Character History for Cape and Cowl
Jack Bauer’s first act on being abducted into the City was threatening to kill everybody, which pretty much set the tone for everything that has happened since. Taken without warning from his hard-earned retirement while spending time with his beloved granddaughter, Jack’s first thought was that this was yet another unnecessarily convoluted terrorist plot. Lassiter’s appearance did not help matters one bit.
Even when he came to terms with what was happening, Jack remained determined to stay retired, stay away from the life of killing and paranoia and imminent disaster he’d lived before. It took a plague of ghouls to convince him that he couldn’t sit on the sidelines while innocent people were dying in the City. He joined the police force soon after, and got an apartment in Hell Towers. He immediately made a place for himself as pilot of a specially-modified helicopter, and began tracking down the people behind the plague. Within the month he achieved a success, bringing down a cell of death cultists. This was followed by a camping trip, an opportunity to learn about his new colleagues.
When Operation Gotterdammerung hit the police station Jack was knocked unconscious by a missile impact, leaving him out of the action while Yusuke Urameshi and other officers lost their lives. Deeply frustrated by the loss of life and his inability to help, Jack threw himself even more strongly into his work. He was involved in the summer’s events involving the HIVE from the beginning, placed in charge of the police force’s investigation of the blackout that started it all. When the helicopter was operational, Jack and a revived Yusuke immediately put it to work, interrupting a vicious beating and making several arrests.
It was in mid-May that Jack really found his place with the force, when Albert Wesker created the STARS team. Despite being the weakest member in terms of powers, Jack’s experience made him the second-in-command from the start. It was also during this time that Jack’s propensity for going too far became evident. With the Mayor of his hometown outing himself as a terrorist and a national museum full of children destroyed, Jack became desperate to acquire the disk that was at the heart of the conflict, hoping both to prevent further loss of life and use the disk as leverage against the Porter. He offered Shego an immunity deal, then tortured her to get the disk's location, causing a scandal for the police force that came within an inch of costing him his job- all while completely failing to secure the data or make a difference in the crisis. If not for the ongoing national crisis, it’s likely that he would not be a police officer today. It was after this that Jack arranged a still-unused safehouse with Lamont Cranston, to guard against the very real possibility that he could end up as a fugitive. Another blow came when the Scourge attempted to make him back off their case- with dead kids. Jack gave in publicly, but secretly initiated an undercover operation.
Then Los Angeles happened, and things got much, much worse.
Back home, Jack had saved his native city from annihilation many times. Seeing it taken over by criminals and terrorists using its populace as human shields was painful and enraging in the extreme for him, and when the government requested Import assistance in evacuating the city, there was never any question of him not going despite a certain amount of opposition from his colleagues. Parachuting into the fray, he rescued soldiers and civilians alike while mowing through HIVE opposition. His reward was seeing his hometown firebombed by his own government. Everything he’d done or tried to do hadn’t been enough to keep Los Angeles from being char-broiled.
It is difficult to overstate how hard this hit Jack, but there was little time for him to deal with his feelings: less than two weeks after the battle STARS was deployed for the first time against the Cult of the Damned, a successful raid that saw the Cult permanently put out of operation. He also attended a charity beach party, much against his will, and tangled with the Joker’s bizarre, trap-filled fun house. In one particularly embarrassing incident, Aphrodite’s curse made him obsessively protective of Trowa Barton to the point of helicopter kidnapping/rescuing him. Less than a week after that he participated in a raid on a gun-smuggling ring exposed by the Shadow. His helicopter also assisted in evacuating casualties after the Joker blew up a school. Summer closed with yet more gunfire for Jack, as he faced off with homicidal arcade machines while responding to Starscream’s final attack on the Empire State Building. Sentinel Prime’s involvement in that incident, and his previous evidence-tampering, did not do any favours for Jack’s issues with trust and betrayal.
