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Union Jack (II)
Real
Name: Brian Falsworth Occupation: Adventurer Identity: Secret Legal Status: Citizen of the United Kingdom with no criminal
record Other Aliases: The Mighty Destroyer Place of Birth: Falsworth Manor, in a village to the north
of London, England Place of Death: A road somewhere in Britain Marital Status: Unrevealed, apparently single Known Relatives: Lord Falsworth (grandfather, deceased),
Montgomery, Lord Falsworth (father, deceased), Lady Falsworth
(mother, deceased), John Falsworth (Baron Blood, uncle, deceased),
Jacqueline Falsworth Crichton (Spitfire, sister), Kenneth Crichton
(nephew), Lord Crichton (brother-in-law, deceased) Group Affiliation: Invaders Base of Operations: Falsworth Manor, England First Appearance: (as Mighty Destroyer) INVADERS #18, (as
Falsworth) INVADERS #19, (as Union Jack II) INVADERS #19 Final Appearance: The second Union Jack's death was reported
in CAPTAIN AMERICA #253
History: The original Union Jack was Montgomery, Lord
Falsworth, a British nobleman who became a secret costumed operative
for the British government during World War I. Clad in a costume
resembling the British flag (the "Union Jack"), Union
Jack himself personified the fighting spirit of Great Britain
even as Captain America
would symbolize America's ideals and fighting spirit during World
War II. As the British government intended, the mysterious masked
figure of Union Jack also struck terror in the minds of the Germans,
who came to dread his one-man commando-style actions against them.
In the later days of World War I Union Jack often operated a
a member of a team of costumed operatives from America, Britain
and France, known as Freedom's Five, who battled against the Germans.
Towards the very end of the war Union Jack had grown disillusioned
with war due to the bloodshed he had witnessed. In one of his
final wartime missions, Union Jack was assigned by British Prime
Minister David Lloyd George to investigate a series of murders
of prominent British subjects many of them important military
leaders. Union Jack finally found the culprit, the vampire Baron
Blood, who served the German cause. Unknown to Union Jack,
the masked Baron Blood was actually his own younger brother, John
Falsworth. Union Jack fought the vampire and stabbed him with
a silver blade, forcing him to flee and thereby thwarting Baron
Blood's attempt to murder a leading Member of Parliament.
A few weeks later, World War I ended. Union Jack was officially
retired from active service by the British Government. Montgomery
Falsworth eventually married, had two children, Brian and Jacqueline,
and came to lead the life of a peaceful country squire.
In 1938 Lord Falsworth was outraged at British Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlin's policy of appeasement towards Adolph Hitler's
German regime. Falsworth's son Brian, however, was an isolationist
and pacifist and disagreed with Lord Falsworth's views. The arguments
between the two grew more heated a time passed, until finally
Brian left home because of them. Shortly afterwards, the Germans
released photographs showing Brian Falsworth and his best friend
Roger Aubrey with Hitler himself; both Brian and Aubrey publicly
supported appeasement of Hitler's regime while they were in Germany.
Lord Falsworth was appalled and saddened by this development.
War between Britain and Germany broke out, and his wife, Lady
Falsworth, died in the Blitz of 1941, when a German bomb fell
on a London hospital where she was doing volunteer work.
Early in World War II Brian Falsworth and Roger Aubrey tried
to leave Germany. The Nazi government was unwilling to risk the
possibility that Falsworth and Aubrey would reverse their anti-war
positions, and a Gestapo chief in Hamburg, Germany tore up their
passports. Falsworth lost his temper and attacked the Gestapo
chief, only to be imprisoned. Aubrey then became violent and was
likewise made a prisoner, but he was finally turned over to the
Institute of Nazi Science, where he was brainwashed and subjected
to experiments that transformed him into Dyna-Mite, a man less
than a foot tall.
Brian Falsworth was imprisoned in Hamburg in the same cell as
the German biochemist Eric Schmitt, who had concocted a variant
of the Super-Soldier formula that was used to turn Steve Rogers
into Captain America. Dying, Schmitt asked Falsworth to keep the
sample of the formula he had concealed on his person from falling
into Nazi hands. Falsworth took the disguised flask, drank its
contents, and was immediately physically enhanced by the formula.
Falsworth escaped the prison and became a costumed fighter of
Nazis within Germany itself known as the Mighty Destroyer.
