Heroes For Hire

Heroes for Hire (1996)

In 1996, as a consequence of the Onslaught and Heroes Reborn storylines, the Marvel Universe suffered a power vacuum after the Fantastic Four and Avengers were presumed killed. Following up on the status of the Oracle Corporation that Namor had set up in the pages of Namor, Jim Hammond (the Golden Age Human Torch) and Danny Rand decided to set up a new Heroes For Hire organization. Iron Fist recruited Luke Cage for this. Heroes for Hire debuted in 1997, with a core team consisting of Fist, Cage, and an assortment of hangers-on: Black Knight (Dane Whitman), a new White Tiger, Hercules, She-Hulk, Ant-Man (Scott Lang), the original Human Torch, and even Deadpool were included in the cast of the book, though much of the cast rotated in a Defenders-like manner, hired for missions as necessary. Heroes For Hire was written by John Ostrander and illustrated by Pasqual Ferry. It lasted for 19 issues before it was cancelled.

Heroes for Hire (2006)

A new Heroes for Hire series was developed as a spin-off of 2006's Civil War storyline. The book is written by Zeb Wells, with art by Terry Pallot. The team roster for the book is Colleen Wing, Misty Knight, the new Tarantula, Shang-Chi, Humbug, Orka, Black Cat and Paladin, the latter two joining for money. They serve as enforcers for the SHRA. After the murder of Goliath in battle, they made plans to take on Captain America.

After learning Captain America's location from a Pixiu, the team (minus Orka and Tarantula) tracks him down. While Misty and the team just want to talk and find a peaceful solution, they are betrayed by Paladin. Paladin disables the team with knock-out gas and attempts to capture Captain America. Shang-Chi's martial arts training had allowed him to hold his breath long enough to avoid the effects of the gas. Shang-Chi defeats Paladin and switches his uniform with Captain America. When S.H.I.E.L.D. arrives, Paladin is unintentionally taken into custody.

Shortly thereafter, Captain America and the Heroes For Hire part ways, and the "anti-regs" abandon their now compromised base. Meanwhile, the Heroes For Hire discover a black-market operation that surgically implanted superhumans with Skrull organs that would endow those who had the operation with Skrull shapeshifting abilities. Several of these hybrid Skrull-villains bust Misty Knight's old foe Ricadonna from prison. Ricadonna destroys the Heroes' headquarters by sending an explosive package, and puts hits out on the entire team. Most notable of these were Insecticide (the hit man sent to kill Humbug — Humbug neutralized him with help from his pet killer bees), Shadow Stalker (an old foe of Shang-Chi sent to kill him--Shang-Chi quickly humiliated him), and the gang of ninjas that attacked Tarantula when she was with her father. After they murder her father, Tarantula kills the entire gang herself. The team splits up in search of Ricadonna — while Misty Knight and Colleen Wing try to shake up the Toddler for information, Humbug uses his flies to discover Ricadonna's base--and also that she has somehow gained superpowers.

The team would also come into conflict with the Headmen, as well as travel to the Savage Land and encounter Devil Dinosaur and Moon-Boy. Following these adventures, the Heroes For Hire became involved in World War Hulk, being captured aboard Hulk's stoneship. Humbug turns on the group, but in turn is betrayed by Earth's hive, which had been using him from the start. Colleen and Tarantula are heavily tortured, but are rescued by the rest of the team. Shang-Chi kills Humbug to avenge Tarantula's torture, and possibly out of mercy, as Humbug had mutated into a grotesque monster and was in great pain. Afterword the team splits up, with Paladin taking Moon-boy in for the reward offered for his capture. Black Cat tries to appeal to Paladin's good nature, but Paladin kicks her away and informs her she does not know him at all. Shang-Chi departs the group carrying the still injured Tarantula in his arms. Misty attempts to console a still heavily distraught Colleen, trying to encourage her that the team could still keep going, but Colleen will hear none of it. Colleen states that the moment the team sold their service as heroes they sold the best part of themselves. Colleen walks away leaving Misty alone, signalling the complete end of team.

