Blood Syndicate

Blood Syndicate
Blood Syndicate
	The Blood Syndicate, artist Denys Cowan.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Blood Syndicate #1, (April 1993)
Created by	Dwayne McDuffie (writer); Ivan Velez Jr. (writer); Denys Cowan (artist)
Roster
	See: membership

The Blood Syndicate is a fictional multicultural gang of superhumans created by Milestone Comics and published by DC Comics. The team first appeared in Blood Syndicate #1 (April 1993), and was created by Dwayne McDuffie, Ivan Velez Jr. and Denys Cowan.

Publication history

In Milestone Comics' fictional city of Dakota, the Blood Syndicate is a loose affiliation of super-powered individuals brought together by circumstance; 35 issues of their eponymous comic book, written largely by Ivan Velez, Jr., were published between 1993 and 1996.

The Blood Syndicate differed from other supergroups in that they were (in Velez's words) "not a team - they're a gang". In fact, they were the surviving remnants of multiple street gangs (thus the name, a combination of "Paris Island Bloods" and "Force Syndicate"), who had gained superpowers in the so-called Big Bang, and decided to use them for a greater purpose. However, their constant in-fighting, the unsustainability of their methods, and their lack of a central vision (particularly after the death of their first leader) led to the Syndicate's eventual disintegration.

Fictional Team Biography

The 'Big Bang' refers to an incident where gang members from all over Dakota met in one, huge battle. Unknown to them, or even the police involved, the tear gas used to disperse them was tagged with a radioactive agent. Many gang members and police officers die. Others are transformed, some according to what they are next to. Aquamaria, landing in water, gains water powers. Brickhouse merges with a brick wall and becomes brick.

Other entities are affected in other ways. Dogg, a normal canine, discovers he has cognitive abilities and develops speech. Other heroes and villains they would later encounter would prove to have gained their abilities from encounters with the gas. Some of them, such as Static, were neither gang members nor police.

Coming Together

The gang members eventually come together, forming a new gang. This takes some time. The original members are actually killed by Holocaust, only to be saved by Flashback. He vacillates, only to recruit Wise Son; threatening his mother in the process. Third Rail is found in a homeless camp deep below the streets, suffering from guilt over his father. Templo, through deceit, is recruited from a local church. The group meets and agrees to work together. After an initial disagreement, they agree to go by 'Blood Syndicate', a combination of the names of the two rival gangs, 'Force Syndicate' and 'Paris Bloods'.

Their first raid on a crack house, for operating capital, results in the deaths of many drug addicts and criminals and the recruitment of Masquerade. This super-powered individual had been recruited to guard the actual drugs themselves.

They meet back at their original spot, only to be ambushed by a large contingent of the local criminal element. Templo is killed outright and the gang works together, killing every single one of their attackers.

Media Spotlight

They attract the attention of the local media, who sends a reporter. She follows them to a raid on a crack-house, their main source of money. The reporter actually perishes, but the powers of Flashback save her.

Initially, the Blood Syndicate's methods were violent, but they softened over the course of the series. They killed less and less. Unfortunately, this was not enough to convince the traitor Masquerade. After stealing from the team, he was not convinced they would spare his life. Of course, 'he' is relative, as it turns out Masqerade was a woman all along.

The Syndicate faced multiple threats and disasters. The unstable nature of their powers causes their original leader, Tech-9, to perish. Another gang leader, whom they humiliate (he is actually urinated on by a member of the Syndicate) kills his wife in order to summon the 'Demon Fox'. This powerful, clawed entity would prove extremely difficult to beat. He almost slays the entire team and is also able to get deep inside their heads psychologically. After his first defeat, he attempts to influence others to affect the team. Another villain, with reality-warping powers, temporary kills most of the people the Syndicate cares about, by dumping part of the city into the ocean. These deaths lasted for some time. Eventually the villain is manipulated into reversing the murders.

Racial tensions arise briefly as a mystical incident reveals that long-standing Syndicate member Boogieman is a shape-shifting white male. His status as a reliable member of the team is enough to make it through.

There were bright spots during the team's history. Third Rail and Brickhouse began a romantic relationship and eventually move out to start a new life together. Wise Son's little sister and son, with powers of their own, began visiting the team and strike up a friendship with Dogg.

Tensions

In issue #20, the team has money troubles due partly to hiring renovation crews for their headquarters. Among much tension, such as Flashback dealing with a crack addiction, they decide one last crack-house raid, then maybe, invest. The last crackhouse they can find (having taken the bus) had prepared and the operative there offer to cut Syndicate in on a percentage of the profits. He is thrown through a window. The resulting confrontation leaves Kwai shot.

