ASSASSINASSASSIN
Real Name: Unrevealed
Identity/Class: Human cyborg?, possibly of Russian descent
Occupation: Terrorist (not really an assassin)
Group Membership: Committee for Free Emigration (Mrs. Rosenzweig, others)
Affiliations: None
Enemies: Red Guardian (Tania Belinskya)
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Manhattan, New York City
First Appearance: Defenders I#40 (December, 1976)
Powers/Abilities: The Assassin had cybernetically enhanced forearms and hands. He possessed superhuman (Class 10) strength and durability, limited to his lower arms. He could punch through solid concrete. His hands were made mostly of metal, covered with a false, synthetic skin.
Height: 6'4" (by estimation)
Weight: 240 lbs. (by estimation)
Eyes: Unrevealed
Hair: Unrevealed
History: (Defenders I#40) - The Assassin was part of a group seeking to protest the Soviet Union's restrictions that prevented its citizens from freely emigrating (see comments). In an effort to make their point they decided to capture Tania Belinskya, a prominent Soviet neurosurgeon then visiting the U.S.A., believing that the USSR would go to great lengths to ensure her safety. Aware Belinskya was also the superhero known as the Red Guardian, they lured her to the apartment of Committee member Mrs. Rosenzweig, where the Assassin and some other Committee members confronted her. She threw a table at them, but the Assassin smashed it with ease in mid-air. Seeing that she could not match her opponent's strength head on, Red Guardian leapt through the window to the street below, but the Assassin followed. Watching his pursuit gave Red Guardian the opportunity to appraise her foe's strengths and weaknesses, noting that her lumbering enemy was slow moving, "less like a man than a tractor," and that while he was strong enough to casually smash cars aside when they obstructed his path, his strength appeared to be localized in his arms. Confident she could evade his blows, she switched from fleeing to attacking, knocking him over with a surprise swinging kick to his side. In retaliation he smashed the sidewalk, showering her with rock fragments, one of which hit her head and momentarily stunned her. Striking the hard ground also destroyed the synthetic skin coating the Assassin's hands, revealing the metallic ones beneath. When the Assassin moved in to grab her, Red Guardian caught him off guard with a palm smash under his chin and then winded him with a gut punch. She then fled, deliberately goading him into pursuing her again. Reaching a dead end in an alley terminating in large garage doors, she let the Assassin believe she was trapped, and when he leapt at her fists first intending to smash her she ducked to the side at the last second, so that his super-dense hands smashed through the heavy garage door behind her, and his head smashed into the rest of the door, knocking him out.
Comments:
Created by Steve Gerber and Sal Buscema.
He's referred to as the Assassin on the cover and in the title, but is never actually named in the issue. However, Tania Belinskya's handbook entry, under her later codename of Starlight, confirmed this guy's codename to be the Assassin - though sadly we didn't think to provide him with a real name at the time, to make it easier to distinguish from the numerous others using that same codename.
The passage of time has somewhat eliminated the Committee for Free Emigration's purpose, as the fall of the Soviet Union in the real world resulted in Russians being free to emigrate, and thanks to the sliding timescale this story is now set decades after that became the case. The aforementioned handbook entry for Starlight thus avoided calling the group by that name, and stated their purpose as the more generic "protesting Russian governmental injustice."
When confronting Red Guardian the Assassin
mentioned "how the USSR has used our people" (emphasis
mine), which strongly implies he and the other Committee members have
relatives in the Soviet Union, and thus perhaps were Russian ex-pats
or the descendants thereof themselves.
You have to dig deep into the suspension of disbelief for the strong arms attached to normal shoulders.
Profile by Snood.
CLARIFICATIONS:
The Committee for Free Emigration's Assassin has no known connection
to:
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Mrs. Rosenzweig had a large number of relatives (presumably Jewish, given her name and a mention that her people had been in bondage for 4000 years) trapped in the USSR because of its restrictive policies regarding citizen's traveling abroad or emigrating. As a result she joined the Committee for Free Emigration. She aided their attempt to capture Tania Belinskya, and when other members of the group lured Belinskya (as the Red Guardian) to the street outside her apartment, only for one to get accidentally shot by another member of the group, Rosenzweig leaned out her apartment window posing as just a concerned citizen who had heard the gunshots. Belinskya did Rosenzweig's work for her, asking if she could use Rosenzweig's telephone to make a call (presumably to get an ambulance for the wounded man). Rosenzweig agreed, then pulled a gun on her visitor. Moments later the Assassin and some other Committee members showed themselves to take Belinskya prisoner, but their target escaped out the window. Rosenzweig's subsequent fate remains unrevealed. --Defenders I#40
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The Committee for Free Emigration were a group seeking to protest the Soviet Union's restrictions that prevented its citizens from freely emigrating, many apparently having relatives trapped in that Communist state. In an effort to make their point they decided to capture Tania Belinskya, a prominent Soviet neurosurgeon then visiting the U.S.A. Aware that Belinskya was also the superhero known as the Red Guardian and had just started associating with the Defenders, three members of the Committee ("green coat," "open blue coat" and "zipper blue coat") donned stocking masks and attracted the Red Guardian's attention by throwing a rock wrapped in paper carrying an anti-communist message through the window of Doctor Strange's home, where the Defenders were based. Asking the Defenders to permit her to pursue the miscreants alone, Red Guardian chased down the masked men, catching up with them in an alley behind the apartment of Mrs. Rosenzweig, one of their members. Green coat pulled a gun, but Red Guardian kicked it from his hand, only for it to accidentally fire and hit zipped coat in the right shoulder. Apparently fearing the sound would attract police attention the other two fled, leaving their wounded comrade with their quarry. Posing as just a concerned citizen Mrs. Rosenzweig allowed Red Guardian to bring the injured man up to her apartment so she could use the phone to call for assistance, then pulled a gun on the Soviet heroine. Then the Assassin, green coat and open coat entered the room intending to take her prisoner. However Red Guardian escaped out the window, pursued by the Assassin; the subsequent fate of the rest of the group remains unrevealed. --Defenders I#40
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images: (without ads)
Defenders I#40, p14, pan4 (main image)
Defenders I#40, p15, pan4 (metal hands revealed)
Defenders I#40, p16, pan4 (leaping at Red Guardian)
Defenders I#40, p12, pan7 (Mrs. Rosenzweig)
Defenders I#40, p13, pan1 (Committee for Free Emigration members)
Appearances:
Defenders I#40 (October, 1976) - Steve Gerber (writer), Sal Buscema
(pencils), Klaus Janson (inks), Marv Wolfman (editor)
First posted: 12/21/2001
Last updated: 11/05/2026
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
Non-Marvel
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