Union Jack

History

A shipbuilder's son raised on the docks, young Joe Chapman was ashamed of his father for not fighting harder to improve his station in life - but as an adult, Joe later came to respect how hard-working his father had been. While attending art school, Joe met fellow wrestling team member Kenneth Crichton; despite their differing social backgrounds and Joe's general dislike of the upper classes, the pair became best friends. 

A few years later, Kenneth invited Joe to spend the holidays at his family home Falsworth Manor, which proved to be an eventful visit. As Joe learned, Kenneth's grandfather Montgomery, Lord Falsworth and Kenneth's late uncle Brian had both been the wartime costumed hero Union Jack, and Kenneth's mother Jacqueline Falsworth-Crichton had been the speedster Spitfire; more importantly, Kenneth's granduncle John Falsworth was the vampire Baron Blood, who had recently announced his return to the area with a series of brutal slasher killings, prompting Montogomery to call in the family's wartime ally Captain America.

Joe was impressed with the latter hero, recalling wartime tales his uncle had told him growing up, and took the news of a local vampiric murderer in stride, agreeing to assist in the manhunt. Montgomery suffered a heart attack, and the local physician, Dr. Jacob Cromwell, was called to the Manor to treat him, but before he arrived Ken and Joe discovered Cromwell was Blood's alter ego. An ambush was hastily arrange; Joe, the stronger of the two students, donned the Union Jack costume and took the elderly Montgomery's place in his sickbed. "Cromwell" ordered everyone else from the room, and then unmasked to bite his hated brother, only to learn his victim was far from helpless. Waiting outside, Captain America burst in to join the fight, and decapitated the vampire with his shield. Montgomery died soon after, living just long enough to see his undead sibling's remains cremated.

Joe realized he had enjoyed the adventure; having no intention of playing hero himself Ken argued that Joe should carry on the Union Jack tradition. Initially uncertain, Jackie finally agreed. Ken however, later developed a rare debilitating form of anemia, and as his health deteriorated, he began to resent his friend "taking" his legacy.

Joe soon encountered many of the world's other heroes, albeit briefly, when they were all kidnapped to participate in the Grandmaster's contest of champions. When Joe's friends began spray painting historical landmarks as anti-government protest, the anti-upper class Joe initially helped them evade the police - but upon learning their next target was Falsworth Manor, he realized that building a better future should not be done by tearing down everything meaningful from the past, and that Union Jack should represent the fighting spirit that had saved Britain through all its troubles.

Ironically, an embodiment of that fighting spirit soon turned its attention towards Joe. The Green Knight, embodiment of the Earth's life energies had for untold centuries made champions of exceptional men and women, imbuing them with Pendragon spirits, each of which carried with it past incarnations of its champions. With the forces of its enemy, the Bane, rising, the Green Knight chose the unwitting Joe to receive the sword knight Pendragon which once inhabited Sir Lancelot of Camelot, and more recently fellow U.K. hero Captain Britain. Joe grew 3 inches and 28 pounds overnight as his body adjusted to his new status, and he was directed to his fellow Pendragons Kate McClellan and Captain Britain. Different backgrounds and political outlooks initially caused friction between Joe and Captain Britain, but they put their differences aside when the Bane kidnapped Kate's teenage son Cam. 

After Captain Britain was ordered to stop assosciating with the Pendragons by Brigadier Stuart of WHO (Weird Happenings Organization), Joe became the team's muscle. He grew attracted to Kate, but was disgruntled when fellow Pendragon Ben Gallagher became involved with her instead. Following the Bane trail to Joselito, Spain, the Pendragons and Iron Man prevented the Bane from turning it into a contaminated wasteland. Joe used a trust fund set up by the Falsworths to buy Camelard Farm in Wiltshire as base for the group, now formally the Knights of Pendragon.

Joe accompanied Jackie and Namorita to Germany to rescue Namor the Sub-Mariner, the Human Torch and Anne Raymond, widow of the wartime hero Toro, from neo-Nazis led by Axl Nacht. Nacht had revived the Nazi superhuman couple Master Man and Warrior Woman from cryogenic slumber, then stolen Master Man's powers, indentity and wife for himself. Joe, Captain America and Namor battled Nacht until the original Master Man blew up the lab. Jackie had been shot, but her life was saved by an emergency transfusion from the Torch, which also restored her youth and superhuman powers. 

