"Did you hear that...I just took my cape off."
Mark "Tattooed Man" Richards
In his time with the US Marines March Richards became a decorated officer rising up the ranks quickly during the Subsonic Wars of Southern Modora. However, after his helicopter was shot down people assumed he died in an explosion because a body was never found. The thing is, all of the other passengers were found were found with strange markings covering their bodies. Richards was the only one who could not be found. He had survived the crash and wandered away where he was foud by Kril Tribe who tortured him for several months. Eventually they welcomed him into the tribe and taught him the art of skin grafting.
Skin grafting allowed a person to remove the sins of other people and place them on your body as tattoos. They used this method to remove the sins of people within the tribe, leaving them to continue life with no guilt or shame over their actions. It also gives people the ability to bring those tattoos to life.
Soon afterwards Richards returned to Gotham where he hunted down people he felt were sinners. During his first month in Gotham he killed at least four people including a man by the name of Lou Rosen. It's not known what Lou's sin was but Richards tattooed "weakness women" on part of his chest so it's likely that he was some kind of predator. Richards' reasoning for doing this was so that his victims could enter heaven unburdened by their past sins.
Batman began investigating the crimes and called in Hal Jordan who had dealt with the previous tattooed man. (Same name but Richards never heard of the guy. Just a coincidence not an inspiration.) Batman and Hal are able to find the hotel where Richards had been living in since he arrived in Gotham. Hal fought against his tattoos while Batman took on Richards. However, Richards was able to hold off Batman until he was distracted by a stray blast from Hal's ring, allowing Batman to knock him out.
At some point Richards joins the Secret Society of Super Villains. However, he goes to the Hall of Justice to seek protection from Checkmate's prison planet. It can be assumed that he first came into contact with Black Lighting at this point, which would later play a large part of his life. During Final Crisis he was the one who informed Dan Turpin about the Dark Side Club during Final Crisis.
When Earth was under attack by the Anti-Life Equation Richards took the opportunity to put his family (because some villains are still good dads) into hiding so they would be protected from Darkseid's Justifiers. The Justifiers were an army Darkseid had created by mind-controlling various heroes and villains to lead his army of mutated animals. During this time he was given the opportunity to escape by Black Lightning who held off an entire division of the army by himself giving countless people the chance to escape. However do to this Black Lightning was later captured and turned into one of The Justifiers leaving the Justice League with no more electricity.
However Black Lightning had been using Tattooed Man as a snitch before Final Crisis (so he was cool with the killing) and left him with a secret message. He also trusted Richards to carry The Circuit. The Circuit was a tattoo that temporarily allowed him to use Black Lightning's power in one strong burst. This allowed him to release a massive amount of electricity that kept the Justice League's watch tower from falling out of orbit due to it's loss of power. This gained him an honorary membership into the Justice League.
Afterwards Mark finally returns to his home town of Liberty Hell, better known as Liberty Hills. Here he adopts the name Ink, hoping to change his life, with his head held high and considering himself a hero. He's seen breaking up a group of counterfeiters and stopping a bank robbery. When a member of the DED Boyz gang named Diamond is killed, Chief Police Officer Halstead attempts to pin the crime on Mark. He's shocked to find that two of his tattoos had suddenly found a way to break free from his control. Those two were a rogue and unpredictable samurai he called Kabuki Dan and Altera a demon woman who was obsessed with him. Knowing he had nothing to do with the murder of Diamond he began searching for the real killer. Sadly all of the evidence led to his son Leon who had joined the Avenue Reds, a rival gang of the DED Boyz. When he confronts Leon about the murders, attempting to do the right thing, they are attacked by Slipknot and Cannon who are working on a contract to kill Mark. Mark easily defeats them but surrenders when they take Leon hostage. He allows them to leave and turns Leon in for murder thinking jail will be the safest place for him until Mark finds the real killer.Mark tracks Cannon down to the local power plant and attempts to beat evidence out of him. He only learns that they were working for a man named Mister S. Cannon then blows himself up before revealing any more information. This destroyed the power plant and sent Liberty Hill into a blackout. Chief Halstead once again blames Mark for this. Despite that, Mark attempts to calm the riots that began. He focused on saving people that the police refused to care about. He saves a group of hookers and crackheads from a drug den that was burning down. Only to suddenly become unconscious as if he had been drugged.
When he wakes up he finds himself talking to Mister S who is revealed to be his younger brother Devon. Mark had longed believed that Devon died in a car accident before he even joined the marines. Mark is in shock and left numb while Devon tortures him demanding to know how he received his powers. Mark still in shock doesn't say anything of relevance other than "how?" This time Mark is informed Devon had gained the power to control minds.
He then passes out again and wakes up in a church. Here Mark does some soul searching and comes to the conclusion that it's likely that Kabuki Dan or Altera had killed Diamond Dan. He doesn't have any proof or motive as to why he did it but he turned himself in, freeing his son Leon in the process. While he's in jail Roy Harper tells him that his Mark has been kicked out of the Justice League because he is back to killing and is not cooperating with the JLA (hypocrisy since Roy is usually wanted by the JLA for killing people with Jason Todd). Mark gets out on bail thanks to a lawyer named Ahmad Sturges.
