The Agent

The Agent is something of a pop culture legend turned twenty first century reality. The first man to be known as the Agent appeared in newsreels as quick action adventures filmed for the public's enjoyment during the second world war. The truth is slightly more complex.

In the later years of the 1920's, a US government training facility unearthed a corpse buried beneath the Nevada desert, wearing a strange gauntlet and wielding a pair of twin canes that could be locked together to form a staff. The exact purpose of these items was never found, but the military application became obvious when their perfectly preserved alloys proved difficult to experiment with. They appeared utterly indestructible but without function. That is, until they feel into the hands of a trained army medic, Arthur Garter.

Garter discovered a major factor in his ability as a medic to make judgement calls was a latent empathic ability that manifested itself through the gauntlet and staff. During a transfer back to a better equipped facility, the convoy containing the gauntlets was attacked by an alien canine creature, also preserved in whatever had killed the original alien owner. Fire arms proved unable to harm it and Garter witnessed the death of many good friends that day, the only man to survive the attack. Feeling a strange sensation he later realised was the soldiers fear and the creature's primal rage, Garter was able to absorb the emotions and channel them into incredible physical strenght that allowed him to eventually kill the creature. The military kept his story a secret, but were already thinking of how to put these abilities to use elsewhere...

With the rise of nazism eventually leading to the next World War, Garter, the only man capable of using the weapons, became a secret agent, his abilities such as strenght, speed and flight making him THE Agent. He earned the capital A. With his good looks he was movie star material, perfect for moral rising movies back home, his medical skills made him one of the best army medics in US territory, and then there was the less physical side of his abilities. Along with absorbing emotions, the Agent turned out to be capable of influencing them as well. While nothing but a rousing fantasy adventure figure to the general public, the Agent was a reality to the troops out in the field and especially those selected for covert missions across occupied France and the heart of Nazi Germany. Garter could expel soothing waves thanks to his gauntlet, as well as use it to absorb emotions and turn them either into a powerful force field or a devastating energy blast. Needless to say the US government found this particular power highly effective, whether inspiring ground troops into action or waylaying the fears of the general populace. Despite his many adventures, Arthur eventually began to realise he was nothing more than a tool to the government and became terrified that he may end up as the newest form of imperialism. He vanished during the Cold War, serving the people of his country as a regular physician and the occasional super powered urban myth, an unidentifiable figure preventing dam burst and forest fires.

The Garter family did not totally escape the legacy of the Agent however. Marrying his lover Joan, Arthur became a father. Bruce Garter inherited his father's empathic abilities, but used them in radically different ways. Instead of a costumed hero, Bruce was a secret alley to many of the developing social trends and beliefs growing in America and across the world, helping influence support for them and way laying secret attempts to put them to an end. His biggest exploit was helping the Vietcong during the seventies and secretly adding the growing counterculture back home. He and his wife died from a cancerous mutagenic side effect of his sheer amount of use of his powers, orphaning their newborn son.

Clint Garter grew up under his grandparents care cursing the legacy of the Agent. He thought he stood a better chance of helping the world as an everyman, a simple doctor perhaps, but his sceptical and indifferent attitude saw him fail at every turn. Eventually turning to the mysterious Division for help, Clint studied his abilities for years, learning how to avoid the dangers that had affected his parents. Focusing on one emotional group and also allowing the gauntlet and staffs time to "recharge" from long periods of use by being separated from their owner turned out to be his best chance of survival. Avoiding overtaxing his powers by trying to influence an entire country was another. Completing his training, the Division was amazed when Clint simply left, taking the weapons with him. Given what he could expose if they attempted to use him or what they might accidently expose if they tried to restrain him, the government agreed to mark him as a threat but one to be avoided if at all possible. Clint travelled the world for a year, blazing a trail of social activism in Central America before returning home to work as a simple farm hand in Kansa, still keeping in touch with his grandparents.

Drawn into the world of a hero by The Disaster, the result of a fight between two meta humans that levelled the city of Durham in the Northeast of England, and disgusted at the politics of the situation, Clint became a radical new Agent, dawning a more sleek, modern and darker version of his grandfather's old flight suit uniform. While fighting for the everyday people all over the world, he also opposed any government action that put it's people in danger and even secretly sabotaged any shady government dealings, dividing himself between being one of the world's greatest heroes and one of it's most fearsome terrorists.

Due to the nature of as an empath, each Agent has been able to perform feats of post human strenght and speed, capable of increasing both through the amount of emotions around them. The range to pick up these emotions dosen't seem to have a limit, meaning provided the Agent is in an environment or planet supporting organisms capable of sentient thought he can be as powerful as he wishes. Clint Garter had developed his powers the most, learning to use them both as a means of defending a crowd and pacifying it, allowing for a calmer reaction during a crisis. He can use his gauntlet generated force field to protect him self from anything as harmful as a punch to a megaton bomb. It also allows him to defy gravity, although in actual movement and speed in flight he is dependant on using his staff(s), throwing one of them in a specific direction and holding on while the field allows him to increase or decrease altitude. He can also swing his indestructible staff fast enough to create sonic booms and spin it fast enough to create whirlwinds. More of often than not he finds his chief means of empathic power is the fear of both guilty and innocent around him. However, like all empaths, he is aware of the feeling of hope in each individual across the planet, if not the universe, and fights for that emotion more than any. Saving the world, for it's people and from it's people, Clint Garter is The Agent: Man Of The People.

It is almost depressing how many people don't realise the eagle on his chest is actually a dove.

(So there you have it. Captain America with Batman's attitude, Superman's basic powers, Daredevil's weapons, Thor's means of transport and Clark Kent's Job. Maybe a little bit of Jenny Sparks in there to. He's more her than USAgent or Ultimate Cap. )