Colonel Ling

Colonel Ling v2

By Sébastien Andrivet

Source of Character: Avengers vol. 1 #42-44

Helper(s): Darci

Reasons: Colonel Ling is strikingly similar to another character named Hu Chen, who appears in Avengers vol. 1 #29 and works with the same people. It is possible that they’re the same person with a continuity mistake. If you wish to take a firm stance on this critical matter, just change his name to Colonel Ling Hu-Chen, since the name Ling Wai is a later secondary source addition.

Quotes

Colonel Ling

“We have no need to defeat him, fool ! Yet, for all his vaunted strength, he shall never bother us again ! Observe… and tremble !”

“It is with pleasure, comrade general, that I welcome you to my nation’s most secret base !”

“So… the Black Widow somehow deceived the lie detector ! Thus, I find her guilty of treason and sentence her to… death —!” (KRAK !)

“Whatever else may befall… even though the Psychotron itself be reduced to flaming ashes… CAPTAIN AMERICA MUST BE DESTROYED !”

Game Stats — DC Heroes

This section covers and illustrates the various troops and technologies at Ling’s disposal.

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Colonel Wai Ling

Dex: 03	Str: 02	Bod: 03	Motivation: Power
Int: 04	Wil: 05	Min: 04	Occupation: Commanding officer
Inf: 05	Aur: 04	Spi: 04	Resources {or Wealth}: 010
Init: 012		HP: 020

Skills: Charisma: 05, Military science (Field command): 05, Weaponry (Firearms): 05

Advantages: Language (Mandarin Chinese), Rank (Colonel in the PLA)

Connections: People’s Liberation Army (High), Red Army (Low), Red Guardian (Alexei Shostakov) (Low), Doctor Yen (Low), Chinese intelligence agencies (High)

Drawbacks: MIA toward Arrogance

Equipment: He could access any weapon stored on his base - see the profiles below.

Colonel Ling’s forces

Ling’s troops - the elite

These soldiers are clad in special suits and use advanced weapons :

Ling’s elite:

“We do NOT have a moment, comrade !”

Dex: 03	Str: 03	Bod: 03	Motivation: Patriot
Int: 03	Wil: 02	Min: 03	Occupation: Soldier
Inf: 03	Aur: 02	Spi: 03	Resources {or Wealth}: 002
Init: 009		HP: 005

Skills: Military science (Camouflage, cartography, demolition): 03, Vehicles (Land): 03, Weaponry (Infantry weapons): 04

Advantages: Familiarity (PLA equipment and protocols), Rank (Private first class)

Connections: None

Drawbacks: Minor Rage

Equipment:

SPECIAL SUIT [/BODY/ 04, Flame immunity: 04, Sealed systems: 06, Bonus: Those suits also protect against the Psychotron, allowing the wearer to ignore its effects unless it is breached]
One weapon among the following:
- Flamethrowing rifle [BODY 03, Flame project: 07, Limitation: Flame project has a Range of but 03, R#04]
- Heavy laser pistol [BODY 03, Laser beam: 05, R#04]
- Laser rifle [BODY 03, Laser beam: 07, Telescopic vision: 01, R#04]
Some had JETPACKS [BODY 03, Flight: 05, R#03]

Laser tanks

TANKS WITH LASER CANNON [STR 08 BODY (Hardened) 13, Laser beam (Autofire): 12, Running: 05, R#03]

MIG jet fighters

MIG JET FIGHTERS [STR 08 BODY 09, Flight: 10, Projectile weapons: 09, Radar sense: 12, R#4]

Wheeled giant robot

WHEELED GIANT ROBOT [STR 10 BODY (Hardened) 11, Growth: 06, Running: 05, Note: Growth is Already Factored In. Note that the robot has arms with pincer-like “hands”.]

Tripods

MARTIAN TRIPOD-LIKE ROBOT [STR 05 BODY (Hardened) 11, Growth: 07, Laser beam: 06, Running: 05, Note: Growth is Already Factored In, Laser Beam is fired with an Automatic Action but has an AV of 01 (it is a quadruple rotating array on top of the tripod). Note that the robot has arms with pincer-like “hands”.]