By this time, team founder Albert Wesker had been Ported out, which left Jack in charge of STARS. Recruiting Sheldon Sands and Abby Boylen, he arranged a paintball training exercise for the team in August. In September, the Joker launched a massive assault on Times Square after hijacking China’s nuclear arsenal. Jack was badly injured in the fighting, and spent a lot of time in the hospital. This left him out of action when Operation Skorzeny decapitated the police force. Given the force’s dire need- two of its members had been brainwashed and its Commissioner was dead- Jack was, after careful consideration, promoted to Captain. Once recovered, he initially followed up on the brainwashing case, but was sidetracked when STARS member Abby Boylen was kidnapped by Harvey Dent. He also attended Aaron Grey’s birthday party.
In November, Jack was put through the emotional ringer yet again when he was forced to relive his wife’s murder for an entire weekend while in a magical sleep, trapped in his nightmares along with half the City. This left him primed for his most extreme act yet: recruiting an Import black ops team to launch a secret war outside of the country. Jack was tipped off by a government contact about a massive meeting of organized crime figures in Mexico. The subject of the meeting was targeting the City and Import crimefighters, and Jack came to the conclusion that the event had to be sabotaged secretly and without the use of powers. Hence, the Dependables. Jack took a ‘vacation’ to the Los Angeles disaster zone and headed down to Mexico with his team to infiltrate the meeting.
The mission was a near-disaster. What had been planned as a subtle infiltration ended up as a bloodbath. The team got in unplanned engagements, and only found out about the enemy’s plan from an uninvited interloper. The man Jack interrogated turned out not to be the real mastermind, and Jack himself was captured, stripped naked and tortured for hours. This didn’t stop him from breaking free and helping to storm a mercenary command post. He then beat the crap out of Frank Castle, who he’d slipped out of prison for the mission, when the Punisher tried to escape after the battle.
Still, they successfully prevented a devastating attack on the City and left Mexico with their alibis intact. Back in the City, he voted for Mayor Hundred in the election and inconclusively investigated the death of candidate Bendis, killed in an explosion along with over sixty other people. Jack closed out the year by helping to arrest Norman Osborn when his criminal activities finally came to light, and went on to interrogate the false hero regarding his collaboration with Cavil.
The start of 2011 saw Jack stepping up the activity of STARS, recruiting John Raimi to the team and securing the use of the X-men’s Danger Room for a training exercise. When reality was changed, Jack was confronted by the shades of the people he had killed or failed, a gut-wrenching experience that led him to reveal to Seras Victoria exactly what horrors he was capable of. This did nothing to change her faith in him though, and later in the month he was happy to back her promotion to Sergeant. He also teamed up with Hans von Hammer to thwart a helicopter theft, an incident that left him in awe of the police force’s new pilot.
Jack’s efforts with STARS paid off at the beginning of February, as they were deployed twice in one day to oppose the Joker’s murderous crime spree. They helped to thwart a mall massacre, tipped off by the precog Haruka Toyama, and rescued dozens of civilians in a high-rise office building held hostage. Less than a week later Jack experienced the sting of betrayal again: the murderer of several Imports, including STARS member John Raimi, was revealed to be Keith Anyan, a member of the police force. Cornering Anyan in a deserted antique shop, Jack was forced to snap his neck after a brutal hand-to-hand struggle. Immediately afterwards he was attacked by Jonah Matsuka in a fit of grief and rage, and only survived the psychic onslaught through a timely intervention. The difficult task of revealing the murderer as a police officer fell to Jack as well.
The month closed on a thankfully quieter note, as Jack was set up on a blind date with Peter Parker, got a surprise party for his 51st birthday, and talked black ops with Amanda Waller. It was at this time that Jack became the legal guardian of the Red Queen at her request after her tragic death while trying to escape her human form. Jack has given this task his best, but is somewhat out of his depth with her challenges, prompting him to seek additional help in how to care for his coworker/ward. Most recently, Jack gained new respect for Mayor Hundred after seeing him bring a dramatic car chase to an instant end, saving City Hall (after Jack called in an airstrike on a construction zone, no less). Hundred in turn had Jack looking for a man named John Pherson before it became clear he was not actually in the City. Finally, Jack has realized that despite everything it’s been through, the City is growing, a thought that warms his heart and makes him think that he and his allies are doing some good for the people they try to protect.
