Jimmy Woo

Background

Powers and Abilities

Jimmy Woo has continued to refine his field and investigative skills, and received S.H.I.E.L.D. training.

He’s a highly capable agent, among the best even within S.H.I.E.L.D..

However almost all of his appearances during this era are as a bit player, as reflected in his Hero PointsDC Heroes RPG concept expressing narrative importance/immunity. total.

Fan illustration by RonnieThunderbolts (Jared M. Jones).

History (part 1)

Using experimental S.H.I.E.L.D. ESPExtra-Sensory Perception. Using special psychic senses. equipment, Special Agent Woo helped Colonel Fury locate the Claw.

On one hand, even S.H.I.E.L.D. was taxed by the immense resources and the genius of the Claw. On the other, the battle revealed several high-potential agents. These included :

Claw it back

Fury survived the assaults of the Claws’ organisation by the skin of his teeth. However, Woo was captured during the second step of a two-stage ambush.

It seemed that Su Wan was killed during the final clash between Fury and the Yellow Claw, and died in Jimmy’s arms. James Woo swore vengeance against both men.

However, S.H.I.E.L.D. soon determined that the “Claw” and “Su Wan” had been incredibly realistic robot doubles all along.

Fury wrote Woo to inform him of this, and to make a job offer. He wanted the G-Man on his team.

Jimmy eventually agreed to join S.H.I.E.L.D..

Don’t yield ! Back S.H.I.E.L.D. !

Woo qualified all the way up. He beat the traps and opponents in the death maze reserved to testing agents capable of personally working with Fury in the field.

Jimmy then finished his full S.H.I.E.L.D. training. However, Fury was captured by renegade genius Centurius before he could give Woo his first assignment.

Agent Woo regularly worked with the top S.H.I.E.L.D. people. Nevertheless, much of his late 1960s career is undocumented. His known cases include :

ゴジラ

Woo was also involved with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s clashes with the “king of monsters”, Gojira (aka Godzilla) during the late 1970s.

He found himself attracted toward Tamara Hashioka. She was the assistant of Dr. Takiguchi, a scientist famous for his oft-successful efforts to repel or calm Gojira.

However, Ms. Hashioka did not initially return his interest. That was in part because of Woo’s rash actions to gain her attention.

During the Gojira “campaign”, Woo also had to stop the gigantic Red Ronin robot.

This machine had been built by Mr. Takiguchi and Ms. Hashioka using Stark Industries facilities. But Takiguchi’s grandson, a kid named Rob, commandeered it.

モンスターの王

As he stopped Red Ronin, Jimmy Woo discovered that Rob had fallen unconscious. And the boy’s psyche had imprinted upon the robot and making it impossible for anybody else to pilot it.

The kid soon hijacked the robot again in an effort to prevent S.H.I.E.L.D. from killing Gojira, whom Rob considered to be his friend.

Despite their previous misunderstandings, a romance burgeoned between Agent Woo and Ms. Hashioka. This distracted them enough to allow Rob to commandeer the Red Ronin yet again.

Nevertheless, the agent and the researcher managed to extricate Rob from the wrecked mechaSome form of cool sci-fi super-vehicle or super-robot. after a brutal fight pitting the Ronin against giant alien monsters.

After they debriefed Rob, S.H.I.E.L.D. forces started distracting the aliens. This allowed the King of Monsters to kill them one by one and save Earth.

怪獣クライシス

Mr. Woo and Ms. Hashioka started a relationship.

Some months later, the King of Monsters was finally captured, and sent to prehistoric times to live with other giant lizards. Everyone was sent back home.

For Tamara, this meant leaving returning to Japan as the crises were over. She and Jimmy had to break up.

It’s a 1977 story, so Jimmy’s talking about the then-recent Episode IV – A New Hope.

History (part 2)

James Woo was later transferred to the Hong Kong Division of S.H.I.E.L.D., presumably as the regional director.

In 1984, he and his personal team were informed by Director Fury that the Black Widow (Natalia Romanova) was operating on their turf.

They assisted her against mercenaries sent to kill her by Damon Dran, the Indestructible Man. In particular, Jimmy intervened after she was defeated by the Iron Maiden.

