Jack Bauer is an experienced field agent with a military background. He possesses a multitude of useful skills, such as clue analysis, stealth, piloting and electronic communication and is an expert at interrogation and persuasion techniques performed under great stress, a skill that is fueled by great strength of personality. He is also a crack shot and an adequate hand to hand combatant. His physique, apparently top-notch, allows him to go and go for days without rest, sleep or food, and he can continue at unrelented speed even after strenuous torture or injury. In fact, über-hero Jack Bauer appears to be a daring and seemingly indestructible agent.

The Counter Terrorist Unit of the CIA

The CIA has a Counter Terrorist subunit, the CTU, located in Los Angeles. In principle, the CTU is a division of elite agents working mostly on their own. The director of the CTU, Ryan Chapelle, resides with the CIA, directs the goals of the CTU by phone and then leaves most of the basic work to be directed by a local chief residing in the locale. The director will only come to visit under extraordinary situations. The local chief was at first veteran agent Jack Bauer, and then George Mason, until he sacrificed his life to stop Los Angeles from being nuked by terrorists. The next chief was the previous second-in-command Tony Almeida. Other noteworthy members have been Nina Myers, Michelle Dessler, Chloe O’Brian, Kim Bauer (computer technicians) and Chase Edmunds (field agent). The organization is, during times of terrorist activity, directly in contact with President David Palmer, or his staff. The CTU ranks above the police and so they can pick up any held suspects for national security reasons.

The bureau’s top field agent has always been Jack Bauer. Jack very often ignores regulations and orders and thus manages to get himself into dispute with the administration and leadership of the CTU or police department. He then usually becomes a hunted man by law enforcement agencies, until he manages to save the day. During such hunted periods, Jack is considered to have the Mistrust Drawback. Jack is, after his feelings of guilt kick in, usually inactive and only accepts calls for work when the threat of national terrorism is extreme or when the president, who knows Jack personally, asks for his help directly. Jack often works under enormous time pressure and doesn’t stop for even one second in his pursuit of stopping the latest planned terrorism act.

History

The story of super agent Jack Bauer is seen in the TV series “24” aired by Fox Television, now having aired its fourth season, and is also available on DVD. Jack Bauer works for fictional organization, the Counter Terrorist Unit (the CTU), a subdivision of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The story will not be repeated here to avoid further spoilers (this write-up itself is a spoiler). For those interested, see for yourself, web resources will not provide the correct picture. Each episode handles one hour of real time, and hence one full season of 24 episodes handles only one intense day of action. The “24” series is very recommended to anyone enjoying good drama, acting and action.

Description

See illustrations. Jack Bauer is played by Kiefer Sutherland.

Personality

Jack Bauer is a top agent due to him being a patriot. Jack is an extremely focused man who misses no details, is a master of quick improvisation and has nerves of steel. He refuses to follow the chain of command even when that might be for the best. This very often leads to him having to work alone and even against the agency itself. Naturally, he has earned a reputation as a hard-boiled loose cannon, and the agency usually tries to keep his involvement to a minimum. Of course, once Jack has started a case where national security is threatened, he will complete the mission regardless of what help or opposition he gets. People at the Counter Terrorist Unit know this, and he often manages to get someone working from within, but outside the rules, to provide him with information in the field; during field missions he is almost constantly in contact with people using his cellular phone. Jack seems reluctant to share vital information with law enforcement agencies or politicians (at first always answering “I’ll explain everything later”), although he will always trust the President or his most trusted confidant at the agency with any information he might have uncovered so far.

In fact, he stops at nothing to get the job done, and is willing to sacrifice people or kill in cold blood to serve the United States and its president. He will most definitely turn on old friends if they are corrupt. He handles stress extremely well and it seems to be impossible to use torture to extract information from him ; he is very willing to die to protect the state. For Jack, the world is of black and white morals, and he stands firmly and uncorrupted on the good guys side.

Although Jack’s heart and sympathies certainly are in the right place, he very often uses psychology to manipulate people. He seems to have an insight into what makes people tick. He knows how to make people feel good about a situation even when they realistically shouldn’t. He can often also make complete strangers trust his every word. In particular, he knows the mental weaknesses of the people he is about to interrogate or persuade ; in such cases, he chit-chats for a while, finds some leverage point and then immediately pushes it to the max, which often overwhelms people into caving in to his demands or requests. Thus, his personality is hard-driven and straight forward, with little time for being social, so that he is often bossing people around. Therefore, people often think of him almost as a bully and his superiors hate his independence and reluctance to follow any type of orders or the chain of command. He is much too independent to work with anyone as an equal, and clearly believes that he can get the work best done by himself, until proven otherwise. Jack tries to be polite towards civilians, but only when there is time for that. His true interest is serving the people regardless of the costs ; Jack is, no doubt, a real fanatic patriot.

His only weakness is his attachment to his family members, whom he will protect at all costs. He truly loves his family and never hesitates to remind them of that. He can be black-mailed into serving the bad guys, as family members have been kidnapped, and into performing morally and legally illegal acts. If he ever fails to protect anyone who he considers is under his protection, he will be extremely guilt-ridden, which has happened to the extent that he quit his job for extended periods of time. He will then only return into active duty as a rogue agent when national security is threatened or when asked to do so directly by the President, who might be the only man that he treats in a very correct, and courteous manner. While not having neither his family nor his job as an agent, he will loose his focus and live almost like a bum. This happened after he failed to protect his wife, and lost contact with his daughter.

DC Universe History

There is always room for one more division of intelligence in the DCU. Place the CTU in Los Angeles and have them interact with Checkmate, Suicide Squad or whichever obscure DCU law enforcement organization you with to employ. It would be interesting to have cooperation between Jack Bauer and President Luthor.