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Trickster


Alter ego: James Jesse (real name - Giovanni Giuseppe)
Known Relatives: Unnamed father and other members of the Flying Jesses, Billy Hong (son), Jaime Kyle (Wylie, daughter).
Occupation: Con artist, special effects designer
Base of Opperations: The Station
Group Affiliation: former member of the Rogue's Gallery, now a member of the Watchmen

History:
Giovanni Guiseppe, or James Jesse as he came to be known, was a circus acrobat and the youngest member of the Flying Jesses, a renowned group of arialists. Unfortunately, young James harboured a fear that would normally spell the end of such a career, he was afraid of heights. To guard against this fear and still be able perform in the family act, he eventually invented his famous "Airwalker Shoes" (patent pending), which, as their name implies, allowed him to walk on air. Armed with this wonderous invention, James honed his skills as an acrobat, and continued with his inventing.

However, his arialist act was not enough and James eventually turned to crime in order to give himself greater thrills and challenges. Calling himself the Trickster, he began his career by holding up a few airplanes mid-flight. He eventually picked Central City as his new base, where he quickly ran afoul of the second Flash (Barry Allen) and found the thrill he needed in matching wits against a superspeed foe.

James eventually became part of the loose-knit band of criminals known as the Rogues Gallery, a group whose main mission was to make the Flash's life as miserable as possible and to make as much money as possible at the same time.

After Barry's death, James travelled to LA where he fought the Blue Devil several times, until that hero convinced him he could make a fortune in the movie business as a special effects artist. The Trickster became a part-time persona, taking up less and less time till he saw in the newspaper a quintuple obituary. Five of his former cohorts, most of the Rogues Gallery, had died under very mysterious circumstances, and not in a battle with the Flash.

James decided, in order to honour the memory of the Rogues, to cruise for the biggest score ever. And he found it. He followed along when dozens of villians were invited to Hell by the demon Neron and offered tantilizing deals in exchange for their souls. Neron took a strange interest in James, and didn't even offer him a deal. As a result, James was the only one around who knew Neron's weakness without owing him anything, and so, almost single-handedly defeated Neron.

James has decided he'd better start earning some good karma, because he doesn't dare go to Hell and face Neron. He's still playing his con-artist games, but for the side of light instead of just personal gain.

Not long after he tricked the Devil, James agreed to help an old girlfriend, Mindy Hong, rescue her son Billy from warlords in the small Himalayan country of Zhutan. The warlords believed Billy to be the Majee, a human agent appointed by their god, Meshta. During the rescue it turned out that not only was Billy the Majee, but that he was also James' son.

James returned to the U.S. when he attempted to steal an artifact known as the Eye of God. The Eye of God was a hotly contested artifact being kept at a college library in the town of Manchester, Alabama, home town of Impulse. After a complicated game of "Who's got the Eye", which led to the arrest of a mobster, Trickster, with the help of White Lightning, returned the Eye to its rightful owner, a small church in Peru. This was a doubly good karmic deed, for Trickster was the one who originally stole the Eye from the church.

After many such good deeds, Trickster was approached by the vigilante known as Anarky. Anarky was putting together a team of costumed individuals who were known to walk on the darker side of the law in order to help him take down the United Nations sanctioned supergroup, the Doom Patrol. Seeing this as one of the ultimate ways to collect some good karma, Trickster joined the team which would come to be known as the Watchmen.

It was during his time with the Watchmen that Trickster first met and became enamoured with Catwoman. Catty impressed him as no other woman had before. They flirted quite intensely with one another, but just after the Bad Friday event in 1999, Catwoman became a reserve member of the Watchmen. However, she did return to the team in 2001, and much to Trickster's shock and delight, he and Catwoman had a brief fling. Trickster got another delightful shock a couple of months later, when she reported to him that she was pregnant with his child. Since he never really got to know his son Billy, Trickster asked Catwoman if he could raise their child and she agreed. Their daughter, Jaime Kyle was born on April 1st, 2002.

Trickster took a leave of absence from the Watchmen in order to raise his daughter, whom he spoiled mercilessly. He was able to get Jaime enrolled in the Theodore Knight Academy, but removed her from the school when she was 13, in order to complete her education himself. They travelled all over the world together, including a couple of stopovers in Zhutan, so they could look in on Billy.

Years later, Trickster and Anarky had a falling out due to the direction Anarky was taking his career. When Anarky refused to turn from his current course of action, Trickster returned to the Watchmen and swore that the team would now be a thorn in Anarky's side.

Trickster still lives with the fear that he hasn't done enough good in his life and so will meet up with Neron again in the afterlife. However, Trickster now worries far more that Neron will strike back at him through his daughter, and so Trickster has made sure that Jaime is a hero, and not following her old man's initial forray into crime. In trying to set a good example for his daughter, Trickster has mellowed somewhat in the last few years and is pretty much an out and out hero now, but he's still the same, irrepressible rogue that's he's always been at heart.

Skills and Equipment:
The Trickster's trademarks (aside from walking on air) are his biting sense of humour and a wide range of dangerous but harmless looking gadgets that he would use in his crimes. Some of the gadgets he uses have been liberated from his fellow Rogues. While trying to steal the Eye of God, Trickster was in posession of one of the Weather Wizard's weather rods, and he also has a couple of Mirror Master's mirrors.

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