While Mark does some soul searching, still being a hero he receives a call from his wife Michelle urging him to return home. When he does he finds that she and their daughter Laurel are blaming him for Leon's death. Slipknot had waited until Mark was away to hunt Leon down and kill him. Despite previously being proud of Mark for turning his life around, Michelle now called him weak and less than a real man because he only turned Slipknot into the police instead of killing him like he should have. She tells Mark it's over so he packs a bag and leaves for good this time.Later he's told by Deathstroke that it is his fault because he's become soft. He says if Mark had just tied up all the loose ends by killing Slipknot his son would still be alive and he would still have his family. (More hypocrisy considering Deathstroke's wife took his eye and one of his sons is dead because he didn't take a contract to kill the Teen Titans). Deathstroke then promises that he can offer Slipknot to Mark if he joins his new team called the Titans, which is later renamed Villains for hire.
When the team breaks into Arkham Aslyum he gets a dose of The Scarecrow's fear toxin. During his hallucination he sees his son Leon blaming Mark for his death. Batman saves him and asks him to come back to the JLA for help but he leaves and returns to Deathstroke and the team. At the base the team is asking why Deathstroke hasn't delivered on promises. Deathstroke introduces Slipknot to the team showing that he was intending to fulfill his promises to the team of assorted heroes and villains to bring back their loved ones or at least get some revenge Mark is placed in a room with Slipknot and they two begin to fight. He throws Slipknot through a wall into the teams simulator room. There he sets it to emulate Liberty Hill where the two fought previously and Leon was murdered with civilians cheering for Slipknot's death. Mark has Slipknot on the ground begging for mercy. There Slipknot says "Capes don't kill," those were his last words before he was decapitated with a barbwire tattoo. Finally giving Mark a small amount of peace.When he returns to Liberty Hill to reconcile with his family he finds that everyone runs from him in fear. He asks Crim$o, who is no longer in charge why people are afraid and he learns that the gang has been extorting money from people in Liberty Hill for keeping crime down. He goes to stop the gang but is intercepted by Vixen who says she was planning to ask him to join the new team of heroes she was creating but is disgusted by the actions of his gang.
Mark states he had no plans of joining anyway because the League is full of hypocrites and has gotten to big for it's own good. He also believes the League stopped caring about normal people a long time ago. While Vixen says her new team is being created to help solve that problem and follows Mark as he confronts his gang.
Vixen threatens to take everyone to jail and they attack her. Mark tries to stop the fighting and she attacks him as well. Eventually he is able to defeat her and convince her to leave. Afterwards he speaks to the gang and puts an end to their new ways. He then leaves stating he has to finish something with Deathstroke and Villains for Hire.
When he arrives at their base he learns about the Methuselah Machine from Doctor Impossible and Dr. Sivana. The machine is what Deathstroke was taking the missions for, secretly gaining pieces to make it work. Once completed it would allow a person to become immortal. They give him a teleporter stating Slade would be glad to have Mark on his side.
He arrives and there's a fight between Deathstroke's team and a Justice League team led by Ray Palmer, the first atom and mentor to Ryan Choi. Deathstroke tells him to take out Supergirl but he refuses to kill anymore. Deathstroke promises they don't need to kill anyone, just escape with the final piece. So he uses his tattoos to tie Supergirl to Deathstroke's kryptonite sword. Isis, the recently resurrected older sister of Osiris (Slade kept his promise) kicks everyone out of Khandaq and they escape back to their base.
There Slade explains the machine doesn't actually provide immortality. He uses it to resurrect his son Jericho. He explains the machine is actually made to bring people back to life and a fight breaks out. The people who wanted to use the machine were Mark who lost Leon, Osiris who resurrected Isis but not Black Adam, and Cheshire who wanted to bring back her daughter. On the other side Roy Harper who was the father of Cheshire's daughter had been convinced by Cinder who had lost her younger brothers that the dead should be left alone and never revived (but his best friend is Jason Todd?). When Roy and Cinder lost the fight, Cinder sacrificed herself to destroy the machine.
Outside the team decides they can stay together since they were all walking that line between hero and villain. Mark decided to go home to Liberty Hill and fix his family. He stated he was done with the game of heroes and villains for good.
He actually got a peaceful ending. Haven't seen him in New 52 yet, but it's probably coming since Common is playing him in Suicide Squad.
Powers and Abilities
- Marksmanship
- Hand to hand combat
- Military training
- Highly experienced in tactical analysis
- Tattoo Animation
- Tattoos come from the sins of the victims
- Each sin allows for use of a different power
- Some of his favorites
- Flaming Skull - Think of a drone shaped like a skull with a flamethrower
- Chinese Dragon
- Barbed Wire
- Scythe
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Tags:
Black Supervillains
