NOMAD

 

NOMAD

Real Name: Jack Monroe

First Appearance: Young Men (Vol. 1) #24, December 1953; Captain America (Vol. 1) #153, September 1972 (As Bucky III); Captain America (Vol. 1) #281-282, May-June 1983 (As Nomad)

Powers: Jack Monroe was exposed to a recreation of the Super-Soldier Serum in the 1950s, heightening his physical prowess to give him enhanced strength, speed, agility, endurance, and reflexes. Without the vita-rays to stabilize the serum, he became mentally unstable and spent time in suspended animation. He eventually was restored to a healthy mental status by S.H.I.E.L.D., and adopted Captain America's one-time identity as Nomad, including the two stun-disks mounted on his chest, which he used as throwing weapons. Later, after adapting a more cynical view on crime-fighting, Nomad began carrying a shotgun that fired blanks and a new "utility disk" with a hidden compartment containing lock picks, a grappling line, glass cutters, and other accessories. His career as Nomad ended with a big explosion in Washington D.C. and he was put back into suspended animation.

He was awakened by Henry Peter Gyrich and suffused with nano-probes which left Monroe fully aware and self-conscious, but compelled to follow Gyrich's orders. He was trained as a new Scourge, and equipped with a vast array of weapons and paraphernalia either reverse-engineered or directly taken from super-villains (and the occasional hero) over the years. Like the Crimson Dynamo, Scourge employed a matter matrix card storing his armor on a credit card-sized piece of circuitry, allowing him to materialize his costume onto his body on command. The primary access for his weapons was a cybernetically controlled Pym Particle supply and release system, design to give him immediate access to an array of different items at will. At times, he also employed the Pym Particles to shrink himself or other objects besides his arsenal. Scourge's costume was outfitted with a number of built-in or attached weapons at all times. His helmet was equipped with armor taken from the Olympian god Ares, the horns of El Toro, and the Unicorn's blast projector, which could project various beams such as force, disintegrational, or magnetic. His legs were equipped with Tarantula's razor-tipped boots whose retractable blades contained a paralyzing agent or fatal poison, Leap-Frog's spring coils for leaping great heights and a variation on Stilt-Man's stilts for sudden vertical ascension. His belt held two of his stun disks and two of the Wizard's anti-gravity disks, which can be slapped onto a target to make it weightless or cause it to actively resist gravity and hurl up into the air.

He could also activate the Eel's protective field to electrify his outer clothing. Holographic projectors taken from Mirage I allowed him to become invisible and project false identities around himself to disguise his appearance. He could summon a selection of exterior weapons or armaments from his storage access as well, including the Rapier's fencing sword, Commander Kraken's electrified sword, the Hobgoblin's bat-glider, and a sectional lance that split from a quarterstaff to a pair of fighting rods which could project vibrational surges (Shocker), sonic force blasts (Klaw), and blinding flashes of light (Lightmaster). At times, he also used a rifle firing hard-air bullets and a replica of Captain America's shield.

Many of Scourge's weapons were integrated into his gauntlets in such a way that they weren't outwardly visible when he activated them -- they just grew into specially-designed active weapon slots in the gauntlets for easy use. Among the weapons he used in this way are Plant-Man's chloro-ray, Firebrand's fiery thermal blasts, Melter's melting ray, Ringer's rings which are materialized out of atmospherical particles, ensnare an opponent and then constrict around him, Blizzard's micro cryostats, Porcupine's poisoned quill shooters, Controller's mind control disks, Cyclone's wind-generating effect, Mister Fear's fear pheromone dart capsules, etc.