Freedom Fighters

1941 - Uncle Sam manifests upon the US declaration of war after the attack on Pearl Harbor. After the massive loss of life in World War I, he begins traveling the US to find allies to join him, assembling the Freedom Fighters to fight overseas.
Membership: Uncle Sam, 41-year-old Iron Munro, 22-year-old Roy Lincoln, 37-year-old John Trujillo, 27-year-old Happy Terrill, 43-year-old Paul Kirk, & 22-year-old Sandra Knight

1942 - The Freedom Fighters assist the Justice Society in a mission that takes them to the North African Front.
Membership: Uncle Sam, 42-year-old Iron Munro, 23-year-old Roy Lincoln, 38-year-old John Trujillo, 44-year-old Paul Kirk & 23-year-old Sandra Knight

1943 - The Freedom Fighters are led by Paul Kirk through northern Africa as they race Helmut Streicher in pursuit of the Ark of the Covenant.
Membership: Uncle Sam, 43-year-old Iron Munro, 24-year-old Roy Lincoln, 39-year-old John Trujillo, 29-year-old Happy Terrill, 45-year-old Paul Kirk & 24-year-old Sandra Knight

1945 - Uncle Sam steps back from the Freedom Fighters after the surrender of Germany on VE Day. While they remain in Europe fighting the various superpowered threats, he intends to join the Pacific Theater against Japan. The atomic bomb is dropped on Japan, and Sam does not manifest. The Freedom Fighters are killed destroying Vandal Savage's secret laboratories, with the help of Rip Hunter. 26-year-old Roy Lincoln sacrifices himself, unleashing his entire explosive potential and bringing down an entire mountain on the laboratories, 47-year-old Paul Kirk dies keeping their men busy, while 41-year-old John Trujillo dies saving the imprisoned scientists. 31-year-old Happy Terrill successfully destroys their anti air cover and holds off their air fleet, but the temporal explosion of the lab hyper-accelerates his powers, evolving him into mass-bearing light. Unable to stop, he launches himself vertically, breaking planetary orbit. 26-year-old Sandra Knight sacrificed herself to save 45-year-old Iron Munro from a temporal explosion. Iron is the lone survivor.

14 years ago - 33-year-old Amanda Waller takes a tactical director position with Argus and creates a new government-controlled Freedom Fighters. She offers amnesty to Mark Shaw and strips Frankenstein & Bones of their positions with the DEO to bring them into Argus & the new Freedom Fighters Iron Munro joins, secretly working for Sandra Knight.
Membership: 27-year-old Rick Flag, Iron Munro, 26-year-old Bones, 33-year-old Mark Shaw, Frankenstein.

13 years ago - The Freedom Fighters attempt to infiltrate S.H.A.D.E. but are thwarted by The Bride.
Membership: 28-year-old Rick Flag, Iron Munro, 27-year-old Bones, 34-year-old Mark Shaw, Frankenstein.

10 years ago - The Freedom Fighters work together with The Bride to find an destroy her & Frankenstein's undead son before he's used as a biological weapon by S.H.A.D.E.
Membership: 31-year-old Rick Flag, Iron Munro, 30-year-old Bones, 37-year-old Mark Shaw, Frankenstein.

9 years ago - The Freedom Fighters pursue the mercenary & assassin 29-years-ago Curt Calhoun after he kills a prominent federal prosecutor. They attack the Order of St Dumas cloning facility in Brazil.
Membership: 32-year-old Rick Flag, Iron Munro, 31-year-old Bones, 38-year-old Mark Shaw, Frankenstein.

