Argus

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Background

Powers and Abilities

Argus has tripled strength, agility and reflexes. He can see in the whole EM spectrum (including X-rays). He becomes transparent in darkness.

His “Argus vision” can see “the truth” within anything. In more concrete terms, he has used it to :

• Detect the weak points of items. For instance the fault lines of an item that is going to fall apart. Or the external ejection controls of a suit of power armour .
• Visualise the trajectory of objects. This is particularly helpful for dodging.
• Sense auras.
• Decipher codes by looking at them.
• Parse raw data with his naked eyes to understand its significance.

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The Argus vision can also be occasionally used, at the GM’s whim, to “highlight” important items and protagonists. This provides clues to the player.

Argus also demonstrated remarkable pugilistic and acrobatic skill. Those apparently come naturally to him as a result of his training and enhanced capabilities.

The professional

Kovac is a veteran special agent, highly skilled at undercover work. He’s an intelligent, strong-willed man and has an excellent tactical sense.

As a hobby he’s also a stage magician, and enjoys showing those skills off to persons he meets, especially to make objects appear.

He’s also a former gunship pilot and combat paramedic.

History

Nick Kovac was raised in a dirt poor household by a harsh father. The elder Mr. Kovac was a construction worker with deep faith in integrity, honesty and hard work. Nick was a sullen kid and a rebellious teenager, with no friend at school. One the other hand, he was quite popular among the criminal lowlives in Central City’s dockland.

His father hated these criminal connections. He beat Nick more than once over that. Still Nick remained a part of the docks scene. He even was adopted as a protegé by a capo named d’Angelo, whom he considered to be his second father.

D’Angelo taught Kovac the tricks of the trade. He came to consider the kid as made man material even though he hadn’t been born in the blood.

Patricide ?

Nick’s actual father died tragically. He fell while discussing with his son on high iron over the foundations of Central’s newest, largest bridge. To most, it was an accident.

However Nick was convinced that he had killed him. For years Nick pathologically repressed his memories of the event. Thus, it was unclear whether Kovac was irrationally blaming himself for the death of his dad, or was actually a patricide.

Much later in Kovac’s life, he managed to recover his memories of what had happened. In a way, he was guilty. He had previously ranted at d’Angelo about wishing that his father were dead. The capo took the youth at face value, and disguised the hit as an accident. D’Angelo also arranged for the cops not to dig too deeply into the death.

D’angelo’s motivation may have been to become the sole mentor for young Nick. The capo did intent to eventually make him his second lieutenant. If so it backfired. The shocked Kovac left Central City without a warning, renounced his last name to become Nick Kelly, and enlisted in the US Army.

For a time Helly was a Apache gunship pilot. He apparently later changed MOS  to become an aircav combat medic. Having worked through his anger as a soldier he became an intelligence agent – then joined the FBI.

Secret Agent Man

After several years with the Bureau, Nick Kelly had become a top agent. He specialised in long-term, high-risk infiltration missions and undercover work.

In particular, the Bureau made his life as Nick Kelly disappear. He resumed a an edited version of his life as Nick Kovac, without any mention of the Army or law enforcement. The goal was for Agent Kelly to infiltrate the Central City docklands mob. Nick-Kovac-as-Nick-Kelly-as-Nick-Kovac rebuilt the bridges with d’Angelo. It was superb undercover work.

But Cavacci, one of the mob’s lieutenants, discovered the truth. As a result, he gave Nick a rendezvous in a deserted train station to execute him. Cavacci didn’t warn d’Angelo about this. He was planning to pass off Kelly’s execution as a hit from the rival mob – the weird, dangerous criminal faction known as the Combine.

Cavacci’s overall goal was to create vacancies in the ranks so he and his allies could fill them and gain influence.

However, before the murder could take place, both “Kovac” and Cavacci were attacked by alien parasites. Kelly had some of his spinal fluid drained by the parasite Nenev. But he improbably survived. Like some other survivors of parasite attacks, he developed superhuman powers, which he discovered as he got out of the hospital.

