Sorry for the really long wait! I've had a lot going on but here I'm back. Before we go on to the next chapter some introductions:
Captain America: Steve Rogers was born during the Depression and grew up a frail youth in a poor family. His father died when he was a child, his mother when he was in his late teens. Horrified by newsreel footage of the Nazis in Europe, Rogers was inspired to try to enlist in the Army. However, because of his frailty and sickness, he was rejected. Overhearing the boy's earnest plea to be accepted, General Chester Phillips of the U.S. Army offered Rogers the opportunity to take part in a special experiment called Operation: Rebirth. Rogers agreed and was taken to a secret laboratory in Washington, D.C. where he was introduced to Dr. Abrahan Erskine (code named: Prof. Reinstein), the creator to the Super-Soldier formula.
After weeks of tests, Rogers was at last administered the Super-Soldier serum. Given part of the compound intravenously and another part orally, Rogers was then bombarded by "vita-rays," a special combination of exotic (in 1941) wavelengths of radiation designed to accelerate and stabilize the serum's effect on his body. Steve Rogers emerged from the vita-ray chamber with a body as perfect as a body can be and still be human. A Nazi spy who observed the experiment murdered Dr. Erskine mere minutes after its conclusion. Erskine died without fully committing the Super-Soldier formula to paper, leaving Steve Rogers the Sole beneficiary of his genius.
Roger was then put through an intensive physical and tactical training program, teaching him gymnastics, hand-to-hand combat and military strategy. Three months later, he was given his first assignment, to stop the Nazi agent called the Red Skull. To help him become a symbolic counterpart to the Red Skull, Rogers was given the red, white, and blue costume of Captain America.
During the war, he served as both a symbol of freedom and America's most effective special operative. Then, during the final days of the war, he was trying to stop a bomb-loaded drone-plane launched by Nazi technician Baron Heinrich Zemo when the plane exploded, killing his partner Bucky; and throwing him unhurt into icy Arctic waters. The Super-Soldier formula prevented crystallization of Captain America's bodily fluid, allowing him to enter a state of suspended animation. Decades later, he was rescued by the newly-formed Avengers and became a cornerstone of the team. His might undiminished. Captain America remains a symbol of liberty and justice.
Height: 6 ft. 2 in.
Weight: 240 lbs.
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Blond
Strength Level: Captain America represents the pinnacle of human physical perfection. While not superhuman, he is as strong as a human being can be. He can lift (press) a maximum of 800 pounds with supreme effort.
Known Superhuman Powers: Known
Abilities: Captain America has agility, strength, speed, endurance, and reaction time superior to any Olympic athlete who ever competed. The Super-Soldier formula that he has metabolized has enhanced all of his bodily functions to the peak of human efficiency. Notably, his body eliminates the excessive build-up of fatigue-producing poisons in his muscles, granting him phenomenal endurance.
Captain America has mastered the martial art of American-style boxing and judo, and has combined these disciplines with his own unique hand-to-hand style of combat. He engages in a daily regimen of rigorous exercise (including aerobics, weight lifting, gymnastics, and simulated combat) to keep himself in peek condition. Captain America is one of the finest human combatants Earth has ever known.
Limitations: Captain America is subject to all human vulnerabilities, although his immunity to diseases is extraordinary.
Weapons: Captain America's only weapon is his shield, a concave disk 2.5 feet in diameter, weighing 12 pounds. It is made of a unique Adamantium alloy that has never been duplicated. American metallurgist Dr. Myron MacLain, who was contracted by the U.S. government to create an impenetrable substance to use for tanks during World War II, cast the Shield. During his experiments, MacLain combined Vibranium with an Adamantium-steel alloy he was working with and created the disc-shaped shield. MacLain was never able to duplicate the process due to his inability identify a still unknown factor that played a role in it. The shield was awarded to Captain America by the government several months after the beginning of his career.
The shield has great aerodynamic properties: it is able to slice through the air with minimal wind resistance and deflection of path. Its great overall resilience, combined with its natural concentric stiffness, enables it to rebound from objects with minimal loss of angular momentum. It is virtually indestructible: it is resistant to penetration, temperature extremes, and the entire electromagnetic spectrum of radiation. The only way it can be damaged in any way is by tampering with its molecular bonding.
The Fantastic Four: Known internationally as Earth's first family of super heroes, the members of the Fantastic Four owe their amazing abilities to their elastic leader: scientific stalwart Reed Richards, a.k.a. Mr. Fantastic. As a starry-eyed student at State University, Reed already had set his sights on interstellar travel. His roommate and best friend, Ben Grimm, jokingly promised to pilot the craft. Working years later as an aeronautical engineer, Reed finally realized his lifelong dream. Exhausting the majority of his vast inheritance, he funded the construction and launch of a starship. Reed recruited Ben, who had become a successful test pilot and astronaut, to fly the vessel. Reed's longtime sweetheart and fiancée, Sue Storm, joined him at the launch site.