S.H.I.E.L.D

H.I.E.L.D. was created by Nicholas Joseph Fury after the end of World War II, but Fury abandoned the idea and left the draft that he created for the agency locked away, feeling the U.S. government wouldn't approve the formation of such an agency. At some unspecified point around this time, however, a United Nations-based international group dusted off the idea without Fury's knowledge. His recruitment to the post of executive director (the agency's second) marked his first knowledge of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s existence.

A rare quiet moment for Nick Fury: Strange Tales #168 (May 1968). Art by Jim Steranko and Joe Sinnott.

Usually led by Nick Fury as executive director (although he reports to a twelve-member council, whose identities even he does not know), this organization often operates as much as a covert agency as a quasi-military one, initially depicted as affiliated with the United States government. Later, S.H.I.E.L.D. was depicted as under the jurisdiction of the United Nations, with vast technological resources at its disposal, with U.N. General Assembly Resolutions and legislation passed in signatory nations aiding many of their operations.^[2][3] (However, S.H.I.E.L.D. has been inconsistently portrayed as under U.S., rather than U.N., control, possibly by writers unaware of the agency's fictional history. For instance, in Astonishing X-Men #3, Nick Fury explains S.H.I.E.L.D.'s inaction during an incident of genocide by stating that it did not occur on American soil.^[4])

During the time that Godzilla roamed the United States, S.H.I.E.L.D. formed a subunit, the "Godzilla Squad" to hunt the creature down, until it disappeared into the Atlantic sea. This unit, led by Dum Dum Dugan, employed such weapons as a giant robot called Red Ronin and a smaller version of the Helicarrier, known as The Behemoth.

One of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s unique technological innovations, the LMD (Life Model Decoy) — an extremely lifelike android used to replace people in imminent danger of being killed — was the basis for two major upheavals. First, the supervillain Scorpio stole that technology and used it to create the second team of villains called the Zodiac. Later, some LMDs known as the Deltites achieved sentience and infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., replacing key members, until Fury defeated them. This led to the disbanding of the original organization and its replacement by a new taskforce with the same acronym.

In the wake of a disastrous unauthorized mission in Latveria, in the multi-title story arc "Nick Fury's Secret War", Fury effectively resigned as executive director, with international warrants out for his arrest. His first successor was not one of his closer associates but a relatively unknown newcomer to the S.H.I.E.L.D. hierarchy, Maria Hill. A transcript of a conversation between Hill and the President of the United States^[5] revealed she was chosen for the post by United Nations consensus to keep Fury loyalists out of the job and to keep relations with the superhero community to a minimum. The President also expected Hill — an American — to be loyal first to U.S., despite S.H.I.E.L.D. being a U.N.-chartered organization.

Agents Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine and Dum Dum Dugan, Strange Tales #168 (May 1968). Art by Steranko and Sinnott.

The passage of the United States' Superhuman Registration Act and the subsequent superhero "Civil War" created an additional political and ethical irritant between S.H.I.E.L.D. and the superhuman community, with ^[6] S.H.I.E.L.D. tasked to lead enforcement and to take on registered superheroes as operatives.

Toward the end of that conflict, Hill concluded she had been made director with the intent that she fail at the job, and she proposes to Tony Stark that he assume the post himself, with her as deputy. Stark accepts the appointment as director upon the conclusion of the superhuman Civil War, and undertakes a series of initiatives, including the construction of a new gold-and-red Helicarrier in the motif of his Iron Man designs, the introduction of a daycare center in the Helicarrier, and an employee suggestion-box. While accused of treating S.H.I.E.L.D. as a Stark Industries subsidiary, he succeeded in streamlining the organization and raising morale.^[7] S.H.I.E.L.D. fought a wave of global superhuman terrorism and was manipulated into two international incidents that almost saw Director Stark arrested, until they revealed the Mandarin to be behind it and stopped him from committing genocide with an Extremis pathogen.