Though having moved out, Brickhouse and Third Rail's troubles are far from over. Third Rail is attacked by a gigantic villain called the 'Techno-Shaman' and is ultimately saved by Brickhouse.

At the end of her multiple lives, Kwai, in issue #33, travels back to her mystical homelands to ask for one more life for herself. She swiftly gets into trouble and her ally 'The Monkey King' takes the Syndicate, as detailed in issue #34, into the homelands to help her.

While this is happening, Dogg deals with operatives of a murderous organization called S.Y.S.T.E.M.. who want to experiment on him and other Bang Babies. Fade and Tech-9 confront a simmering attraction for each other. Masquerade also deals with another branch of S.Y.S.T.E.M.

Membership

Aquamaria - Maria (last name unknown) survived the Big Bang while floating in the (fictional) James River; as a result, she was transformed into "living water". A former member of the Sociedad de la Cruz gang, she exhibits all the properties of water - for instance, she has survived evaporation and recondensation. She also has substantial control over water in all its forms: she can induce tsunamis and geysers, and shape near-freezing vapor into ice sculptures. Although the physical changes implied in becoming "living water" would seem to be greater than those in becoming "living brick" (though the human body is mostly water), Aquamaria, unlike Brickhouse, does not display any signs of brain damage. The character was renamed "Aqua-Maria" when she appeared in the animated series Static Shock.
Boogieman, or Boogie - Martin Berger is able to transform into what is essentially a giant blonde humanoid rat. He is also able to communicate with the hyper-intelligent rats of Dakota (and possibly with ordinary rats), even when untransformed. A post-Texador member, Berger joined the Syndicate during their attack on the S.Y.S.T.E.M. conspiracy, but was nearly expelled when, in the aftermath of the Demon Fox encounter, the other members discovered, after seeing him in his human form for the first time, that he was secretly white. This weakened the relationship he had with the rest of the Syndicate: although he was able to recruit their aid when Dakota's hyperintelligent rat population warred with giant man-eating cockroaches, when his mother was trapped in a hospital full of angry inter-dimensional chihuahuas, he chose to rescue her by himself.
Brickhouse (or Brick): Marta (last name unknown) survived the Big Bang while pressed up against a brick wall; as a result, she took on its characteristics, becoming a 10-foot-tall, super-strong woman of living brick (complete with mortar lines). Unfortunately, this led to a substantial amount of brain damage, and she was subject both to epilepsy and retrograde amnesia (by the time the series was cancelled, she still did not know her last name). Despite the massive biological changes implicit in becoming "living brick", she was still able to eat, bleed, grow "hair", and conceive a child (her subsequent miscarriage may, or may not, have been the result of mystical attack). Her name was inspired by the Commodores' soul classic, "Brick House". The character "Brickhouse" appeared in the animated series Static Shock.
DMZ - DMZ's name is an abbreviated form of the term Demilitarized Zone. DMZ was one of the most mysterious of the group. He has superhuman strength and durability, and is able to fly; furthermore, his eyes glow. DMZ never speaks (except during Worlds Collide crossover, when he said the word "Damn"); nor does he ever take off his mask, even to eat. DMZ was somewhat a loner but would always show up when trouble started. He spends his free time atop a bridge, whirling a lamp on a chain in the hopes of signaling to passing extraterrestrials, and wears what appears to be the uniform of the D'amsi police officers of Icon's interplanetary civilization; for these and other reasons readers suspected that DMZ was an alien. When Icon asked DMZ to join him (when an alien rescue party arrives for Icon) he declined. Dwayne McDuffie stated on his Delphi forum that "DMZ is a human who teamed up with a member of the D'amsi police force when she chased a criminal to Earth. He was severely wounded saving her life, so she used her technology to optimize him, unlocking his full human potential. She left the Earth to chase the villain as he healed, promising to return for him. . .He got his name from a mis-heard 'D'amsi' ".
Dogg: Originally Texador's pet dog, Dogg gained human-level intelligence and speech, while remaining a dog in shape, personality, and abilities. First introduced in issue 2, he became a valued member of the team despite his size and shape. He was allowed a spot at the table and listened to, just like anyone else. Dogg was brutally injured by the attack of the Demon Fox but recovered with the aid of Kwai. In issue 26 was beaten up and left for dead far from home. He was found by some kids in issue 27. He is later turned over to a S.Y.S.T.E.M. research facility in issue 28, maiming one of the soldiers in the process. He soon escapes. In issue 33, when he arrived at the Factory, he is shot by Tech-9 (really Masquerade), but is saved by Flashback. When Pyre formed his own Blood Syndicate, Dogg was one of those who rejected the offer to join.
Fade: Carlos Quinones Jr., he has the same name as his father and is the brother of Sara Quinones (Flashback). He can fly and pass through solid objects, and frequently has difficulty becoming substantial. He is actually "spread out" over a three-second interval, and is thereby able to, for instance, punch someone and leave them unharmed until after he has left. As was stated in the comic, "Fade isn't what he does, it's what he endures." He is a deeply-closeted gay man, and was in love with Texador (Tech-9). He also has the undeveloped ability to travel back (and possibly forward) in time by significant amounts. A side effect of this ability are the instances of clairvoyance he sometimes displays. The character appeared in the animated series Static Shock.
Flashback: Sara Quinones, sister of Carlos Quinones (Fade). Flashback can fly and can travel back in time three seconds, an ability she uses to change the past. She considers herself responsible for the welfare of the Syndicate as a whole because she has witnessed (and reversed) their deaths and severe injuries on multiple occasions. She is also a crack addict, partly because of the stress of having seen her friends die so many times, something only she remembers. Later, Rocket, sidekick to Icon, would intervene in her drug habit. She is the inspiration for the character Nina Crocker/Time-Zone, in the animated series Static Shock.
Holocaust (later Pyre): Leonard Smalls is the illegitimate son of Dakota Mayor Thomasina Jefferson. A superhumanly strong pyrokinetic, Smalls left the Syndicate after a leadership struggle with Texador, and chose to abandon the small-scale world of gangs for the greater possibilities offered by organized crime. As an initiation ritual, he was obliged to surrender something of great value to him: his name, and the reputation that came with it. Unable to call himself Holocaust, Smalls renamed himself Pyre. As Pyre, he tried to reform a new Blood Syndicate of his own recruiting: BoogieMan, Flashback, Mistress Death, Bad Betty, Fade, Tarmack, Bubbasaurus, and Rocket (who was undercover). Smalls then reclaimed his name - Holocaust.

