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Holden Carver is an agent of International Operations, unable to feel any pain.

Holden Carver was the son of a military man, James Carver. He followed in his father footsteps and joined the military himself. John Lynch saw potential in Holden and became his mentor. During a mission in South-America, Holden and his team found an artifact that came from the Bleed. Holden touched the artifact and the artifact attached itself to Holden's nervous system. The process killed the other soldiers and Holden was secretly taken back to the International Operations base. Lynch saw a golden opportunity for Carver to infiltrate the nameless syndicate of the notorious criminal Tao when he discovered that the artifact prevented any form of mind-reading done on Carver. Holden agreed and left behind his fiance Veronica. A cover story was set up for Holden: his recently deceased father was officially branded a traitor and Holden had become a rogue agent, blaming John Lynch for his father's disgrace. Holden had stolen the Bleed artifact and disappeared.

Point Blank

Months later, Holden was approached by Steeleye, a high ranking member of Tao's organization. He was recruited and slowly worked his way up in the ranks. Lynch was the only one in IO who knew that Holden was not really a traitor. When IO dissolved, Lynch asked his friend Cole Cash, also known as Grifter from the WildC.A.T.s to help him bring in Carver. Grifter came under Tao's influence though and shot Lynch, putting him into a coma. Holden saved Grifter later and told him his story, but before Grifter could get help, Tao erased Grifter's memory, leaving Holden stuck in Tao's organization.

Sleeper Season 1

A few weeks after Lynch was put into a coma, Carver's friend Genocide Jones killed Steeleye for sexually abusing children. Holden covered up for his friend during a hearing with Tao. Tao told Carver that he didn't believe the story, but promoted him for his courage. Carver was now one of the three Prodigals, the highest rank within Tao's organization apart from Tao himself. Peter Grimm, another Prodigal, didn't trust Carver, but the third Prodigal, Miss Misery, took a liking to Carver and Misery had a sexual relationship with him that slowly grew into more. Despite his situation, Carver fell in love with Miss Misery and she returned his love, but Miss Misery's powers were unique: she thrived on evil and was physically strengthened by it. Anything she considered wrong would make her stronger, while taking the right action would result in disease and weakness for her. By having a meaningful relationship with Carver instead of just sex, the relationship was no longer "wrong" according to her and she began to fall ill. During this time Carver was forced to take many illegal and amoral actions to protect his secret identity and he came to rely on Miss Misery for comfort.

During a mission, Genocide Jones was killed and Carver knocked out Miss Misery to prevent her from being killed as well. Tao's troops rescued Miss Misery from the secret facility they were taken to, but Carver panicked and fled, now on the run from both the law and Tao's organization. Tao finally managed to track him down and revealed that he had known about Carver's status as a sleeper-agent all along. Tao argued that Carver now was more at home in Tao's syndicate than anywhere else. He was a survivor, willing to do whatever it took to stay alive, beyond petty concepts like "good" and "evil." Believing Tao and seeing no other options, Carver rejoined Tao's syndicate and continued his relationship with Miss Misery. Unaware to both Tao and Carver, John Lynch came out of his coma.

Coup D'Etat

 Main article: Coup d'État

Holden was partially responsible for the destruction of Florida and the Authority's subsequent take-over of the United States. He gave the American government access to booby-trapped Bleed technology similar to that used by Stormwatch and the Authority.

Sleeper Season 2

John Lynch contacted Carver and offered him the one thing he wanted: a way to get rid of his powers. John Lynch revealed that IO had captured an alien in the same area the Bleed Artifact was found. Over the next few months both Lynch and Tao tried to manipulate Carver against the other. Carver formulated his own plan though, he hoped that Lynch and Tao were so obsessed with each other that they would stop noticing him. Carver recruited Miss Misery (though he didn't tell her the full plan) and together they brought down Tao's empire and captured Tao with a little help from Grifter. When Carver revealed to Miss Misery that he wanted to cure her as well, Miss Misery turned on him, telling him that she didn't want to be cured. Veronica St. James, Carver's former fiance, saw Miss Misery attacking Carver and shot her. Carver returned fire without thinking and saw that he had shot Veronica. Having lost everything, Carver tore out Tao's tongue and had the alien operate on him to remove the artifact. The operation succeeded, but left Carver in a coma. John Lynch used his mental powers to create a permanent fantasy for Carver where he happily lived on a tropical island with Miss Misery and Veronica.

Powers

  • Unique Physiology: An artifact from the Bleed has attached itself to Carver's central nervous system.
    • Energy Absorption: The artifact absorbs pain and damage to Carver's body and stores it.
    • Energy Projection: Carver can later transfer the pain and damage to other organisms.


  • Holden's name references, simultaneously, Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and American short-story writer Raymond Carver. Brubaker chose the name because he is a fan of both writers, and he thought that "...naming a guy after Holden Caulfield in a book about everything being phony was a funny idea."[1]

Related

Footnotes


Wikipedia This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Holden Carver (Wildstorm Universe). The list of authors can be seen in the page history. The text of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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