Strength 6d

Agility 4b

Intellect 7d

Willpower 8b

Hand Size: Edge:

5 (30) 3

Powers:

(none)

Equipment:

Assault Rifle: Clayton began to use one of these weapons in his later years as a Joe commander. Armed with a starlight scope for a +1 CS to hit on aimed / ambush fire, this gun inflicts his Agility +5 damage in a single shot, raised to his Agility +6 in a semi-auto burst of lead.

Backpack: if not wielding his jet pack or any other device that would prohibit its use, Clayton often makes use of a backpack to hold various items necessary for the completion of a mission, like special mission orders, maps, flashlights, emergency rations, etc...

Fragmentary Grenades: Clayton usually carries a few of these things at all times. Each of these thrown explosives will, three seconds after their pin has been pulled, explode with intensity 10 force, inflicting like damage to everybody within striking (near missile) range of where they detonate (unless covered).

Knife: should he run out of ammo for some reason, or simply need to cut something in a jiffy, Clayton carries a blade on him whenever he's on a mission. In his hands, this knife acts as a +2 weapon, and can cut through objects of up to material strength 10.

Pistol / Revolver: Clayton always has a spare pistol on him, regardless of his other armaments or whatever the situation may be. In ceremonial dress, however, he'll replace this pistol with a beautifully crafted antique revolver. Either way, these items act as +4 weapons when fired (+5 if semi-auto).

Submachine Gun: when flying about on his miniature jet pack, Clayton most often makes use of this weapon. It inflicts damage per a +4 weapon when used to fire a single shot, +5 if Clayton fires a semi-automatic volley of lead at an opponent.

Hindrances:

(none)

Skills:

Aerial Combat: a large percentage of Clayton's pilot training involved his learning the essentials of airborne combat. When flying an aircraft (whether it be a traditional vehicle or, say, his personal jet pack), Clayton can use his Strength or Agility to resolve attacks (and trump) if necessary.

Boxing: like his skill with most firearms, Clayton was trained in the sweet science of boxing as a form of self defense by the military. In melee, Clayton can divide his pre-cardplay action score between two attacks, the last of which will occur as a contingent action.

Espionage: having fought off the diabolical plots of Cobra Commander for over a decade, Clayton has evolved a truly sneaky demeanor, and can counter most any clandestine plot imaginable. Of course, he's also developed the ability to plan his own shadow ops - and do so quite well...

Leadership: Clayton is a natural leader, his technique enhanced greatly during his time as a West Point student and his years as the head honcho of the G.I. Joe team. When he's leading a group, they can add 1 to any action they attempt, but if his leadership vanishes, this bonus changes into a penalty.

Marksmanship: part of Clayton's basic military training has involved his learning how to use any standard, semi-automatic, or full auto gun in battle, should he need to. This, and regular practice, allows him to make attacks with most any gun at one difficulty level lower than is usually required.

Military / United States: it goes without saying, but as a Brigadier General in the U.S. Army, Clayton has this skill as a general matter of course. This training offers him an instinctive understanding of military protocol and procedures, as well as the ability to effectively lead a group of fighting men into combat.

Piloting: Clayton has always had a love for aircraft, a fascination that he brought with him into the Army, who has trained him how to fly. This allows him to reduce the difficulty of any action meant to control, design, or repair an aircraft by one difficulty level. Nifty, that.

Tactics: his years of training and experience have given Clayton the ability to plan himself out of virtually any jam imaginable. As such, when executing, to the letter, any prepared plan he has devised (in battle or otherwise), Clayton and those he leads may add 1 to any action meant to execute said plan.

Calling:

Idealist: like many of the Joes, Clayton is a true patriot, a man who has an intense love for his nation and what it stands for. He will do what he must in order to protect his home land, but he's not so patriotic that he'll sacrifice his men in order to get the job done - this makes him a perfect leader of the Joes.

Costume:

Clayton's eighth uniform was similar to his fourth, albeit with better colors. It consisted of a worn, brown leather jacket, black leather boots, Army green trousers with a dark green camo pattern, a dull blue leather belt and grenade bandoiler, dull blue hip pouches, a green cap, and black sunglasses.

Personality:

An accomplished man, Clayton is a proven leader, tactician, and patriot. He can be exceedingly stubborn and self-righteous at times, but this never interferes with his ability to lead the world's single greatest fighting force. He's not only the leader of the Joes, but the best friend of nearly all of them.

