Bloodsport
(Robert DuBois)
Context
Bloodsport (Robert DuBois) appeared in 1987, not long after the Crisis . He thus popped up early during John Byrne’s post-Crisis modernisation of Superman, and in time to have a Who’s Who update entry. These both elevated his profile.
But he’s also a convenient character with a vast arsenal of super-guns. Which tends to be a popular concept.
Background
- Real Name: Robert DuBois.
- Marital Status: Single.
- Known Relatives: Michael DuBois (brother).
- Group Affiliation: None.
- Base Of Operations: Metropolis.
- Height: 6’1” Weight: 231 lbs.
- Eyes: Brown Hair: Black (shaven bald)
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Powers and Abilities
DuBois has been well-trained in bodybuilding and weapons use. He’s a quick and accurate shooter with a wide variety of firearms, from handguns to shoulder-fired weapons.
He’s a fully ambidextrous marksman. Though in DC Heroes RPG terms he does not seem to have the Paired Firearms Schtick, he usually has a weapon in each hand. Bloodsport can fire either the left or the right one without any loss of accuracy or speed.
On top of his sheer size and musculature, the insane DuBois seems to have a significant level of manic strength and intensity. For instance, he was seen engaging a man with borderline superhuman strength in a boxing match and going toe-to-toe with him.
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We are guided by the beauty of our weapons
When wearing his experimental rig, Bloodsport can have numerous sorts of high-tech weaponry teleport to him. Many of those seem to be one-of-a-kind prototypes from advanced Lexcorp research projects. Discarded weapons are not automatically teleported back. For instance, Jimmy Olsen once grabbed a weapon Bloodsport dropped.
The system is presumably piloted cybernetically, so Bloodsport can mentally choose the weapon he teleports to him. Thus, I’d assume Bloodsport must touch the weapon and make a mental effort to send it back.
History
American citizen Bobby DuBois was drafted near the end of the Việt Nam invasion. But he fled to Canada in order not to end up in the meat grinder. Unbeknownst to him, his younger brother Mickey volunteered in his stead, apparently in an effort not to have his brother branded a coward.
As Robert DuBois, Michael did not serve for long. He lost both arms and legs during the war, and was confined to a motorised wheelchair for the rest of his life.
Traumatic mythomania
Robert went insane with grief. He spent 12 years in and out a variety of psychiatric hospitals throughout Canada. He developed a fixation about the Việt Nam invasion. Robert started pretending that like his brother Mickey he was an heroic veteran of the conflict.
In this reinvented life, Robert had lost much of his sanity during the war. Thus, he felt bitter about the US ignoring the sacrifice “he and his brother” had made for their sake. Apparently he started working out and training with combat techniques. That presumably was to better establish his warped self-image as a cinematic Rambo-like veteran.
(While the Việt Nam backstory, which was still possible in 1986, is now impossible in a 10-year timeline. The war that crippled Michael DuBois could be retconned to Iraq, or you could join our ponderings about ageing in comics).
The insane man was spotted by Lexcorp. He was recruited by an off-the-record project for Luthor and a psychiatrist named Kimberly. The idea was to exploit his insane, fanatical devotion to his imaginary story to turn him into an agent.
Thus, after six weeks, was Bloodsport born. DuBois was outfitted with experimental teleportation technology allowing him to teleport in advanced weaponry from a special Lexcorp arsenal.
Bloodsport on the streets
One of the weapons being a kryptonite sliver pistol. Thus, it is likely the general plan was to stage a crisis with Bloodsport, then have him unexpectedly shoot Superman with this weapon. Dr. Kimberly started conditioning DuBois to view Superman as his main target.
However, Bloodsport fled from Lexcorp earlier than planned. He rampaged through Metropolis, since he had not been persuaded yet to specifically hate Superman. Ordering Metropolis to “clean up its act”, Bloodsport opened fire on a random fast-food place, killing about 25.
He soon struck again, killing a dozen in a bowling alley where Superman, who had been following his trail, intercepted him. As he was about to be apprehended, Bloodsport had a pistol appear in his hand and shot Superman with a kryptonite sliver.
Man of Steel
The man of steel was saved when Jimmy Olsen, using one of Bloodsport’s weapons, held the maniac at bay. Bloodsport escaped, and Superman was taken to the hospital. The staff managed to get the sliver out of his shoulder. Still, the hero had lost a lot of blood.
Superman found the rampaging Bloodsport soon after that. So did a tank and armoured infantry from Lexcorp. Learning of the massacre, Luthor had ordered his rogue agent to be terminated. Bloodsport managed to take the Lexcorp troops out. But Superman then ionised the air around him, blocking his access to his weapons.
