TRACER

 

TRACER

Real Name: Richard Bloom

First Appearance: Deathlok Annual (Vol. 2) #2, October 1993

Powers: Richard Bloom was a scientist and CEO of Bloom Industries, a weapons manufacturing firm. He designed an anti-superhuman body armor for himself with his team, the Tailor Group. The suit employed free-flying sensor drones and holographic recreation technology in order to study individual superhumans and develop a series of weapons and defenses tailored for bringing down that opponent. This technology would then be integrated into the modular systems of the Tracer Suit for each encounter. Bloom himself underwent surgical implantation to make himself ideally suited for neuro-cybernetically linking with the armor.

Tracer possessed a default set of abilities, including strength augmentation, computer-guided telescopic vision and targeting, remote access to various computer files, reinforced protective armor, and rocket boots for propulsion. In his battle with Deathlok, Tracer employed a concussive plasma cannon, a scramble-screen which rendered him nearly invisible to Deathlok's ranged extra-visual sensors, wire-guided spikes which transferred a heuristic virus into the cyborg on contact to disable his computer system, and a cybernetic access spike enabling Tracer to explore Deathlok's memory files and potentially operate him by remote commands. Against Spider-Man, Tracer was equipped with retractable lasers and stun-guns in his wrist assembly, smart-targeting gas pellets which tracked Parker's movements and exploded with anaerobic vapor, a projectile steel-mesh net, high-voltage grappling wire, mini-radar sensors to prevent surprise attacks and help navigate through his own gas clouds, and a chemical film over his visor to prevent webbing from sticking to it.

Richard Bloom held a college degree in engineering and was brilliant with electronics and machinery.