Americop

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Background

Powers & Abilities

Americop has displayed exceptional physical power and combat ability. He’s extraordinarily strong, and masters a range of unarmed combat and weapon techniques. He likely has extensive SWAT police training and experience.

For instance he could :

• Break heavy chains holding him prisoner through raw muscle.
• Take serious punches without budging.
• Defeat numerous armed men by himself.

He is extremely determined, relentless, and seems fearless. He also seems to be a competent detective.

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Gear – the original series

Americop claimed he kept half of the money he seized from criminals and gave the other half to drug rehab clinics. That’s enough money to buy a lot of hardware.

During the 1990s, Americop chiefly operated with a powerful semi-automatic pistol — perhaps something like a Grizzly  — and a solid baton.

He had various backup weapons, such as a 9mm handgun and a utility knife (both in boot holsters).

For SWAT-type situations, he would use grenades and — presumably — conventional, but high-end, assault weaponry.

He wore a well-armoured costume. The hat was custom-built to be usable as an efficient blunt projectile, likely as a surprise weapon.

Americop drove a large, powerful, armoured pickup truck. It could release oil slicks to deter pursuit, was at least as well-equipped as a police cruiser (including a lightbar and radio scanner) and likely had other tricks up its hood.

Gear – the next generation

When seen again, Americop had procured advanced technology. It may have been stolen from advanced mobs with access to A.I.M. gear, or somesuch. This was powerful equipment, essentially making him superhuman.

What it did is… cryptic. Our game stats descriptions for these involve a lot of guesswork and arbitrariness due to lack of data.

Observed bits:

• The pickup was more Hummer-like.
• The costume was now powered, though it had to be booted via verbal command and couldn’t just be left on. It enhanced strength, but perhaps not durability. Thus, it may have been a light, supple, open-structure exoskeleton  similar to the one once used by Hammerhead and Spider-Man.
  The suit was apparently cybernetically connected to Americop’s nervous system. The strength it deployed seemed about “Class 25”, possibly more. It was electrically-powered.
• The left glove was equipped with a one-shot launcher for a metallic, electrified net. The weights on the net doubled as pitons to embed it into a wall behind the target.
• A system called “Banshee” (no relation), which did… something. I’m postulating a sonar-based targeting system and a vibrating projectile that keeps harming the person who has been shot.
• And presumably other systems.

History

Bart Gallows, formerly from the Houston PD, was first observed in 1994. He had become the masked vigilante Americop out of frustration over the judicial system.

In his view, the adversarial justice system, need for proof and proportional punishment were Liberal bullshit getting in the way of taking bad guys out. He was especially angry over seeing offenders on the street after a few short months.

Americop was a roaming vigilante. He stopped random crime nearby, and investigated cases that were personally offensive to him. It seems that most such cases involved exploitation of children.

A deal with America

Americop once randomly ran into Captain America (Steve Rogers) while fighting gun traffickers. Cap rushed in to prevent Americop from finishing off a wounded man. However, he was immobilised for a spell by complications from the decaying Super-Soldier Serum. Americop would have gunned down this “sad example of Liberal dogma” but left when the cops came in.

After this incident, Americop resumed his investigations. He traced a child-trafficking ring to Damon Dran, the Indestructible Man. Gallows stormed Dran’s estate at the same time as Captain America did. Cap was on the scene to help his allies Diamondback (Rachel Leighton) and Zachary Moonhunter. Rogers offered an alliance if only to check Americop’s allegations, but was rebuffed.

Both Rogers and Gallows were captured by Dran, as Gallows didn’t expect the crime lord to be superhuman. But Americop broke free, found the mansion’s arsenal, and resumed his attack. He shot Dran’s getaway helicopter with a grenade launcher. Dran could thus be apprehended by Cap’s allies, though his lieutenant Golddigger got away.

Like lightning

In 2007, Norman Osborn sent his Thunderbolts after Gallows, in Houston. Osborn mostly wanted to play with Bullseye and Penance (Robbie Baldwin), and forbade other Thunderbolts to engage. That was even though all intelligence indicated that Americop was now a powerful opponent.