In England in 1942, Lord Falsworth and his daughter Jacqueline
befriended the Invaders, a team of costumed champions serving
the Allied cause much as Freedom's Five had done during World
War I. Lord Falsworth again donned the costume of Union Jack in
order to help the Invaders battle the returned Baron Blood, and
was made an Invader himself. However, in a battle between Union
Jack and Baron Blood in a cave beneath the Falsworth estate, the
vampire hurled a massive boulder at Union Jack, crushing his legs
and leaving him permanently crippled. Union Jack managed to pry
the boulder off his legs, and then the huge rock struck Baron
Blood, knocking him backwards. The vampire fell onto sharp stalagmites,
which impaled his body, killing him.
Lord Falsworth's career as Union Jack was over, but as a result
of being bitten by Baron Blood and then receiving a blood transfusion
from the original Human Torch, an android, Falsworth's daughter
Jacqueline became the superhumanly powerful Spitfire and joined
the Invaders herself.
Lord Falsworth, Spitfire, and Dyna-Mite parachuted into Nazi
Germany in the hope of finding a means of restoring the brainwashed
Dyna-Mite's memory. Lord Falsworth knew that Dyna-Mite was Roger
Aubrey and hoped that once Aubrey's memory was restored, he could
reveal what happened to Brian Falsworth. Lord Falsworth and Dyna-Mite
were captured by the Germans but were rescued by the Mighty Destroyer,
who revealed his true identity to his father and was reconciled
with him. Lord Falsworth suggested that Brian adopt the costume
and name of Union Jack, and Brian agreed.
Meanwhile, Spitfire and her fellow Invaders had been captured
by the Germans and were to be executed by a firing squad under
the command of Hitler himself. Brian Falsworth, as the second
Union Jack, came to the Invaders' rescue, and the Invaders, Lord
Falsworth, Dyna-Mite, and the new Union Jack all escaped back
to Britain. There a captured Nazi scientist restored Aubrey to
his true height. Aubrey, whose memory had finally fully returned,
adopted Brian Falsworth's previous identity of the Mighty Destroyer
and returned to Germany to continue battling the Nazis there.
Brian Falsworth, as the new Union Jack, became a member of the
Invaders.
Later, Hitler succeeded in contacting the Asgardian thunder god
Thor and deceived him into aiding the cause of the Germans, the
descendants of the people who had once worshipped him, in the
current war. Thor therefore clashed with the Invaders and nearly
killed the second Union Jack with a blast of lightning from his
enchanted hammer. Learning that Hitler was evil, Thor vowed to
aid him no more, and withdrew most of the electricity in Union
Jack's body back into his hammer, somehow restoring him to health
in the process. The second Union Jack now possessed the superhuman
power to discharge electrical bolts from his body. It is not known
how long Union Jack retained this power,
The second Union Jack was still a member of the Invaders when
World War II ended on the European front. Brian Falsworth died
in an automobile accident in 1953.
Lord Falsworth hoped that Jacqueline's son Kenneth Crichton would
become the third Union Jack, but Kenneth did not wish to do so.
In later years the then extremely elderly Lord Falsworth suspected
that a series of "slasher" murders in the vicinity of
Falsworth Manor were the work of a secretly resurrected Baron
Blood, whom he now knew to be his brother John. Lord Falsworth
summoned his former Invader colleague Captain America to England
to stop the vampire. Lord Falsworth's suspicions proved to be
correct, and he desperately wished he could become Union Jack
again in order to end his brother's evil forever. Finally, Lord
Falsworth donned his Union Jack costume again, planning to serve
as bait to lure his vengeance-seeking brother out of hiding so
that Captain America could defeat him. Lord Falsworth then suffered
a heart attack, but Captain America carried forth his basic plan,
with Kenneth Crichton's friend Joseph Chapman disguised in the
Union Jack costume. Chapman, as Union Jack, battled Baron Blood,
but it was Captain America who finally slew the vampire by beheading
him, thereby ending his vampiric life permanently.
Lord Falsworth died quietly while watching the burning of Baron
Blood's remains, knowing that his brother's evil had been overcome
at last. Joseph Chapman has continued to operate as the third
Union Jack, carrying on the noble tradition of both Montgomery
and Brian Falsworth.
Height: 6 ft Weight: 235 lbs. Eyes: Brown Hair: Brown
Strength Level: Union Jack had the normal human strength
of a man his age, height, and build who engaged in intensive regular
exercise.
Known Superhuman Powers: At least for several months,
Union Jack possessed the power to discharge bolts of electricity
form his hands. The limits on this power are unknown.
Other Abilities: Union Jack was a superb athletes and
excellent hand-to-hand combatants.
Weapons: Union Jack carried two weapons. The first was
a steel dagger with a 6-inch blade, which he strapped to his left
hip. The second was a Webley .455 caliber pistol, which he carried
in a tied-down flapped holster on his right hip.