Jimmy Woo

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Background

Powers and Abilities

A highly skilled combatant, Jimmy is also :

He also possesses a formidable willpower.

Weirdly enough, Jimmy knew how to handle a xiphos – an Ancient Greek sword. He also now fights unarmed more like a kung fu fighter and less like a two-fisted 1950s tough guy.

Most of these additional combat skills seem to be from S.H.I.E.L.D. advanced classes. Jimmy mentioned that he also received training from Mister Lao, but that may be more in tactics and strategy than in physical skills.

In charge

Jimmy is a strong leader. He has been described as “radiating leadership”.

He quickly got his G-Men working together as a unit when they first formed. And made a strong enough impression that they came to his aid half a century later.

This likely was a large part of why the Golden Claw chose Woo as his successor.

Furthermore, he has something of an elder statesman image among Asian-American heroes.

Woo xsShort for “xiānshēng”, and thus an equivalent of “Mr.”. has been described as a combination James Bond and Professor-Moriarty  -as-more-or-less-a-good-guy.

The latter refers to his activities shifting more toward Atlas management and leadership roles. Which means heavy involvement in :

Jimmy being the “been everywhere, done everything” type (even after losing a large chunk of his memories), he has an amazing breadth of connections. But he’s also careful not to ask too many favours.

Weapons

James usually operates with but a handgun or two. He’s a good enough gunfighter that it suffices to deal with most human-level opposition, and to place called shots on targets with weak points.

Heavier combat is for his super-operatives to handle. Toting heavier firepower would make little sense since he can give orders to the death robot.

(Though there are instances where Jimmy will open fire if a pair of teammates are doing a Team Attack. To shift them into the next line of the Team Attack Manoeuvre Table and impose an extra CS of penalty to the target. Jimmy has read the DC Heroes TTRPG rules – be like Jimmy).

Woo xs’ handgun is sometimes drawn as a Walther PPK, as a James Bond visual reference. But it’s probably not one in-universe, since he describes it as a “fancy heater”. So I’d *assume* :

On some operations, he seems to pack two Colt M1911 variants instead, plus extra clips. It is entirely possible that these are the same .45s he was using as a 1950s FBI agent.

Note that James doesn’t shoot both pistols at once, à la Chow Yun Fat. Having two guns is more about extending trigger time between reloads.

One of ’em slick hallyu-style covers by InHyuk Lee  .

Other weapons

During one operation Jimmy wore a heavy tactical vest. He carried some sort of tranquiliser handgun, a backup pistol, some sort of melee weapon (presumably less-lethal) and lotsa pouches. But there’s little data about what any of this did.

This suggests that he *might* habitually wear an undershirt ballistic, energy-resistant vest. But this isn’t ever demonstrated.

He once used a handheld movement detector – perhaps an echolocation device. It could detect guards ahead within a caves maze.

Mr. Woo once produced an Atlas Multiperp Stun Blaster. This semi-auto energy bolt pistol is entirely non-lethal, and its intensity can be lowered even further.

Since Jimmy produced an energy rifle soon after that, it seems possible that the Stun Blaster handgun can be quickly fitted with a stock and front attachment to become a warfighting energy small arm. Pym particles might be involved, since James had no visible way to carry a rifle.

This rifle was rather powerful – enough to blast through the body armour of invading space aliens. One therefore suspects that it was a recent prototype from Doctor Zu, Atlas’ resident mad scientist/weapons engineer. Since Jimmy doesn’t normally wield that sort of firepower.

It’s a car ! Get in the lion !

Jimmy still drives his 1958 Edsel Citation convertible  – a rare and distinctive-looking piece of American motorcar history. He and his G-Men often used it back during Department Zero’s salad days.

In 2009, it was rebuilt using a mix of Uranian and Atlas tech. The modified Citation :

The Edsel isn’t a recurrent part of Jimmy’s M.O.. In large part because Bob’s saucer covers almost any transportation need.

In 2018, Jimmy was also seen piloting a one-person flying saucer (likely a joint Grayson/Atlas project). It seemed intended as a fast, stealthy missile delivery platform.

Dragon advisor

As the Khan of Atlas, Mr. Woo is advised by Mr. Lao, a Chinese-style dragon. Lao is essentially immortal, and possesses a formidably clever and subtle mind atop his millennia of experience.

