Agents of Freedom Design Journal #4: AEGIS

The history of AEGIS is the history of struggle in the 20th and early 21st centuries. The organization has faced challenges from the moment of its inception, and not always from America’s enemies. Still, AEGIS has always overcome any obstacles in its path when it comes to keeping the nation safe.

My Name Is Jack, and I’m A Patriot…
For many servicemen, World War II was a crucible, which they entered as immature boys, and emerged from as the living standard of courage. One of the men who spent the longest time in the crucible was Jack Simmons, America’s Icon of Liberty, the Patriot. He fought numerous battles in the war, against Nazi troops and Nazi supervillains like Nacht-Krieger, Totenkopf, and the infamous Wilhelm Kantor.

After the war, Simmons wanted to pursue Kantor into his South American bolt hole to finish the job—he remembered how Nacht-Krieger had massacred the Allies of Freedom to cover Kantor’s escape—but the army refused to believe the slippery Kantor was worth the effort. Jack was loaned out to the OSS, where he worked as a secret agent for several years. He still did the superhero gig on the side, though Freedom City was quiet in the post-War years.

In 1950, Simmons signed up for the bloody stalemate of Korea. He hoped for a quick victory; however, the Patriot found the fighting even more bitter and intense than it had been in the Second World War. He recruited a new team of superhumans and trained them as a fighting force in the spirit of the superheroes of the Second World War. Christened the Atomic Brigade (because Simmons hoped they would be an alternative to the use of nuclear weapons), the team is one of the great forgotten superhero groups of history. After several initial successes, four team members were killed in a futile defense of the Chosin Reservoir in December of 1950. Despite Simmons’ best efforts, the team was never reformed to full strength. Korea turned into a quagmire in which superheroes made little difference.

After the cease-fire, the Patriot returned to the United States, where he was recruited into the CIA. Unfortunately, other events would overtake Jack’s life. While he had been fighting communists in Asia, a different type of enemy threatened America. It was the time of the HUAC hearings, and superheroes were not impervious to the committee’s scrutiny. One of the people called to the hearings was the Silver Soldier, a former member of the Atomic Brigade with decidedly leftist leanings. When the Soldier left the hearings and snapped at the press that he was “running away to become a supervillain, since this country doesn’t appreciate its heroes anymore,” the committee ordered him hunted down.

Jack tried to intercept his volatile comrade before tragedy occurred, but a confrontation with the press triggered an ugly incident. The Silver Soldier’s gun started a fire, resulting in the destruction of several public buildings. Despite Jack’s call for leniency, HUAC and local law enforcement came down hard on him. He was unmasked as playwright Todd Montgomery and sentenced to ten years hard labor. The revelation that members of “the Patriot’s team” were “destructive Communists” intensified the pressure on superheroes. There were even calls to investigate the Patriot himself and root out the presence of “elite communists” in the armed forces. It led to the Scarlet Spectre’s impending testimony about the members of the Liberty League.

The public disbanding of the Liberty League took attention away from Jack’s role in the proceedings, but the Patriot was left with a decidedly bitter taste in his mouth. When it came to superhumans, the system didn’t handle them very well. America needed a security force that specialized in dealing with superhumans, but one that could be kept at arm’s length from what Jack called “enemies blatant and pernicious.” Simmons envisioned an umbrella organization that would draw in the best talent from the military and security organizations, which would work with established, respectable superheroes to defend the country. Employing the same strategic skills he’d used to fight the Nazis, Simmons put together a plan to build a new, better system of superhuman law enforcement.

He started using his army connections to cherry pick the best from each branch of the service (and from security agencies), looking for those who displayed the qualities of initiative and competence. “A soldier with brains and a little swagger beats an obedient drone every time,” Simmons said. Little did he know how ironic those words would prove to be.

By 1958, Simmons’ project began to bear fruit. He had received permission from the Eisenhower administration to put together a task force of forty agents to serve as a special mission force. Many people laughed at the idea; the brass said Simmons had scoured every brig to recruit each service’s most insubordinate soldiers. Simmons was choosing men (and more than a few women) who were not afraid to speak their minds and were willing to stand up to bad command decisions. Once his team was assembled, two years of intense training followed.

On June 24, 1960, Simmons’ task force was placed (for reasons that only made sense to bureaucrats) under the authority of the IRS, designated as the “American Elite Government Intervention Service,” and given office space in the Treasury building. Simmons’ critics mocked the name, and predicted his “washout brigade” wouldn’t last six months.

Launch-Point
Behind the scenes, however, Simmons had made several moves that would prove critical to AEGIS’ success. First, he tapped his CIA and FBI contacts to recruit good law enforcement personnel to supplement his soldiers. Whenever possible, AEGIS would have the best intelligence available before they acted.

Second, he used his friendships in the superhero community to make contact with the latest generation of superheroes, proposing covert partnerships. Now, Jack promised, someone in government circles would fight for superhero rights in the event of another HUAC witch-hunt. Centurion agreed enthusiastically and, following his lead, many heroes agreed to collaborate. This included a new Freedom City superhero named the Scarab who would prove an invaluable asset.

The acid test came in 1961, when SHADOW launched the first Operation Inundation, an ambitious scheme to seize simultaneous control of every major institution in the western world. The Scarab’s psychic talents warned him of imminent danger, but no one in government listened to his warnings except Jack Simmons.

Simmons mobilized AEGIS forces to protect key American installations when zero hour struck. More importantly, he contacted friends in the armed services across the world, and put his reputation on the line to get their forces placed on high alert. SHADOW’s attack was even more intense than the Scarab feared, but in the end, it was AEGIS that saved the day.

AEGIS investigators tracked SHADOW to the Virginia estate of Dr. Jonathan Darke, where the man believed to be SHADOW’s Supreme Commander was killed in the ensuing firefight. The world celebrated, and critics’ voices were muted. The “Contraterror Cowboys” (as AEGIS had been derisively called) had won the day.