuristic vehicle capable of high-speed flight and also equipped with a camouflage feature that allows it to appear as a normal motorcycle. The Steed has been configured to respond only to Renegade's commands.
After the destruction of his original equipment Renegade adopted a new outfit reminiscent of the two previous Renegades. He replaced the costume with one of his old Tarantula costumes (with a new color scheme). This costume was armored like its predecessor, and possessed the jumping capability, but also had the adhesive capabilities that allow Renegade to climb vertical surfaces. Renegade added a custom trenchcoat that was reinforced with flexible armor, allowing him to use it as a shield. The trenchcoat could also be used as a limited range glider and, thanks to assistance from Metalmorph, contains sophisticated holographic systems that can render the wearer invisible. Renegade's greatest addition to his arsenal is a pair of custom-designed pistols. The pistols are coordinated with a targeting system in Renegade's visor allowing him unprecedented accuracy. Additionally, the pistols fire several different types of rounds, capable of a variety of effects. Alongside blunted stun rounds, Renegade has been seen to fire rounds containing acid, knockout gas, explosives, cryogenic chemicals, and sonic "screamer" rounds. Renegade is also known to pack a variety of other gadgets; like portable hologram projectors, mini-cameras, and tracers; depending on the situation.
Since absorbing Zodiak's memories, Renegade has gained his "brother"'s occult knowledge.
