Allies of Freedom

The Allies of Freedom were more of a war-front team than The Liberty League. While the League acted under orders from the President and traveled around the world protecting Allied interests and the home front, the Allies fought primarily in Europe, where they were well known. It wasn’t until after the war that stories of their exploits and heroism reached the United States.
Their archenemies, Wilhelm Kantor and the shadow-villain Nacht-Krieger, killed most of the members of the Allies during the final days of the war. The Japanese villain Crimson Katana killed the Human Tank and Gunner, the last survivors of the team, in Japan in 1946.

• Le Reynard Rogue (Amelie Dutemps): Masked French Resistance fighter renowned for her cunning, the “Rogue Fox” was the bane of Nazis occupying France and the leader of the Allies.
• The Human Tank & Gunner (Hank & Tommy Griffin): American brothers granted super-powers in a lab explosion; Hank (the Human Tank) was transformed into “living metal” while Tommy (Gunner) could create sprays of metal and absorb metal weapons, including bullets, into his body.
• Lady Celtic (Amanda Phipps-Gordon): British woman wielding the magical power of the druids; became Hank Griffin’s wife.
• Sergeant Shrapnel (Tony Gorman): American soldier abducted by aliens who granted him the power to make metallic objects—particularly machines—stop working or explode.
• Spitfire Jones (Horatio “David” Jones): British RAF pilot able to fly and exert considerable strength while doing so. He was a dedicated foe of the German Red Eagle.
• White Rose & White Thorn (Sophie & Wolfgang Shaal): German wielders of the mystic “White Light” hunted by SS officer Wilhelm Kantor and Nacht-Krieger. White Rose and White Thorn imprisoned Nacht-Krieger in the sea near Freedom City, and their powers were passed on to Langston Albright, the Liberty League hero known as Beacon.

Structure

The Human Tank

Hank was the second child of Margaret and Henry Griffin. When they died in a car accident, the eleven-year-old Hank and his six-year-old brother Tommy went to live with their older sister Shelly and her husband, metallurgist Dr. Michael MacLain, in Freedom City. Hank became obsessed with cars and a skilled mechanic and driver, which made him useful in Michael’s lab filled with mechanical inventions and the fact that “Doc” had poor depth perception and didn’t drive.
When Fifth columnists in Freedom City sabotaged the lab, Hank, Tommy, and Doc were caught in the initial explosion. Hank tackled Tommy and used his own body to shield his brother from the spray of liquid super-metal. Hank threw off the rubble and found his skin, organs, and muscles were now all metal. Tommy, who’d been trapped under him, could pull the metal out of the air, just as he breathed in the super-metal in the air from the lab. Their sister and her husband were both dead.
The Human Tank and Gunner captured the saboteurs and turned them over to the military at Lonely Point. Despite his little brother’s age, Hank accepted a request to volunteer their powers for the war effort. The brothers immediately went to Europe to join other allied superhumans in the Allies of Freedom, a team under the command of the Allied military commanders. Their main liaison was Major Richard Monroe of the O.S.S.
Hank, as the Human Tank, was the powerhouse of the team, yet his humility and quiet humor belied his metallic power. Still, shortly after arriving in Europe, he fell in love with Lady Celtic. They were married on New Year’s Day 1943, their twin children born in mid-1944.
Hank was seriously wounded by Nacht-Krieger when he attempted to prevent the Nazi’s escape from Europe. His wife, Lady Celtic, was killed. After weeks grieving for her and his other lost comrades, Hank placed his children in the safekeeping of his wife’s younger sister and he and Tommy returned to duty.
Human Tank and Gunner helped end the war with Japan and stayed to help the allies restore the country. Both of them fell in love with Japan and its culture, and the Human Tank began making plans to have his children brought to Osaka to live. Before that could happen, however, on October 17, 1946 the Crimson Katana murdered the Human Tank and Gunner in their sleep.