Indeed, despite being attacked by surprise, Americop was markedly more powerful than the unpowered Bullseye and the inexperienced Baldwin. But Bullseye resorted to using Penance as a weapon by harming him, forcing his partner to violently overload Americop’s cybernetic systems.

Osborn noted that 85% of Gallows’ synaptic nerve endings had been blown out. It was later stated that Gallows had been slain. Presumably, the damage from that fight was fatal.

Make Americop great again

Texan oil billionaire Paul Keane then used the Americop name and uniform to start a private policing force. The Americops — clad just like Gallows during the 1990s — received physical enhancements, apparently increasing their size, strength and endurance. This force went public in 2015 or 2016.

Keane’s project was politically backed. A Texas Senator had a law passed forcing Federal law-enforcement agencies to cooperate with Americops. Meanwhile, a strong PR campaign took place, mostly on talk radio. The situation rapidly degenerated as it became clear that Keane had a racial agenda, but Americops could easily manhandle protesters.

This in turn lead to the involvement of young superhuman would-be hero Rage (Elvin Haliday). As it was obviously going to get ugly, Captain America (Sam Wilson) intervened. Wilson more or less managed to keep the mess under control. However, things went bad again when he was away. This resulted in Rage’s imprisonment, then riots.

Keane was then murdered by Captain America (Steve Rogers) of Hydra. Rogers had discovered that the Americops program was driven by profit, not by a law and order agenda. It was an instrument for Keane to buy cheap property by chasing away people in minority neighborhoods, then gentrify the now-“securised” area.

What happened to the Americops program and officers remains unrevealed as of this writing.

Description

During the 2007 appearance, the visor/face plate was replaced by an odd featureless, tight cowl. The later Americops used the visor/face plate look.

Personality

The “judge, jury and executioner” type. Serious crimes (including assaulting a LEO, which he considers himself to be) are punishable by death. Less serious crimes (such as harassing passerbies) are often punishable by maiming (via kneecapping). Americop has zero thrust in the judicial system, and thus does all the “sentencing” himself.

He’s essentially Judge Dredd. He acts in a machine-like, highly confident and professional fashion. His approaches are much closer to that of a special operations soldier than of a traditional police officer, and most of his work is tactical.

Americop uses a lot of far-right clichés such as “tainting this great country”, “liberal bleeding hearts”, an obsession with subhuman vermin and the like. However, it is important to note that he is a legalist, not a reactionary.

For instance, when idiots harassed a pair of kids for “looking gay”, he defended the supposedly LGBT lads — who weren’t breaking any law — by taking down the idiots – who were. Americop fully acknowledged (and enforced) the notion of hate crimes.

As another example, Gallows considered drug users (*not* pushers) to be in need of rehab, not punishment. He thus gave millions to drug rehab clinics over his career.

Other traits

Oddly, Americop fully considers himself a legit officer of the law and made remarks about being “the future of law enforcement”. He will announce his presence with phrases such as “this is the law !” and calls actual cops “conventional authorities”.

(These remarks were never explained, though there clearly was a backstory there. Perhaps Gallows was associated with Keane from the very start, not having realised that Keane had ulterior motives Gallows would have condemned.)

Americop also lists applicable crimes and misdemeanors (“carjacking, speeding, resisting arrest, murderous assault”, for instance) before shooting.

Americop trusts no one and is remarkably relentless and cold-blooded. He handles all situations like a hardened warrior, and appreciates opportunities to execute a large number of criminals. It seems impossible to deter or stop him.

Quotes

“You have the right to remain silent… forever.”

“I SAID NOBODY MOVE.”

“You are accused of conspiracy to sell illegal firearms, resisting arrest, and shooting at an officer of the law with murderous intent. You have been found guilty. The nation’s prisons are already overburdened with criminal vermin. Therefore, in the best interest of the taxpayer, I sentence you all to death.”

“They know nothing of real strength and determination.”

“I don’t make deals. I enforce the law.”

DC Universe History

The story could work with Americop being a character encountered by the Dawn Granger/Hawk Hall version of Hawk & Dove.

By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: Marvel Comics.

Helper(s): Darci.

Writeup redone on the 16^th of May, 2017.