A YJA Moment - Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters

There are heroes that have had a profound effect on the world, but whose actual exploits are not well known.  One such hero is Uncle Sam, whose image has appeared throughout history as a symbol of American patriotism.  Few know that Uncle Sam is an actual person, and a metahuman who has been given a broad and ill-defined range of powers fuelled by the Spirit of America.

At his side is a group of heroes that he calls his Freedom Fighters.  The original team was gathered during World War II, when a group of Nazi metahumans called Axis America traveled back in time from an Axis-dominated alternate future to ensure that their history comes to fruition.  Unable to face them by himself and mistrusted by the Justice Society of America, he sought out heroes that were not attached to existing teams.

What resulted was an unusual group of heroes:  The psychic Black Condor who was telekinetically capable of flight;  Doll Man who made a serum that made him permanently six inches tall; The Human Bomb whose exposure to exotic chemicals allowed him to generate explosive blasts; The vigilante known as Phantom Lady; and The Ray, a metahuman capable of generating and manipulating light.

Sam often told his team-mates that they were destined to be part of the Freedom Fighters.  While the concept seemed ludicrous to his teammates, few could contest the strange coincidences the team experienced.  Members of the team would often adopt the legacies and gain power-sets similar to their predecessors.

The current version of the team directly spiraled from the events of the Checkmate take over of the Office of National Security.  Confiscating most of the technology from the Triskelion and the Avengers, the scientists of Weapons Plus set to work reverse-engineering the designs for their own operatives.  Many of those who were part of the experiments were not there or their free will.

Uncle Sam broke one such Weapons Plus installation and liberated their staff.  From that came a new group of Freedom Fighters: Black Condor, wearer of a prototype wing-suit derived from those of the Falcon; Doll Man who utilized Pym Particles stolen from Hank Pym in order to change size; Human Bomb, who had his DNA spliced with the explosive metahuman Nitro; Phantom Lady, who gained invisibility, intangibility, and energy expulsion powers from a mysterious alien artifact; and The Ray, photokinetic son of the original hero.

With the shifts in global power, Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters once again protect the country, even if the Avengers and the Justice League get all the good press.