He’s also a great enchanter. Though each such magical project seems to be a lengthy and resources-hungry process.

Furthermore, dragons are said to be such master strategists that only another dragon can defeat forces commanded by a dragon.

However, that means that Jimmy can never be sure whether he or Lao is the one who’s truly in charge. Lao will always abide by the laws and traditions of Atlas, but these are complex and numerous.

Reign of fire

What we know about dragons such as Lao :

Soundtrack

Something to evoke 2006, the year of Jimmy’s return… Heh, it was the year when Scotland’s own KT Tunstall  had her breakthrough in the US. And I’m a KT fan, so let’s go with it.

This here video is of her close-of-2004 breakthrough in Western Europe, on a popular British TV show. She was asked to perform literally overnight, so she’s using what looks like her street busking gear.

One of my fav bits are the reactions of the show’s band.

History (part 1)

During the 2000s, we learned new stuff about Jimmy’s past.

As to Jimmy’s heroic activities.

None of this is set in sliding time  . The comics always give dates corresponding to the publication years.

Frex the Golden Claw activities explicitly took place during the late 1950s, and James Woo was clearly stated to have joined S.H.I.E.L.D. during the 1960s.

Ken Hale and Jimmy Woo in action during the late 1950s.

Stark’s Seven

As a young FBI agent, Jimmy worked a few times with colourful industrialist Howard Stark.

Stark thus contacted him when he called markers to set up a crazy operation to steal alien technology in Las Vegas. For this movie-like heist, his other experts were :

The tech was needed to allow Maria Stark to have a medically viable pregnancy, then give birth to Anthony. Which means it can’t be placed on any timeline. Since by publication time Tony was born during the late 1930s – so he can be at least in his mid-20s when he debuts in 1963.

If going strictly by Jimmy’s timeline this incident likely occurred in 1955. Which also sounds about right for Dum-Dum.

The heist was a success, the tech — namely Recorder 451 — was liberated, and Anthony Stark was a live and healthy birth.

Howard then briefly reunited this team for a strike at the remaining Grey aliens in Vegas, as he had learned that leaving witnesses would have catastrophic consequences. The raid was a success.

Woo, P.I.

In 1959, after Department Zero was disbanded, Jimmy Woo left the FBI.

One gets the impression that he had grown disillusioned with working for The Man™, and wanted to defend the underdog rather than “order”.

Notably, he freed a hapless Venusian who had been captured by the US military.

During that era he seemingly dated a childhood friend, Ms. Takeuchi. She had grown up to be a Lois-Lane-style investigative journalist.

When and how Jimmy rejoined the FBI is unrevealed.

Atlas

During the early 2000s, Jimmy was nearing retirement.

Yet he used his status as a member of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Directorate to assemble a group of troublesome agents. He covertly investigated the Atlas Foundation, which he suspected was a front for the Golden Claw.

But his team was slaughtered, and Jimmy was left mortally wounded.

As explained in the Agents of Atlas team profile, Jimmy then’:

History (part 2)

For more than a decade, Woo xs worked on closing down criminal Atlas operations.

There was an impressive number of those, most dating from before Plan Chu digitised Atlas operations. As a consequence, there were no easily searchable records.

During that span the Agents of Atlas usually had to work discreetly, and leave as soon as the job was done. Since it was reasonable for others, particularly super-heroes, to think that the Agents were working for a criminal empire.

Jimmy did lean into presenting himself as the inheritor of the “Yellow Claw” early on. But that was to trick Norman Osborn, then in charge of the American security apparat, into a fake alliance.

Jimmy’s other main responsibility is to prevent another draconic world war. If dragons — and their secret empires such as Atlas — were to clash again, the devastation would be incomparably worse than during the last such war.

Erosion

By the mid-2010s, Jimmy and his inner circle of agents seemingly ran out of steam.

Perhaps as a reaction, Jimmy had been investing time and treasure into a new major project – the Pan-Asian School for the Unusually Gifted, in Mumbai. By 2013, the Pan-Asian already had students, so the effort likely began circa 2010.

Prince of Persia

Mr. Woo’s partner in this venture was Sanjar Javeed. A Persian mutant with power over diseases, Mr. Javeed had been “stockpiled” during the IV^th Century by Apocalypse (En Sabah Nur) as a last resort Horseman. He regained his freedom after X-Force killed Apocalypse in 2011.

