STEEPLEJACK I (Jake Mallard)
Created By: Len Wein & George Tuska
First Appearance: Luke Cage, Power Man #18 (April 1974)
Role: One-Shot Vigilante
Group Affiliations: None
PL 6 (73)
STRENGTH 4
STAMINA 5
AGILITY 1
FIGHTING 6
DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE 0
AWARENESS 0
PRESENCE 0
Skills:
Athletics 3 (+6)
Expertise (Construction Worker) 6 (+6)
Intimidation 5 (+5)
Technology 6 (+6)
Vehicles 2 (+2)
Advantages:
Power Attack, Ranged Attack 4
Powers:
"Sheer Power" Strength-Damage +1 [1]
"Rivet-Gun" (Flaws: Easily Removable -2) [15]
"Red-Hot Rivets" Blast 8 (Extras: Multiattack) (24) -- (25 points)
AE: "Acetylene Super-Torch" Damage 6 (Extras: Area- 30ft. Line) (12)
Offense:
Unarmed +6 (+5 Damage, DC 20)
Rivet-Gun +4 (+8 Ranged Damage, DC 23)
Torch +6 Area (+6 Damage, DC 21)
Initiative +1
Defenses:
Dodge +5 (DC 15), Parry +6 (DC 16), Toughness +5, Fortitude +7, Will +3
Complications:
Motivation (Revenge)- Mallard's two brothers were killed thanks to the cost-cutting measures of Maxwell Plumm. Mallard has vowed revenge.
Power Loss (Rivet-Gun)- Mallard's gun has a fuel supply attached to his back.
Total: Abilities: 32 / Skills: 22--11 / Advantages: 5 / Powers: 16 / Defenses: 9 (73)
-You find the most interesting things in the backlogs of Marvel Comics, and on the Wikipedia & Handbook Appendix pages they inspire. Steeplejack here never met Scourge- he only lasted one single story, dying at the end. The wording I've read online made the character out to be HIGHLY tragic, so imagine my surprise to actually read the original story, and see that the character's purpose wasn't actually treated with that much sympathy- the book features no indication as to whether or not Steeplejack's accusations are correct!
-Jake Mallard (no relation to Drake, the Terror That Flaps in the Night, I presume) lost his two brothers in a construction site accident that he believes is caused by the sub-standard safety measures implemented by their boss. Vowing revenge, Mallard constructs his "life's work", a super-torch/Rivet-Gun combo, and starts calling himself Steeplejack (a 19th-century term for construction workers). He tries to kill Plumm, who hires Luke Cage to protect him. Cage, being a frequent benefactor of evil people (his weird luck, I guess), fights Steeplejack, but is kept on the ropes by his Super-Torch. Luke eventually chucks the guy into a girder, but tragically, it has been pre-melted by the torch, and Steeplejack falls to his death.
-Reading it a certain way makes Steeplejack out to be the THIRD victim of Plumm's, which is one hell of an unhappy ending. HOWEVER... having read the issue in question now, it's never made clear that Plumm WAS using substandard methods at all! In fact, Plumm is treated like a bit of a victim, and never acts rudely- he denies Steeplejack's charges, and quickly hires Cage as a bodyguard. Cage never questions things one way or the other, and we never see what becomes of Plumm under his creators.
-Steeplejack is a PL 6 one-shot guy who did OK against the rookie Luke Cage, but mainly because of his ranged weapons (the Rivet-Gun was useless, but the Torch did OK- Cage was apparently more vulnerable to heat), but when you're a one-shotter, you're not gonna have a high PL. He's got those two options, but is ALSO incredibly strong (he DENTED A GIRDER with Luke's head), doing more damage than is possible for most people- he's at Captain America's level of unarmed damage (but I didn't want him to be able to lift 1,600 lbs.- therefore he has a boosted-damage Power instead of just raw Strength). He's apparently an 8th-grade drop-out, but knows enough about technology to build his own equipment, so his Intelligence isn't hampered at all (in actuality, this was Claremont's assertion- not the creators). He's a big tough guy, but wouldn't have lasted in the Marvel Universe long, even if he had survived his first battle.