Stormwatch Post Human Division was a New York City branch of Stormwatch created by Jackson King in teaching the NYPD how to tackle super-crime on a budget.
History
When Stormwatch was reformed by their leader Jackson King, the former U.N. peacekeeping force answered solely to the United States. Due to being constrained by a limited budget, Stormwatch could longer respond to every crisis. King decided that every major city needed a specially trained unit to handle post-human threats before they increase to crisis proportions without relying on superpowers or expensive technology. He began an initiative known as the Post Human Division which consists of normal human operatives trained to combat superhuman threats.[1] Furthermore, King also set up the P.H.D. as a deterrence to Stormwatch should it ever be compromised.[2]
The first P.H.D., which was based in the NYPD 18th Precinct, served as a pilot program. The New York team mostly consisted of ex-supervillains or persons with affiliation with the criminal underworld. Led by NYPD officer John Doran, the team includes washed-up ex-supervillain and technology expert Dino Manolis, a.k.a. The Machinist; occult expert Black Betty; former Special Forces soldier and Stormforce agent Paris; the half-Daemonite hybrid Dr. Mordecai Shaw, a.k.a. The Monstrosity; Wanda Durst, a.k.a. Gorgeous, a master manipulator and former moll to super-criminals; and Fahrenheit, a Stormwatch Prime member who temporarily lost her powers from a brain injury.
The P.H.D. became targeted by the Daemonite Lord Defile from the beginning of its inception in which he forced Fahrenheit to spy on her team in exchange for giving her powers back, and possibly controlling them to destroy Stormwatch from within. But Defile soon realized controlling the P.H.D. became impossible, in which he then led his Daemonites and his superhuman allies to eliminate the P.H.D. before they become a formidable threat.[3] The P.H.D. were caught in a surprise attack in which Defile's forces took over the 18th Precinct and captured nearly all of the P.H.D. members except Doran. However, Defile underestimated Doran and the other NYPD officers inside the building, in which they freed Doran's teammates and captured or killed Defile's allies, forcing Defile to flee.[4]
Six months after stopping Defile and his Daemonites, the P.H.D. suffered a tragic blow by the Russian superhuman crime-lord Grigori Tataryn, a.k.a. the Walking Ghost, who bombed the 18th Precinct that killed thirty-two policemen.[5] The group avenged their dead comrades by defeating Tataryn and allowing Christine Trelane to deactivate his powers. With the 18th Precinct in rubles, the P.H.D. moved into temporary accommodation in Stormwatch's New York headquarters.[6]
After Tataryn's capture, Doran was approached by the Void and temporarily taken to the future where he discovered Earth was devastated by superhumans and the P.H.D. except the future Doran survived the cataclysm and disbanded. Following his return to the present, Doran informed his colleagues of what he saw and learned.[7] The P.H.D. was soon disbanded following in the wake of Armageddon.
See Also
- 12 Appearances of Stormwatch P.H.D.
- 2 Images that include Stormwatch P.H.D.
- Team Gallery: Stormwatch P.H.D.
Links and References
Footnotes