Basic soldiers

There’s a company of soldiers with standard uniforms and guns defending the base. Their stats are:

Dex: 03	Str: 02	Bod: 03	Motivation: Soldier
Int: 02	Wil: 02	Min: 03	Occupation: Soldier
Inf: 02	Aur: 02	Spi: 02	Resources {or Wealth}: 002
Init: 007		HP: 005

Skills: Military science (Camouflage, cartography): 03, Vehicles (Land): 02, Weaponry (Infantry weapons): 03

Advantages: Familiarity (PLA military equipment and protocols), Rank (Private)

Connections: None

Drawbacks: None

Equipment: PPS43 Submachinegun [BODY 04, Projectile weapons: 05, Ammo: 06, R#02, Advantage : Autofire]

Features of Colonel Ling’s base

The documented features of Ling’s base were:

Extensive internal video surveillance
Several rooms with sleep gas dispensers [BODY 04, Knockout gas: 13]
People-holding plexiglas tubes [BODY 07]. Some of those tubes lie beneath trap doors on the base’s ground level, dumping the person stepping into the trap door into a tube.
Lie-detection machines [BODY 02, Detect (lie): 06]
Radar array [BODY 05, Radar sense: 20]
Huge Blaster Cannon emerging from the ground [BODY 06, Energy blast: 14. The crew stays underground and operates the cannon through a periscope.]
Some of the catwalks can be electrified [BODY 06, Lightning (no Range, includes AV): 12]
One of the towers has a sliding panel revealing another artillery emplacement - a Para-Sonic Thermo-Ray [BODY 05, Flame project (Area of effect 1 AP): 15, Limitation: Range is but 04]. No, we don’t know what a Para-Sonic Thermo-Ray is.

The dreaded Psychotron

The Psychotron was a building-sized piece of machinery with extensive control consoles. It had Illusion: 14 - which could either be focused in a small room in the base (Area of Effect: 03) or broadcast (with a Diminishing Area of Effect, the strength dropping by one for every AP of distance from the Psychotron).

The illusions were apparently tailored to the targets, within the limit of available intelligence. The classic one was to project a tsunami, but it was also used against Hercules to convince him he was caught in an endless fight against the ever-regenerating hydra. As for the Black Widow, she saw a horrible flaming face flying around her and shooting eyebeams at her while laughing a nerve-wracking laugh.

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Background

Real Name: Ling Wai
Marital Status: Unknown
Known Relatives: None
Group affiliation: People’s Liberation Army (but see the boxed section below)
Base Of Operations: A secret base in China
Height: 5‘9” Weight: 150 lbs
Eyes: Brown Hair: Bald

Powers and Abilities

Ling is a competent senior military officer and marksman. He’s smart, ruthless and has a commanding presence.

History

Colonel Wai Ling was the PLA officer in charge of one of the most secret bases in China (possibly in Hei-Lungkiang / Heilongjiang / 黑龙江省). This base hosted the decades-long project that produced the dreaded Psychotron — a towering electronic device capable of projecting terrifying hallucinations straight into the mind of China’s enemies. As befits tradition, the base was built into a reputedly extinct volcano.

As the Psychotron project neared completion, the KGB sent secret agent the Red Guardian (Colonel Alexei Shostakov) to reinforce the base’s security. Ling was very proud of having Shostakov serve under his command.

Due to the strategic nature of his base, Ling had extensive contacts within Chinese intelligence agencies. When the Black Widow (Natalia Romanova) came to visit his base, he was thus warned that she was actually a double agent working for S.H.I.E.L.D. and trying to pull off a daring espionage mission. After pretending to greet the Widow on his base as a respected colleague, Ling tricked the Widow into entering the Psychotron chamber, and made her a test subject for his terror technology.

