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History

James Wa's father was a major league baseball player in Japan, playing for the Hanshin Tigers. After taking too many baseballs to the head and developing persistent double vision and vertigo, he was forced to retire. Wanting his son to follow in his footsteps, he and his wife moved to San Diego so that his then unborn son could eventually attend Rancho Bernardo High School (because they graduate more professional baseball players than any other high school). Growing up, young James wanted to be an engineer, but was pushed towards a career in baseball by his father, becoming hooked on the sport after his father took him to a Hanshin Tigers game. After this, he joined local baseball teams, eventually becoming a star player. Offered a major league contract, James instead decided to attend college in Louisiana, majoring in engineering while continuing his baseball career on the collegiate level.[2]

During the opening Saturday of the College World Series, James was involved in a car crash, resulting in the loss of both legs. Using his engineering knowledge, he created the Calamity-Brand Cheetah Prosthetics, which made him a millionaire by the age of twenty two.[2]

For an unknown reason he joined The Order, where Stark's technology gave him superhuman speed. Part of the team organized during the super-hero Civil War, James Wa was initially given the codename Hermes as he would serve as the team's analogue to that particular Olympian god. He participated in the final battle outside the Baxter Building, taking on other superheroes and the Atlantean army.[4]

When the team became the Order and first went public, he was there for their first mission, naming their first villain the Infermal Man. When several other members were prepared to go out for a night of drinking, he turned them down, reminding them that their contracts had morality clauses. The night of drinking led to the four other members being fired, leaving James Wa as one of only four original members.[5]

James was capable of running on water and defeating an entire crowd of "Zobos" (zombie hobos) with a busted parking meter. James is the member of the Order who makes the most jokes, but also has shown serious anger issues, getting into an argument with Mulholland, and running from L.A. to Louisiana to confront Carl Crenshaw (the man responsible for the loss of his legs) with a bat. However, his anger was mostly due to the fact that he had been unwilling to kill in cold blood, even though the entire city of Los Angeles was in danger of nuclear destruction at the time and he ended up just talking with Carl and playing the Wii.[6]

As a member of the team he was involved in conflicts with various villains, most with a connection to General Softly and the mysterious "M.A.N. from S.H.A.D.O.W." military group, including hordes of Zobos (mechanized zombie hobos), Cold War supervillains, Gamma monsters, Namor, and an all girl gang called the Black Dahlia who had been given superpowers via the same process as The Order by M.A.N. from S.H.A.D.O.W. as well as dealing with a murder case involving a former Order member.[7]

The team was later evicted from its California headquarters and the M.A.N. from S.H.A.D.O.W. was revealed to be a collection of General Softly Androids first devised by the Super Human Development and Operation (S.H.D.O.) fifty year earlier; around the time of the real General Samuel Softly's death, and now part of a collection of villains (including Black Dahlias and Maul) led by the son of Iron Man's old enemy Obadiah Stane. Although Stane's allies were defeated, he escaped and both Heavy and Mulholland Black died.[8]

At the time of the Skrulls Secret Invasion the Order were again functioning as a team, when the Skrull replacement of Dum-Dum Dugan announced to the Initiative teams that all Skrull sleeper agents were to reveal themselves and attack. The Order's members were chosen entirely by Tony Stark, with no involvement from the Skrull posing as Hank Pym, so they were one of only two teams without a Skrull member, though they did not know this. The announcement led Calamity to believe Aralune, as a shape-changer, was the most likely among them to be a Skrull.[9]

Attributes

Powers

  • Superhuman Speed: Uses a combination of bio-enhancement (from the Soma Process) and cybernetics (his own design improved by StarkTech) to achieve Mach 3 running speed. His legs are advanced bionic appendages able to produce considerable locomotive power. The rest of his body has been enhanced to function with the legs, including increased perceptions, reaction time, and stamina.[10]
  • Flight: Flight was a default power given to all members of the Order by the Soma Process.

Abilities

Skilled engineer, runner, and baseball player[2]

Paraphernalia

Transportation

Usually travels using his own superhuman speed or flight.

Trivia

James is a fan of the Hanshin Tigers, a Japanese baseball team.[2]

See Also

Links and References

References

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