6 years ago - 41-year-old Amanda Waller loses her position as tactical director of Argus in a congressional oversight hearing orchestrated by Sandra Knight over the Quarac Bombing. Control of the Freedom Fighters is taken by Bones who consolidates his authority to become the head of the DEO. moving the Freedom Fighters to their control. He recruits 23-year-old Dee Tyler at the recommendation of Sandra Knight.
Membership: Iron Munro, 41-year-old Mark Shaw, Frankenstein, 23-year-old Dee Tyler

5 years ago - 42-year-old Mark Shaw is killed for heresy by the Order of St Dumas.
Membership: Iron Munro, Frankenstein, 24-year-old Dee Tyler

3 years ago - Clayface is brought in by the DEO after their Basil Karlo identity is fully removed. They agree to work with the Freedom Fighters.
Membership: Iron Munro, Frankenstein, 25-year-old Dee Tyler, Clayface

1 year ago - The Freedom Fighters join the battle against Mageddon.
Membership: Iron Munro, Frankenstein, 26-year-old Dee Tyler, Clayface

now - Kate Spencer meets 83-year-old Sandra Knight, who brings her into the Freedom Fighters.
Membership: Iron Munro, Frankenstein, 28-year-old Dee Tyler, Clayface, 31-year-old Kate Spencer

Noteworthy Teams

Original Team

Other Members

Modern Team

The Freedom Fighters are a longstanding team that has existing on the periphery of much of DC's history, with a very interesting behind-the-scenes story. The characters involved are deeply imbedded in the history of not just DC, but of comics in general. While their traditional role DC's comic canon involves a lot of multiversal shenanigans, which we won't be using, but by keeping the team in our central timeline I think we found some really fun things to do with it as it moves into the future. Our modern version of the team is largely our own, but I think it manages to tap a lot of character stories in a way that feels really authentic. Tell us what you think!

The Freedom Fighter's Comic History

The Freedom Fighters first appeared in the pages of DC in Justice League of America #107 from 1973. The series had just introduced another Golden Age team (the Seven Soldiers of Victory) back in issue #100, and so this issue does it again, this time making a whole new team using an assortment of Golden Age heroes DC had acquired back in the 50s when they bought the catalog of characters from Quality Comics.

They are introduced as the heroes of Earth X, the latest new Earth in the still-expanding multiverse. Earth X is a world where the nazis won World War II, so the name Freedom Fighters is very apropos as they are literally a resistance movement. When the Justice League assist them, they finally defeat the evil regime, and shortly afterward are given their own standalone series following them as they cross over to our Earth. The series didn't last long, but shortly after, they were all included in Roy Thomas's expanded world of Earth 2 stories in his ongoing All-Star Squadron stories.

Following the Crisis of Infinite Earths, several members of the Freedom Fighters were reimagined as new characters taking over the classic legacy of the original hero, including a new Ray, Black Condor, and Phantom Lady. While the team itself was featured less often, the individual characters actually showed up across DC in general way more consistently, firmly establishing them as integral to the overall continuity. They were eventually all collected again into a new team, but that team was almost entirely murdered in the introductory pages of Infinite Crisis in 2006. This was followed a few years later by an entirely reimagined version of the Freedom Fighters by Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti that thoroughly reimagined almost every member of the team. This version actually worked really well, appearing in several different series running up until the 2011 continuity reboot.

There were a few attempts to create New 52 versions of the Freedom Fighter characters, non of whom really gained much traction. Later, when Grant Morrison created a whole new Multiverse in their series Multiversity, a whole new version of Earth X was created, featuring another fully reimagined Freedom Fighters that starred in a really good 12-issue miniseries.

Our Freedom Fighter Story

Since we're not doing the Multiverse, the place for us to really nail the classic Freedom Fighters narrative is to keep it all contained within the actual World War, and doing so actually makes them feel like a much more foundational part of our timeline, as well as allowing us to gently nudge their lineup into a new shape that we really like.

Letting them operate just as a wartime team also frees up the legacy of this team quite a bit. We just kept turning back to them using them as a hub for so many different continuity load-bearing story beats... and it just kept working. They are a fundamental part of the ongoing struggle between Sandra Knight and Amanda Waller within the Covert Operations community. All three different Manhunters, very different characters all operating with very different purposes, have all made it into the lineup of one of the versions of the Freedom Fighters. It's even become a sort of modern recreation of the Creature Commandos, as Frankenstein has become one of it's longest serving members and they've even brought in one of the most recognizable modern monsters, Clayface.

As different as this modern version of the Freedom Fighters is from the classic team, It still manages to retain a familiar vibe, and the team's role as a covert pseudo-governmental Metahuman Strike Team is one the world of DC would evolve all on its own.

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