General Ross

As head of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Global Security organization, General Ross commanded men such as Colonel Nick Fury, who policed violations of the Superhuman Test-Ban Treaty. He oversaw numerous U.S. defense projects: the Super-Soldier Research Facility in Pittsburgh, where Ross' prospective son-in-law, Bruce Banner, headed the research team trying to rediscover the serum which created WWII's Captain America; Weapon X, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s premiere counter-terrorism division run by Colonel John Wraith, which kidnapped young mutants from around the world to turn them into covert agents; and Dr. Storm's Baxter Building, where child geniuses worked on scientific breakthroughs. When the Baxter Building's Doctor Molekevic defied orders by developing forbidden bio-technology, Ross confronted him and fired him.

Banner continually suggested downsizing the conventional military to free resources for a small superhuman unit, but Ross mostly ignored him. As pressure mounted on Banner to produce results, he tested a super-soldier serum on himself, transforming into a monstrous Hulk, which the military chased all the way from Nevada to New York. When Banner reverted to human form at the Chelsea Piers waterfront, Spider-Man tried to calm the situation; but Banner panicked and transformed again, and bounded away with Ross and his men in pursuit.

Following the Hulk's capture, S.H.I.E.L.D. lost Fury Fury on a mission in Delhi. Ross reluctantly assigned Wraith's Weapon X to recover Fury and complete his mission.: to retrieve the scientist behind an Indian genome project. Ross was horrified to discover Wraith had recently kidnapped the X-Men, mutants on first-name terms with the U.S. President, and even angrier to discover the one X-Man they hadn't retrieved was Wolverine. The decision was made to phase out Weapon X and replace it with a new super soldier initiative. Wraith retaliated by trying to kill Ross in anexplosion, but Ross survived, perhaps because Xavier was resisting the device controlling him; however, while recovering, Ross was replaced by Fury as head of S.H.I.E.L.D..

Ross returned working with Dr. Storm at the Baxter Building, and observed teenage scientist Reed Richards' first major test of his N-Zone teleporter, an experiment which inadvertently mutated Richards and several of his friends. Ross later authorized Reed's use of an outdated Space Shuttle to explore the otherdimensional N-Zone, interested in N-Zone teleportation's potential for instantaneous troop movement. When Reed's group very publicly crashed into Las Vegas upon returning from the N-Zone, Ross was initially outraged at them for blowing secrecy of their group, but was mollified when Reed provided him with a "death-ray" they had acquired.