Empowered

Kelly mistakenly thought that the aliens were Combine agents. Thus, he decided to strike at the Combine before they could get him. However, his handler refused to back him up in this endeavour. He thought Kelly should go back to his cover and lay low. But Kelly was certain that he’d be killed if he did that.

Kelly snuck into the Combine stronghold. Although the place was reputed for its incredible security, his powers gave him a vast advantage. He also boosted a suit of flexible body armour from the Bureau as a further asset.

During this raid, it became clear that the Combine was not after him at all. The two Combine men he was eavesdropping on were killed by Glonth, another alien parasite. Argus was outmatched by Glonth, but managed to track it down to an old slaughterhouse. There, he and Central City’s star hero the Flash defeated Glonth and Nenev. Howbeit, the alien parasites managed to flee.

The eyes of Argus

Kelly later mended bridges with the FBI over his insubordination and theft. He resumed his cover as Nick Kovac, d’Angelo’s chauffeur and occasional lieutenant. But his career as Argus remained concealed from both the mob and the Bureau, thought it was known to journalist Linda Park.

Thus, at that point, our hero had had four lives :

1. His past as Nick Kovac.
2. His reinvention as Nick Kelly.
3. His cover as the fictionalised version of Nick Kovac.
4. His heroic alter-ego Argus.

Argus became Central City’s other, minor hero. He operated from the shadows. Argus didn’t go along well with the Flash. He considered the scarlet speedster to be a showboat, while the Flash viewed Argus as an arrogant jerk. Yet they occasionally collaborated. Argus’ attraction toward Linda Park didn’t help in any way while it lasted.

Argus developed a partnership with Mac Allistaire, an amoral gadgeteer-for-hire in Keystone. He provided Kelly with improved armour and weaponry. Argus could not foot the bill for the cutting edge gear, so he negotiated to do jobs as payment. As long as they did not involve anything iniquitous.

Data Highways

Nick was then introduced to d’Angelo’s big, big project. It was a scheme mostly inspired and managed by his assistant Hanna. The d’Angelo mob had been pumping its earnings into a legit enterprise, Data Highways. DH had become a corporate giant with considerable financial and technological resources.

Data Highways launched a new communication satellite. It was the key to the master plan. It actually was an advanced spy sat, equipped with long-range laser cannons. It could even block sunlight over a city-sized area. Its activation codes were encrypted into a weird glyph, imprinted under a statuette d’Angelo kept on his desk.

As the master plan neared its fruition, Nick accidentally knocked over the statuette. He saw the symbol and asked d’Angelo what it was. D’Angelo considered he had no choice but to eliminate Nick to close this security breach. He detailed two of his superhuman agents, Hartly and Shiv, to ambush and execute his former protegé.

Nick escaped, but his eyes had been destroyed by Shiv’s claws. Although he had lost his sight, he kept his Argus vision, which seemed to become more powerful and versatile.

Sweeping satellite

Central City was then plunged into darkness by the satellite. This triggered a riot. The Data Highways satellite overrode all TV channels in town. It broadcast programs hosted by the Data Highways Director, a mysterious figure represented on screen by a CGI cartoon humanoid lion.

The Director announced a zero tolerance policy for crime, using the satellite’s cameras and lasers to watch and punish. It also offered Keystone to secede and become a low-taxes haven with complete security assured by the satellite. This proposal was popular with Centralites.

Nick Kelly relayed his findings to the government. But the attempts at shooting down the satellite failed. The missiles came plummeting back to Earth with explosive consequences. At roughly the same time, Kelly started losing his Argus vision. But Argus could precisely recall the glyph on the statue. He used it to take control of the satellite and shut it down.

You can handle the truth

Hacking his way into the Data Highway/d’Angelo computers, Kelly discovered that the whole plan had actually been masterminded by Hanna. The assistant was by now D’angelo main consigliere. Not only that, but she knew about his identity. Hanna has been in league with MacAllistaire to make Argus viable. And she knew about his FBI connections and Nick Kelly life.

