Uncle Sam (New Earth)

Uncle Sam is described as a spiritual entity created through an occult ritual by the Founding Fathers of the United States. This "Spirit of America" was initially bound to a powerful talisman and would take physical form by merging with a dying patriot. The Spirit of America had taken human form as the Minute-Man during the Revolutionary War, Brother Jonathan in later conflicts and, during the American Civil War, had been split in two as Johnny Reb and Billy Yank.

Freedom Fighters

The Spirit first assumed its now familiar Uncle Sam incarnation in 1870, when it resurrected a political cartoonist who had been killed by Boss Tweed. The second host of Uncle Sam fought in World War I. A third (the character's Golden Age incarnation) was a superhero during World War II, fighting alongside young Buddy Smith. After the Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii brought his country into the war, Sam organized and led the Freedom Fighters and was a member of the All-Star Squadron but vanished at the end of the war. The Spirit was resurrected in a new costumed form called the Patriot during the Imperiex War, but later reverts to Uncle Sam.^[1] A new incarnation of the Freedom Fighters was formed at this time.

Infinite Crisis

During the Infinite Crisis, the Freedom Fighters were attacked by the Secret Society of Super-Villains. Uncle Sam was shown easily standing up to Black Adam, even knocking him away with one punch. Three of the Freedom Fighters, Human Bomb, Phantom Lady and Black Condor were killed in the battle. Uncle Sam himself seemingly dies at the hands of Deathstroke while the other team members are brutally injured but survive. Sam was not seen among the dead Freedom Fighters after they were found strung up on the Washington Monument.^[2]

One Year Later

By the end of the "Lost Year", the spirit of Uncle Sam was reincarnated and attempting to form a new version of the Freedom Fighters. This new incarnation of Uncle Sam emerged from the Mississippi River ^[3] while Father Time, the leader of S.H.A.D.E., was elsewhere planning the future of his organization by using new incarnations of Freedom Fighters members as recruits. Uncle Sam, disturbed by the deadly force used by the new versions of Phantom Lady, The Human Bomb, Doll Man and others, successfully recruits these metahumans into his new Freedom Fighters team, which results in Father Time ordering his remaining S.H.A.D.E. personnel to pursue and kill Uncle Sam and his team. Although Uncle Sam is shown to be against killing, particularly rebuking Doll Man for murdering a crime lord in front of the man's young grandson, Uncle Sam is not against using deadly force when necessary. Due to circumstances, Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters came into an alliance with S.H.A.D.E. against the evil entity Gonzo the Mechanical Bastard, and resulting in Sam becoming a brief director of S.H.A.D.E. before falling back under Father Time while under the watch of Checkmate.

During the Final Crisis, Uncle Sam was among the many that were corrupted by the Anti-Life Equation.^[4]

Powers and Abilities

Powers

American Idealism: Uncle Sam's powers are proportionate to the United States' faith in the ideals of liberty and freedom.

Possession: The American Spirit will merge with a dying patriot to manifest physically. Uncle Sam will usurpe all memories of the host. The possession is permanent until that Sam choose voluntarily leave the body.
Immortality: Uncle Sam's appearance, though occasionally different, remains relatively the same in every year. He always appears as a middle-aged though able-bodied man with white hair and a white beard.
Interdimensional Teleportation: He is also shown to be able to transport himself and others to a pocket of an alternate dimension called The Heartland.
Invulnerability
Limited Clairvoyance ^{[citation needed]}
Super-Leaping
Size Alteration
Superhuman Reflexes
Superhuman Speed
Superhuman Stamina
Superhuman Strength
Bio-Fission: In great American civil conflicts, Sam can split in two entities, each one supporting one of the sides. During the American Civil War, Sam had been split in two as Johnny Reb and Billy Yank. It's unknown if he can split in more duplicates.
Sam can detect the whereabouts of patriotic objects, as the American Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and possibly others ^[5].

Abilities

Hand-to-Hand Combat (Advanced)
Charisma

Weaknesses

American Idealism: Uncle Sam's powers are grounded by the strength of the American consciousness. When the overwhelming spirit of America falters, Sam's strength and stamina declines. During the American Civil War, the country's faith was sundered and Sam was split into two composite forms, Johnny Reb and Billy Yank.

Notes

In 1956, DC Comics obtained the rights to the Quality Comics characters, and re-introduced them 17 years later as the Freedom Fighters in Justice League of America #107 (October 1973).

The Freedom Fighters were relocated to a parallel world, one called "Earth-X", where Nazi Germany had won World War II. The team was featured in its own series for 15 issues (1976–1978), in which it temporarily left Earth-X for "Earth-One" (where most DC titles are set).

In 1981, some Quality Characters became recurring guest-stars of All-Star Squadron, a superhero-team title set on "Earth-Two", the locale for DC's WWII-era superheroes, and at a time prior to when the Freedom Fighters were supposed to have left for Earth-X. They later appeared with the rest of DC's superheroes in Crisis on Infinite Earths, a story that was intended to eliminate the confusing histories that DC had attached to its characters by retroactively merging the various parallel worlds into one. The Freedom Fighters became a mere splinter group of the All-Star Squadron.

Uncle Sam migrated from Earth-Two to Earth-X, and recruited two teams of Freedom Fighters along the way. The first team was mostly apparently killed by Japanese warplanes on December 7th 1941. The second team fought all the way through WWII, which on Earth-X dragged on until 1973. This team later migrated from Earth-X to Earth-One.
Uncle Sam on New Earth vanished at the end of WWII, in 1945, for several decades.
Uncle Sam in the Quality Universe appeared from National Comics #1, July 1940, to National Comics #45, Dec 1944.

Trivia

Uncle Sam is also known as Brother Jonathan, Johnny Reb, Billy Yank.

External Links

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Uncle Sam (comics). 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.

Footnotes

Freedom Fighters member

This character is or was a member of the Freedom Fighters, a team of American super-heroes who fight threats to the nation and its ideals under the leadership of Uncle Sam. This template will automatically categorize articles that include it into the "Freedom Fighters members" category.

[1] Superman (Volume 2) #178

[2] Infinite Crisis #2

[3] Brave New World Vol 1 1

[4] Final Crisis #4

[5] DC Comics Presents #62

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