# App for Cape and Cowl #
PLAYER
NAME: Zippy
JOURNAL: glassfishgirl
IM: glassfishgirl on AIM
E-MAIL: glassfishnet @ hotmail . com
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Joseph Wilson / Jericho
FANDOM: DC Comics
CHRONOLOGY: The New Titans (1980-90’s)
BACKGROUND:
Joseph Wilson is the youngest son of Slade Wilson (a.k.a. Deathstroke the Terminator) and Adeline Kane - both career miltary people, disciplined and feirce, who raised their two sons (Joey and his elder brother Grant) with their strong attitudes toward honor, education, and the art of war. Though he learned dutifully under his parents to fight hand to hand and use various weapons, Joey was a peaceful sensitive boy who preferred painting, music, reading and dance to training.
When he was a child, Joe was once kidnapped and held hostage by Jackal, a terrorist who was after his father who had split from the army to become a vigilante. Deathstroke refused to give Jackal the information he wanted because it went against his professional code of ethics and though he managed to rescue his son, h was too slow to save him before one of Jackal's men had started to cut his throat. Though his life was saved his throat irrepairably damaged and Joe lost his ability to speak.
As a result of that incident, and the fact that Slade had lied to her about his work in the first place, Joseph's mother Adeline divorced Slade (after failing to kill him outright) and took her two sons with her. Joseph learned to communicate through sign language to compensate for his lost voice.
Joseph's metahuman powers - a result of the biological experimentation done on his father years before - appeared in his early teens. He discovered that he had the power to posess other people through eye-contact when a friend fell off a balcony playing at his house and he jumped into the other boy's body unwittingly when reaching to save him, the intensity of their eye-contact triggering off his abilities.
Adeline and Joe continued over the years to survey Slade's activities, and when Deathstroke took on a contract to bring the Teen Titan's into the hands of the H.I.V.E. organziation they eventually approached Nightwing, offering to help rescue the captured Titans. At this time, Joseph first adopted the name Jericho, and fashioned a costume for himself. Nightwing and Jericho successfully freed the kidnapped Titans and brought Slade Wilson to justice, though acting against his father was clearly difficult for Joseph no matter how strongly he believed that he was right.
It took awhile before the Titans fully trusted Joseph and offered him membership to the team as he was, after all, the Terminator's son and the Titans had just been betrayed by another fledgling member, Terra (a part of Slade's H.I.V.E. scheme. Changeling in particular was still hurting from this and convinced himself that Joe was two-faced as well. It didn't take too long for Jericho's true colors to show through however; he proved himself a loyal friend and teammate.
Joe slowly became close to Raven, drawn to her by a sense of sadness that she seemed unable to shake. Unfortunately, this would ultimately end in tragedy. When Raven felt the presence of her demon father Trigon stirring in her she became more and more withdrawn. During this time Joseph jumped into her body and crash landed in a hellish wasteland within her soul. He was immediately thrown into a state of shock and separated from her horrified that the others were so unaware of Raven's inner battle. However his intrusion had brought him to the attention of Trigon. Shortly after that, Raven's dark side took over and Trigon returned to physical form through her. The elders of Azarath gathered their strength and souls together and this force proved powerful enough to enter and overcome Trigon.
Unknown to the Titans, however, the souls of Azarath - now tainted by Trigon's blood - needed a vessel to survive. They sought Raven, but she was protected by her soul self. The souls of Azarath were aware of Jericho, and his powers made it easier for them to enter him and use him as a resting place. They lived dormant in Jericho for long months, still quite weak but building up strength as time passed.
In the meantime, Jericho continued to be a valuable asset to the team. He befriended Kole, a confused crystal spinner who joined the group for a short period of time, but he was later crushed when she died during the Crisis on Infinite Earths.
When the Titans team became fractured after the Crisis, Joey decided to split from them to join Searchers Inc., the worldwide information network owned by his mother. The group claimed to be a detective agency, but once Jericho realized that the methods used were not always legal he opted out of the company.
As time passed, the souls of Azarath regained their strength and merged with Jericho. The souls now needed powerful vessels for each of them to survive. Now possessed by this force, Jericho sought to acquire superhuman beings as vessels for the souls of Azarath. Jericho also acquired new abilities to help in his mission: a savage and powerful soul self that took the form of a lion and a healing ability that temporarily repaired his throat and enabled him to speak.