The Deltite Conspiracy

During the second half of the 1980s, S.H.I.E.L.D. was taken over during a complex plot called the Deltite Conspiracy. Along with several other key agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., James Woo was replaced by a LMDLife-Model Decoy. A lifelike robot double. duplicate.

The substitution went unnoticed. The Deltites had first replaced the sharpest agents under Fury, to reduce chances of detection.

However, even an android double of Woo remained a hero. After exposure to a fatal level of radiation the Woo LMD, along with the LMD doubles of Clay Quartermain, Jasper Sitwell and Jack Rollins, destroyed the stolen core powering the conspiracy.

The original James Woo was presumed dead at the hands of the Delta conspiracy. As were the numerous agents who had been replaced by Deltite LMDs.

From those few pages where Jimmy had that sort of dialogue (or inner monologue).

Not all those who slumber are lost

In 1993, S.H.I.E.L.D. found suspended animation pods containing these missing agents. They had been brainwashed into becoming Hydra agents.

Many were reactivated by Baron Strucker to kill Fury. One such kill team included Woo, Sidney Levine, Jasper Sitwell, Laura Brown and two unidentified agents.

Colonel Fury and Captain America stopped them and had them deprogrammed.

Woo and the others returned to active duty in time for an assault on Baron Strucker’s newest fortress. There, Nick Fury killed the Nazi.

The iron age

It would seem that, along with other core S.H.I.E.L.D. veterans such as Jasper Sitwell, Woo experienced difficulties returning to life and the service. Having been brainwashed and believed dead for five years was a large hurdle.

His personality became more sinister and violent.

Along with Sitwell he started specialising in interrogation work, becoming one of the top interrogators within S.H.I.E.L.D.. Though he was only seen performing verbal/behavioural interrogation, there were vague hints of more physical methods.

It was their work who allowed Nick Fury to detect a conspiracy headed by the Latverian Prime Minister Lucia von Bardas. As a result, Fury eventually launched an illegal “secret war” in 2005 to stop von Bardas.

Description

Mr. Woo likes wearing good, tailored, dark business suits. He would rather wear one than a S.H.I.E.L.D. beta jumpsuit.

Even in the 1980s Jimmy seemed to be, at most, in his late 30s. Since he was chronologically in his mid-40s I’d assume he aged normally, if gracefully – and stayed in top physical shape.

Later appearances depicted him as being roughly his chronological age.

The command team for the anti-Godzilla effort, led by “Dum-Dum” Dugan.

Personality

In 1968 (during the landmark Lee/Steranko S.H.I.E.L.D. stories), Woo’s speech and thought-bubbles acquire a faux-Oriental-Wisdom™ character. Thankfully, this lasted for but a few pages.

During the 1980s, Jimmy acquires a bit of characterisation. He’s a man of action and a crisply professional agent. As well as a formal, precise, respectful gentleman.

His English (and, I assume, his Cantonese) is free of contractions and colloquialisms. Even when holding people at gunpoint his threats are exact and polite.

The damage done

Getting disappeared, brainwashed and put into suspended animation for years apparently had a significant impact on him. It would seem that it triggered a personal crisis. Woo harboured an unhealthy amount of anger over those events.

Perhaps loved ones moved on with their lives as they thought him dead.

He became more sarcastic and considerably more violent. James seemed to enjoy his role as an interrogator, even when it included manhandling bound suspects.

During that era he apparently became a closer friend of fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. senior agent Jasper Sitwell, who became his usual partner when interrogating super-villains and terrorists.

The strange humour of their dialogue as they verbally interrogated subjects, sometimes likened to a good SNL skit, was popular with other agents watching the tapes as improv comedy. Yes, S.H.I.E.L.D. has problems, we know that.

Quotes

“Release the woman at once, or risk learning if that exoskeleton can survive these high-power firearms at point-blank range. Will you take the risk or release the Widow ? Your answer, please.”

“I can tell by the scraping marks in the slate, that she’s been that way.”

“Now, perhaps it would be wise if we probed this opening. There is an outside possibility she did not come here at random — but was preparing to rendezvous with others.”

Among other brainwashed Hydra agents after the fall of the Deltites.

By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: Appearances between the end of Yellow Claw (1957) and the start of Agents of Atlas (2006).

Helper(s): Gareth Lewis, Frank Murdock, Ethan Roe.