Don't let his charming personality confuse you, however, for Clayton is an exceptionally devious man, though one would have to be after opposing the endless scheming of Cobra Commander for so long. If anything, his time with the Joes has made him even more crafty...

Real Name: Clayton M. Abernathy, Grade O-6 (later O-7 and O-8)
Occupation: leader of the G.I. Joe task force
Legal Status: American citizen with no known criminal record
Marital Status: single
Alias(es), if any: General Hawk, General Tomahawk
Group Affiliation: G.I. Joe, the Jugglers

Height: 6'
Hair: blonde, then brownish-gray
Eyes: brown
Weight: 160 lbs
Other Distinguishing Characteristics: none

Story:

The first known assignment of then-Lt. Colonel Abernathy was in the administration of a refugee camp in Borovia, an eastern European nation that was in the grip of a campaign of 'ethnic cleansing'. He became notorious during this assignment when, after a terrorist attempted to bomb thousands of women and children refugees within, he took responsibility for one of his subordinates getting VERY rough with the captured bomber.

When on trial in his court martial, Clayton was asked why he didn't simply allow the subordinate, a Sgt. Lonzo Wilkinson, to hang for torturing that terrorist for the information he needed to find the bombs that were set. Clayton simply stated that he couldn't let Wilkinson take responsibility for an act that, were their positions reversed, Clayton would himself had done in order to save the lives of those innocents.

Then using the same logic on his own superiors, Clayton challenged the court to decide just where the 'buck' stops, in order to prove that they were either the same as he - or simply willing to sell their own subordinates down the river to cover their own hides. Before a verdict could be reached in his court martial, however, the proceedings were interrupted by one General Flagg and his aide, 'Sparks' Verdi.

The result of their actions are classified, but in the end Clayton was freed, and not only returned to active duty, but promoted and given the task of forming Special Counter-Terrorist Group Delta, otherwise known as G.I. Joe - an homage to the original group of Joes formed back in the sixties. Clayton was chosen to form and field-command this group due to what General Flagg considered inscrutable character.

While forming this team, Clayton endured the tragic death of his fiance, an even that only helped to focus him on doing right by other people, so that they wouldn't needlessly suffer as he had. Following Flagg's example, Clayton formed a team of twelve specialists from across the Army's various specialties. 'Abernathy's Misfits', this 'dirty dozen' he'd formed, were chosen for exceptional ability and goodness of character.

Not that Clayton chose every member of the team - there were more than the dozen Joes he was in direct command of. Flagg himself had overall command of the group, and had utilized his aide, Sparks, as an intermediary to the Pentagon, as well as Shooter, an Army sniper who served as a 'troubleshooter' to the Joes when they were in the field. These two were vital to the beginnings of the G.I. Joe team in its anti-terrorist operations.

The team had something of a rocky start, its first mission seeing poor Snake-Eyes getting horribly mangled in a helicopter accident, his face being burned beyond recognition. However, the three remaining Joes on board for the job (Stalker, Grunt, and Rock 'n Roll) nonetheless helped him in obtaining their goal - the rescue of George Strawhacker from a disguised group of Cobra troublemakers.

Encouraged by this success, Clayton continued to work with the Joe team as their field commander for several years, leading them on successful mission after successful mission, most of which involved repeated run-ins with the diabolical Cobra Commander and his countless Cobra thugs, who were Hell-bent on conquering the world, no matter what it would take to achieve victory.

Eventually, even though he enjoyed leading combat missions directly, as opposed to handling them from afar, Clayton was promoted to base commander of the Pit, at which point he relegated field commander status to Duke, the Joes' Top Sergeant. Clayton didn't like his back door leadership, however, and when his superior, General Austin, suffered a heart attack, he was given a promotion.

Now fully in command of the Joe team, Clayton rejoined the team in battle, his first field mission in a great while being the rescue of Snake-Eyes, Storm Shadow, and Ripcord from Cobra Island, a job that Wet Suit and Beachhead happily joined him on. Soon after, though, it was discovered that the Ripcord they rescued was, in fact, a disguised Zartan, who ultimately escaped Joe custody.

However, while Zartan posed as the Joe he thought dead, Ripcord in turn stole Zartan's identity, and infiltrated Cobra's U.S. headquarters, Springfield. Once Ripcord called the Joes to tell them this, Hawk led a full-force assault against the town, one which succeeded in driving Cobra out, but not before they created the genetic construct known as Serpentor - and destroyed all evidence of their presence.

