Capeworld Comics

 

Airman

 

During the Vril wall blitz of 1940, several targets in America were hit by Axis agents. One of the biggest targets, perhaps the biggest, was a secret ARGO (Alternate Realities Guidance and Observation) facility in Nevada near Groom Lake. The Axis knew that ARGO and its knowledge of the multiverse gave the Allies an edge, so they gave their agents only two orders pertaining to the facility–destroy everything, and kill everyone.

 

The Nevada ARGO raid was effective and brutal. Some of the brightest minds in the world perished that day. Irreplaceable experiments and prototypes were scrapped. But in the darkness of that day, there was light. Physicists Archibald Masters and Tom Standish became trapped in the explosion of their “dark light” generator, but instead of perishing, they underwent hyperstasis and became American Crusader and American Eagle, the “ARGO brothers.” Chemist Roy Lincoln, unwilling to have the Axis capture him for interrogation or his 27-QRX for reverse engineering, swallowed it, and became the Human Bomb.

 

And Claude Stevens, inventor of the mobile atmosphere suit, had a son whose blood burned for vengeance, a son who would take an invention meant for the peaceful exploration of other worlds and turn it into a weapon.

 

The mobile atmosphere suit (MAS) was created to solve the problem of life support for ARGO explorers. Previous life support solutions were designed like diving equipment. They protected an explorer by taking all the air, pressure, and warmth he could need and wrapping it close around him like a blanket. But Claude Stevens wondered if they couldn’t eliminate the clunky, stifling suit. Instead of a suit, why not an atmosphere that would follow the user around? Such a thing would be ideal for transporting non-explorers across the multiverse. The MAS would need only one skilled operator to work the atmosphere. Groups of non-trained diplomats and scientists could then follow the operator within the atmosphere. The MAS also allowed explorers to fully experience alien environments. They would be able to touch things with their skin and not through a metal glove.

 

The MAS worked through a dispersal unit that radiated a heated breathable atmosphere and a complex force projector attached to the back like massive bird wings that would distribute the atmosphere and hold it around a set distance. The force projector created an insular network of circulating air currents that allowed Earth-based life to survive within a nourishing cloud, a cloud that would be slightly tinged blue to mark its boundaries.

 

When Claude Stevens was killed in the Nevada raid, his son Drake vowed vengeance. He took what little of his father’s work remained at his home laboratory and fashioned it into a weapon of war–the first Airman suit.

 

The Airman suit took Claude Stevens’ mobile atmosphere suit and made it deadly. Drake modified the dispersal unit to project clouds of acid that would strip away metal off fighter planes, clouds filled with metallic flakes to jam radar, clouds that generated thunderstorms, and clouds that appeared vaporous but had the density of rocks. The Airman suit could control the environment of the air all while being a small, elusive, man-sized target.

 

Drake showed his modified invention to the military and they allowed him to test it on some model drone planes. In the words of General Heller, “He created a light, white cloud that gently drifted over the targets. The targets vanished into the cloud. The cloud moved on. The targets didn’t come back. The cloud ate them. I instantly approved the Airman suit for mass production. The paperwork was just a formality.”

 

Drake, like Robert Benton with the Black Terrors and Bob Blake with the Hydromen, was placed in charge of an army of mass-produced copies. His Airmen were incorporated into the Skyman Airforce and Drake was placed under the command of Allan Turner, the Skyman.

 

Sarcastic and opinionated, he contrasted vividly with polite, quiet Skyman. He was a great lieutenant under Skyman. Skyman’s coolness tempered his impulsivity, and Drake’s charisma gave energy to Skyman’s orders. The two became very close. Like Drake, Skyman lost his parents and did something drastic about it. They were men defined by their loss.

 

Drake was a cautious man, and in his caution got along very well with Skyman who fought every battle several times over in his head before he declared his first order. His caution, however, made him untrusting of other superhumans, especially the ones powerful enough to alter reality. He saw them as being way too eager to fix things that were never broken–the world, for instance. While his attitude sometimes made it hard for the Skyman Airforce to work with other superhumans, Drake’s Airmen respected his courage. They figured that if Drake was willing to put down Ibis the Invincible and Spectro to their faces, he would be willing to stand up to their commanding officers for their sake–and they figured correctly. Drake was fiercely protective of his Airman, and often vetoed engagement plans written by the higher-ups. His men were soldiers, not cannon fodder. This attitude made him beloved by his men but hated by other soldiers that saw him and the Airmen as unwilling to make the sacrifices they were. 

 

Perhaps, in his men, Drake saw his father, and didn’t want to suffer that loss again.

 

After the war, Drake retired from the Skyman Airforce. Military life never agreed with him, and he never agreed with military life. He joined ARGO and became an explorer, finally putting his father’s Skyman inventions to the use for which they were intended. In 1978, he was promoted to Commander and maintains the job to this day. He is known for being very protective of his Vectors and explorers. He has them explore universes very slowly, which has caused some ARGO personnel to refer to him as “Commander Slowman.” He may not have the most efficient command, but it’s certainly the safest.