At the start of the Secret Invasion by the extraterrestrial shape-shifting race the Skrulls, the Helicarrier was disabled by a Skrull virus and left floating and disabled in the Bermuda Triangle.^[8] The Skrulls by this point had already replaced a large number of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, including the high-ranking Timothy "Dum-Dum" Dugan.

Organizational structure and procedure

Over the decades, varying writers have depicted S.H.I.E.L.D.'s organizational structure in several different ways. The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (first edition) describes an eight-level ranking structure, although providing almost no detail on other aspects of the Directorate's internal makeup.

Most of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s agents are normal humans. Years ago the organization attempted to set up a team of superhuman agents, composed of Marvel Man (the future Quasar), Texas Twister, Blue Streak and the Vamp but the last two were secretly agents of the criminal organization called The Corporation, and the team broke apart before it had its first official mission. A second team organized years later also lasted only a short while.

S.H.I.E.L.D. does employ some superhumans, including in its Psi-Division, composed of telepathic agents who deal with like menaces. S.H.I.E.L.D. also obtains help from independent heroes when their special abilities are needed. It has also accepted some superheroes and supervillains as members, but no longer in a separate unit. (See "Membership".)

Its headquarters is the Helicarrier, a massive flying aircraft carrier kept airborne at all times and, among other things, containing a squadron of jet fighters and housing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). In addition, S.H.I.E.L.D. maintains strong ties to the superhero community, especially Captain America, the Avengers, and the Fantastic Four, and often calls upon that community for aid on particular missions.

In the 2000s, depictions of S.H.I.E.L.D. imply a hierarchy of security clearance levels used either in place of, or alongside, the previously described rank structure. The security-clearance hierarchy operates on a scale ranging from "Level One", the lowest, to "Level Ten", described by Maria Hill, executive director at the time, as the highest security clearance anyone of any government can have. Hill's own clearance, cited in the series New Avengers was Level Nine.

The first story arc in the series New Avengers (2005- ), "Breakout", revealed an additional ranking, "Champion Status", that effectively removes them from the traditional S.H.I.E.L.D. hierarchy and, as Captain America comments, gives status-holder such as himself the right to assemble any team to carry out any mission he believes necessary. In addition Nick Fury is the only "33rd-degree" S.H.I.E.L.D officer, meaning he is the only member of S.H.I.E.L.D, present or past, to know the full existence of 28 emergency, covert, back-up bases scattered across the globe.

Hancock

John Hancock (Will Smith) is an alcoholic with superhuman powers, including supersonic flight, invulnerability, immortality, and super-strength. Though he uses his powers to stop criminals in his current residence of Los Angeles, his activity inadvertently causes millions of dollars in property damage due to his constant intoxication. As a result, he is routinely jeered at the crime scenes. Hancock also ignores court subpoenas

from the city of Los Angeles to address the property damage he has caused.

When public relations spokesperson Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman) departs from an unsuccessful meeting pitching his All-Heart logo for corporations who are extraordinarily charitable—or wish to be perceived as such—he becomes trapped on railroad tracks with an incoming freight train. Hancock saves Ray's life, but he causes the train to derail and nearly injures another driver. Hancock is jeered by other drivers for causing more damage, but Ray steps in and thanks Hancock for saving his life. Ray offers to improve Hancock's public image, and Hancock grudgingly accepts. The spokesperson convinces the alcoholic superhero to permit himself to be jailed for outstanding subpoenas so they can show Los Angeles how much the city really needs Hancock. When the crime rate rises after Hancock's incarceration, the superhero is contacted by the Chief of Police. With a new costume from Ray, Hancock intervenes with a bank robbery, rescuing a cop and stopping the leader of the robbers, Red Parker (Eddie Marsan).

