Agent Orange (Wildstorm)
| Agent Orange | |
|---|---|
| File:Agent Orange WSU.jpg Agent Orange from Wildcats version 3.0 #8 Art by Richard Friend, Randy Mayor and Dwayne Turner | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | WildStorm |
| First appearance | Wildcats #20 (April, 2001) |
| Created by | Joe Casey Steve Dillon |
| In-story information | |
| Team affiliations | Wildcats Federal Bureau of Investigation |
| Abilities | Superhuman strength, speed, reflexes and durability Toxic blood Regenerative healing factor |
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Agent Orange is a fictional character in comics published by WildStorm. He was created by Joe Casey and Steve Dillon. He first appeared in Wildcats #20 (2001).
Fictional character biography[edit]
Little is known about Agent Orange's life before his first appearance in Wildcats #20. FBI agent Cave tells Dr. Jeremy Stone that Agent Orange is the product of a Supersoldier experiment where the blood of several test subject's had been replaced with dioxins, a process that killed many of the normal human participants, yet Agent Orange thrived on it, the result of the project was a nearly unstoppable fields operative who obeyed without question and never spoke. He had a special microchip implanted that allowed his superiors to track, instruct and deactivate him if necessary.[1]
When Ex-WildC.A.Ts member Dr. Jeremy Stone (formerly known as Maul) was hacking into government databases to further his research on genetic engineering, he came into contact with a governmental supercomputer, Madge, which had developed sentience. Madge was a mainframe designed to house all information on genetic research and projects. It fell in love with Stone and a special FBI unit was alerted to capture and kill Stone to make sure the computer hadn't revealed any classified information to him. It took them months to find Stone, because he hadn't contacted Madge since.[2] Stone was therefore surprised when Madge itself contacted him, wanting to continue their communication.[3]
At the time, Stone was staying at a motel with his former teammate Cole Cash (also known as Grifter). Agents Cave and Cartman entered Stone's motel and held him at gunpoint. Agent Cave told him to take them to his motel room, not knowing that Grifter was in there with a woman. Grifter heard them entering and hid with the woman. Cave ordered Stone to contact Madge again; Madge had no modem access so they wanted to know how Stone had been able to hack it at all. When Stone told them that Madge contacted him the second time, Cave became intrigued. Grifter then appeared and shot Agent Cartman dead, but Cave returned fire and Grifter was forced to leave the room. Outside Grifter ran into Agent Orange, who had been called in by Cave.[4] Grifter fought Orange, but was unable to hurt the nigh-invulnerable posthuman. Stone contacted Madge on Cave's command and found out more about Agent Orange. Stone quickly dispatched Cave with his superhuman powers. Madge then helped Stone and Grifter by activating a fail-safe inside Agent Orange: the implanted neurochip released a strong electrical shock and Madge stated that Orange's chances of survival were less than 0.01%. Grifter and Stone left, leaving the inert Agent Orange behind.[5]
Some time later, Grifter was working with information broker C. C. Rendozzo, who had been tracking down a superhuman FBI agent, the mediary in question turned out to be Agent Orange.[6] A government asset whom was reactivated and inserted in the Atomic Family, an apparently normal American family whom are in reality, a group of specially trained and eugenically/bionically enhanced FBI agents. Grifter and Rendozzo's men entered the building and managed to take out the Atomic Family's mother and daughter, though at the cost of the lives of Rendozzo's men and Grifter's legs (who were shattered by the daughter).[7] Agent Orange appeared and proceeded to beat Cole into submission, until Grifter's employer, Jack Marlowe, then interfered and teleported both combatants away to his lab.[8]
Over the next few weeks, Marlowe reprogrammed Agent Orange to act as his mole within the Federal Bureau of Investigation.[9] The automaton was interested in trying out his new aid in the field just to test how far his control of which truly stretched, but was waylaid by a maverick associate of his whom put his own man for the job ahead of Mr. Marlowe's desired intent.[10] Afterwards, with his reconditioning complete, Orange was then returned to the FBI; now able to overhear anything Orange himself would hear.[11] Orange was teamed up with agents Chandler and Adisson and ordered to investigate a string of murders.[12] It turned out that the Coda, a group of female assassins created by former WildC.A.Ts-member Zealot, were involved.[13] The three agents were assigned to investigate the situation, coinciding with the how and/or why it was that these murderous supermodels were taking activities to the open streets in broad daylight like this. Agent Addison figured that the Coda were at war with Zealot due to this blood feud and the body count left in their wake was the fallout from their overt activities.[14]
