character profile - prometheus
CODENAME: Prometheus
CHARACTER TYPE: Canon
LJ: prometheanplans
REAL NAME: Currently unknown
ALIASES: Retro, The Crooked Man
AGE: Unrevealed
HAIR COLOR: White
EYE COLOR: Brown
HEIGHT: 6’1
WEIGHT: 180 lbs
RELATIVES: Parents, names unknown, both deceased
MAJOR ALLIES: After his initial attempt to destroy the JLA, Prometheus swore an oath of allegiance with Lex Luthor. Together they formed the second Injustice Gang, recruiting the General and Queen Bee. How close the alliance betweens these villains remains in the wake of the Injustice Gang’s disbanding is unknown. Prometheus has also formed a partnership with Hush, due to their shared hatred of Batman. This allegiance has recruited Niccolai Tepes, also known as the Mad Monk, to its cause, and the three had formed a sinister triumvirate. Most recently, the witch Circe has allied herself with Prometheus as well.
MAJOR ENEMIES: Above even Batman, Prometheus considers his number one enemy J’onn J’onzz - the Martian Manhunter placed him in a psychic coma for several months and he doesn’t intend on ever letting it happen again. A close second is Batman, the only member of the JLA Prometheus respects - and has sworn to kill himself. In particular Prometheus owes Batman for their last fight. Other people on his ‘to-do’ list are Catwoman and the Huntress - Catwoman for foiling his first attempt to destroy the League and Huntress both for saving Catwoman’s life in the same altercation and for almost killing him after his defeat at Batman’s hands.
AFFILIATION: Secret Society (Monster Faction). Though, in all honesty, Prometheus’s only real affiliation is to himself.
APPEARANCE: Prometheus is a tall, well-built man in excellent physical condition. He prides himself on his ‘anonymous features’: aside from his distinctive white hair, his face is very unmemorable, and he takes advantage of this unique gift from nature whenever possible. A dye job and some glasses and he could be the guy you pass at work every day - this ability to blend into the crowd has served his purposes on more than one occasion.
By far Prometheus’s most distinctive feature is his hair, which has been pale white ever since he saw his parents murdered as a child. It helps little in identifying him, however, as Prometheus wears a helmet and even out of costume favors caps or hooded jackets. He has slate blue eyes and no known identifying physical features, such as scars or tattoos.
Prometheus’s costume is unique in a number of ways, the most notable of which is his unique helmet, which allows him to download knowledge directly into his brain. Other notable features include a royal purple bodysuit, golden shoulderpads and gauntlets, and a flowing white cape.
PERSONALITY: Prometheus is an individual of considerable intelligence and immense willpower. He has traveled across the planet, acquiring a vast amount of knowledge and experience in the process. Educated in disciplines from classical to practical, Prometheus is a knowledgeable opponent who is very rarely caught off guard. In him the warrior and the chessmaster are blended into one - Prometheus has the intelligence and foresight to manipulate others, but unlike other chessmasters who stay far away from the field of battle, he prefers to place himself into play as his own most valuable piece. He is strategically-oriented, and knows when to abandon a fight or even deliberately lose to an opponent if it advances a larger goal. He operates at his own pace, with his own agenda.
Though Prometheus very rarely trusts, he is a social villain who is capable of working with other criminals towards a greater goal. Definitely an alpha male, Prometheus prefers roles of leadership, and dislikes being under the yoke of domineering allies such as Lex Luthor. He is an expert manipulator, adept at exploiting desires and insecurities both to his best advantage. Prometheus is extremely observant and rarely misses weaknesses. Rarer still does he miss opportunities.
The goal that Prometheus is relentless driven by is the annihilation of justice - ‘justice’ in his mind being the system of law and order that killed his parents. Despite this seemingly anarchic ambition, Prometheus has no quarrel with the rest of society. He is an unrepentant capitalist and is capable of functioning in everyday life, unlike truly chaotic individuals such as the Joker.