Woo seemed chiefly interested in Pan-Asian as a long-term investment to recruit new operatives. Over time Javeed — who reputedly used a lost, cursed treasure to fund his stake in Pan-Asian — became the sole headmaster as Woo focused on Atlas business.

In 2013, Pan-Asian and similar schools worldwide were attacked by Black Order troops. Woo xiānshēng and Javeed agha defended the students until the emergency evacuation measures could kick in.

Protectors

In 2017, Mr. Woo took part in a charity event to recruit Asian-American donors for the Bone Marrow Registry  .

But his goal was to network with potential agents. Particularly youths such as Silk (Cindy Moon), Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan), or the Hulk (Amadeus Cho).

These three, Jimmy, and adult experts Jake Oh (agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.) and Shang-Chi (master of kung fu) were kidnapped by aliens from Seknarf Seven, led by Prince Phalkan. Along with a sizeable chunk of Midtown Manhattan, they were to be kept as food.

The heroes promptly organised a resistance, and Jimmy dubbed this ad-hoc team the Protectors.

Woo and Cho co-led the Protectors and the civilian partisans – with Woo compensating for Cho’s rash, pig-headed style. The effort narrowly succeeded, with but few casualties.

Amadeus was thrilled to work with Jimmy. But Cho was taken aback when Woo nearly killed an alien warrior in a last-ditch effort to win the battle. While Jimmy considered that this was war — and cared little about the lives of anthropophagous space alien warriors — the idealistic Amadeus rejected lethal force.

On his end, Woo didn’t quite trust Cho. Too arrogant, too idealistic, a chaotic track record – and a hulk.

During the Protectors incident, Jimmy uncharacteristically used a powerful energy rifle.

Hulk and consequences

In 2018, Prince Phalkan escaped and attacked Earth.

Jimmy and Kamala wanted to reunite the Protectors, but Amadeus attacked on his own. He nearly killed Phalkan – and it became clear that he was losing his struggle against his Dark Hulk personality.

During this incident, both Atlas and the Wakandan military used missiles with bespoke payloads that disrupted the artificial storage of gamma energy within Cho’s cells. These had been designed in collaboration with Amadeus Cho and his sister Madame Curie Cho.

This was the key in allowing Amadeus to overcome his Dark Hulk side. Jimmy and Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) then arrested Cho.

Kids these days

Jimmy’s chronicled activities continued to pivot toward Asian superhumans. This conceivably reflected a shift in the balance of power between the Atlas draconic secret empire and the Great Wall one, but there’s no data about that.

He also continued to work with Asian-American heroes such as Cho, Khan or Moon – usually to have them visit the Pan-Asian School. At this point, Mr. Woo was open about the fact he hoped to one day recruit them as Agents of Atlas.

He also developed ties with the Tiger Division, the official South Korean superhuman response team. Key TD operatives were cleared for joint operations with Atlas. Jimmy was also instrumental in recruiting Crescent (Dan Bi) and Io.

In 2019 at the latest, these efforts paid off. Earth was hit by invasions from the AsgardianThe reality of the Old Norse gods, such as Thor. worlds, with multiple Asia-Pacific countries facing fire goblins from Muspelheim.

Jimmy and Atlas played a critical role in coordinating the superhuman response to the attack and occupation. This succeeded, allowing the forces in Asia to reinforce other fronts and finish tipping the scale.

Woo and Atlas also deployed a cunning trick – a robotic impersonator of the goddess Pele. But this stratagem further deteriorated Woo’s professional relationship with Cho, who resented that this had been kept a secret from him.

Jimmy’s Khan outfit during the brief span where Atlas was still posing as a criminal empire.

The 3 Xs

In 2019, Citizen V (Roberto da Costa) assembled intelligence about a small 1930s/1940s organisation called the Scientists’ Guild – or the Three Xs. He correctly intuited that they had played an important but undocumented role in the secret history of super-heroes.

Jimmy Woo agreed to team up to investigate. Bob Grayson’s recollections about the Dark Avenger (Jerry Carstairs), an agent of the Three Xs, led them to investigate the magical mask Carstairs used to wear.

‘Berto was then slain in action. Jimmy carried on and allied with Night Thrasher (Dwayne Taylor), who had been investigating the mask on his own.