Argus also discovered the truth about the d’Angelo-ordered assassination of his father, and how d’Angelo had ordered the recent hit on Kovac. Argus’s eyes grew back, and his Argus vision reasserted itself, stronger than ever.

Hanna was revealed to be a rogue Federal agent, and confirmed to be the mastermind behind the entire satellite plot. She and Argus found themselves in a deadlocked position due to their overwhelming mutual attraction. Hanna failed to convince Argus to become her king and reign over Central City. And Nick failed to arrest her, letting her go after wrecking her plans.

Underworld Unleashed

With the Data Highways case over, Argus remained a discreet hero in Central City.

He once was contacted by Linda Park, who wanted some stealthy help in investigating official harassment she and the Flash were being subjected to. Argus’ investigation led him straight into a squad of undead members of the Rogue Gallery. Severely outpowered, Argus managed to save the Mayor of Central from the super-zombies, but was beaten within an inch of his life.

As part of the plan of their master, Neron, the zombie Rogues then ambushed and captured the original Flash, Jay Garrick. Left behind after his unconscious body had been used to distract Garrick, Argus was presumably hospitalised and recovered.

Infinite Crisis and more

During the Infinite Crisis, Argus was part of a small army of agents coordinated by Oracle. These intervened to bring a massive breakout at Arkham Assylum back under control. From a later remark, it is likely that he also had been activated as an Oracle agents during several previous major crises, but did not appear on-panel.

A few months later, Argus was one of the victims of a network stealing organs from metahumans to resell them. He was ambushed, knocked out and his eyes were surgically removed, then later bought by an actor. Argus was hospitalised at the STAR Lab medical facility treating the victims of this organlegging ring, who contacted Dr. Mid-Nite to investigate.

Mid-Nite dismantled the organlegging operation, and took out the actor who had had Argus’s eyes grafted to replace his own. Though Argus pointed out that the last time his eyes had regrown, it was agreed to graft his eyes back to avoid medical issues. The operation apparently went fine.

Argus later survived an encounter with Prometheus, though two minor heroes he was with at that time didn’t.

Description

Kelly is quite attractive. The costume with the plates over the belly is the original. It later changed to the one with the eye symbol over the chest.

Personality

Argus is originally a suave, cool maverick. He’s articulate, and was prone to both smart alec, classy chatter and sarcastic repartee in the middle of combat.

He had the cool rebel bit down pat. Leather jacket, motorbike, tall dark stranger haircut, neat magic tricks, fancy French words, big self-confidence, charming smart mouth.

He gfradually became less fanciful, and closer to his father’s values. As he became more focused and businesslike, he stopped with the magic tricks. He tended to dress like a made man or a spook – black suit, shades and tie.

From Dover

Argus is trained as a FBI special agent, and that shows. He acts with professionalism. He carefully analyses situations like a trained law-enforcement professional and counts on his training to get him out of bad situations.

But being a sort of super-hero and being a LEO are different things. Thus, he must often adapt. Due to this “I’m an experienced law enforcement professional and you’re not” vibe, he can easily come across as condescending.

Being very familiar with undercover work, Nick prefers Argus to remain a shadowy presence. He operates in darkness and stays under the radar. The main advantage of being Argus is that he can actually act and mete out some justice. Rather than stay there smiling during brutal crimes and participating in criminal activities as he must as an undercover agent.

Other traits

Nick was haunted by deep guilt over the death of his father. He was torn between his father’s values (hard work, honesty, integrity, responsibility) and the privileged life he enjoyed as a daring criminal lieutenant. Juggling identities and the constant risk of death by execution wasn’t easy either.

Now that the d’Angelo empire has crashed and he has discovered the truth about his father’s death, things are a bit easier.

Argus will rarely pass up an occasion to say something snarky about the Flash (Wally West). Usually to imply that he’s a showoff and an idiot.

Quotes

“ A swell guy. He would throw a harpoon to a drowning man.”

By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: Flash Annual 1993 and Argus series (DC Universe).

Helper(s): Maficklin.