As a combatant, Prometheus is very ruthless and self-controlled, with a fighting style that emphasizes speed and strives to always stay one step ahead of the enemy. He deeply enjoys confrontation, drawing out brawls and toying with his opponents, but when the struggle is serious Prometheus exploits every opening and weakness he knows of, striking without hesitation or mercy.
Though Prometheus considers himself an enemy of justice and indeed has committed some truly heinous deeds, he is more amoral than immoral. Machiavellian in his philosophies, Prometheus believes that in order to truly triumph over his foes, every decision he makes must be driven not by outdated concepts such as ‘good’ or ‘evil’ but instead by his own judgment. The result is an individual with a twisted code of ethics. He looks at the unending conflict between the forces of ‘good and evil’ as a game, with the last man standing being the declared winner.
WEAPONRY/PERSONAL BELONGINGS: As an ordinary human being, Prometheus evens the odds against his opponents with a cache of weapons and accessories. His most useful tool is the Cosmic Key, a mystical artifact Prometheus obtained as a teenager from a sect of twisted Tibetan monks. This key allows Prometheus to teleport instantaneously to another dimension, dubbed ‘The Ghost Zone’ (it bears noting that the angel Zauriel believes that the Ghost Zone is in fact Limbo). The Ghost Zone serves as both the ultimate escape route and the location of his base of operations (a bent, misshapen building Prometheus has dubbed ‘The Crooked House’). The Cosmic Key also has the ability to open doors to other dimensions, but this feature is largely untapped by Prometheus, who distrusts dimensions that he has never been to and prefers to use his Ghost Zone exclusively.
Aside from the Cosmic Key, Prometheus’s greatest weapon is his helmet, which allows him to download information from computers and other sources and directly upload it to his brain. His helmet has gone through several iterations - previous versions replied on compact discs, while the newest model is capable of using more accessible flash memory to upload knowledge. The information Prometheus uploads is not retained indefinitely, and he must often change drives to access different types of knowledge. His helmet can upload physical skills as well as mental knowledge, allowing Prometheus to learn the fighting style of an opponent instantly. His standard drive uploads the data of the thirty best martial artists in the world directly to his brain.
Prometheus does not normally carry guns, preferring instead a super-dense war club that allows him to deliver superhuman blows despite its light weight. The gauntlets of his body armor are also capable of firing various projectile weapons, including bullets, phosphorous darts, and "neural chaff," a substance specifically created by Prometheus to disrupt concentration. For speedsters such, Prometheus has developed ‘speed force mines’ - explosives that are harmless to those without super speed, but capable of vibrating themselves to speeds that cause them to detonate as soon as any speedster within 10 feet travels at accelerated velocity with the aid of the speed force. Prometheus has numerous other countermeasures - see here for more information.
As a tactical foe, Prometheus also likes to keep a few surprises hidden in reserve - a chunk of Kryptonite up his sleeve, just to use an example.
Finally, Prometheus wears protective body armor that allows him to endure a much greater deal of punishment than the average human.
POWERS: Prometheus is an ordinary human being, and as such has no superhuman abilities. He is, however, a strategic genius and skilled hand-to-hand combatant, capable of fighting effectively even without his helmet. He is skilled at psychological manipulation, employing mind games to pull the strings of both allies and enemies. Prometheus has studied members of the Justice League both past and present, and has developed plans to defeat each and every one of them.
It also bears noting that Prometheus possesses incredible willpower. When cornered by Wonder Woman, Prometheus claimed he would be able to resist the truth-compelling magic of her lasso until his mind was in ruins. This willpower also makes Prometheus very difficult to read by telepaths, especially since his mental imprisonment at the hands of the Martial Manhunter, which ‘inoculated his resistance,’ so to speak, against future telepathic assaults.
