Wildcard
Jake Walker was always lucky—very lucky, in fact—but his luck never lasted. Jake became addicted to the thrill of danger and risk early on, and it didn’t take him long to find his way to the casinos of Southside in Freedom League, after being banned from places in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Jake’s luck won him a lot of money, but also the attention of The Mob.
Jake thought his lucky streak had finally run out when he faced a pair of guns in a dark alley. Witnesses saw the incredible ricochets that left him unharmed but the hit-men dead. Rather than risk more men, the Mob offered Jake a deal: do the Mob a few favors, and he would always have a safehouse with them. Jake agreed, though he disliked not being able to ever gamble in the casinos again. Even so, he discovered his luck was even more extraordinary than he thought, and the thrill of committing crimes was even better than gambling.
Jake adopted the identity of Wildcard and committed a series of more and more daring crimes based on games of chance. His luck ran out when he encountered the Raven II and she put him behind bars. But lucky breaks got Wildcard out of prison and he teamed up with The Crime League. He’s even made an attempt to go straight, but the excitement keeps drawing him back to a life of crime, at least until his luck runs out again.
Wildcard tells himself he’ll work with the Crime League until a big score can set him up for life with a new identity someplace the law will never touch him, but both he and his criminal colleagues know that Wildcard cannot leave his life of excitement and danger behind. The money and power are really just ways of keeping score, and hardly matter, so long as the risk is there.
What even Wildcard does not know is how much of a gamble he is taking. While most believe his power is some kind of mutant ability to control probability, Medea senses that it is more than that: Wildcard introduces some kind of “primal chaos” energy into his environment, warping the fortunes of those around him. Might he be an agent of otherworldly gods of chaos and chance, perhaps even the herald of a new attempt to overthrow the rule of order? Until she can be sure, Medea keeps a close eye on Wildcard and his “games of chance.”
Physical Description
Special abilities
Wildcard has the power to subtly influence probability in various ways. For the most part, his power is undetectable, appearing to be incidents of wild chance and coincidence, making him difficult to predict and counter.
Wildcard can cause “unfortunate accidents” to befall opponents, anything from getting hit with a ricochet, falling debris, or even a speeding car to slipping and falling or having a suddenly weak structure collapse. His poltergeist effect can shift objects, tipping things over, causing them to break free and roll, mysteriously turning devices on or off, even tripping triggers or causing pins to “fall” out of grenades!
A talented juggler, Wildcard can throw any small object with remarkable precision, hitting just the right spot to inflict the most damage or have the greatest effect. He commonly picks up bric-a-brac and small items he can fling at targets, and is fond of knickknacks like paperweights and trophies.
Mental characteristics
Intellectual Characteristics
Wildcard lives on the edge. He can’t resist a bet or game of chance, and he’s addicted to danger and risk. He also has a taste for the finer things in life and requires a steady flow of cash to provide them. He’s a spendthrift, unable to hold on to his ill-gotten gains for very long, spending it all on extravagant nights on the town or losing it on some new hare-brained scheme.
A part of Wildcard wants to put aside his “wild” life and find a way to go straight, but he has the gambler’s addiction to “one more roll of the dice” and a certainty that he can somehow play the odds and come out ahead. Every time he thinks that he’s close, fortune deals him a reversal (not the least of which is another stint in prison), so his “lucky break” with the criminal life never comes.
Wildcard usually has a devil-may-care attitude, talking up a storm, cracking jokes, loudly taunting his foes, and generally capering and making a nuisance of himself. His Crime League colleagues tolerate him because he makes himself useful by helping the odds fall their way.
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