Gunner

Tommy Griffin and his brother Hank lived in one of two apartments above Doctor Michael MacLean’s laboratory in Port Regal. Their sister, Shelly, and her husband lived in the other apartment. Tommy swept the floors in the laboratory where “Doc” worked on forging an experimental super-metal for lighter and stronger ships and planes.
On May 20th, 1942, some Fifth columnists in Freedom City sabotaged the building. Tommy, Hank, and Doc were in the lab when the explosions occurred. Doc died instantly, while Hank tried to shield Tommy from the explosion and the spray of liquid super-metal. Secondary explosions around the building’s support columns brought it all down on them, and Shelly died when the upper floors crashed to the ground. Hank shrugged the rubble off of them and he and Tommy crawled from the wreckage, vowing revenge for their family’s death. The liquid supermetal changed both of them. Hank’s skin and muscles transformed into “living metal,” Tommy gained the power to absorb metals and project sprays of metallic projectiles.
Hank and Tommy became the Human Tank and Gunner. They captured the saboteurs who killed Doc and Shelly and turned them over to the military authorities at Lonely Point. Both of them volunteered to use their powers for the war effort and were almost immediately sent to Europe. Once there, Major Richard Monroe assigned them to work with other allied superhumans in the Allies of Freedom, a team under the command of the Allied military commanders.
Tommy was the youngest member of the Allies, and remained a member until its dissolution in 1945. He and Hank both were seriously wounded in the final battle against Nacht-Krieger. Before he passed out from shock, Gunner boasted, “You wouldn’t last a minute against the Liberty League, Ratzi…” When he regained consciousness, he learned of Lady Celtic’s death. He and Hank left England soon after her funeral.
The Human Tank and Gunner helped end the war with Japan and stayed to help the allies restore the country. Both of them fell in love with Japan and its culture, and Gunner actually started developing his powers to project metallic stars like Japanese shuriken instead of just “bullets.” The Japanese super-agent Crimson Katana murdered both Gunner and his brother in their sleep. Tommy Griffin was only 19 years old.

Lady Celtic

Amanda Phipps-Gordon was a privileged young woman of a socially prominent Oxford family. Much to her father’s chagrin, she spent her time during and after university digging up peat bogs, searching for artifacts of Britain’s Celtic past.
In 1938, she found more than she ever dreamed when she unearthed some human remains, possibly a druidic sacrifice, or so it seemed at first. When Amanda touched the mummified flesh, glowing Celtic knotwork design flowed up her hand and onto her. As they did, strange visions and voices flooded her mind, and she passed out.
She was in a coma for 49 hours, all the while learning magic and lore from the spirit of Aodh Cobhan, the druid whose body she had found. He taught her to wield magic that was ancient before the Romans came to British Isles, and told her of her destiny to help protect the land and its people. She awoke in an Oxford hospital, Celtic tattoos running up her arms to her face and neck; her first sight was her father glaring down at her disapprovingly. His staunch Anglican upbringing left no room for a daughter covered in pagan symbols, and he disowned her once she obviously had her health back.
Only days later, Lady Celtic saved her colleagues at the dig site from Aodh’s ancient foe, “Blackthorn” Domhnull, an evil sorcerer Aodh had imprisoned in death. Amanda’s former fiancé, Roger, had found Blackthorn’s black iron torc and was possessed, his head wreathed in mystic flames. Amanda had to kill Roger to separate him from the torc and Blackthorn’s evil. Grieving for her lost love, she secretly buried the torc in a Scottish bog to keep its evil contained for another millennium (though Blackthorn would actually arise again in only a few years to plague The Centurion).
Lady Celtic won the hearts of the British people by saving Princesses Elizabeth and Anne from harm when German kidnappers tried to abduct them from Balmoral Castle. She gladly joined the war effort and remained with her newfound friends in the Allies of Freedom despite their losses at Utska. When the Human Tank and Gunner joined the team in 1942, she initially struck some sparks with the metallic American. They fought well together, however, and it was not long before Amanda fell in love with her American “knight of shining armor.” They were married by 1943 and had twins, Avril and Troy, in 1944. While Amanda hated her time away from her adopted family and her husband, she was relieved at being ordered out of action for six months before and after her children’s birth. She also managed to reconcile with her estranged family.
Lady Celtic rejoined the Allies, but most of their missions by that time were liberating death camps and trying to catch fleeing members of the Nazi high command. Lady Celtic died healing her severely wounded husband and brother-in-law, not realizing Nacht-Krieger’s newly enhanced powers would allow him to slash through her mystic shields. She was given a state funeral at Westminster Abbey and laid to rest in the family plot in Oxford.