As such, Clayton had little documented justification for his attack on the town, and the Joe team was temporarily suspended. During this time, Zartan acted on his knowledge of where the Joe's secret base was situated, and told Cobra Commander its location. As such, he, Destro, Serpentor, Zartan and his Dreadnoks, and various Cobra operatives were able to invade the place - it was mostly empty at the time.

Clayton was being interrogated in the Pit at the time by his superiors, and in order to prevent Cobra from taking the facility, he blew the Pit up, burying Cobra Commander and Destro alive on the lowest floor of the subterranean base. Having proven that Cobra was still a menace, his surviving boss, one General Hollingsworth, dropped the charges against Clayton and reinstated the Joe team.

Clayton led the group as a mobile unit for a time, giving Cobra no hint as to where they were, since they had no permanent base. They eventually rebuilt the Pit deep in the desert of Utah, away from civilian targets and in a much more defensible area. Shortly afterward, Clayton was called upon to lead the Joe force into Cobra Island, at the request of Serpentor, to aid him in the nation's current civil war.

Though he didn't like the idea, Clayton nonetheless did as he was ordered, though the end result of this was the death of Serpentor and most of his Crimson Guardsmen supporters. This allowed an impostor Cobra Commander to take power, and under his lead, Cobra's effectiveness in general slipped greatly. This general lull in Cobra's threat to the world only lasted until the original Commander reclaimed his throne.

As this occurred, Clayton had to deal with various forces within the Pentagon who didn't like the idea of the Joe team and its relative independence in the chain of command. Right after the Cobra Civil War, these corrupt generals, the Jugglers, had the entire Joe team arrested, and then tried to kill both Clayton and General Hollingsworth, though their plan ultimately was unraveled by several Joes.

The team and all of its members were cleared after this debacle, and though several Jugglers tried to cause more problems for the team over the next few years, the Joes continued on in their battle against tyranny in general - and Cobra in particular. Clayton himself gladly led this fight as the years wore on, through thick and thin, though he tried not to step on Duke's toes as he did so.

Particularly exhausting battles Clayton had participated in include the Battle of Benzheen, during which several Joes lost their lives, the Battle of Millville, in which Cobra had joined forces with the alien Megatron, and a particularly hairy fight between Cobra Commander and Destro over his Trans-Carpathian palace, which itself could change shape thanks to Destro's use of transformer-like technology.

However, things changed in the mid-nineties, and once the Pentagon again decided that Cobra was no longer a direct threat to America, they disbanded the Joe team once more. This turned out to be more than just a temporary turn of events, however, and it took Clayton several years to convince his superiors that the Joe team was still necessary to fight Cobra - and other groups just like them.

Finally, though, Clayton reassembled the Joes, starting out with the original operatives that helped him to make the world a safer place. Sure enough, however, other Joes answered the call to arms, returning to the fold to fight for freedom wherever trouble reared its ugly head. However, though he wanted to fight with them directly versus the forces of Cobra, Clayton found that he couldn't.

You see, he found himself in a unique position to get a long-standing foe of his, the group of generals known as the Jugglers, under control. When invited to join their ranks, Clayton did so in order to keep tabs on what they are doing, which freed up Duke to lead the team directly - and would allow him to use the Joes to both battle Cobra and corruption stemming from the military itself...!

This situation lasted for several years, though as time went on it became harder for Clayton to control the Joes' escalating activities along with the Jugglers' excess. As this situation came to a head, Clayton was paralyzed in battle with Zartan (who was then posing as Cobra Commander), when the villain shot him in the back, lodging a bullet in his spine. Until the bullet could be removed, Clayton was confined to a wheelchair.

Despondent for a time, Clayton abandoned the Joes to deal with his own issues, though he returned to the fold when the mysterious Red Shadows made several attempts on his life. By this time, the Joe team had fallen to the command of one General Rey, then of course Joe Colton himself, as the team restructured itself yet again in the wake of the Red Shadows' defeat (and the death of the Jugglers, who were always holding them back).

Though still paralyzed, Clayton continues to aid the G.I. Joe team as a vital advisor, though he has more than a little payback in mind for the Commander (even if it wasn't actually that villain that crippled him). To this end he has sent several Joes on 'side' missions on his own, and is likely to continue to do so if he feels that Colton isn't working fast enough to end the menace that Cobra poses to the world...