When the government threatened to cut off its partial funding of the project, Reed elected to embark on an immediate test flight. Ben opposed the idea, warning that the ship's shielding might prove inadequate against intense forms of cosmic radiation. Nevertheless, Reed persuaded his old friend to serve as pilot. Sue and her adolescent brother, Johnny, insisted on accompanying the would-be history-makers. The four stole into the launch facility, boarded the starship and blasted off in pursuit of scientific glory. They intended to travel to another star system and back, but a solar flare temporarily boosted the intensity of the ionizing radiation in Earth's Van Allen belt. Cosmic rays bombarded the ship's cabin, irradiating the four passengers and slagging the controls. Ben was forced to abort the flight and return to Earth.
Back on terra firma, the four discovered that the radiation had triggered mutagenic changes in their bodies. Reed could become malleable, Sue could turn invisible, and Johnny could generate fiery plasma. Ben stood transformed into an orange-colored, thick-skinned, heavily muscled, superhumanly strong "thing." It was Reed who convinced his friends that they should use their newfound powers for humanity's benefit.
Mr. Fantastic, the Thing, the Human Torch and Invisible Girl established their base atop the Baxter Building in midtown Manhattan. Financed by profits from the patents on Reed's inventions, the Fantastic Four set out to safeguard the world from any and all threats beyond the purview of conventional peacekeeping forces. Some time after the freak accident that granted the foursome its powers, Sue married Reed. Like all couples, the super-powered duo has experienced its share of problems -- thanks, in large part, to Reed's devotion to his work. However, they always return to one another. The two have one son, Franklin, who possesses latent mutant abilities.
The team first put its abilities on public display when the subterranean Mole Man attempted to take revenge on the surface world by destroying Earth's power plants and unleashing an army of gigantic monsters to annihilate the human race. The Fantastic Four turned back the Mole Man's threat, unaware that greater menaces awaited. As fate would have it, Reed again encountered his college rival, Victor Von Doom, whose face had been hideously scarred during an experiment gone awry. The newly christened Dr. Doom now ruled his homeland of Latveria with an iron fist -- his ghastly countenance cloaked beneath a metal faceplate, his body sheathed in nigh-impenetrable armor. Doom kidnapped Sue to draw her teammates to his castle. The would-be conqueror had created a time machine, and he demanded that Reed, Ben and Johnny travel into the past to retrieve a magical stone. Upon their return, the team defeated Doom.
The greatest squad of superhuman adventurers ever assembled, the Fantastic Four continued to push the bounds of human exploration.
The Avengers: The Avengers is one of Earth's foremost organizations of costumed superhuman adventurers dedicated to safeguarding the world from any threat beyond the power of conventional peacekeeping forces to handle. Founded several months after the incorporation of the Fantastic Four, the Avengers became the first superhuman team to be granted official government sanctions by the National Security Council of the United States, the General Assembly of the United Nations, and later by the international intelligence agency, S.H.I.E.L.D. Unlike the Fantastic Four, whose ranks have been restricted to Reed Richards and his experimental rocket crew (except for an occasional substitute), membership in the Avengers has been open and in constant fluctuation.
Current members in HPX3:
Captain America
Hawkeye
Iron Man
Bruce Banner
Crystal
Thor
Vision
Scarlet Witch
Giant Man
Wasp
S.H.I.E.L.D.: Established to counter the technologically advanced, neo-fascist subversive organization HYDRA, S.H.I.E.L.D. remains the planet's largest and most effective force for neutralizing threats to world security and combating terrorism and alien infiltration.
The bulk of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s operations are covert, but a number involve public activities. The organization's policy prohibits it from usurping the role of the nation's armed forces by engaging in warfare on enemy soil. Domestic matters falling under the jurisdiction of the militia are coordinated jointly, with S.H.I.E.L.D. generally taking an auxiliary role, as in the case of the U.S. Army's pursuit of the Hulk. All covert operations are automatically S.H.I.E.L.D.'s province, making unnecessary coordination with the armed forces. Unlike the various national intelligence agencies, such as the CIA, Mossad and M-16, S.H.I.E.L.D. is international in membership, scope and jurisdiction. Most of the world's free countries participate in S.H.I.E.L.D. and sanction its activities on their soil.
S.H.I.E.L.D.'s founders remain anonymous; its advisers include renowned heads of state and corporate leaders. HYDRA assassins killed the organization's first director, whose identity remains classified. His replacement was CIA operative Nick Fury. As S.H.I.E.L.D.'s highest-ranking known agent, Fury oversaw daily administrative affairs and served as supreme field commander. The organization's Executive Board of Directors, whose seven members maintain their anonymity by communicating with personnel via video screen, determines S.H.I.E.L.D. policy and directives.
S.H.I.E.L.D.'s greatest drawback is that it has become so complex in its organization and vast in its operations that a single person, even Sharon Carter, Fury's successor as director, cannot personally oversee all its activities.
The Punisher: Frank Castle, Ex-US marine whose family was killed in Central Park, New York, when they inadvertently witnessed a gangland execution. The mobsters murdered Frank's wife, Maria, and their two children, Frank Jr. and Barbara. Frank was left to die of his injuries. On that day, Frank Castle vowed to use his skills and experience to wage a one-man war on crime. He set out to punish all criminals, and more often than not, that punishment takes a very lethal form indeed. Castle has been sent to prison on numerous occasions in the past, including the notorious Ryker's Island, but has always managed to escape.