As Bloodsport threatened to detonate his teleportation rig, Jimmy Olsen brought in his brother Michael DuBois. The young reported had located Michael after having one of Bloodsport’s weapons checked for fingerprints. Michael convinced his brother to stop and surrender.
Robert DuBois was imprisoned for years in an upstate Institute for the criminally insane, but little progress was made. In fact it would seem that his psychiatric condition considerably worsened.
Doing time
Due to cuts in budgets, DuBois was transferred to a normal, but high-security prison, on Stryker’s Island. Other prisoners quickly came to fear the violently insane, muscular mass murderer. Following several brutal incidents, nobody would go near him.
While DuBois was imprisoned, another Bloodsport appeared. This man was the pathologically racist Alex Trent, who was arrested by Superman after a rampage through a Black neighbourhood. In prison, Trent quickly became the darling of the local chapter of the Aryan Brotherhood. When DuBois was transferred to Stryker’s, Trent was already there.
It soon became obvious than something bad was going to happen between the two men. Especially after the Black prison gang Black Future threw its support behind DuBois in order to counter the Aryan Brotherhood’s tough guy.
Attempting to prevent the situation from turning into an uncontainable riot, the warden went ahead. He organised a boxing match between Bloodsport I and Bloodsport II, with Superman acting as a referee. Both the Brotherhood and Black Future announced they would abide by the results of the boxing match.
Outside contacts of the Aryan Brotherhood managed to key some powerful guns to Trent’s weapon teleportation rig. This a similar tech to the one once used by DuBois, but surgically implanted within Trent’s body. After the first round Trent ’ported a gun to his hand and shot Superman and several guards.
But DuBois slugged him in the abdomen, took the gun and started running, gunning down guards trying to stop him. On his way out he nearly killed Trent, who was saved by Superman. But as he reached the shore he was machinegunned by the guards, and fell to his apparent death.
Bloodsport III ?
In 2006 (publication time), a Black man wearing the Bloodsport I outfit and a weapon teleportation rig is seen. Somebody who seems to be the same person is latter seen on the prison planet during the Salvation Run event … except this man, despite wearing the same costume and having the same goatee, is now White.
Thus, either :
- This Bloodsport is Alex Trent (Bloodsport II) wearing Bloodsport I’s costume and who was once mistakenly coloured as a Black guy.
- Or there is a third, African-American Bloodsport who was depicted with the wrong skin tone during Salvation Run.
From the little we’ve seen, this character does not display any trace of Bloodsport I’s Việt Nam war obsession. He seems to be a straightforward killer and guns nut. Thus, I do not think this man is a miraculously-surviving Robert DuBois. Unless he both miraculously survived *and* somehow was cured of his psychosis.
Since nothing matches Trent either, the likely conclusion is that it’s a third man.
“Bloodsport III” (whoever that really was) was part of the various obscure Superman foes who tried to kill him after Intergang. He also was a member of the Luthor camp on the Salvation run planet.
Description
See illustration.
Personality
Bloodsport pretends that he is a bitter Việt Nam veteran who feels greatly betrayed and rejected by his country. Thus, he enjoys powerful and righteous anger toward his fellow Americans for ’wasting‘ the freedoms invading Việt Nam supposedly helped preserve.
However, he has no first-hand experience about this war. Thus, his speeches and character are largely drawn from movies about the war and folk representations of Việt Nam war veterans. DuBois seems largely influenced by one of the main such characters, John Rambo.
His sanity kept deteriorating. Though at first he seemed aware that his vet persona was fictional, he grew increasingly delusional and dissociated. A very violent, powerful guy, he was plunged into a permanent fantasy about being a soldier in a movie version of the Việt Nam war. DuBois was feared even by the other dangerous prisoners in Stryker’s.
Quotes
“Fools ! Animals ! Is this what we fought for ? Is this what we died for ? Me an’ Mickey didn’t get our cans blown off in ’Nam so you could waste away your lives like this ! You’re on notice, Metropolis ! No more senseless waste of the freedoms we died to protect for you ! Clean up your act, big city… or Bloodsport will do it for you !!”
“Go climb your thumb, superhero ! If we’d knuckled under when Charlie did that, you’d be eatin’ rice cakes today !”
“Damn ! Comin’ at me from all directions ! Just like the Cong ! Crawlin’ out of the jungle… swarming like ants ! Only *this* time I got me a big can of Raid !! This time we win !” (summons a weapon)
(In the Stryker’s Island high-security prison) “… escape… gotta escape… P.O.W. camp… Việt Cong…”
(Facing Bloodsport II) “The war’s over for you, soldier ! You’re a disgrace to your country ! You are hereby court-martialed and sentenced to death !”