Returning to the Knights, Joe traveled to central Africa, where alongside the Black Panther, Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman they stopped Bane-possessed hunters slaughtering hippos for their tooth ivory. The Knights split up to follow the ivory trail, with the Panther accompanying Joe to Hong Kong looking for the market, the House of Orchids, where the ivory sales took place. It was a trap, and Joe died battling the monstrous Bane giant Dolph. While the Hong Kong authorities found Joe's corpse, Joe awoke in Avalon wearing knightly armor; sensing the Red Lord, the Bane's master, was launching a full scale assault on the Green Knight's Chapel in Avalon, the Knight summoned all past and present, living and dead Pendragons for the battle. Ben had also died on Earth at the Bane's hands, and knowing that they could not be resurrected a second time, the pair made their peace over Kate, with Joe agreeing to be Ben's best man should Kate accept his proposal. They rode together against the Bane army, and Dolph mortally wounded both of them before Joe beheaded him. Ben's Pendragon power allowed him to create a healing draft, but only enough for one, which he used to save Joe's life before dying in his friend's arms.

Relocating their base to Avalon's Green Chapel, the Knights continued to evolve as the Green Knight chose new champions. In the Chapel they found specialized armor which enhanced their Pendragon powers further, but new threats also loomed. They battled the Mys-Tech agent Magpie, and prevented the Bane from sending the Cape Wrath fast breeder reactor critical. Alongside Spider-Man, the Knights helped the extradimensional Pendragon Arrakhyl defend his homeworld Arakne from Malekith and the Bane, fighting both against and then alongside the Warheads of Kether Trooper. Mys-Tech's Ormond Wychwood used arcane lore to resurrect Baron Blood as part of a mystic ceremony, but Joe destroyed the undead monster once again. Soon after the team learned that while saving Arakne they had inadvertently caused massive ecological damage on Earth-313, when that world's Pendragons, the Lemurians, came seeking retribution. Wishing to make amends, the Knights disbanded, with several of them leaving for Earth-313 to try and heal the damage they had caused. Joe stayed behind.

Though he retained the Pendragon spirit, Joe abandoned the armor, returning to his original costume. He dated occult specialist Romany Wisdom, but eventually broke up with her. Encountering an increasing number of vampires, Joe took an artifact he retrieved from them to Romany for examination, learning from this that the vampires were seeking the Holy Grail. 

Kenneth Crichton's health was now extremely poor, and he had grown resentful both of Joe and his rejuvenated mother, so when the vampire's leader the Baroness, protege of Baron Blood, approached him with the offer of eternal life, Ken accepted; undead, he became the new Baron Blood. Despite Joe's best efforts, the vampires stole the Grail and the Baroness drank from it, thus gaining immunity from sunlight; however, she denied her followers the Grail, leaving all of them, Kenneth included, to perish in the sunlight. As Kenneth turned to dust, Joe vowed to hunt the Baroness forever. Kenneth's death brought Joe and Jackie closer together, and they became lovers.

Joe subsequently protected the journalist Irene Merryweather from Hellfire Club agents, joined fellow heroes battling aliens who had turned Earth into a maximum security penal colony, and attened a memorial service for Captain America when the hero was believed killined in an explosion. Joe and Jackie were approached by the Thin Man, one of Jackie's wartime allies, who informed them of Axis Mundi's plans to replace world leaders with synthozoid replicants. Though uncomfortable with the Thin Man's methods, Union Jack and Spitfire joined his Invaders at the British government's urgings. The Invaders attacked Mazikhandar, a dictatorship whose leader had already been replaced, bringing them into conflict with the Avengers. When Axis Mundi attacked the Invaders' ship, the Interceptor, Joe learned old foes Axl Nacht (now calling himself Der Gotteskrieger), Warrior Woman and the Baroness (now calling herself Baroness Blood) were among their number. 

Returning to Falsworth Manor in pursuit of Baroness Blood, Joe met Roger Aubrey, lover of Jackie's dead brother Brian, the previous Union Jack; Roger had wanted to take the Union Jack name when Brian died, but Montgomery Falsworth had objected. Cattily referring to Joe as "Jack Junior," Roger came to accept him as a worthy successor after Baroness Blood kidnapped Jackie and they worked together to rescue her. After a final mission preventing Meranno from melting the Antarctic ice cap, the Invaders disbanded, and Joe returned to solo work, occasionally doing missions for MI-5.

He and Jackie split amicably, and subsequently worked together with Captain America stopping the neo-Nazi Master Race, a new Master Man and a Sleeper robot from devastating London. More recently, MI-5 learned RAID were plotting terrorist strikes against London, and ordered Joe to lead a group of international heroes in stopping them.

Characteristics

Gender--Male

Eyes--Brown

Hair--Brown

Powers

Union Jack was empowered by the Pendragon force granting him:

Strength: superhuman strength

Speed: enhanced speed

Endurance

Combatant: athlete and hand-to-hand combatant

Marksmanship: expert marksman

Possesses extensive knowledge of various firearms and explosives, knowledge of anti-terrorist tactics.

Gear

Union Jack wears a bulletproof uniform and carries both a silver knife and a World War I era pistol. He wears belt pouches containing different equipment such as gas capsules he uses to knock people out.

Weapons: Webley .455 caliber pistol and silver dagger with a 6-inch blade

Transportation: computerized motorcycle named Beryl (formally)  

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