Tattooed Man III

TATTOOED MAN III

Real Name: Mark Richards

Class: Human magic-user

Occupation: Superhero, supervillain, former U.S. Marine

Group Affiliation: Titans III, formerly The Society

Known Relatives: Regina Mason (sister-in-law), Laurel Richards (daughter), Leon Richards (son, deceased), Levon Richards (Synck, brother), Michelle Richards (wife)

Aliases: Ink

Base of Operations: Liberty Hill, formerly Gotham City

First Appearance: Green Lantern IV #9 (April, 2006)

Powers: The Tattooed Man was a skilled combatant in peak physical shape. He could sense the sins of others, and through sin grafting he could tattoo representations of those sins on himself. The tattoos could be animated into powerful constructs, dragons, sabere-toothed tigers, barbed wire, grim reapers, etc.

History: (Green Lantern IV #9 (fb, BTS)) - Richards was a grunt in the Marines whose chopper went down in Southern Modora during the Subsonic Wars. The marines were taken in by the Kril tribe, and all were killed and tattooed except Richards. He endured their torture and was made a member of the tribe. They taught him the art of sin grafting, tattooing the sins of others on his own body, so he could bear their pain and redeem their souls. He found he could animate the tattoos into powerful constructs. Richards became the Tattooed Man, and returned to the states, acting as a hitman, killing targets and in his mind saving their souls.

(Green Lantern IV #9) - The Tattooed Man was employed by Tobias Whale to take out Rosen, his former accountant. After the hit Tobias assigned him Harvey Dent, but Batman and Green Lantern had located the hitman. He looked forward to killing and redeeming them, seeing the greatness of the heroes sins. He had to use all of his tattoos on his body to keep lantern busy, giving Batman the opportunity to defeat him in hand-to-hand combat.

(Titans: Villains For Hire Special #1) - Deathstroke assembled a team of assassins that he named the Titans. He chose metas with recent personal tragedies, and approached the Tattooed Man at the funeral of his son Leon. Tattooed Man’s wife slapped him, telling him it was his fault that their son was dead, and walked away. Deathstroke told Tattooed Man that he kjnew what it was like to lose ma son, and promised him Slipknot’s head on a platter. The Titans were hired by serial killer Dwarfstar to kill the Atom Ryan Choi, and ambushed him at home. Deathstroke stood back and watched as his team tore into the hero, but allowed Atom a brief respite when his girlfriend Amanda knocked at his front door, so he could convince her to go away. Atom was grateful, and Deathstroke assured him that killing him was just business, they weren't looking to harm anyone else. Atom fled to his basement ant tried to activate his JLA signal, but the Titans had disabled it. The Titans wore him down, and Deathstroke made it clear he was about to die, and commended him for not begging. Deathstroke killed him with a sword through his stomach, and delivered Atom's corpse in a matchbox to Dwarfstar. Back at their headquarters Deathstroke chastised his Titans for not working better as a team. Osiris told him they weren't worthy of the heroic mantle Titans, and Deathstroke told him that he had personal reasons for naming them after the heroes he so despised.

(Titans II #24, 25) - Tattooed Man and Cheshire went on a Titans mission to take digital schematics from Deftech Industries, but were attacked by assassins in the service of Drago. They defeated them, but Cheshire refused to tell Tattooed Man why they were after her. At the Titans hq Labyrinth Slade watched a fight between Cinder and Osiris. He scoffed that he was working with broken humans, but vowed to mold them into what he wanted. He assembled the Titans and told thewm they’d been assigned to kill Lex Luthor, who’d been reappointed head of LexCorp. In truth Deathstroke had been hired by Lex to ferret out the LexCorp members that wanted him dead, but he needed the threat on his life to seem genuine. The Titans attacked Lex, and after Cinder blew up Lex‘s limo he was forced to flee to the sewers with his LexCorp board members and his bodyguard, and his bodyguard revealed herself as Façade, a LexCorp project set loose on him by the board members to eliminate him. The Titans were angry at Deathstroke for having to lied about the nature of their mission, and Osiris attacked Deathstroke, but was easily put down. The mutinous LexCorp board members Cooper, Dyson and Monroe were killed, and Façade shape shifted into Cheshire in an attempt to escape, but Deathstroke simply shot both him and Cheshire, who recovered in the Titans medical bay.

(Titans II #26, 27) - Cinder created a holographic representation of the Italy of her childhood in her room, and when Tattooed Man stopped in he asked her how someone with no hope could have such beautiful memories. He told her that he’d seen death wishes like hers in the military, and was concerned with her. The Titans took a job to rescue the son of millionaire Christopher Bockman. His son had been kidnapped by Elijah, who used the innocence of children to manufacture the drug Bliss. Jade and Tattooed Man posed as investors, and Elijah showed them his facility where he processed Bliss. The Titans made their move, and Elijah defended himself with his hired met humans, the Dominators. The newly joined Arsenal found the harvesting chamber where Elijah kept the children, but also discovered that it contained a fail-safe that killed any child he tried to free. Arsenal cut the power to the harvesting pods, saving most of the children, and the Titans defeated the Dominators. Osiris lost control of his power and killed Elijah. Deathstroke furthered his master plan by stealing a sample of Bliss and abducting the Dominator DJ Molecule.