Game Stats — DC Heroes RPG
Tell me more about the game stats
Bloodsport I
| Dex: 04 | Str: 05 | Bod: 05 | Motivation: Psycho |
| Int: 04 | Wil: 03 | Min: 03 | Occupation: Mental patient |
| Inf: 04 | Aur: 03 | Spi: 04 | Resources {or Wealth}: 004 |
| Init: 016 | HP: 025 |
Skills:
Martial artist: 05, Vehicles (Land): 04, Weaponry (Firearms, Heavy): 08
Advantages:
Familiarity (Irregular warfare), Lightning Reflexes.
Connections:
None.
Drawbacks:
Serious Rage, Serious Psychological Instability.
Equipment:
- WEAPONS TELEPORTATION RIG [BODY 04, Teleportation: 08, Limitations: Teleportation can only teleport properly prepared weapons between a specially-equipped arsenal and Bloodsport ; those teleportations are an Automatic Action ; Teleportation cannot fully solidify weapons in a strongly ionised environment, and lesser but significant ion counts may increase the R# of weapons that get ’ported in].
Apparently, the RIG has a self-destruction mode capable of razing ten blocks (Bomb: 21). Once activated it is a dead man switch. If Bloodsport stops holding the trigger it detonates. - SPORTS BIKE [STR 04 BODY 06, Invisibility: 04, Running: 07, R#02]. This bike seemed to be armed with eight rockets and what I assume are twin laser cannons (stats unknown). It could turn itself and the rider invisible, though Superman could follow a residual heat trace in the IR end of the spectrum.
We’re guided by the beauty of our weapons
Many of Bloodsport’s weapons seem to have a Recommended STR of about 04, especially as they are used with one hand. Recommended STR would be 02 or 03, depending on model, when used normally with both hands. Known weapons are:
- Multi-barelled carbine (x2) [BODY 03, AV 05, Projectile weapon: 09, Ammo: 20, Advantage: Autofire, Scattershot]. Those six-barelled carbines can be fired one-handed and have a high rate of fire. Those seem to be Bloodsport’s default weapon.
- Grenade launcher [BODY 04, Range: 05, Ammo: 06]. A clip-fed, recoil-compensated 40mm semi-automatic carbine, which can be fired one-handed. The default payload is a [BODY 02, Bomb: 08, Grenade Drawback] grenade.
- Kryptonite flechette handgun [BODY 03, Projectile weapon: 03, Ammo: 01]. This single action handgun shoots needle-like projectiles that are slivers of green kryptonite. Thus, this is one of the few handguns on Earth that can harm Superman.
- Smoke marbles (x10) [BODY 01, Fog: 04, Grenade drawback]. Those black marbles detonate on impact and emit a thick, acrid, choking purple smoke.
- Short-range missile cluster launcher [BODY 02, Projectile weapon: 15, Range: 03, Ammo: 12, Dart Bonus, Limitation: Projectile weapon has No Range – use the listed Range instead]. Basically a basket full of missiles, with a stock and a trigger launching them in quick succession (normally three per Phase, using the Dart Bonus). Those potent rockets were able to hurt a wounded and weakened Superman.
- Plasma beam heavy pistol [BODY 02, Energy blast: 10, Range: 04, Ammo: 04, Limitation: Energy blast has No Range – use the listed Range instead]. A potent weapon emitting a huge beam, at least for a handgun.
- Shoulder-fired anti-tank rocket [BODY 03, Projectile weapon: 16, Range: 05, Ammo: 01, Limitation: Projectile weapon has No Range – use the listed Range instead]
Bloodsport III ?
(See a discussion of a possible Bloodsport III in the History section).
This version has no BIKE, and the WEAPONS TELEPORTATION RIG (which may well have lost its Bomb function) can no longer bring in the finest of Lexcorp’s prototypes. Instead, he uses weapons that can be procured by well-connected criminals within the DCU. The two known ones are:
- Rebuilt M4 assault carbine chambered for .50 Raufoss anti-materiel rounds [BODY 04, Projectile weapon: 08, Sharpness (Projectile weapon): 02, Ammo: 10, Telescopic vision: 02, R#02]
- High-energy rifle (likely a modified BG-80 Toastmaster) [BODY 03, Energy blast: 09, R#03]
Design Notes
This assumes both that Superman has a DEX of 10 (though he can sub his Superspeed if he wants), which is a common assumption with us, *and* that he has a Serious Bulletproof Syndrome lowering his AV by 2CS.
Source of Character: DC Universe.
Helper(s): Jackson, Roy Cowan.