Jericho found a unique opportunity: He invaded and took over the Wildebeest Society, a petty group of villains made up of former H.I.V.E. operatives. Using them as a front, he abducted current and former Titans to act as vessels for the souls of Azarath. The remaining Titans Nightwing and Troia - along with new allies Arella, Phantasm, Pantha, Red Star and Deathstroke - found the Wildebeest lair and came into conflict with Jericho.
During the soul transfer process, the true Jericho resurfaced briefly from under all the other souls that had been dominating his body. He took his lone chance to communicate and begged his father to kill him in order to stop the evils within him from continuing their plan.
To spare his son any more pain and save the remaining Titans, Slade Wilson was forced to drive a sword through Jericho, seemingly killing him.
Joey for the purposes of C&C is drawn straight from this moment of his being freed from possession in death - purified of the souls of Azarath, but still with a pesky through and through sword wound...
PERSONALITY:
Joe Wilson is, above all things, a gentle soul. Although raised by a father and more-so by a mother who regarded combat and self-defense as art forms to be mastered Joseph was never one to be inclined to violence.
He learned to fight, to handle weapons, the skills of espionage, and many other tools of his parents' not-so-legal vigilante trade but Joseph mostly mastered these things to please his mother without any true passion for them. He had watched this violence distort and destroy his parents and his elder brother, his father’s trade and code of professional ethics was what had taken away Joey’s voice. Where his parents saw a worthwhile way of life he saw pain and suffering and the older Joey became the further and further he strayed from how he had been raised.
His real passions lay with music, painting and other more passive and emotional pursuits which he threw himself into in every spare moment, mastering the guitar, the flute, the piano, painting beautiful pictures which he slowly became confident enough to share with his friends and family - an incredible talent for all forms of art blooming from beneath the snow of parental expectation.
As an adult, still fairly under his mother’s thumb, Joey found the niche he’d been looking for - a way to twist the skills he’d learned for harming others when he was young into the positive pursuit of justice and protecting those who could not protect themselves. Though it was his mother who suggested he join the Titans, it was an inspired choice, one that suited Joseph’s innately gentle nature and fused it neatly with the fighter she had raised him to be.
Joey will be feirce for the people and things that are important to him, and he has his parent’s stubbornness when it comes to the positions he is staunch in defending. However, when things are trivial he is happy to try to compromise or find solutions that work for all parties. Sometimes he can be easy to manipulate for that reason - always wanting to avoid an unpleasant confrontation if he can - but he is not stupid and he knows how to spot a lie. He won't stand for being used to someone else’s ends unless he believes in what they are trying to achieve.
He's a true romantic and something of a ladies man (never any trouble finding a date) but he’s the type of player who does things with class and style, who will actually call you in the morning and genuinely enjoy the company of a woman instead of viewing her as a sexual object. He likes to romance a girl and isn't typically the type for a one night stand. He's more the kind of guy a female friend rebounds off of when she's been through a bad break up. They have a fling for a few weeks, then part amicably. His first serious romance ended in disaster and he has since found it easy to be affectionate with others, but just as much hesitant to rush in or to commit too seriously, even if he would like a lifelong partner.
Joe is a friendly guy, easy to approach and get along with and he typically makes friends easily when people are open to getting to know him. He has a good sense of humor, an even temper, and an eagerness to do good that underscores everything else about him. Though his powers and skills are impressive Joey really only uses them when needed and ranks his ability to be a good human being as more important than being a good superhero.
CLASS: Hero
SUPERHERO NAME: Jericho
ALTER EGO: Joseph Wilson - Mute Musician at Large
POWER: When Joseph makes eye contact with another sentient being he can 'jump' into that person's body and control them. Although mute on his own Joseph can speak when possessing someone else but he will use that person's accent, inflections, speech patterns and vernacular. He gains some access to the person's thoughts and feelings at the time of possession, but usually only to the point of a sense of fear or a bead on whatever they were thinking of in the moment. Some with strong wills and most with mental powers can shake off his control.
Joseph also has a soul-self - something like a totem animal - a spirit in animal form that lives within him, which provides great defensive magical power and can often act of it's own 'will' to protect him. It can function as an attacking force engulfing opponents and overwhelming them into unconsciousness or act as a shield and adsorb various attacks. Joseph's soul-self takes the shape of a black lion. Although this ability is very powerful it is something new to Jericho awoken in him during the incident with the souls of Azarath and he does not know how to use it at will yet, so it mostly functions as an uncontrolled trump card in the face of overwhelming odds.