Kwai - one of the two non-Bang Babies in the Blood Syndicate (DMZ being the other), Nina Lam was the 77th - and last - incarnation of a Chinese mystical being. Originally a 9-year-old girl, Lam was mystically transformed into a 7-foot-tall adult woman with albino-pale skin, immensely long hair, and pointed ears. She encountered the Syndicate in the wake of their defeat by the Demon Fox, and thanks to Flashback, survived a booby trap set by John Wing's Demon Fox Tong. After the Blood Syndicate was saved and restored by Nina Lam, now Kwai, she joins the Blood Syndicate and periodically calmed Brickhouse's seizures. Kwai fought alongside the Blood Syndicate a number of times and was once shot during a crackhouse raid; while she went into a healing cocoon, Hannibal White (Wise-Son) tortured Kwai's shooter. Later Kwai's healing light changed the Blood Syndicate back to normal for a short time, and learns that she's down to her last life. After Brickhouse and Third Rail leave, Kwai decided to leave, later seen returning to her homeland, the Kingdom of Kwen Lun; meeting with her old friend, the Monkey King, revealing that she needs to ask her father, the Jade Emperor for another life, as she is sentenced to death without reincarnation. Ending up in the Kingdom of Ti Yu (hell), Kwai was offered marriage to the Dog God there to save her existence, but decides she can't marry him; finally in a battle royale with the Blood Syndicate against the Demon Fox, Kwai and the Demon Fox destroyed each other.
Masquerade: a shapechanger able to assume the form of any animal (including humans), Masquerade was a woman who concealed her true nature from the rest of the Syndicate by transforming into an idealized male version of herself. (Feeling like a man trapped in a woman's body, Masquerade's use of her powers made her a rarity in traditional comics -- a Transgendered shapeshifter.) She fled the Syndicate after reflexively stealing several thousand dollars from them. A brief encounter later failed to convince her the Syndicate had changed their ways and she would not be killed for her betrayal. She returned in the guise of a resurrected Rolando Texador (Tech-9), hoping to be accepted as their leader (whether this was her own idea, or if it was suggested by the Demon Fox, is unknown).
Oro is a former police officer who survived the Big Bang as a member of the riot squad. After the Big-Bang he was for a time a member of the Shadow Cabinet but was kicked out, and later framed for the murder of his ex-partner. He subsequently sought refuge with the Syndicate and helped protect their territory. He can fly, and produce blinding visual displays.

