GIDEON MACE
GIDEON MACE
Real Name: Colonel Gideon Mace
Identity/Class: Human, military training
Occupation: Militia leader; retired US Army colonel
Group Membership: leader of several militias, including Operation: Overpower, Security City, Project: Alpha (aka Operation: Cage), X-Squad, Operations: Baker and Fox
Affiliations: Burgundy, Owen Ridgely (former members of his militia);
Jaime (former soldier serving under him);
Halwani Freedom Front, Maggia (funders)
Enemies: Awilda+Maria+Nestor Ayala (victims), Blackbyrd, D. W. Griffith, Power Man (Cage), Owen Ridgely, Spider-Man, White Tiger (Hector Ayala)
Known Relatives: unnamed family (from whom he inherited significant wealth)
Aliases: Mace, A01372712
Place of Birth: Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Base of Operations: formerly the Eastside National Guard Armory in Manhattan, New York; Mace Headquarters in Chicago, Illinois; Security City (American Midwest); a large mansion in New Jersey
Education: Unrevealed; presumably includes extensive military training
First Appearance: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire#3 (October, 1972)
Powers: Gideon Mace is highly trained in
military strategy, leadership, and both armed and unarmed combat.
He's ruthless and willing to sacrifice anything or anyone,
including himself, to accomplish his goals.
Mace usually has a small army of disgruntled ex-soldiers, like
himself. They are trained by him to become skilled combatants,
and armed with a variety of conventional and unconventional
weaponry, helicopters, and explosives.
...Oh yeah, and he's got a great big spiked titanium steel mace
attached to his right wrist, in place of his hand. In addition to
being used as a shield or a blunt weapon, it can spray chemical
mace at an opponent. In his final appearance, he had augmented
his prosthesis so that the mace could be fired with cannon-like
force from its attachment on his hand.
Height: 6' 2"
Weight: 170 lbs.; (with mace) 407 lbs.
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Gray
History:
(Power Man#44(fb))-In 1968, during the Tet Offensive of the Viet
Nam war/conflict, Mace led his troops in an unauthorized assault
on a village. One of his soldiers, Jaime, stepped on a landmine,
and was killed. Mace was nearby, and his right hand was destroyed
by the explosion. Mace was discharged from the army for his
actions, his discharge papers citing insubordination, mental
incompetence, and suspicion of combat activity independent of
orders. He was outraged at what he felt was unjust treatment. He
had his hand fitted for a prosthetic, a mace, after his own name,
and began to recruit soldiers into his own personal army, to gain
revenge on the nation that had mistreated him.
(HfH#3(fb))-Gideon Mace organized and trained a group of ex-soldiers as part of Operation: Overpower, which was to be a violent act of protest that would shake the conscience of america, awakening it to the shame of its treatment of its former soldiers. Mace exhausted his family fortune purchasing helicopters, explosives, and ammunition.
(HfH#3)-One of
Mace's soldiers, Owen
Ridgely, had a change of heart
and decided to try to prevent Mace's violent plans. Having
befriended the other soldiers, Ridgely did not want to turn them
in to the police, and so he instead hired Luke Cage. Mace,
however, learned of his plans, and sent some other, more loyal
soldiers to stop this. The soldiers succeeded in killing Ridgely,
but Cage stopped them.
Mace and one of most trusted aides discussed the plan to bomb
every bridge and power station in Manhattan, and then sending in
his troops to vent the frustrations amidst the chaos. However,
while his younger troops were doing this, he and his older
friends and allies would then strike by helicopter and loot the
banks. He planned to sacrifice the young men in order to gain the
wealth to build a more powerful army.
Cage followed Ridgely's directions and assaulted Mace's mansion.
Mace was able to fight Cage off and get into his helicopter to
escape. Cage managed to grab hold of the helicopter before it
could take off, and he smashed its propellers in mid-flight,
causing it to crash into the Hudson. Mace, weighed down by his
heavy mace, 
was quickly pulled
to the bottom of the waters.
