watchtower_fans | Original Character: Jack Slater, Black Knight One

Black Knight One is one of a few original characters in the Watchtower Community. Although he has never been in a single comic book, he has his own history that goes back almost 14 years. He originally was a character created by two people to play in a role playing game called "Marvel Super Heroes". I can't guess why Slater is still around, but he has had many names in the past. He started out as Knightstick, then when to Vigilance and only recently has become Black Knight One. He started out as a Federal Marshal who specialized in Powered Criminal recovery and worked for a man named Johnathan Ralsmith. He became Vigilance after his identiy as Knightstick was compromised in a battle with the Taskmaster(a Marvel villian). Slater was forced to remove his mask that had been hit with one of Taskmaster's putty arrows. Slater was one of a group of characters played by a group of friends who have all unfortunately gone thier own ways. As a personal note, I am very glad to be able to still play this character with a good friend.

On Black Knight One's user info is a time line for the character in the Watchtower universe. I wanted to do two things with this character in the Watchtower. One, not be a wise cracking, regenerating gun bunny, the world has it's fill of those. Two, to have fun, which I can say I am doing very well.

Slater is not a hero, and not really a villian. If anything he is in transition and the war of good and evil is playing out in his heart. On one side he is the tool of a Government run by a ruthless man. He commits acts of violence in the name of national security and accepts his role without guilt or question. A role he accepted knowing that he would be mentally conditioned to obey every order from Amanda Waller. The other half of him still has the experience of meeting and working with the Teen Titans. An experience that reminded him what it was like to be free and honest with people. An experience that has caused him to regret the things he has done in the past, and hope for a better future.

Slater made his first appearence July 4th, 2004. (That's right folks...born on the Fourth of July. Oracle could we mark that as Jack Slater's date of Birth?) He was assigned to take down the House and bring Roulette to justice. To do that he kidnapped Green Arrow's son, and set a bomb on Lain's(Arsenal's daughter) school room chair. Later he got assigned by the President himself to investigate the Teen Titans and test kyrptonite on Superboy. However, Slater did not count on how meeting Starfire and Hugo would make him feel. He later, disobeyed orders to help out in the rescue of Starfire. The government declared Slater a traitor for real and sent him to prison. Amanda Waller however had other plans and is going to be using him as a member of the Suicide Squad. Recently Slater was assigned by Checkmate to bring in Two Face and rescue Renee Montoya. Later instead of reporting back to Amanda Waller, Slater made his escape across country and is currently in Montana.

When I read about characters who regenerate, it seems to me that the power of regeneration is treated as a complete problem solver. You get shot, you regenerate the wound, you're fine. What I wanted to do with Slater was to make his powers helpful but dangerous to use at the same time. He can regenerate wounds quickly but may require surgury to prevent infection. Take the above case, Slater gets shot then regenerates the wound to a point where he can continue to function. The bullet may still be lodged inside him possibly causing infection if the bullet isn't removed. It may cause other problems like if the bullet is against a nerve or an artery.
He also can also ignore pain, which sounds great but the sensations the human body feels are meant to be a warning of something possibly life threatening. Ignoring the pain doesn't mean that the cause goes away, for example open flame.

Slater has a desire for botany. A hobby that grew from of his survival training techniques involving the identification of edible plants. He regularly visits the Botantical Gardens in Washington DC and has on every occation attempt to bring back a rare plant from whatever country he visits.

Urban Blue was a character played by one of the other friends in our group years ago. She was a very close to me and Deadshot, and was my first real love. We cared about each other very much, and if circumstances would have been different I am sure we would have been happy together, as were our characters. As it was, I shipped off to the Army and she went to college. The Player who played Urban Blue commited suicide several years ago. We honor her by maintaining this relationship with the Slater character. I will say no more of this, so don't ask.

More infomation will be included at a later date.