After the rescue, Hancock is applauded for handling the bank robbery. The superhero becomes popular once more, as Ray had predicted. He goes out to dinner with Ray and his wife Mary (Charlize Theron), with whom he reveals his apparent immortality and his amnesia from 80 years ago. After Hancock tucks a drunken Ray in bed, he discovers that Mary also has superhuman powers. He threatens to expose her unless she explains their origins, and she tells him that they have lived for 3,000 years with their powers, having been called gods and angels in their time. She explains that they are the last of their kind and that their kind are paired. Mary does not tell Hancock the entire truth, and Hancock departs to tell Ray about the conversation. The exchange results in a battle between Hancock and Mary that takes them to downtown Los Angeles, causing significant damage to the area. Ray, downtown in a business meeting, sees and recognizes Mary using abilities like Hancock's.

Hancock is later shot twice in the torso when he intervenes in a liquor store robbery. After being hospitalized, Mary enters and explains that as the pair of immortals gets close, they begin to lose their powers. She also explains that Hancock was attacked in an alley 80 years prior, his skull was fractured, causing amnesia. Mary deserted him then in order for him to recover from his injuries. After her explanation, the hospital is raided by the bank robber Red Parker and two other criminals that Hancock had encountered during his incarceration. Mary is shot in the process. Hancock is able to stop two men but is further wounded by them. When Red attempts to finish Hancock off, Ray comes to the rescue and stops the bank robber with a fire ax. With Mary nearly dying, Hancock uses the last of his strength to flee from the hospital so that their parting would allow her to heal with her powers. He later winds up in New York City, working as a superhero. As gratitude to Ray, Hancock paints Ray's All-Heart logo on the moon and calls the spokesperson to look up to the worldwide advertisement.

Stormy Knight

A new Phantom Lady was introduced in Crisis Aftermath: The Battle for Blüdhaven, and is now one of the metahumans guarding Blüdhaven. She appears in the limited series Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters. Her name is Stormy Knight and, like the original character, her father is a U.S. Senator, though no connection to the other Knight characters has been established.

She seems to know Father Time and has hinted that they've met before with him in a different guise, referring to his look as "this year's look is Colonel Sanders, Time?" She acts like a spoiled movie star and treats her other teammates like the popular girl in high school would treat the geeks (especially the Human Bomb and Major Force), but shows some hint of respect for the new Doll Man, hinting that they worked together for some time. Her wristbands not only project light but can bend reality.

She does not maintain a secret identity. In Brave New World, a radio program names her as Stormy Knight. Like other members of the Blüdhaven team, this incarnation of Phantom Lady is a cold-blooded killer, although there are indications in issue #1 of Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters, as she finds herself defending her actions, that she may be disturbed by what she is ordered to do. Also in issue #1, her father is depicted in a more sympathetic light as a man who might disband the Blüdhaven team if elected. He is murdered on orders of Father Time and replaced by a doppelganger. It was believed that Senator Knight wanted to run America as a dictatorship enforced by a metahuman army shown through visions created by Uncle Sam, but it appears that the real person who wants America this way is the individual running S.H.A.D.E. This figure, a cyborg named Gonzo the Mechanical Bastard, is impersonating Senator Knight.

In the second issue of Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters, Stormy becomes a Freedom Fighter. She reveals that she has a degree in quantum physics and pretends to be a spoiled idiot so she won't end up like other socialites. Her wrists bands appear to be able to transport Stormy and others from the third dimension to the fourth dimension.

In the second Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters series (Sep 2007), Stormy, still in shock over her father's death, begins to take drugs and drink heavily. After she drunkenly cuts a superpowered troublemaker in half on live television, Black Condor takes her to the extradimensional Heartland, where Uncle Sam tells her she won't leave until her habit has been kicked. Stormy later slits her wrists, but is found in time by Doll Man. Miss America removes all the toxins from her systems, allowing her to recuperate better.

By the end of the miniseries, Stormy decides to forego her superhero career to pursue an acting vocation.