COMMUNITY POST SAMPLE:
[video]
[Joey is on the ground, curled in a pool of blood that’s soaking his shirt, seeping high enough to wet his blond curls just a little. His fingers fumble, smearing the comm lens with a bloody thumb print as he pulls his hand back to sign. He can’t use two hands so he fingerspells instead, mouthing the word as best he can for those who might read lips. It’s simple, most people should know it... H-E-L-P.
He drops the shaking hand back to press against his body where blood is bubbling from a clearly grievous wound in his chest. It’s a surprise that he’s not dead yet, really, given how he's gushing blood all over. There is movement in the background of the video as his eyes flutter between open and closed, the edge of consciousness pulling him across the threshold toward endless sleep. The comm catches an ethereal black paw stepping into the frame and the low growl of a large cat before it slips out of Joey’s hand, filming the ceiling of the lab the porter resides in for a solid minute before shutting off automatically.]
THIRD PERSON:
Joey yawned as he shuffled into the bathroom, dragging a hand over his head for probably the fiftieth time since he’d rolled out of bed an hour ago, partly to get the tangles out of his curls and partly grasping for what was no longer there. God it was weird to have his hair this short. Really, supremely weird. He felt sort of naked without the sideburns, no matter how strongly this haircut business had been recommended to him by multiple people.
He'd been planning on going out for the day, taking a walk to the park to play some guitar or something of the sort. The weather report had called for sunshine and a smattering of clouds. He’d woken up, instead to rain POURING outside, battering the windows of the studio with an intensity that made him feel like he was nearly underwater. The street below was a river and Joey was certainly less inclined to walk down it as such.
Wiping down his face with a hot damp cloth he wandered back out to the main room of the studio, surveying his unmade bed, sketchpads, easel and guitar perched in the corner. Maybe painting something, since his outside plans had been dashed, and he could hope for better weather before his weekend was completely gone.
Padding barefoot across to his chest of drawers he pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, then pawed through his collection of various sized canvases before picking a large square one and setting it up on the easel. It didn’t take overly long for him to get a thought for an image, it rarely did early in the mornings when his brain was still stirred up with the images of dreams.
He’d dreamed again of being back in Titan’s tower, wandering familiar halls, peering into open doors at his friends and teammates going about the lives they all used to live. He has Titans here, too, but they are not the team he once knew and thought they are Titans and therefore special there is a hollowness to their changed circumstances that makes it a little harder to keep them close.
He ought to call Kory, see what Donna is up to, visit Raven a little more often, but he's still feeling a little detached - by the circumstances before his arrival more than anything that’s happened since. Sure they all seem to have forgiven him, god knows some of them don’t even REMEMBER what he did to them in the Titan’s hunt, but HE rememberd, and that made it hard to look them in the eye and feel like any kind of friend.
He started with a liquid white wash on the canvas, turned on some music to give the atmosphere of the apartment something more than the drumbeat of rain on the windows, and started to outline a portrait, working out the forms from memory.
He’d been meaning to work on a gift for Raven and Arnold for a few weeks now, wanting to put time and work into whatever he gave them for their upcoming wedding. He would probably paint this over in three different ways before being happy with it (all his most personal projects are things he gets so picky about), but when he was done he would know the effort was worth it and that it will be appreciated. He’d rather spend hours working out all the details of a piece of personalized art than purchase them something practical but impersonal like a toaster or some other housewarming type of gift.
He started with the lighter tones, outlining their shapes, hand in hand and half-turned toward each other. He thought of how he had seen them together, how they looked at one another in his presence, the way they would each focus in until the other was all that they seemed to be aware of.
Raven’s happiness was bittersweet for him. Although he’d wandered far from her back at home his affection for her - her warmth, her calm, her patient attention - was still a burning ember in the pit of his chest. But it wasn't enough, never enough, to make him say anything that would jeopardize her contentment. Arnold for all his strange quirks seemed like a good enough man, and Joey would be around (for a while, he hoped) to make sure that he really would take care of Raven as he should. Not that she REQUIRED Joey’s protection or approval but he would still give it, however silently.
He turned the music up as he outlined her face, thoughtful careful strokes that marked out her smile.
I’d like to make myself believe / that planet earth turns slowly ...