In all, Jack has had a hell of a career in the year he’s spent in the City, as evidenced by his kill count if nothing else. He has emerged as one of the City Police Department’s most dedicated, capable, and controversial officers, always willing to do whatever he may think is necessary to save innocent lives.
Even when he came to terms with what was happening, Jack remained determined to stay retired, stay away from the life of killing and paranoia and imminent disaster he’d lived before. It took a plague of ghouls to convince him that he couldn’t sit on the sidelines while innocent people were dying in the City. He joined the police force soon after, and got an apartment in Hell Towers. He immediately made a place for himself as pilot of a specially-modified helicopter, and began tracking down the people behind the plague. Within the month he achieved a success, bringing down a cell of death cultists. This was followed by a camping trip, an opportunity to learn about his new colleagues.
When Operation Gotterdammerung hit the police station Jack was knocked unconscious by a missile impact, leaving him out of the action while Yusuke Urameshi and other officers lost their lives. Deeply frustrated by the loss of life and his inability to help, Jack threw himself even more strongly into his work. He was involved in the summer’s events involving the HIVE from the beginning, placed in charge of the police force’s investigation of the blackout that started it all. When the helicopter was operational, Jack and a revived Yusuke immediately put it to work, interrupting a vicious beating and making several arrests.
It was in mid-May that Jack really found his place with the force, when Albert Wesker created the STARS team. Despite being the weakest member in terms of powers, Jack’s experience made him the second-in-command from the start. It was also during this time that Jack’s propensity for going too far became evident. With the Mayor of his hometown outing himself as a terrorist and a national museum full of children destroyed, Jack became desperate to acquire the disk that was at the heart of the conflict, hoping both to prevent further loss of life and use the disk as leverage against the Porter. He offered Shego an immunity deal, then tortured her to get the disk's location, causing a scandal for the police force that came within an inch of costing him his job- all while completely failing to secure the data or make a difference in the crisis. If not for the ongoing national crisis, it’s likely that he would not be a police officer today. It was after this that Jack arranged a still-unused safehouse with Lamont Cranston, to guard against the very real possibility that he could end up as a fugitive. Another blow came when the Scourge attempted to make him back off their case- with dead kids. Jack gave in publicly, but secretly initiated an undercover operation.
Then Los Angeles happened, and things got much, much worse.
Back home, Jack had saved his native city from annihilation many times. Seeing it taken over by criminals and terrorists using its populace as human shields was painful and enraging in the extreme for him, and when the government requested Import assistance in evacuating the city, there was never any question of him not going despite a certain amount of opposition from his colleagues. Parachuting into the fray, he rescued soldiers and civilians alike while mowing through HIVE opposition. His reward was seeing his hometown firebombed by his own government. Everything he’d done or tried to do hadn’t been enough to keep Los Angeles from being char-broiled.
It is difficult to overstate how hard this hit Jack, but there was little time for him to deal with his feelings: less than two weeks after the battle STARS was deployed for the first time against the Cult of the Damned, a successful raid that saw the Cult permanently put out of operation. He also attended a charity beach party, much against his will, and tangled with the Joker’s bizarre, trap-filled fun house. In one particularly embarrassing incident, Aphrodite’s curse made him obsessively protective of Trowa Barton to the point of helicopter kidnapping/rescuing him. Less than a week after that he participated in a raid on a gun-smuggling ring exposed by the Shadow. His helicopter also assisted in evacuating casualties after the Joker blew up a school. Summer closed with yet more gunfire for Jack, as he faced off with homicidal arcade machines while responding to Starscream’s final attack on the Empire State Building. Sentinel Prime’s involvement in that incident, and his previous evidence-tampering, did not do any favours for Jack’s issues with trust and betrayal.
By this time, team founder Albert Wesker had been Ported out, which left Jack in charge of STARS. Recruiting Sheldon Sands and Abby Boylen, he arranged a paintball training exercise for the team in August. In September, the Joker launched a massive assault on Times Square after hijacking China’s nuclear arsenal. Jack was badly injured in the fighting, and spent a lot of time in the hospital. This left him out of action when Operation Skorzeny decapitated the police force. Given the force’s dire need- two of its members had been brainwashed and its Commissioner was dead- Jack was, after careful consideration, promoted to Captain. Once recovered, he initially followed up on the brainwashing case, but was sidetracked when STARS member Abby Boylen was kidnapped by Harvey Dent. He also attended Aaron Grey’s birthday party.