Le Reynard Rogue (The Rogue Fox)

Amelie Dutemps learned to hunt and shoot and fight from her father, who wanted her to be as capable as any boy. He also raised her to have pride in her French heritage and history, telling her stories of the Revolution and past heroes. Amelie’s parents died after France fell to the Blitzkrieg, when they refused to give up their house to an arrogant Nazi officer, who shot them on the spot. Amelie escaped and swore her revenge.
Amelie Dutemps built the reputation of la Renard Rogue and her resistance cell by masterminding daring acts of sabotage against the Nazis and the Vichy collaborators. She worked infrequently with another French hero, the knife-wielding Guillotine, but preferred to rely on herself and those who followed her orders. Although many Nazi’s attributed her superhuman powers, la Renard Rogue relied solely on a combination of skills, wits, trickery, and luck, along with her impressive tactical insights.
She smelled a trap at Utska, but could not get enough of the team to listen to her over the respected but arrogant Guillotine. In fact, the only reason any Allies of Freedom survived that day was the noble sacrifice of Golemeth and the Mehire and the Rogue Fox’s strategies. Despite being the only member without superpowers, Amelie earned and kept the respect of her teammates.
Indeed, the Renard Rogue had a fearsome reputation among the Nazi occupiers of France. She was known as a mistress of disguise, able to come and go by a hundred secret ways. Some of this was due to Amelie’s Resistance agents acting in her name, but the reputation was well deserved nonetheless.
A workaholic before the term was even coined, Amelie drove herself beyond exhaustion in the waning days of the war. The day they heard of Kantor’s flight out of Germany, she stayed on her feet despite a 102-degree fever. She split the team up to deal with potential threats at three different air bases in hopes of catching the fleeing Kantor and Nacht-Krieger. When she and Jones and Sarge confronted Kantor, she could hardly stand. The Rogue Fox had outwitted herself, and Kantor shot her dead. She received the honors due a true heroine of the people of France, her name honored in her homeland to this day.

Sergeant Shrapnel

Tony Gorman married his high school sweetheart and enlisted in the Army in 1935 due to the lack of jobs during the Depression. A career soldier, Tony never rose too high in the enlisted ranks due to his inability to play politics or put up with arrogant commanders. By September of 1941, he had made it to sergeant for his second time when he and his friend Sergeant Wallace Allen encountered a flying silver disk that “moved quicker than any plane and turned on a dime.” The UFO, as it was later classified, enveloped both men with an energy beam. Another soldier found them unconscious with no signs of foul play. They woke up a day later in the base hospital.
When they left the hospital, Tony got into his car, only to have it promptly fell to pieces around him. Wally helped his friend out of the wreckage. When he touched the metal, however, the car flew back together and worked better than ever. After a long battery of tests, the Army concluded the two men possessed powers affecting machinery—one caused it to fail and fall apart, while the other improved it to the best of its designed ability . They soon learned to control their powers, though the nicknames they picked up in testing—Sarge Shrapnel and Allen Wrench—quickly stuck.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Wally got transferred to help Army engineers create better prototype planes and weapons (he eventually ended up on the Manhattan Project and died of radiation sickness from early experiments). Tony became the military’s first enlisted superhuman, shipped overseas to aid the British and be America’s Ally of Freedom. The team, demoralized by their defeat in Poland, brightened with the gregarious Sarge in their midst. While there was a definable chemistry between Amelie (Renard Rogue) and Tony, neither acted on it, as Tony remained in love and faithful to his wife back at home.
Sarge Shrapnel died alongside other members of the Allies of Freedom confronting Wilhelm Kantor and Nacht-Krieger. His wife, Carol, discovered she was pregnant following her last all-too-brief reunion with her husband. Tony Gorman’s son, Nicholas Gorman, also possessed super-powers. He worked as an agent for AEGIS in the 1960s using the code-name ShrapNick.