Phantom Lady

Quality Comics

Phantom Lady first appeared in Quality's Police Comics #1 (Aug, 1941), an anthology title the first issue of which also included the debut of characters such as Plastic Man and the Human Bomb. That issue established her alter ego as Sandra Knight, the beautiful Washington, D.C. debutante daughter of U.S. Senator Henry Knight. One night, Sandra happened across two would-be assassins targeting her father, and stealthily thwarted them with nothing more than a rolled-up newspaper. Knight consequently developed a taste for adventure and crime-fighting, and after finding a "black light ray projector" that a family friend named Professor Davis sent to her father, she adopted the device as a weapon that could blind her enemies, or turn herself invisible if she aimed it at herself.

She assumed the identity of Phantom Lady in a costume consisting of a green cape and the equivalent of a one-piece yellow swimsuit. Stories published decades later by DC Comics after it acquired the character would alter details of this origin by giving her a more active and aggressive role in her own empowerment, explaining her skimpy costume as a deliberate tactic to distract her usually male foes.

Phantom Lady ran as one of the features in Police Comics through #23. Arthur Peddy continued as the artist through #13, with Joe Kubert drawing her feature in Police Comics #14-17; Frank Borth on #18-21; Arthur Peddy returned for #22,; and Rudy Palais on #23. Phantom Lady also appeared in Feature Comics #69-71 as part of a crossover with Spider Widow and the Raven.

Fox Feature Syndicate & Star Publications

After Quality stopped publishing the adventures of Phantom Lady, what was now simply Iger Studios believed it owned the character and assigned it to Fox Feature Syndicate, a move that would later cause confusion as to who actually owned the character's copyright. The Fox version which premiered in Phantom Lady #13 (taking over the numbering of Wotalife Comics) ^[1] is better known to contemporary comic fans than the Quality version because of the "good girl art" of Matt Baker. Baker altered her costume by changing the colors to red and blue, substantially revealing her cleavage, and adding a very short skirt. Fox published Phantom Lady only through issue 26 (Apr, 1949), though the character guest starred in All-Top Comics #8-17, also with art by Baker. Her rogue's gallery in these two Fox titles included the Avenging Skulls; the Fire Fiend; the Killer Clown; Kurtz, the Robbing Robot; the Subway Slayer; and Vulture.

Phantom Lady vol. 1, #17 (April 1948), Fox Feature Syndicate. Cover art by Matt Baker

Baker's cover for Phantom Lady #17 (Apr, 1949) was reproduced in Seduction of the Innocent, the 1954 book by Dr. Fredric Wertham denouncing what he saw as the morally corrupting effect of comics on children. The cover, which illustrated Phantom Lady attempting to escape from ropes, was presented by Wertham with a caption that read, "Sexual stimulation by combining 'headlights' with the sadist's dream of tying up a woman."^[2] In the meantime, Fox went under and its assets were acquired by other publishers, and a Phantom Lady story from All-Top was then reprinted as a backup feature in Jungle Thrills by Star Publications, which then itself went out of business.

[edit] Ajax-Farrel Publications

Ajax-Farrell Publications then published four issues of the second Phantom Lady title, cover dated Dec. 1954/Jan. 1955 through June 1955. The company also published her as a backup feature in two issues of Wonder Boy.

Phantom Lady vol. 2, #2 (February/March 1955) Ajax-Farrell Publications.

By then, Wertham's efforts had led to a Congressional investigation into the comics industry, and publishers formed the self-censoring Comics Code Authority in the fall of 1954. Some changes were consequently made to the Phantom Lady's costume, so that her cleavage was covered and shorts replaced her skirt.

Charlton Comics & I.W. Publications

Farrell's assets were later acquired by Charlton Comics, and, until DC relaunched the character in the 1970s, Phantom Lady's only appearances were in reprinted Matt Baker stories in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Israel Waldman's I. W. Publications (later Super Comics), a company that published unauthorized reprints from 1958–1964, included Phantom Lady reprints in issues of Great Action Comics and Daring Adventures. These comics featured new cover images of Phantom Lady that bore little visual consistency either to the Fox version of the character or each other (e.g., the character was blonde on one cover, brunette with a brown costume on another).

