The Eyes of Night

Operating in tandem on the streets of Freedom City in early 1977, Evening and the Eye of Justice were first called the “Eyes of Night” by Stephen Barker in an op-ed piece in The Freedom Ledger in October of that year. The Eyes of Night are among the most steadfast heroes of Freedom City, if not the most famous. Throughout their career, they have battled every form of crime from street-level thugs to Mafia enforcers, super-villains, and extradimensional entities.
Deputized as elite members of the FCPD from 1981 through 1984, the Eyes of Night have always fought for the people of Freedom City, even when the city didn’t want them around. Their only absences were during the four years of exile in the Terminus (from late 1984 through early 1986) and for the birth of their child in 1987. They returned as heroes to Freedom City in 1988 and operated there until the Terminus Invasion. Over the years, they have allied (formally and informally) with FORCE Ops, AEGIS, Adrian Eldrich, The Scarab, and members of The Freedom League .
The heroine Evening made her Freedom City debut in 1975 when she stopped a bank robbery in the Theater District, and she became an unofficial hero of the city’s West Side. Unfortunately, 1976 saw numerous battles between her and the cyborg called the Eye of Vengeance, who had been sent by The Labyrinth to kill her. Despite the cyborg’s greater power, Evening incapacitated the Eye of Vengeance with her uncanny mental prowess and overrode the programming subsuming his human consciousness.
By the end of the year, Evening and the renamed Eye of Justice were in love. The two heroes made Freedom City their home, fighting threats from local crime lords to mystical beings like Jack-a-Knives and the Ferryman. They married in 1981 and remained active heroes even once their identities were exposed after Doc Abattoir’s death during the Blackstone Riot in 1983.
The following year, Evening and the Eye fought with Eldrich against Nhorox and the other “demons” summoned by Sebastian Provok. When Eldrich banished the entities back to their home dimension, Betty and Jack got dragged along with them into the Terminus. They spent two years in the Terminus before they finally returned to Earth. Their adventures there delayed Omega's invasion of Freedom City by a number of years and gained them the enmity of a number of powerful foes.
Evening and the Eye of Justice did not return to crime fighting immediately, as Betty discovered she was pregnant. For months, they recuperated at an isolated island estate in the Mediterranean until after their child was born. Their absence from Freedom City and their life of danger ended when attacks on Eldrich’s Freedom City townhouse drew them back into the fray in 1988. They contin­ued to operate in Freedom City until the Terminus Invasion, and are still remembered by the city’s police department (which reinstated their status as special deputies).

Structure

Evening

Elizabeth “Betty” Munroe was born in York, England, her father unknown and her mother dead of complications in childbirth. An orphan and ward of the state, Betty had an unremarkable childhood save for an incredible aptitude for gymnastics. At puberty, she devel­oped the power of levitation. The Ministry of Powers placed her in a training program for super-powered children, and it was there Betty became friends with an older student, Troy Griffin (son of the Human Tank and Lady Celtic).
Betty learned control of her levitation power and began training in espionage. By the time she was 19, Betty was Agent Black, a spy in Her Majesty’s service for Brigade Six, a secret branch of British intelligence along with Troy Griffin (Agent Silver), Charles Parker (Agent White), and Anne Gordon (Agent Gold).
For several years, Brigade Six performed operations too dangerous for normal agents, and Betty and Charles fell in love. When Troy uncovered a conspiracy within the Ministry of Powers and the House of Lords, the agents realized they’d unwittingly been used as double agents against the Crown. Exposing the threat took two years of careful planning, but they eventually brought down a number of powerful politicians, exposing a spy ring in league with Communist Russia and SHADOW. It cost them dearly; Anne died when she absorbed a virulent plague agent meant to be unleashed on London, and Charles and Betty were captured vacationing in Greece and sold to The Labyrinth, a parting shot by the exposed SHADOW agents.
Betty and Charles both underwent extensive brainwashing and were subjected to drug therapy to develop new powers. Betty escaped but, despite her best efforts, was nearly cap­tured while trying to carry the unconscious Charles, and was forced to leave him behind.
Betty contacted Troy Griffin, who arranged her return to the United Kingdom. Within three weeks, she mastered her new powers and she and Troy mounted a rescue effort to get Charles out. While they found the lab again and destroyed the technology, it was obvious Charles had gone insane from The DNAscent Process and he nearly killed them both. With Troy’s blessing, Betty made a fresh start and moved to Freedom City, where she met the man des­tined to be her partner and husband.

The Eye of Justice

Born in 1947 to a traditional post-war family, John “Jack” Carlton devoured comic books as a kid, especially those by the Castle Comics Group. Nothing about his childhood or adolescence was controversial until a bully attacked Jack in 1962. The bully broke his hand on Jack’s stomach, and Jack’s panicked swing knocked him clear across the street, landing the other boy in the hospital.
Jack hid his abilities from everyone until he mastered them, and another dream came to mind. At the age of 20 and after a few years of saving up for college, Jack dropped out after one semester, took his savings, and moved to Freedom City in hopes of becoming a superhero.
The night rooftops of Hanover soon saw a new hero in 1968: Kid Gargoyle. While he tried his best to make a big name for himself, he always seemed to arrive too late to stop the bad guys, and some other hero already handled the situation. While he kept at it as a vigilante by night, he became a beat cop in The Fens during the day.
Jack thought he’d found his big break when he pieced together clues pointing towards some shady dealings going on inside Grant Conglomerates. He figured Kid Gargoyle would crack the case, and then Officer Jack Carlton could make the collar. It would cement his reputation on the force and in the superhero community. Unfortunately, Jack had no idea just how high up (or, technically, how far down) things went. When he tried to break into the GrantCo offices, he was caught and turned over to the Labyrinth.
The cybernetic augmentation process was painful, and the brain­washing was as much to prevent him from going mad as it was to secure his complete loyalty. Jack’s mutant physiology was the only thing that allowed him to survive, which made him the perfect test subject. Soon, the Eye of Vengeance was ready to serve his masters. His first assignment: eliminate the rogue Subject Three, now known as Evening.
After several unsuccessful attempts, Evening turned the tables. She freed him from the Labyrinth’s conditioning and nursed him back to health. In time, they became partners, friends, and eventu­ally husband and wife. Jack learned some hard lessons about being a hero along the way, but always told friends it was worth it because of what it got him in the end.

Founding Date

1977

Type

Family