Taylor arranged for an alliance with the Blue Marvel (Dr. Adam Brashear) to step up their inquiries. The three men managed to piece together much of the history of the Mask of Eternity.

As Jimmy Woo remarked he, Dwayne and Adam had essentially become the new Three Xs. The trio apparently kept working together to explore fringe weirdness.

New Agents of Atlas

2019 is also when Jimmy’s next generation of Agents of Atlas became fully operational.

Though the inner circle was still active and doing mostly secret missions, the new (and younger) agents could provide crisis response in both the US and Asia-Pacific theatres.

These new assets were critical in stopping the Big Nguyen’s Pan crisis, and handling parts of the 2020 war against Atlantis. But at Lao’s advice Jimmy remained incommunicado for much of it, thinking that it would help his new agents prove themselves.

In hindsight, this wasn’t the right approach. It precipitated the departure of Brawn (Amadeus Cho), who had been the field leader of the new Agents of Atlas.

Dr. Brashear, Mr. Taylor and Mr. Woo are the modern version of the Three Xs.

Description

It is *possible* that Jimmy has resumed ageing in real time. He sometimes seems significantly older circa 2020 than he did in 2006. But at other times, he’s still drawn as a younger man.

Outside of field missions, Jimmy remains a connoisseur of high-end business suits. Younger Asian-American heroes call this his “Asian Dad Look” and yeah, they ain’t wrong.

Personality

Dynamic and dedicated, Jimmy is a born leader. He can quickly gain the lifelong loyalty of a disparate group of personalities, easily engendering in them a trust of his leadership abilities.

He manages his agent in a polite, respectful manner. Jimmy honestly explains his decisions, resulting in enough trust that his team will go along when he does have to withhold information.

Jimmy will also clearly acknowledge his agents’ personal priorities, and respect these as much as is reasonable.

This honesty had to recede as Jimmy had to deal in Atlas-level secrets and layered stratagems. However, his inner circle trusts him enough to understand why he now plays much closer to his chest.

The Khan with the plan

While he was dedicated to bringing down the Golden Claw he rarely let this passion take control of him. He remained level-headed in even the most trying of conditions, and preferred proper planning whenever possible.

While he’s an honourable and principled man, James can be ruthless when called for. He’s not a super-hero – his roots are that of a man who faced a vast, nightmarish secret empire pretty much on his own. Sometimes, this calls for devious — even murderous — stratagems.

Yet Jimmy also understands his teammates may be less willing to kill than he is. He won’t force them to do so, taking the difficult actions onto himself.

If a plan calls for one operative to take unreasonable risks, Jimmy will be that operative. He’s not comfortable with ordering others into excessive harm’s way even if there’s no better solution.

Man out of time

Having no memory of the past half century has left him slightly out of place in the modern world. But he quickly adapts to new things, so is rarely thrown for long.

On the other hand, with wear and tear he has come to miss the 1950s. And to sometimes seek comfort in this familiar decade rather than constant exposure to modernity.

Jimmy and Shang-Chi share a robust friendship. There are cultural differences, Shang-Chi never was a fan of how spies keep their secrets, and Jimmy can’t always get Shang-Chi’s taoist outlook.

But they clearly respect each other. And that many teenage heroes of East Asian heritage see them both as elder statesman figures helps.

Quotes

(Faced with a small army of undead) “M-11, please re-kill these people.”

“We’ve got you now, Claw.”

“Listen to me. This is Jimmy. I’ve never lied to you. And I never will.”

Ken Hale: “Boy, Jimmy, you channel Yellow Claw a little too easily.”
James Woo: “I’ve had to sit through a lot of those villain spiels. I could kick that stuff out in my sleep.”

(To Temugin): “You have a crazy amount of focus and discipline, and I respect that. But you also have some ridiculous ideas about death and honour. That’s fine when it’s just you, but you’re talking about getting lots of others killed. We’ll shut them down, but we’ll do it with a plan. If I put anyone at great risk, it’s going to be me.”

“I’m a secret agent, kids. Secrets are my business.”

DC Universe Adaptation

(This section proposes ways of using this character in DC Universe stories).

Recruited to Checkmate when the Golden Claw appeared to resurface, his clandestine operation happened just prior to the organization’s collapse under Max Lord.

This allowed Jimmy and his team to investigate Atlas without the full resources of Checkmate on his tail.

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