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Fighting: |
Gd |
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Agility: |
Ex |
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Strength: |
Ty |
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Endurance: |
Rm |
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Reason: |
Am |
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Intuition: |
Rm |
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Psyche: |
Am |
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Health: |
66 |
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Karma: |
130 |
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Resources: |
In |
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Popularity: |
-30 |
Real Name: Samuel Stern
Occupation: Would-be conqueror
Legal Status: U.S. Citizen with a criminal record
Identity: Public
Place of Birth: Boise, Idaho
Marital Status: Single
Known Relatives: None
Base of Operations: Formerly a satellite orbitting Earth and various hidden bases around the globe. Currently presumed to be in the U.S. Southwest
Past Group Affiliations: None
Known Powers:
Increased Mental Capacity: The Leader’s super-developed brain is his chief gamma-radiation mutation. His logic is always sound, and his hunches are usually on target. He has total recall of anything he has ever seen or read.
Mind Control: The leader has acquired the ability to control minds with a successful Psyche FEAT roll against the intensity of his victim’s Psyche. This power has no range as the Leader must physically touch his target. He can take control of minds with Good Psyche or less indefinitely, while higher strength minds may make a Psyche FEAT roll to break free once a week or whenever ordered to do something inimical to the victim’s moral standards. Curiously, the Leader is unable to control the mind of any being enhanced with gamma-radiation powers.
Psychic Link: The Leader has a psychic link with Rick Jones; he sees and experiences everything that Jones does, and has access to Jones’ memories and talents. Jones himself is unaware of this link
Weaponry:
The Leader is a technologi cal genius. He has invented several robots, weapons, and other equip ment to facilitate his conquest of the planet. Since he gained his Mind Control power, the Leader has spent fewer of his resources on robots and more on specialized armor for such organic minions as Rock, Redeemer, and Half-life. He has also developed Monivac, a sentient computer with a Reason of Incredible that maintains the Leader’s base of operations, and a functioning teleportation pad, with a global range. This device has Incredible rank Teleportation, but a Power FEAT failure when teleporting a character into or out of combat requires the character to roll on the “Kill?” results table with a -1CS.
Talents:
The Leader has all scientific talents, though he specializes in gamma radiation. He also has the Engineering and Repair/Tinkering skills. From his link with Rick Jones, he can use Martial Arts A, B, and E, Acrobatics, and perform as a singer, guitarist, and harmonica player.
Contacts:
The Leader has used his Mind Control power to build an impressive array of civilian contacts, enough to assure him of whatever terrestrial Professional, Scientific, or Political Contacts he might need. He was also responsible for the creation of Half-life, Rock, and Redeemer, who follow his commands explicitly.
Role-Playing Notes:
The Leader is one of the most brilliant minds on the planet, with a huge self-image to boot. The Leader is condescending towards anyone who does not match his gamma-spawned abilities. His goals are two fold: the death of the Hulk (not Bruce Banner; since it has been the Hulk who has over the years foiled all of the Leader’s plans, the Leader feels that it would be petty to kill Banner), and the conquest of the world. The Leader is a superb tactician. His mind, like a chess grandmaster’s, foresees the consequences of his schemes and plans on a large scale.
History:
Stern was an ordinary laborer moving a load of radioactive waste in the sub-cellar of a government-owned chemical research facility in the Nevada desert when, in a freak accident, a cylinder containing unusual gamma-bomb experimental waste exploded. Sterns was caught in the blast and was trapped in close proximity to the gamma radiation given off by the spilled waste for about a minute. He survived, apparently unharmed, and was placed under observation in a near-by hospital. Sterns, a high-school drop-out, began voraciously reading every book in the hospital library. His reading rate increased to 4,000+ words per minute with complete retention. The precise frequency of gamma radiation had affected his body and particularly his brain even as it had affected Dr. Bruce Banner’s body in a previous accident.
Several weeks after being discharged from the hospital, Stern’s gamma-induced mutation completed itself; his brain and skull enlarged to five times their former volume, and his skin turned a bright emerald green. Stern left his job, deciding to use his recently acquired super-human intelligence to acquire personal power, and named himself the Leader. Over the course of several months, he organized a spy ring among the government scientists he had known at the research facility. His spy ring collapsed before it could take over the world’s governments due to internal bickering and mistrust. Frustrated by the lower intelligence of his aides, but lusting for power, the Leader absconded with the spy ring’s supply of stolen money and used it to set up a private laboratory in New Mexico, where he designed and built his first "humanoid." The humanoid, a powerful pink plastic robot which responded to the Leader’s mental commands, was the first step in his career as a solitary criminal mastermind.
The Leader has since proven himself to be an adversary of humanity, and has made many attempts at world conquest. He was continually thwarted in his schemes by the Hulk, his greatest opponent. At one point, the Leader had gone back in time to primeval Earth in a mad scheme to create a divergent Earth with a history subtly changed. The Hulk and the Avengers followed him back in time, in order to stop him. In the course of their battle with the Leader, the Hulk and the Avengers saw him fall into a volcano. However, the Leader survived by use of his teleportation module.
The adventure had taken its toll, however. For reasons unrevealed, the Leader began to lose his gamma-spawned intellect. Desperate to regain it, Sterns made a deal with the gray, amoral Hulk, and drained the gamma radiation from the Rick-Hulk, inducing in himself a similar but different mutation, and forming a psychic link with Jones. The Leader then embarked on a plan to capture the U.S. military’s cache of gamma-bombs and kill the Hulk.
As of this writing, the Leader believes that the Hulk is dead, perished in the explosion of a gamma bomb the Hulk had been holding in his hand at the time of detonation. It is reasonable to assume that the Leader’s plans for acquiring the gamma bombs and conquering the world are continuing.