G. Brett Williams #11 – Johnny Diamond, The Ace of Diamonds
Johnny Diamond – Johnny is your typical clean cut, blond-haired, blue-eyed, apple pie-eating, All American boy. He’s also something of a technological genius. Engineering ran in Johnny’s family. Going back to the days of the Civil War, his family had been responsible for supplying arms and armor to the American military. Some call it patriotism, some war profiteering, but to Johnny it was just the family business. He never gave it much mind. Johnny spent his youth building things, taking things apart, drawing up plans and schematics, working with his father in his lab. Anything the boy could do to learn more about the science of engineering, he did it. Johnny was a very advanced student and by the age of 19 he’d already completed a bachelor’s degree in science. At age 22, he was completing his masters in engineering. That same year, his parents were murdered and Johnny’s childhood home was burned to the ground. The word had leaked into the criminal community that Johnny’s father was developing a top secret weapon for the military, the kind of weapon that could hold the country hostage with fear if it ever fell into the wrong hands. The secret criminal organization known only as the Order of Osiris attacked Johnny’s family in their home, where his father kept a secret underground laboratory for his most dangerous projects. Somehow the Order found out about this lab and launched an assault on the mansion. Johnny was away at school at the time, so he managed to avoid his family’s gruesome fate. His mother and father were both killed, the plans for the weapon were stolen and the house was burned to the ground. This meant that the time for Johnny to inherit the family business had come. There was a certain unease at the prospect though. To Johnny, the pursuit of newer and more potent weapons was the thing that had ultimately killed his mother and father. Could he justify continuing in his father’s footsteps knowing what he knew about the dangers of munitions manufacturing? Could he put the word in jeopardy as his father had through his carelessness? The thought weighed on him. Johnny knew that he couldn’t simply dismantle the entire company. Regardless of what he had grown to believe about his father’s pursuits, he wasn’t so naive as to think that America would never need weapons again. So instead of completely suspending the company’s production of munitions, Johnny retasked a portion of the company’s assets toward the exploration of non-violent weaponry and fringe science. He appointed himself as the head of this new division and left the running of his father’s company to more qualified men. During his time as the head of this new division of his family’s company, Johnny made new discoveries and created new technologies that drew the attention of scientists and military leaders from around the country and America’s allies in the world. It was a very exciting time for the young savant, but there was always something missing. Johnny never forgot what had happened to his parents, never forgot what the Order of Osiris had done to his family, so when the government came to offer him a chance to fight back against people like the Order and their ilk, Johnny was happy to oblige them.