Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams is an American folk hero and former superhero under the alias of The Patriot. After stumbling on a piece of advanced technology in the Chisos Mountains of Mexico, Samuel was granted extraordinary superhuman abilities. He would later use those abilities while serving as The Patriot during the Second World War alongside the other members of the Stars and Stripes, a team of enhanced individuals working for the Allies. Near the end of the war, Samuel was presumed dead following the destruction of a German research station in Greenland. In reality, he had simply used the opportunity to fake his death and start a new life elsewhere.
Samuel would return to public life during the height of the Synod War, where he would once again don the mantle of The Patriot. Following the defeat of the Synod, Samuel joined the new iteration of the Stars and Stripes, where he would once again serve as the team's leader.

History

Early Years

Samuel "Sam" Adams was born on July 2nd, 1886 to Marcus and Ethel Adams. Living on a modest farm in Ohio, Sam's parents did as much as they could to raise their children to be responsible and upstanding American citizens. As the eldest of four children, Sam did his best to embody these ideals so that he might serve as a role model for his younger siblings.
In 1917, Sam's life was upended when Mexico launched an invasion into the United States. Urged on by promises of territory made by the German Empire, Mexico joined the Central Powers and charged across America's southern border in a brutal assault. Samuel, alongside his two younger brothers, were quick to enlist in the US Army after the attack.
While fighting in the Chisos Mountains, Samuel was badly injured in an ambush. With what little strength remained, he struggled into a nearby cave, hoping to shield himself until help could arrive. By chance, the cave he had taken shelter in was home to a mysterious device of alien origin, one that seemed to respond to Samuel's presence. The device altered his biology, healing his wounds and granting him enhanced physical abilities. When help finally reached him days after the ambush, other soldiers were surprised to see Samuel in perfect health. Following Mexico's surrender, Samuel was among the soldiers redeployed to Europe to aid their struggling allies. The addition of American troops was enough to tip the scales in the favor of the Allied Powers, leading to Germany's surrender and the end of the war.
When Samuel returned home from Europe, he found it difficult to readjust to his old life of living on the family farm. His time in the army, alongside his now altered physiology, left him unable to enjoy the life that was supposed to be his reward. Desperate to find peace and contentment, he left Ohio, moving to Chicago.

SABER

While in Chicago, he had a chance meeting with Elizabeth Nelson, a woman with superhuman speed and agility. She introduced herself as a member of SABER, the Strategic Alliance Bio-Engineering Research division, an organization born from a partnership between US, British, and French military research divisions. His survival of the Ambush at Chisos caught the attention of SABER, who wanted to learn more about how he survived. Though unwilling to provide information about the alien device that saved his life, Samuel did agree to assist SABER in their research. He became the cornerstone of Project EAGLE, an effort to create an entire fighting force of genetically enhanced soldiers, a potentially powerful deterrent against rising tensions. As fascism began to spread throughout Europe, many within the allied governments believed yet another war might lie on the horizon.

The Stars and Stripes

After Japanese pilots launched a surprise attack on the US Navy base at Pearl Harbor, the United States began to ready itself for war. Rather than reenlisting and serving as a soldier, Samuel used his connections in SABER to serve his country in a unique way. Donning the alias of "Uncle Sam", Samuel gathered other superhuman individuals from the United States and her allies to serve as a special forces team. After successfully stopping a German plot to undermine US war efforts, Sam and his team were transformed into the Stars and Stripes, with Sam now operating under the alias of "The Patriot". This new team became an integral part of the US' war effort, able to operate in environments that traditional armed forces couldn't.
The Stars and Stripes proved to be a thorn in the side of Axis leadership, who desperately wanted to form a team of their own to counter them. To that end, German scientists, led by Oskar Klein, were tasked with creating a team of enhanced soldiers capable of matching the Allies'. Despite years of work, their efforts never yielded a success, as Sam and his team would continuously undermine their research. Each time they got close, the Stars and Stripes would interfere, forcing Doctor Klein to abandon his work and flee to yet another research station.
In February of 1945, as the Second World War drew to a close, the Stars and Stripes had their final confrontation with Doctor Klein in a secret German research station in Greenland. During the fight, Klein unveiled a mysterious new super-weapon he claimed would surpass even those being developed by the United States. In order to ensure the weapon could not be used against anyone, Sam destroyed the weapon, though he was caught in the resulting blast. In commemoration of his service to his country and his valiant sacrifice, Samuel Adams' legacy was enshrined in monuments built across the country, making him a legend amongst the American people.

Isolation

Samuel's sacrifice to destroy Klein's super-weapon was noble, though it was not of truly paragon intent. For nearly thirty years, his life had been turned on its head time and again, and his service in both World Wars had taken a significant toll on his mental health. During the final months of the Second World War, he found himself struggling with the idea of once again returning to a normal life. The changes to his body brought on by the alien machine had made a truly normal life impossible, leaving him feeling as if his only worth in life came from fighting. Yet, he didn't find comfort in battle, the work feeling more like a distraction than any kind of fulfillment, a chance to ignore the feeling of emptiness that had taken root in his mind. When Sam realized destroying Klein's super-weapon would likely kill him, he saw it as an opportunity to achieve a heroic end while silencing the endless void that had slowly been eating away at his psyche.
Unfortunately for him, the universe had other plans. The explosion caused Sam to black out, only for him to wake up days later, his body still buried under the rubble of the now-destroyed station. After freeing himself from the rubble, Sam waited around the ruins for weeks, hoping that anyone might return to search the ruins. Even if the world thought he was dead, a part of him hoped that the country he served would at least attempt to recover his body so that he may be given an honorable burial. His hopes were dashed after weeks of nothing, not even German forces hoping to recover whatever they could from the destroyed labs. Eventually, he had no choice but to admit the truth: nobody was coming. He was alone, isolated in the frigid wilderness of Greenland.

Age: 129
Born: 4 July, 1896