SuperPatriot

Background

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Powers and Abilities

SuperPatriot (a.k.a. Super-Patriot) is a living weapon.

His original, organic body had the stamina, endurance, strength, and agility of 10 peak human athletic men. It also featured a slowed aging process.

Cybernetics

His current cybernetic body includes artificial eyes, which give him, beyond conventional sight:

• Night vision.
• Microscopic vision.
• Telescopic vision.

SuperPatriot’s arms and legs have been replaced with nanite-powered cybernetic limbs, capable of lifting (pressing) approximately 10 tons. These follow his every mental command on a molecular level. Notably, they can assume the shape and function of a any weapon he can think of, so long as they retain a constant mass.

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The ammunition for these weapons is, in most cases, stored elsewhere in his body but he can use actual components of his self-regenerating nanite-powered body. He can re-load with conventional ammo and prefers it as using other means reduces his mass.

A network of nanites provides accelerated healing to both organic and cybernetic parts.

His accelerated healing ability, which through his nanites extend over to his machine parts. As a cyborg he is. He has been so extensively rebuilt that most mental powers will no longer affect him. On the other hand, his personality and function can be reprogrammed like a computer machine. Armstrong can likely be considered a ghostcomp .

S.O.S.

Special Operations Strikeforce (the S.O.S.) – Superpowered arm of the US Government

The S.O.S. is the U.S. government’s new, international strikeforce team. The Special Operations Strikeforce polices the world (this seems legal in the books), and is set up to prevent major catastrophes. It can be sent to any hotspot in a short notice using left-over flying saucers from the Martian invasion  for transportation.

It grew out of the Chicago Police’s Freak Force group. The FF had been created to effectively combat The Vicious Circle, Chicago’s powerful criminal organization.

Most members are superpowered, and have non-human physiology. Several of these are old Freak Force members, including SuperPatriot. In the S.O.S., in contrast to the Freak Force, they are all allowed to carry their own costumes.

The group has access to a major headquarters in Washington DC, called Complex One. Each member has his own quarters and a training facility, where even super powers can be trained. The plan is to eventually have a total of five complexes around the country to use.

Manpower

Each member is classified as a level one, two or three member, the level one being the ones most prominently promoted in the general public.

The leader, most often, was the Savage Dragon and the other members at start were:

• Barbaric.
• Beast Boy.
• Crusher.
• Dart.
• Feezle.
• Goldbrick.
• Horridus.
• Kid Avenger.
• Morose.
• Radical.
• Rapture.
• Ricochet.
• Rock (reserve leader).
• Smasher.
• SuperPatriot.
• The Shrew<.
• Warhawk.
• Widow.

Their police liaison has always been the unwanted Hawkins. Later additions, after a couple of members died and Beast Boy and Feezle were kicked off the team due to incompetence, are the mighty Zeek and several other unidentified ones.

Later still, the team’s roster continually changed, as for example during the God War saga, after which Herakles (aka Hercules) joined the team.

Another world

Around this time, the Dragon killed the time-traveling villain Darklord. As a result he was sent to live in a parallel universe savage Earth (à la Kamandi), where the S.O.S. was never formed. The Dragon went on to save this world, which has since been mostly rebuilt.

After the detonation of the nega-bomb on the original world almost all of the Earth’s metahumans, heroes and villains alike, lost their powers. This made police work easier and the S.O.S. is still going strong, although it is rarely being employed. The current leadership, however, is under veteran hero Sgt. Marvel.

Nowadays, most of the time, the SuperPatriot is fighting crime on his own. It is quite possible that the current-as-of-this-writing Dragon/SuperPatriot/Invincible continuity is set on the rebuilt Savage Earth.

History

John Armstrong was a gifted athlete and promising student. He quit school to fight in World War II on Dec. 11, 1941 – the day Hitler declared war on the United States. But he was captured behind enemy lines.

At this point, the Germans were anxious to create their own superhero to help battle the Americans. After many losses of their own best and brightest, the Nazis decided to use their prisoners as Guinea pigs and John Armstrong was their first subject.

However, they succeeded beyond their hopes. Armstrong, having gained superhuman strength and stamina, used his powers to free himself. Armstrong leveled the compound where he was being held and made sure that the Nazis could never duplicate the experiment on one of their own.

Super soldier

Armstrong took on the guise of SuperPatriot. He fought the Nazis at every turn throughout WWII. He fought, briefly, alongside a group of young heroes called the Allies.

After the war, SuperPatriot helped form the Fighting Force to battle Communists. That group later became known as the Liberty League in the 1960s, as they received government funding.

The times changed and SuperPatriot changed with them. ‘Patriot was opposed to the Việt Nam war and spoke out often on the subject as the war waged. In a heated exchange with Liberty League member, Battle Tank, SuperPatriot quit the group. He went on to help in the anti-war effort.

Through her big brother Jake’s FBI contacts, Rebecca Farrell met SuperPatriot. They had a brief fling. Unbeknownst to SuperPatriot, he fathered two children. On July 4, 1976 Rebecca gave birth to twins, naming them Liberty and Justice.

