Real Name: George Batroc

Class: costumed athlete

Occupation: mercenary

Affiliations: Captain America villain, leader of Batroc's Brigade, former member of the French Foreign Legion

Scale of Operations: France, worldwide

Powers: Batroc has no superhuman powers, but is supremely agile and the world's expert at savate, the French form of kick boxing.

History: Batroc trained himself in savate while in the French Foreign Legion, and later became a costumed mercenary. Although orginally working alone, he began and continues to often recruit fellow rogues and criminals when a job may require it. His mercenary adventures often led him into criminal activities, and thus he has clashed and continues to clash with many superheroes and costumed crime fighters, notably Captain America. Batroc, while not inherently villainous, is an egotist and often chariacture of an romantic ideal of a "theif."

More recently, Batroc fought a then-dying Captain America, and, moved by the Captain's sense of "honor," declared that he would concede defeat and grant Cap's desire. Cap wished that just one of his former enemies would turn away from his life of crime. Genuinely moved, Batroc declared he would do this. However, Batroc soon returned to his mercenary/criminal activities.

Batroc's Brigade

Batroc's Brigade is the name of various bands of mercenaries, martial artists, and assassins organized by George Batroc.

Batroc first organized his Brigade with the Living Laser and the original Swordsman in order to locate a "seismo-bomb" for a foreign power, but was defeated by the hero Captain America. Later, Batroc formed a new Brigade to carry out the villainous Red Skull's orders to kill Captain America, but even the combined might of himself, Porcupine, and Whirlwind was not enough. After this unsuccessful attempt, Batroc began to simply hire dozens of muscle men and martial artists. At one point, Batroc was hired by industrialist Obadiah Stane to steal Captain America's shield, and Batroc contacted Zaran the Weapons Master and Machete. Although the assignment ultimately failed, the three mercenaries have continued to work together for nearly all of the Brigade's later missions.

Living Laser
(See individual entry)

Machete (Ferdinand Lopez) A native of the Central American country San Diablo, Machete sees himself as its liberator. He is working as a mecenary to raise the money to fund a successful revolution. Machete has no superhuman powers, but is a superb athelete and has a high proficiency with throwing and fighting with knives and blades.

Porcupine
(See individual entry)

Swordsman
(See individual entry)

Whirlwind
(See individual entry)

Zaran the Weapons Master (Maximillian Zaran)
A native of Great Britian, Zaran was an agent of the British secret service MI-6, who defected to the employ of Fah Lo Suee, the daughter of Asian criminal Fu Manchu. Spurned by her, Zaran became a mercenary. Although he joined Batroc's Brigade has had a successful carreer with other costumed mecenaries (Shockwave, Razorfist) for other works-for-hire.

Zaran has no superhuman powers, but is a master of ancient and modern weapons including knives, bows, staffs, maces, spears, nunchakus, shurikens, and guns. Zaran wears gauntlets and a collarpiece studded with small sais for additional weaponry.