(Titans II #28-30) -Deathstroke was hired to liberate Allegra Garcia from Arkham Asylum, and he bribed a guard to allow his Titans the run of the asylum for the night. Tattooed Man reflected that as bad as he wanted Slipknot for killing his son he was disgusted at being a villain again, and missed the days of being a hero. Osiris satyed with the guard, and was convinced he needed to keep killing to save Isis. The guard warned him that he was no stranger to a double-cross, and had a device that would release every prisoner from their cell. Osiris killed him anyway, but the guard hit the switch before dying, and the rest of the Titans had to fight off Arkham’s lunatics. Osiris decided not to help them because they hadn’t shown him the proper respect. Scarecrow dowsed the Tattooed Man with fear gas, and his greatest fear was his son Leon never forgiving him for letting him die. The Tattooed Man fell into a depression, and allowed the inmates to beat him. Deathstroke entered Allegra’s cell, but was halted by Batman. Allegra suddenly decided she didn’t want to go with Deathstroke and unleashed her electromagnetic powers. Deathstroke had convinced Allegra he was on her side, and had her use her electromagnetic powers to disable the Arkham inmates security collars. Deathstroke told them they were free to play with Batman, and they allowed the Titans and Allegra to leave. Deathstroke reunited Allegra with her father in the Amazon, but she resented her dad for abandoning her, and used her powers to kill him. She told Deathstroke she wanted to join the Titans, but he told her to grow up first. At Titans Labyrinth the team grumbled about losing Osiris. Deathstroke admitted that he understood that they were getting impatient in him holding up his end of the bargain to help them. He revealed that he’d kidnapped Slipknot, the man that killed Tattooed Man’s son Leon, and had him bound so Tattooed Man could do whatever he wanted to him.

(Titans II #31, 32) - The Titans faith was restored in Deathstroke after seeing him fulfill his promise to the Tattooed Man. Deathstroke told him to take his revenge, and directed him to one of the levels of the Labyrinth where Slipknot was. By the time he arrived Slipknot was no longer in captivity; Deathstroke knew he’d never forgive himself if he killed a defenseless man. The Titans asked Deathstroke what he’d do if Slipknot killed him, and he said he’d offer him a job. Tattooed Man and Slipknot fought, and the Labyrinth read Tattooed Man’s thoughts and conjured up a hologram of Liberty City, where his son was killed, and where he vowed never to return until Slipknot was dead. Slipknot taunted him for being too “heroic” to kill him, and Tattooed Man used a barbed wire tattoo to rip off Slipknot’s head, but with his vengeance complete he still didn’t feel like a hero. Tattooed Man told his team that he quit, and Slade warned him that he still owed him. Tattooed Man was sick of killing, and Cheshire encouraged him to walk out while he could, so he left.

(Titans II #35, 36) - Tattooed Man returned to Liberty, and was surprised to see that everyone loathed him, and was afraid of him. He met his lieutenant Crim$o, who he’d placed in charge while he was away. Crim$o told him they had street cred because of Tattooed Man’s name, if not his presence, and had driven down the crime rate using intimidation and force. Vixen arrived at Tattooed Man’s hq, ready to offer him a spot on her new super team, but disgusted by what his men had turned Liberty into. He told her he was no longer a hero, and that superheroes saved the world, but did little for the common man to alleviate crime or poverty. His gang attacked Vixen, and when she refused to stand down they clashed. She realized he was blinded by hate and bitnerness at all the time he and his family had been victimized, so she told him their fight was over. She’d let him continue to do as he saw fit, and told him he could still be a hero if he changed his mind.

(Titans Annual II #1) - Tattooed Man didn’t want Deathstroke holding his debt over his head, so he returned to the Labyrinth, where he learned that Deathstroke had contracted Dr. Sivana to build the Methuselah Device, capable of restoring health and youth. The final piece was in Kahndaq, and Sivana teleported Tattooed Man there to join the Titans, who were in the middle of a fight with the Justice League. Tattooed Man rejoined the team, just as Deathstroke knew he would, and gave Slade the opportunity to stab Supergirl with a kryptonite sword created for him by Lex Luthor. The battle ravaged Kahndaq, and Isis had enough. She demonstrated her godlike powers, and banished the Titans and the League from her country. The Titans returned to the Labyrinth, Supergirl’s blood was the last component needed to finish the Methuselah Device.

(Titans II #37, 38) - Deathstroke regenerated Jericho with the Methuselah Device, and told the Titans it was theoretically possible to resurrect their dead loved ones if they agreed to keep following him and help him kill superheroes whose superior DNA would form the templates for the Methuselah Device to work. They all agreed, except for Cinder and Arsenal, who saw resurrecting the dead as an abomination. Cinder tried to destroy the Device, and the Titans brawled. Jericho was horrified; he blamed himself for the mayhem Deathstroke committed to heal him, and decided it was time to finally take responsibility for both of their lives. He possessed Deathstroke, and vowed to destroy the Device, and then himself and Slade. Cheshire, desperate to have Lain back, attacked Jericho and broke his control over his father. Cinder set off a chain reaction inside the Device, causing her apparent death, and destroying the machine. All the Titans except for Deathstroke and Osiris escaped, and Arsenal wanted to know if they’d be interested in being heroes. Cheshire told him she’d never forgive him, and Tattooed Man just wanted to go home, but Jericho and Arsenal decided to revive their friendship and take things one day at a time

Comments: Created by Geoff Johns & Ethan Van Sciver