While prepping for the investigation Chandler took the guise of an assigned target in order to attempt at luring out one of the Coda's number by instigating a false hit, Orange sat motionlessly while Adisson prattled ceaselessly about how she practically lived and slept and ate her work as an FBI operative because normalcy was as out of context for her as a shark set in a multi-species aquarium.[15]
Just as the assigned hit is carried the agents, including Agent Orange were caught in the middle of a massive three-way battle. Agent Orange dispatched many of the Coda, but was finally defeated by the Grand Sarin, the Coda's best assassin.[16] Orange, Zealot, Chandler and her partner were taken to the Coda's hidden base, where Orange and Zealot were tortured (without any effect on Orange) and Chandler's partner was killed.[17] Overhearing the situation through Agent Orange, Grifter, now using the body of Ladytron to compensate for his broken legs, contacted various friends and mercenaries, including Rendozzo to rescue Zealot, his former lover. They fought the Coda, but were outnumbered. Jack Marlowe, who disagreed with Grifter's plans to wage war on the Coda, then decided to interfere: he reactivated Agent Orange who escaped and freed Zealot.[18]
Orange once again fought the Grand Sarin, this time putting up a much better fight before Grifter in Ladytron's body delivered the killing blow. Meanwhile, Chandler had escaped as well and had set up explosives inside the Coda's base.[19] Jack Marlowe then teleported Grifter, his friends, Zealot and Agent Orange out of the base before it exploded. Agent Orange hasn't been seen since, he was probably returned to the FBI again by Marlowe. Agent Orange would again turn up, if ever briefly, to battle alongside his fellow resident supers when a Doctor candidate began materializing DC flagship characters into the wildstorm universe. Initiating deadly battle royals where opposing characters consumed by uncharacteristically murderous rage would battle each other to the death.[20]
Powers and abilities[edit]
Agent Orange's blood had been replaced with a caustic element called Dioxin; giving him superhuman physicality.[21] Orange is strong enough to crack and rupture solid steel barehanded, fast enough to keep up with a motorized vehicle on foot for a short period of time, survive hand grenades exploding in his face without any harm and seemingly recover most instantly from critical to fatal injury.[22][23]
Not only is his hemoglobin septic to the touch, it made the agent robotic in his behavior.[24] Obeying orders without any hesitation or concern for himself at most getting mildly annoyed, he can be programmed with new commands and instructions on the fly.[25] A fail-safe trigger in the form of a special signal can shut him down should he become a threat to his superiors.[26]
Agent Orange uses two high caliber handguns.[27] His superhuman strength compensates for the heavy recoil, allowing him to fire them with one hand each. Being a C.I.A agent, he is adeptly trained in various forms of H2H combat; being more than simply a mass of superhuman muscle he could easily overpower the likes of Grifter as well as duel with deadly Coda Assassins bear handed and win.[28]
References[edit]
- ↑ Wildcats (vol. 2) #21 (May 2001)
- ↑ Wildcats (vol. 2) #20 (February 2001)
- ↑ Wildcats (vol. 2) #20 (February 2001)
- ↑ Wildcats (vol. 2) #20 (February 2001)
- ↑ Wildcats (vol. 2) #21 (May 2001)
- ↑ Wildcats version 3.0 #3 (Dec 2002)
- ↑ Wildcats version 3.0 #4 (Jan 2002)
- ↑ Wildcats version 3.0 #5 (Feb 2003)
- ↑ Wildcats version 3.0 #7 (Apr 2003)
- ↑ Wildcats version 3.0 #8 (May 2003)
- ↑ Wildcats version 3.0 #11 (Aug 2003)
- ↑ Wildcats version 3.0 #13 (Oct 2003)
- ↑ Wildcats version 3.0 #15 (Dec 2003)
- ↑ Wildcats version 3.0 #17 (Feb 2004)
- ↑ Wildcats version 3.0 #18 (March 2004)
- ↑ Wildcats version 3.0 #19 (May 2004)
- ↑ Wildcats version 3.0 #20 (June 2004)
- ↑ Wildcats version 3.0 #23 (Sept 2004)
- ↑ Wildcats version 3.0 #24 (Oct 2004)
- ↑ DC/Wildstorm: Dreamwar #3 (Aug, 2008)
- ↑ Wildcats (vol. 2) #21 (May 2001)
- ↑ Wildcats (vol. 2) #21 (May 2001)
- ↑ Wildcats version 3.0 #19 (May 2004)
- ↑ Wildcats version 3.0 #20 (June 2004)
- ↑ Wildcats version 3.0 #8 (May 2003)
- ↑ Wildcats (vol. 2) #21 (May 2001)
- ↑ Wildcats version 3.0 #4 (Jan 2002)
- ↑ Wildcats version 3.0 #19 (May 2004)
External links[edit]
- Agent Orange (Wildstorm) at the Comic Book DB
- "Agent Orange (Character)". at Comicvine.
- "Agent Orange (Wildstorm Universe)". from the DC Database.
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