WEAKNESSES: Prometheus rarely falls prey to the usual villain downfalls. He’s read the Evil Overlord list, he’s studied his contemporaries as studiously as he has his enemies, and he does not hold deep grudges or engage in bouts of maniacal laughter. However, he possesses many weaknesses all the same, and for all his studiousness and drive for self-improvement, many of those weaknesses are here to stay.
Most glaring among Prometheus’s weaknesses are his overconfidence and his predilection for drawing out fights. A cocky opponent who likes throwing out one-liners as he engages in fisticuffs, Prometheus rarely goes for the quick kill. He toys with enemies who clearly have no chance against him, and draws out protracted confrontations. He enjoys challenge, and will deliberately limit himself if the fight is for sport, as it so often is for him. Because of this, a savvy opponent can easily stall for time against him, or perhaps even find a way to defeat him if he has limited himself too heavily.
Prometheus is also made predictable by his driving urge to destroy justice. Just as Batman can always be counted on to be policing the streets of Gotham, so can Prometheus ever be predicted by his compulsion to obstruct the forces of law and order at any given opportunity. Though capable of functioning in normal society, Prometheus could never live a normal life - his need to exact revenge on the system that murdered his parents drives him almost obsessively.
CHARACTER HISTORY:
Nothing is definitively known about the past of the man known only as Prometheus, not even his real name. As he has told the story, he was born to a pair of loving, nurturing parents who just happened to be dangerous outlaws. The young Prometheus traveled across the United States with his parents, who left a trail of robberies and murders in their wake. Inspired by Bonnie and Clyde, Prometheus's parents eventually met the same fate, gunned down by the police in a standoff while their son watched in horror. The incident so traumatized the young boy that his hair turned white from the shock, never to regain the healthy brown shade it once held. On that day, Prometheus vowed to dedicate his life to the destruction of justice.
Slipping away from police custody by blending in with a group of Cub Scouts, Prometheus fell through the cracks, discarding his legal name and identity altogether. He spent years on the streets, learning the skills that would serve him well throughout his life: theft, deceit, and manipulation. He became a trusted confidante of local mob bosses, exploiting their connections in order to track down and kill the policemen who murdered his parents, one by one. He then used his knowledge of those bosses’ criminal activities to extort them into paying him hush money. With this extortion money and a hidden cache of stolen cash left behind by his parents, Prometheus left the United States at the age of sixteen, using his ill-gained fortune to travel the world in order to develop the skills he would need to accomplish his dream. His activities during this time included training as an underground pit fighter in Brazil, working as a mercenary in Africa, joining terrorist groups in the Middle East, studying silat in Malaysia, associating with the wealthy social elite in order to learn their secrets, studying under members of the League of Assassins, and attending the finest legitimate academic schools and universities.
Eventually, Prometheus's travels led him to Tibet, where he discovered a sect of monks who worshipped evil itself. Over time, Prometheus gained the favor of their leader, just as he had gained the favor of the mob bosses before him. The leader bequeathed to Prometheus the sect's greatest treasure: a key that unlocked the spaces between dimensions. Prometheus studied his new treasure diligently, intent on using this new and wondrous milieu to his best advantage. In time, Prometheus built himself a lair in this new dimension, a craning, lopsided wooden home he dubbed 'The Crooked House.' From his Crooked House, Prometheus prepared for his attack on the forces of justice, crafting the armor and helmet he would wear as the nemesis of the self-righteous superheroes called the 'Justice League.'
Returning to America, Prometheus plotted an attack on the Supreme Court, but changed his plans when fate conspired to grant him a magnificent opportunity: the Justice League held a contest for young men and women. The prize - admittance to the Justice League for a day as a member of their ranks, replete with a custom costume and fictitious 'origin story.' The winner of the competition was an ordinary young man, who chose the alias of Retro. Kidnapping Retro, Prometheus used his advanced technology to become a perfect doppelganger of the young man. Taking his place, Prometheus was free to walk into the Justice League Watchtower.