The Widow somehow resisted the effects of the Psychotron, and nearly managed to escape after feigning weakness. Puzzled, the Colonel handed her over to one of his chief scientists, Dr. Yen, to determine what had gone wrong. Romanova was already familiar with Yen, who had brainwashed her some months before.

Meanwhile the Avengers - and in particular her ex-lover Hawkeye - learned of the Widow’s capture and launched a rescue attempt. That played right into the hands of the Soviets, since a Russian general present at Ling’s base decided to seize the occasion to kill Captain America.

Behind the bamboo curtain

As it turned out, the hot-headed Hawkeye decided not to wait for the rest of the Avengers (who were concerned about the diplomatic consequences of an invasion) and went to China with recent recruit Hercules. Hercules’ immense power completely changed the situation as he outgunned Ling’s forces. Seeing this, the Red Guardian astutely lured the Prince of Power into the Psychotron’s chamber to remove him from the board, then goaded the rash Hawkeye into making a stupid mistake and knocked him out.

With the attack defeated, Colonel Ling expounded his plans for world conquest to the Soviet General visiting his base, explaining that what he needed was Soviet nuclear submarines to ferry troops and Psychotron projectors to the enemy. After that, given the sheer terror the Psychotron could blanket armies and population with, conquest would be trivial.

Social-traitors !
Readers are presumably wondering why a People’s Republic of China senior officer and a Soviet senior officer are working together in 1967. The Sino-Soviet crisis is one of the key events of the Cold War, and by 1967 the Soviet embassy in Beijing was being attacked by Red Guards.

During the story, one gets the impression that neither Ling nor his Soviet counterpart are on the up-and-up and working through their normal chain of command. It all comes across as some kind of clandestine manoeuvring, and it is possible that neither the PLA nor the Red Army are aware of what is going on.

It is thus likely that the plan was more a James Bondian plot than a Cold War story, with a few thousand Chinese and Soviet renegades planning to conquer part of the West Coast of the US and turning it into their personal realm.

The Soviet officer was interested, but wanted to know why the Black Widow had resisted the Psychotron and told Ling to have her take a lie detector test. The Widow fooled the detector, insisting that she had never been a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and remained a loyal servant of the USSr. Colonel Ling begrudgingly released her and placed her under the Red Guardian’s command.

Meanwhile the rest of the Avengers - Captain America, Quicksilver, the Scarlet Witch, Giant-Man (Henry Pym) and the Wasp (Janet van Dyne) - arrived, as Hawkeye and Hercules’ capture left them little choice but to intervene. Captain America was separated from the rest and the enthusiastic Soviet General had the Red Guardian engage Cap in a great patriotic duel. The far more pragmatic Ling wanted to just take the Avengers down without playing games, but had to go along with his Soviet counterpart’s plan.

Showdown

The Red Guardian was practically a match for Captain America, but Cap eventually gained the upper hand. Tired with this nonsense, Colonel Ling electrified the catwalk Cap was standing on, taking him down. The Red Guardian was furious, as he considered this to be dishonourable.

Meanwhile, Ling’s men were more or less withstanding the Avengers’ assault. However, the Widow unexpectedly made her move to destroy the dreaded Psychotron. Ling opened fire on her, but the Red Guardian - Romanova’s former husband - reflexively interposed his body. This gave the Widow time to set the Psychotron on fire and free Hercules before Ling could actually shoot her.

The Widow’s sabotage set the base’s HQ on fire. As the Avengers evacuated with their woundeds, the determined Ling grabbed a laser rifle and tried to kill Captain America as he was being carried away. Incensed, the badly wounded Red Guardian body-blocked him and the stray shot hit nearby gas pipes. The explosions triggered a volcanic eruption and the base was completely destroyed.

For decades the Red Guardian was thought to have died in the conflagration, but he survived. Colonel Ling conceivably may have escaped the inferno too.

Description

The colonel is a smoker and is almost never seen without his favourite cigarette holder.

Personality

Smart, ruthless, driven, charismatic, pragmatic, ambitious. He was an eloquent orator in the Stan Lee/Roy Thomas tradition of soliloquizing villains - see quotes for examples.

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