In November, Jack was put through the emotional ringer yet again when he was forced to relive his wife’s murder for an entire weekend while in a magical sleep, trapped in his nightmares along with half the City. This left him primed for his most extreme act yet: recruiting an Import black ops team to launch a secret war outside of the country. Jack was tipped off by a government contact about a massive meeting of organized crime figures in Mexico. The subject of the meeting was targeting the City and Import crimefighters, and Jack came to the conclusion that the event had to be sabotaged secretly and without the use of powers. Hence, the Dependables. Jack took a ‘vacation’ to the Los Angeles disaster zone and headed down to Mexico with his team to infiltrate the meeting.
The mission was a near-disaster. What had been planned as a subtle infiltration ended up as a bloodbath. The team got in unplanned engagements, and only found out about the enemy’s plan from an uninvited interloper. The man Jack interrogated turned out not to be the real mastermind, and Jack himself was captured, stripped naked and tortured for hours. This didn’t stop him from breaking free and helping to storm a mercenary command post. He then beat the crap out of Frank Castle, who he’d slipped out of prison for the mission, when the Punisher tried to escape after the battle.
Still, they successfully prevented a devastating attack on the City and left Mexico with their alibis intact. Back in the City, he voted for Mayor Hundred in the election and inconclusively investigated the death of candidate Bendis, killed in an explosion along with over sixty other people. Jack closed out the year by helping to arrest Norman Osborn when his criminal activities finally came to light, and went on to interrogate the false hero regarding his collaboration with Cavil.
The start of 2011 saw Jack stepping up the activity of STARS, recruiting John Raimi to the team and securing the use of the X-men’s Danger Room for a training exercise. When reality was changed, Jack was confronted by the shades of the people he had killed or failed, a gut-wrenching experience that led him to reveal to Seras Victoria exactly what horrors he was capable of. This did nothing to change her faith in him though, and later in the month he was happy to back her promotion to Sergeant. He also teamed up with Hans von Hammer to thwart a helicopter theft, an incident that left him in awe of the police force’s new pilot.
Jack’s efforts with STARS paid off at the beginning of February, as they were deployed twice in one day to oppose the Joker’s murderous crime spree. They helped to thwart a mall massacre, tipped off by the precog Haruka Toyama, and rescued dozens of civilians in a high-rise office building held hostage. Less than a week later Jack experienced the sting of betrayal again: the murderer of several Imports, including STARS member John Raimi, was revealed to be Keith Anyan, a member of the police force. Cornering Anyan in a deserted antique shop, Jack was forced to snap his neck after a brutal hand-to-hand struggle. Immediately afterwards he was attacked by Jonah Matsuka in a fit of grief and rage, and only survived the psychic onslaught through a timely intervention. The difficult task of revealing the murderer as a police officer fell to Jack as well.
The month closed on a thankfully quieter note, as Jack was set up on a blind date with Peter Parker, got a surprise party for his 51st birthday, and talked black ops with Amanda Waller. It was at this time that Jack became the legal guardian of the Red Queen at her request after her tragic death while trying to escape her human form. Jack has given this task his best, but is somewhat out of his depth with her challenges, prompting him to seek additional help in how to care for his coworker/ward. Most recently, Jack gained new respect for Mayor Hundred after seeing him bring a dramatic car chase to an instant end, saving City Hall (after Jack called in an airstrike on a construction zone, no less). Hundred in turn had Jack looking for a man named John Pherson before it became clear he was not actually in the City. Finally, Jack has realized that despite everything it’s been through, the City is growing, a thought that warms his heart and makes him think that he and his allies are doing some good for the people they try to protect.
In all, Jack has had a hell of a career in the year he’s spent in the City, as evidenced by his kill count if nothing else. He has emerged as one of the City Police Department’s most dedicated, capable, and controversial officers, always willing to do whatever he may think is necessary to save innocent lives.