Spitfire Jones

David Jones became an RAF flier out of necessity: it was the most exclusive and exciting military posting one could have, and Jones always fought to be the center of attention. During a training mission in late 1939 over the Irish Sea, David’s plane flew through strange glowing fog that seeped into his cockpit but apparently had no ill effects.
Only when his plane got shot down by enemy bombers over London did he realize what had happened. He flew out of the burning cockpit and began ripping wings off of German planes. David could fly under his own power, leaving a glowing contrail behind him. While in flight, he possess tremendous strength, but it faded to normal levels when he slowed or touched down. He can also throw objects with greater than normal force.
After his public debut, David became “Spitfire Jones” and a media darling. Attempts to pair him with Lady Celtic worked to help London, but in private the pair barely tolerated each other due to class and personal differences. Despite his overbearing self-confidence and lothario nature, Spitfire Jones was a hero. He prevailed in the retreat from Utska, as his great strength while in flight allowed him to carry everyone inside one of Lady Celtic’s force fields. When the Americans arrived to join the team, Jones embraced Gunner and Sarge Shrapnel, but struck sparks with the Human Tank at times.
Even though he respected his female teammates, Spitfire Jones was also a Casanova, the hero with a girl in every port. He had the dubious honor of being captured more times than any other Ally, as he fell for every Nazi femme fatale he met. His most tangled encounters involved the infamous Madame Blitz; the two of them struggled with having deep feelings for each other, despite their conflicting loyalties.
By 1945, even the ever-glib Spitfire Jones was sick of war and constant battle. Like Rogue Fox, Jones was ill the final day they flew to Wilhelm Kantor and the Nacht-Krieger. (This fact alone leads many to speculate whether Jones and the Fox had a romantic relationship at this point in the war, a rumor never corroborated but much debated.) His overconfidence finally got the better of him when Spitfire Jones tried to brush aside Nacht-Krieger to get at Kantor. The Nazi super-soldier’s enhanced powers were more than a match for the British hero, and he dealt Jones a mortal injury with a single blow.

Die Weiße Rose (The White Rose)

Wolfgang and Sophia Shaal were born in 1925 to Gertrude and Helmut Shaal, a housefrau and a university professor of literature and folklore, respectively. As a highly educated intellectual, Helmut knew he and his family were in danger under Hitler’s rule. He wanted to get his family safely out of Germany, and begin to plan their exit from the increasingly volatile country of their birth.
Like so many others, however, Helmut underestimated the amount of time he had in which to act. On November 9th, 1938, SS officers murdered Helmut and Gertrude Shaal during the Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass in English), a Nazi pogrom against the Jewish population. A Czech friend of Helmut’s, Honza Krisovar, managed to escape with young Sophie and Wolfgang. Honza was a minor mystic and acquainted with the potential inherent in the Shaal children. He sacrificed his own life to see the twins safely placed in a sanctuary controlled by the Order of Light.
A mystic rite awakened the twins’ potential and they became the new Light-bearers, wielders of an ancient and sacred power known since the dawn of history. Their powers were antithetical to the darkness commanded by Thule magician Wilhelm Kantor and his agent, NachtKrieger.
As teens, Wolfgang and Sophie fought battles all over occupied Europe against the Nazis and even ran a counter-propaganda campaign against the Hitler Youth brainwashing of Germany’s children. Originally dismissed as legends, die Weiße Rose and der Weiße Dorn—White Rose and White Thorn—became implacable foes of the Nazi High Command, especially Himmler and his SS, and Wilhelm Kantor and the Thule Society.
The White Rose and Thorn did some work with resistance groups and were lured to Utska, Poland with other European heroes. The twins were forced to trust outsiders for the first time. The normally shy Sophie was able to convince her hot-tempered brother to accept the offer to join the Allies of Freedom, firmly believing they could do more together than apart.
White Rose fought valiantly alongside her teammates throughout the war. Her soothing presence helped to moderate her twin brother’s fiery temper, which was never stronger than when Sophie’s beauty and good nature lured would-be suitors like moths to a flame. She sacrificed her life in 1945 to create the mystic prison that held Nacht-Krieger in the ocean depths near Freedom City for decades.

