Powers
None
Equipment
Bow: This specialised bow may fire 3 arrows per round with a 7 area range. It is made from Excellent strength material
Arrows
- 25 Board Blade-Ex Shooting Damage.
- 3 Explosive Tipped Arrows-Rm Scatter Damage.
Browning 9mm: A standard Browning capable of firing 2 per round with a 15 round clip. He uses ammunition that inflicts Typical damage
Knife: Made from Excellent material strength steel, it is capable of inflicting Good edged damage.
Deck of Playing Cards with an Ace of Spades.
Talents
Weapon Specialist: Bow, Marksman, Military, First-Aid, Guns, Martial Arts B, Leadership, Streetwise, Horticulture, Parachuting, Pilot-Helicopter, Stealth, Jungle and Forest Survival, Tracking, Multi-Lingual: English, Cantonese, French, Japanese, Spanish, Vietnamese
Contacts
Dr. Tachyon, Father Squid.
History
Brennan enlisted in the army in the late 1960s and served in Vietnam from 1968 to 1975. He was an enlisted mm during his first tour and was promoted to sergeant on a battlefield commission. He then attended officers training school and eventually became a captain in charge of a long range reconnaissance unit. When he first went to Vietnam he was extremely idealistic. By the end of his first tour he was determined to become an officer to more effectively protect the men under him, and also to work more effectively for freedom and justice for the Vietnamese people. In 1974 he met and married Marie Duc Do, a French-Vietnamese girl.
In the early 1970s he also began to run afoul of Kien Phuc, an ARVN general who, Brennan was convinced, was involved in almost every conceivable criminal enterprise.
Brennan was right about Kien. At one point he had enough evidence to implicate Kien in everything from smuggling heroin into the United States to selling military secrets to the North Vietnamese, but Kien ambushed Brennan's unit, killed most of his men, and stole the documents Brennan had accumulated as evidence. Brennan still tried to get Kien cashiered, but his insistence in pursuing Kien nearly led to his own court-martial.
A provoked Kien sent assassins after Brennan. They botched their hit and killed Brennan's wife, who was pregnant with their first child. Brennan escaped and went after Kien personally, but, as this was occurring during the confusion of the Fall of Saigon (1975), Kien escaped and eventually imaiigrated to the United States where he is outwardly a respectable businessman and secretly the head of the Shadow Fist Society.
Brennan, meanwhile, had become utterly disillusioned by the way the military had handled the Kien affair, as well as their incredible disorganization and utter lack of compassion and loyalty during the debacle of the Fall of Saigon. He walked away from the army in total disgust, and spent the next few years wandering around the Orient, selling his military skills and generally living hand to mouth. In the early 1980's he knew that he needed direction in his life, and became a novice in a Zen monastery. By his own admission he was never one of the better students. He wanted to divorce himself from the world, but it quickly became apparent that a life of prayer and contemplation was not his particular pathway to Enlightenment. He did, however, exhibit phenomenal skill in the Zen approach to archery.
He decided to return to the United States in 1983. An ex-Tiger Scout comrade named Minh helped him return and hid him in his New York City restaurant for several days while Brennan explored possibilities about his new life in the U.S. Brennan eventually moved to the Catskill Mountains where he led an isolated existence living off the land; he earned money making handmade bows and arrows. In the early summer of 1986 Brennan received a letter from Minh telling him Kien was in the city.
Brennan returned to New York in time to see his old friend being tortured by Kien's thugs. Before Minh died, he told Brennan that Kien's men had kidnaped his daughter, Mai, to exploit her ace healing ability. Brennan rescued Mai and in doing so met Chrysalis, who became his lover, and Fortunato, who became his friend and comrade in the fight against the Swarm Mother. Brennan also met and came to respect Dr. Tachyon during the Swarm episode.
Soon after the transformation of the Swarm Mother, Brennan met Jennifer Maloy (Wraith). He was immediately attracted to her, but was reluctant to drag her into his violent life. In late fall of '86 he finally broke off his affair with Chrysalis, who wouldn't comniit herself to him.
He went underground, adopting the identity of a soldier of fortune named Cowboy, and joined the Shadow Fists in an attempt to link Kien to their crimes. He rose fast in the organization, working under Philip Cunningham (Fadeout) and with the ace named Lazy Dragon. As Cowboy, he took part effectively (and murderously) in the war against the Mafia, saving Fadeout's life in a raid, and penetrating a Mafia gang-lord's fortress in a solo operation.
He blew his cover, however, to save Tachyon's life when the Fists took over the alien's clinic. Soon afterward he con- fronted Kien face to face and was told that Jennifer Maloy would be killed if he didn't give up his vendetta. In the sununer of 1987 he chose love over revenge, and he and Wraith left the city. Brennan cares about people and just causes. He tried to ignore that part of himself when he became a hermit, but couldn't. He tried to deny the network of ties and obligations he found himself drawn into, but couldn't. He feels deep personal responsibility about what he perceives as his failures (e.g., Kien's continued freedom).
Brennan is a hunter, comfortable in the night and the shadow. He is a master archer, and a compound bow is his weapon of choice. He eschews trick arrows, preferring four-vaned razor-sharp broadheads, but sometimes uses explosive arrows (hollow aluminum tubes packed with plastic explosive with pressure sensitive detonator caps on their tips) even though they are aerodynamically unstable. Brennan carries his bow, in knocked-down form, in a briefcase which is never far from him; he can open and assemble it in a couple of seconds.
He is very skilled with his hands and with guns (the Browning High Power is his handgun of preference). He is a master stalker and tracker, as quiet as death and as remorseless. He has a harsh idea of justice, and will not hesitate to kill when he feels it's necessary, though he gets no pleasure from killing and feels an accumulated guilt as more and more people fall at his hands. He doesn't consider himself a hero in any sense. He is simply a man alone with a job to do, a job that no one else wants. He is a man of unshakable loyalty.
His love for Jennifer Maloy and his growing sickness at the death and destruction that surrounded him ended his attempt to bring Kien to justice. He is, however, a patient man, and he feels that someday he will find the opportunity to bring Kien down.
by bob malooga
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