DC Comics

Sandra Knight

Freedom Fighters #10 (September-October 1977). Phantom Lady fights Cat-Man, with fellow Quality superheroes the Human Bomb and Uncle Sam.

In 1956, DC Comics obtained the rights to the Quality Comics characters, which they believed included Phantom Lady, and reintroduced her 17 years later with a group of other former Quality heroes as the Freedom Fighters in Justice League of America #107 (Oct. 1973).

As was done with many characters DC acquired from other publishers, or that were holdovers from Golden Age titles, the Freedom Fighters were relocated to a parallel world. Their particular earth was referred to as "Earth-X". On Earth-X, Nazi Germany had won World War II. The team was later featured in its own series for 15 issues (1976–1978), in which they temporarily left Earth-X for "Earth-1" (where most DC titles are set) and Phantom Lady was given real phantom-like powers.

In 1981, Phantom Lady became a recurring guest star of All-Star Squadron, a superhero-team title set on "Earth-2", the locale for DC's World War II-era superheroes, and at a time prior to when she and the other Freedom Fighters were supposed to have left for Earth-X. Phantom Lady then appeared with the rest of DC's superheroes in Crisis on Infinite Earths, a story that was intended to eliminate the confusing histories that DC had attached to its characters by retroactively merging the various parallel worlds into one. This left Phantom Lady's Earth-X days written out of her history, and the Freedom Fighters became a mere splinter group of the All-Star Squadron.

DC also retconned the origin of Phantom Lady established in Quality's Police Comics, so that she now belonged to the prestigious Knight family of Opal City, a locale central to DC's Starman line of heroes. Her formative story was changed so that she overtook her father's would-be assassins with her fists instead of a newspaper. Lastly, she was given a more active role in the acquisition of her black light ray, which she no longer received from a mere family friend but instead from a scientist named Dr. Abraham Davis, who had escaped from Nazi-controlled Europe. In the retelling, Sandra Knight gave asylum to Davis, setting him up in a laboratory and helping him to complete his invention. Ted Knight, now established as her cousin, also aided Davis, as a result acquiring the technology that allowed him to become the first Starman.

The 1994 title Damage established the post-World War II history for Phantom Lady. She was made an agent of a Cold War-era government intelligence agency called Argent, in which she met and married fellow former-All Star Squadron member Iron Munro (a character introduced in the 1986 series Young All-Stars). The two were paired on several missions and fought a Soviet-backed agent named The Baron, actually the German Baron Blitzkrieg, a foe both had met during World War II. Shortly after becoming pregnant, Sandra was kidnapped by The Baron who stole the fetus from her womb and left her for dead. After escaping from Communist Poland, Sandra wanted out of the spy game and turned to an old friend, Roy Lincoln. He helped her, and soon thereafter she started the Universite Notre Dame Des Ombres (the University of Our Lady of the Shadows) in the hopes of making further intelligence contacts and finding her baby; unfortunately, she was not successful. Phantom Lady's presence in the U.S. and her work with American Intelligence was kept a secret to most; she never reunited with her husband, and in her old age became headmistress of the school she began, now a training center for female spies in Washington, D.C.

In Manhunter #23 (June, 2006), Phantom Lady met the current Manhunter, Kate Spencer, and it was revealed that she was Spencer's grandmother. Phantom Lady and Iron Munro were revealed to have had a child before their marriage whom they gave up for adoption—Walter Pratt, Spencer's father. The Golden Age Atom, Al Pratt, had allowed Phantom Lady to use his contact information so that she could get into a home for unwed mothers, causing the belief that the child was Pratt's son. Knight and Munro still keep in contact, as she brought him to meet Kate and her son, Ramsey.