Ground Zero

This team of loosely affiliated vigilantes from Harborview would seem an unlikely choice for the flagship variant team of the United States, but that's the way things happened. The individual members of the team appeared over the course of 1980 in Harborview, individually fighting the local street gang epidemic and variant menaces for nearly a year. While they sometimes crossed paths, none had a concrete partnership save Rapidfire and Impulse, and it wasn't until early 1981 that the group finally formed.
    The original members (Black Flag, Impulse, Rapidfire, Split Second and Wildcard) as well as the freelance adventurer Black Dragon (the team's closest ally over the years, though he never actually accepted membership) responded to a variant hostage crisis at New Horizons. While the entire hostage situation was an elaborate ruse, the heroes found they worked well together. A grateful Francis Bouie, owner of New Horizons, offered them funding and a headquarters as a variant team in troubled Harborview.
    The early days were not easy, since many had drastically different goals and methods, but in the end comraderie won out, helped by the strong-but-unlikely bond between Split Second and Wildcard. They were young, powerful, anti-Communist, anti-gang, anti-drug, conservative and proactive. They cut rock songs and did commercials against drug use. They were employed by a major American technology corporation. The Reagan administration loved them. (Critics were quick to point out that they were all suburban WASPs, except the token Black Flag.) While the government was doing all it could to harass The Host, they openly praised Ground Zero.
    When Ground Zero was instrumental in ending the Plovian invasion, sacrificing one of their own, they went from being appreciated to being favored sons. Ground Zero was incorporated into the MEDUSA budget and given more funding than they had dreamed of. They also got more oversight, in the form of Orion the Omenbringer (a full time MEDUSA agent), more paperwork, and an international focus. The administration, not keen on entry into UNEarth and a true world superteam including Chinese and Soviets, held up Ground Zero as their alternative. They were America's public, unofficial, international force for over three years, with headquarters in Harborview.
    When the Daemonwar struck New York, Ground Zero was at the core of it, forewarned by the Coven activities in Harborview but still unprepared. While members of the team ended the war, they paid a high price: Rapidfire incapacitated for months; Impulse dead; Orion dead; Split Second missing; Black Dragon dead; Wildcard trapped in the Daemongrid, with no hope of escape. America's premier variant defenders were gone.
    Despite the press hoopla that surrounded Ground Zero, they were far from perfect—they tended to use too much violence, to act before thinking, to tackle international affairs with nothing but two good fists and an American moral compass. In short, they epitomized the media heroes of their time. They were effective, however, and they not only pulled Harborview from a surrender to crime, but restored American variants' faith in themselves. Perfect or not, they were heroes, and are honored as such. Statues to their honored dead stand in Heroes' Square in Harborview, and heroes have sprung up around the country to replace them.

Black Flag
An inner city youth granted superhuman strength and durability from exposure to Toxyn's variant power induction chemicals, he waged a war to clean the streets of drug dealers.

Impulse
Brother to Rapidfire, a genius detective and mathematician with radiation powers that enhanced his endurance and let him disintegrate matter. He died in the Daemonwar.

Orion the Omenbringer
Latest incarnation of the hero who formed the Great Hunt, Orion possessed mystical lightning and weather powers. He died in the Daemonwar, and a woman has taken his place.

Rapidfire
Brother to Impulse, this speedster is the only member of Ground Zero still active. Capable of hyper-sonic running, he is also a highly trained MEDUSA agent, and is still in their employ.

Split Second
The fastest man on earth, this hybrid of human and alien could fly at speeds that defied description, with reflexes to match. He vanished after the Daemonwar, but was never confirmed dead.

Wildcard
Scourge of Harborview organized crime, he was amazingly strong, tough and fast, and accurate, with the power to absorb energy from objects or opponents to revitalize himself. He closed the Daemongrid from the other side, locking himself away from Earth while saving it.

Visit the Rogues' Gallery.

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