We can rebuild him

In 1992, SuperPatriot was mauled by the superhuman freak Mako, an agent of Chicago’s criminal organization, The Vicious Circle. His arms, legs and half of his face were damaged beyond repair by conventional means.

In an arrangement with the criminal organization CyberData, his body was rebuilt using cybernetic components. He was endowed with cybernetic arms, legs, and eyes. CyberData nearly wiped out his human mind in the process of repairing him in an effort to create for themselves an unstoppable killing machine.

Virtually mindless, SuperPatriot was used as an agent of CyberData, was captured by Youngblood. He also was forced to do the biddings of the international secret society known as The Covenant of the Sword, before he regained his mental facilities.

Sweet home Chicago

More recently, SuperPatriot has joined the superhuman arm of the Chicago Police, the Freakforce, and later still the Special Operations Strikeforce. As such, this old legend fight on all around the world.

At home, when not spending time with family, he regularly faces off against old threats, such as Adolf Hitler in one of his incarnations or the Dread Knight, dictator of Lieberheim. His most common enemy seems to be the neo-Nazis lead by Hitler’s old ally, Baron Blitzkrieg.

The SuperPatriot has also recently started a relationship. He spent much time with his now adult children, often teaming up with them fighting crime, until they both died.

Description

SuperPatriot is a cyborg with entirely cybernetic arms, legs, ears, and eyes. Other cybernetic implants are embedded on his chin, forearm, and along the sides of his face (although this is not visible since he is always wearing his face mask, even in his civilian identity).

Although his internal organs are not cybernetic, he has a massive bullet-proof and laser resistant artificial second skin beneath his natural skin. He still has massive scarring on the left side of his face and upper lip.

People that see him tend to remember the old legends about him. Even other heroes can find it an overwhelming experience when they sense his confidence and power. They remember a man famous for his extraordinary accomplishments, his legendary battles, and the fact that he appears to be everything a hero could ever hope to be.

Costume

As his current costume he wears star-spangled clothing on top of his cybernetics; a pair of trunks and oval shoulderpads (both colored in red and white stripes with a blue circle containing a white star), and a facemask (of the US of A flag, white holes for his cybernetic eyes) and a yellow, sleeveless T-shirt.

Lastly, he wears a brown, leather utility belt, which contains extra nanites for use in emergency situations, as well as extra ammunition. His old costume is also well known, and was worn by his son Justice until his death.

Personality

The SuperPatriot is a veteran superhero. Having been at it for the last six decades, he has probably seen all the tricks in the book. He will take every opportunity to stop criminal activities, and takes particular interest in violent crimes or those involving fascists, or against threats towards the nation.

He will sometimes attempt to kill his enemies, and as a principle, always does so if they are known Nazis or fascists. Like any veteran soldier he tends to call his teammates soldiers during missions.

The SuperPatriot has lived a hard life, and often has a guilty mind-set about old failures. Thus, he will also react very hard to the sight of ruined cities, or to fallen comrades.

Lifestyle

He has many fans, which he might enjoy on one level, but he certainly does not let that go to his head.

The SuperPatriot tends to get bored living a mundane life and then either falls back onto remembrance or goes out hunting crime on the streets. Given his constitution he is not going to die any time soon, and he knows it. Despite that, he has more than a little trouble settling down to a normal life, even in his old age.

He also has trouble accepting that he actually is a father of two adults, but he is working on it.

The SuperPatriot is also a man of tradition and routine. He gets up the same early hour every day and then goes through his routine things to do. Most of his moral views are still set back in the 1940s or so, although he is a firm believer of the equality of men and women. He doesn’t have a single record that came out after 1979.

In action

He very firmly, as his name implies, also believes in the traditional American dreams. He is, however, opposed to grand scale capitalism, as well as corporate crime. For instance he is reluctant to help out major chemical or oil companies.

Normally, the SuperPatriot will not speak overly much, except perhaps with his children and older friends, but instead chooses to act as a stoic, disciplined soldier. When his children died he bottled up the grief. He will, however, engage in verbal banter with criminals.

After having been rebuilt into a machine, he will, on occasion, sprout tactical data during combat in a machine like fashion, like “Targeted”. He is surprisingly undisturbed by the fact that he is now a cyborg, and even seems to forget it at times. Perhaps it has to do with how incredibly versatile this new body is.

Quotes

“At ease, soldier.” (Budda, budda, budda, budda, budda)

“End of the line, Hitler !” (facing the old enemy)

“Guys wrapping themselves in the American flag and holding up banks don’t sit too well with me.”

“Hold it right there, (villain name)(rebuilds his arm into a powerful firearm and targets villain). Don’t even breathe.”

“Thank you, mister President. This room brings back a lot of memories. It seems like only yesterday that I was standing in this very spot telling Richard Nixon  to go screw himself. (long rant about the crimes of previous administrations follow) Why the hell am I here ? I’m blaming senility.”

DC Universe History

SuperPatriot might be a retconned, cyborg version of the DCU’s General Glory.

By Dr. Peter S Piispanen.

Source of Character: SuperPatriot miniseries, Savage Dragon and Supreme comics (Larsenverse).

Helper(s): SuperPatriot fact sheet in Savage Dragon #46.