Der Weiße Dorn (The White Thorn)

White Thorn nearly died as a fourth casualty at Utska, Poland, when the Allies of Freedom first formed. Recognizing Wilhelm Kantor as the man who led the SS troops that murdered his parents, Wolfgang ignored all precautions and vowed to kill the SS officer immediately. Only the Mehire’s intervention prevented Wolfgang from making what would have been a suicidal attack.
Wolfgang spent much of the war obsessing over destroying Kantor above all others. While the other Allies sometimes relaxed and enjoyed each other’s company, Wolfgang’s single-mindedness separated him from everyone except his sister. His hot temper sometimes clashed with other members of the Allies, particularly Spitfire Jones, on those occasions when it appeared Jones was getting too close to Sophie.
After the battle that decimated the Allies, the Light-bearers pursued Nacht-Krieger across the Atlantic and fought him off the coast of Freedom City. Only by combining their powers could they weave the cage of light to hold the Shadow Warrior prisoner. Sophie sacrificed herself to accomplish it, while Wolfgang spent decades imprisoned with his hated foe, unable to divert his power from the prison long enough to strike a final blow.
While the mystic powers coursing through the light-prison sustained Wolfgang, his sanity suffered. When Overshadow freed Nacht-Krieger in the 1960s, White Thorn pursued him with single-minded fury. This brought him into conflict with the contemporary heroes Scarab and Beacon, who wielded Sophie’s Light-bearer potential. Recognizing Beacon as the new Light-bearer, Wolfgang willingly sacrificed himself to help imprison Nacht-Krieger once more, passing on his remaining potential to Beacon. He was finally able to rejoin his beloved sister and friends in “the light beyond life.”

History

While the Liberty League battled the Axis on the home front, the Allies of Freedom operated primarily in the European Theatre of war from 1942 through 1945.
Le Guillotine and la Renard Rogue led French Resistance cells in central and southern France. Golemeth fought to free his fellow Jews from amidst the Polish ghettos. Der Weiße Dorn and die Weiße Rose—White Thorn and White Rose—fought a rebel action against the Hitler Youth and the Nazi propaganda machine within Germany. Spitfire Jones and Lady Celtic battled the Blitz over London, and the Mehire fought against Romany persecution, despite being an outcast from his own gypsy tribe.
Wilhelm Kantor brought the Allies of Freedom together in December of 1941. As part of a plot to exterminate all resistance to the Third Reich in Europe in a single stroke, Kantor leaked intelligence to a number of European heroes of a new Nazi super-weapon being tested in the port town of Utska, Poland. Eight heroes took the bait, and Kantor’s Übersoldaten ambushed them. Golemeth, le Guillotine, and the Gypsy hero Mehire died during the battle, but their sacrifice allowed the other five heroes to regroup and escape.
The survivors made it back to London, where they learned America had joined the war effort after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Allied commanders brought in a sixth member for the team, the American Sarge Shrapnel. The six, while initially wary, grew into a tight-knit unit effective at harassing German holdings in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. When the Human Tank and Gunner joined the team in June of ‘42, they had the strength and the unity that allowed them to make strikes deep into Germany and Poland.
The Liberty League operated independently throughout the war on Dr. Tomorrow's “secret intelligence sources” (namely his knowledge of the future), while the Allies of Freedom worked directly with the European Theater’s central command and often supported allied advances. This difference proved key in how their fame grew as well. The League was well known in America for its newsreel-ready exploits. The AF, however, grew famous in the eyes of the European people (especially the French Resistance) and the soldiers with whom they served. While rumors and footage of their exploits reached American shores, it wasn’t until after the war was over that most Americans back home heard of the heroism of the Allies of Freedom. Unfortunately, most of the heroes never lived to see it.
The Allies of Freedom remain renowned heroes in Europe, particularly honored by twelve-foot high statues in a park in Lourdes, France, for their role in aiding the French Resistance and freeing the nation from Nazi tyranny.

Disbandment

The AF’s darkest days were the end of March 1945. Wilhelm Kantor fled Germany as the Reich fell around him. He ordered his protégé Nacht-Krieger to slay any Allied superhumans he could and prevent his capture. The Allies discovered this plan and intercepted their nemeses, though they unwisely split up their forces to tackle a number of different ongoing threats. With newly enhanced powers, Nacht-Krieger cut a terrible swath through the Allies: only the Human Tank and Gunner and the light-bearers White Rose and White Thorn survived, the latter giving their lives to imprison Nacht-Krieger beneath the ocean near Freedom City. The Human Tank and Gunner perished in occupied Japan shortly after V-J Day, murdered by the Japanese super-soldier Crimson Katana.

DISBANDED/DISSOLVED

1942 - 1945

Type

Adventuring Party