Tech-9 (or Tech): Rolando Texador, formerly leader of the Force Syndicate, had the ability of "talismanic telekinesis" making him able to shoot endless quantities of bullets from any and all guns, with perfect accuracy. He could also materialize guns in his hands; his favorite type of gun was, obviously, the Tech-9 semiautomatic handgun. Charismatic and with military training, he master-minded the Syndicate's formation and led them in their raids on crackhouses; unfortunately, his flesh spontaneously melted off his bones when his superpower destabilized. Later in the series, Masquerade impersonates Tech-9 having sided with the Demon Fox. He is the inspiration for the character Tech, from the Static Shock animated series.
Third Rail: The son of Korean immigrants, Pui Chung is able to absorb any form of energy, and can use the energy he absorbs to grow in size and strength. He became romantically involved with Brickhouse, and after one too many disputes over Wise Son's leadership, they left the Syndicate and opened a fast-food restaurant together.
Wise Son (or Wise): Hannibal White, leader of the Syndicate after Texador's death and a Black Muslim ("Wise Son" is a Qur'anic reference), is invulnerable. Although he is able to, for instance, shave his head (as he did in 1997's Wise Son: the White Wolf miniseries by Ho Che Anderson), he is completely immune from physical harm. He has also shown the ability to resist mental manipulation, and to survive the draining of large quantities of his lifeforce. He is the father of Edmund White, and has sole custody.

Other characters

Babe - Bodyguard of the House of L'Amour beauty salon, and possibly lover to its transvestite beautician. As a Bang Baby, he resembles a humanoid blue ox. Seen in Issue 27 "Possessions" - returning to the House of L'Amour after being held by S.Y.S.T.E.M. (Originally, he was distraught after returning from S.Y.S.T.E.M. with an enhanced -- more muscular -- appearance.)
Bubbasaur/Bubbasaurus - Bubba Brown, able to turn into a huge dinosaur-like creature; introduced in Issue 11 as a spurned student going after a high school principal -- Carlos Quinones Sr. (Fade's father) -- though Bubba Brown was seemingly killed in a fight with Fade (Carlos Quinones Jr.) he was picked up by Mom's S.Y.S.T.E.M. troops and is taken to Garden Station. He joins in an escape attempt by the other prisoners.
Demon Fox - The Demon Fox is a Chinese mystical being and emotional vampire who first appears in Issue 6. It is awakened by John Wing, leader of the Demon Fox Tong, when he killed his wife in order to unleash the Demon Fox. (This is in response to being humiliated by the Blood Syndicate after failing to kill them.) The Demon Fox finally strikes in Issues 7 & 8 as it tears apart the Blood Syndicate, and brings up the darkest secrets of each Syndicate member. After defeating the group, the Demon Fox kills Wing after granting his wish. Afterward, it is defeated by a newly-transformaed Kwai (previously Nina Lam) who comes to the rescue of the Blood Syndicate. The Demon Fox aided Masquerade in imitating Tech-9 - by giving Masquerade some of Tech-9's essence so she can assume leadership of the Blood Syndicate; in Issue 35 "The Beginning of the End" - in an all-out battle royale between the Demon Fox and Masquerade vs the Blood Syndicate - Kwai and the Demon Fox destroy each other.
Edmund and Cornelia - Wise Son's (illegitimate) son and little sister, respectively. They frequently visit him at the factory the Blood Syndicate call home, regardless of the constant danger they place themselves in. The two children have a teleportational ability; they can write a location or person on a mirror and enter, encountering what they desire.
Mom - head of the Amber Cell of the S.Y.S.T.E.M./Coalition & heading the research into creating custom-made Bang-Babies and controlling them. Mom runs the Garden Station, the command center for the Amber sector of S.Y.S.T.E.M.
Templo - Juan Templo; a telekinetic and one of the founding Blood Syndicate members, was first seen in Issue 9 "Fade to Back" in December 1993 -- the origin of the Blood Syndicate following the Big Bang is seen; the Blood Syndicate believed Templo was killed -- but in Issue 19 "Collections", Templo is seen alive in a hospital. In Issue 21 "Retrievals" Templo is seen at the Garden Station where he is revived by Mom's scientists, in Issue 24 "Things Fall Apart" Templo along with others (Karess, Babe, Masquerade, Oro, and the Cross Station survivor survived the Garden Station war. In Issue 26 "Prodigals" Templo along with Mistress Mercy and Rose go to the church of Father Francisco.
White Roaches and the Rats -- two groups of vermin who acquired human characteristics during the Big Bang, they are now large, intelligent, and (especially in the case of the White Roaches) hostile.

Other media

Versions of other Syndicate members have also appeared in the Static Shock cartoon, and a subsequent incarnation of the Syndicate, led by former member Pyre, appeared in the 2000-2001 Static Shock limited series (which was not based on the cartoon).

External links