Prometheus dispensed with his Retro disguise quickly, tapping into the Watchtower's database and downloading terabytes of information into his helmet. Disrupting the Watchtower's oxygen supplies and shuttles, Prometheus proceeded to take down almost the entire Justice League single-handedly. Using his plans and advanced weaponry, Prometheus defeated Zauriel, the Martian Manhunter, Steel, the Huntress, Green Lantern, and even Batman. With just his silver tongue, Prometheus paralyzed the Flash as well, and soon confronted the only hero he could not defeat: Superman. Without any way of overcoming Superman by force, Prometheus instead exploited the civilians currently trapped atop the Watchtower, promising to save their lives in exchange for Superman's suicide.
Unfortunately for him, Prometheus' best laid plans were laid to waste by an unforeseen variable: Catwoman, who had infiltrated the Watchtower in a disguise as well. Though armed only with a whip, Prometheus had not counted on the appearance of the anti-heroine, and as a result he was incapacitated with a simple whip crack to the groin. With the Justice Leaguers regrouped, Prometheus took the better part of valor, stating that he chalked this defeat up to experience and that he would return to finish the job.
After this humbling defeat, Prometheus sought allies. Forging a pact of allegiance with Lex Luthor, Prometheus joined Luthor's second Injustice Gang, allying himself with Queen Bee, the General, and Luthor himself. Exploiting the Ghost Zone once again, Prometheus was able to infiltrate the Watchtower a second time, this time going after the brain of the JLA: Oracle. Prometheus attempted to cut a deal with Oracle, promising her he would use his technology to restore her crippled legs, in exchange for turning her back on the JLA. When Oracle refused to cooperate, an annoyed Prometheus defenestrated her, although she managed to survive by grabbing the hand on the face of the Clocktower. Though he had the chance to finish Oracle off, Prometheus chose not to, instead withdrawing to consult with his Injustice League allies.
During this time Prometheus encountered Lady Shiva, widely regarded as one of the most skilled martial artists in the world. Though warning Shiva that he had recorded her skills in advance as one of the thirty martial artists in his database, Shiva chose to fight Prometheus anyway. Showcasing his martial prowess, Prometheus soundly defeated Lady Shiva in just three seconds.
Reclaiming his original helmet (which had been captured by the JLA in his first attack on the Watchtower), Prometheus sought out Batman for a rematch. Boasting that he beat Batman senseless in their last battle just to prove he could, Prometheus promised to finish off the Dark Knight in this fight. Though the two seemed evenly matched, and indeed Prometheus seemed to be gaining the upper hand once again, Batman played a powerful trump card, revealing that he'd not only analyzed the captured helmet, but uploaded a new file to its database, to be activated at his command. Activating the file, Batman replaced the file of thirty martial artists with a file imprinting the physical skills and coordination of a single man onto Prometheus's brain: Professor Stephen Hawking. Effectively paralyzed, Prometheus was soundly defeated.
The unconscious Prometheus was almost murdered by the Huntress, and was ironically saved from execution by his greatest foe, the Batman. So disgusted was Batman, in fact, that he dismissed the Huntress from the JLA for her bloodthirstiness. Instead of the Huntress's permanent solution, the JLA instead allowed the Martian Manhunter to use his telepathy to incapacitate Prometheus. Reduced to a persistent vegetative state, Prometheus was dumped in Blackgate Penitentiary, seemingly for the rest of his days.
Very recently however Prometheus was able to escape, somehow breaking - or perhaps having been freed by some unseen benefactor - of the mental loop imprisoning his mind. He’s kept a low profile since then, emerging only briefly to throw his support behind Dr. Sivana’s Monster Society. Otherwise the villain has kept an oddly subdued profile, but to those members of the JLA who remember Prometheus’s attacks on the Watchtower, it’s only a matter of time before Prometheus strikes back. He is regarded as a top tier target by the JLA.