(Power Man#23(fb))-Mace unscrewed his mace and swam to safety.
(PowM#23)-Luke Cage's bus trip across the
country en route to Los Angeles was interrupted when agents for
Mace's Security City assaulted it, for coming too close to their
city limits. The bus driver was killed in the process, but Cage
defeated the guards, and he and his friend D. W. Griffith made
their way to the nearby City.
Upon entering the City, they were soon recognized as
strangers and fired upon by
the armed residents. They escaped to learn more about the town,
but were captured by Mace and his men. D. W. turned on the City's
overhead loudspeaker system as Mace ranted about his plans for
the city. The residents were furious to learn they were being
manipulated, and soon formed a mob and stormed Mace's building.
Cage broke free, and he and D. W. made their getaway during the
chaos, leaving Mace and his men to the outraged citizens of
Security City.
(PowM#43-45, [46])-Mace made his next base in
Chicago. He happened to be on the same train that Cage was taking
to flee from government agents investigating his past. Assuming
Cage was after him, Mace attacked him, and knocked him out of the
train. Cage caught a ride with a woman named Burgundy, who
brought him back to her place. However, she was an agent of Mace,
and she reported Cage to him. Mace and his soldiers captured Cage
and attempted to recruit him into his plan for Project: Alpha, aka
Operation: Cage. This apparently was a plan to use a fake cobalt
bomb to blackmail the government into granting him control of the
city. It also consisted of a fake plot to detonate the bomb,
which would kill anyone present and render the area
uninhabitable, while not causing any shockwave and leaving the
city's infra-structure intact. His forces, equipped with
radiation suits would secure the area as his fortress. Cage's
involvement, unbeknownst to him, apparently was to consist of
escaping and confirming the existence of the bomb to the
authorities, thus enhancing the illusion of a real bomb.
Cage escaped, but went to Burgundy for help, and she secretly
contacted Mace. Mace had Cage strapped to the "bomb,"
while Burgundy learned of the true details of her husband's
death, and went to the authorities . Cage escaped and assaulted
Mace Headquarters. Aided by Burgundy, Cage knocked Mace into an
elevator shaft, where he seemingly fell to his death. No impact
was heard, but Cage left him to locate the "bomb,"
after which it was revealed to be a fake.
([Spectacular Spider-Man II#49/2], 50/2, 51/2,
52)-Mace embarked on a plan to kill off New York's super-heroes
to end their interference with his plans. A large number of
illicit organizations were more than willing to fund his new army
in this endeavor. To start, his men killed the family of the
White Tiger, whose secret identity had been publicly revealed
some time before. The White Tiger tracked Mace down, as Mace had
planned, and was captured by the troops that ambushed him. The
White Tiger broke free, but was duped by a picture of a window,
trapped in a corner, and shot down by Mace. Mace's men dumped the
White Tiger's body out of their car on the streets of Manhattan,
attached to a note: "This is the First". They
unwittingly did this right in front of Peter Parker, who attached
a Spider Tracer to their car, and brought the White Tiger's body
to a hospital where his life was saved.
As Mace and his men then set their sites on Power Man, Spider-Man
followed his Tracer to the agents who had killed the White Tiger.
Mace was alerted to Spider-Man's involvement, and was more than
willing to reveal his location, to bring a future target to him
earlier. Despite a series of traps and troops prepared to stop
him, Spider-Man broke into their base. Mace confronted him, but
was overpowered and outmaneuvered. Mace's troops had recovered,
and they targeted Spider-Man, who was holding Mace in front of
them. Screaming that the good soldier is always prepared to
suffer the occasional sacrifice, Mace ordered his troops to fire.
Mace was struck down in a hail of bullets, while Spider-Man
ducked out of the way, and then subdued the troops. Mace was
rushed to Bellevue, and into the operating room, as Hector Ayala
was wheeled out.
Comments: Created by Archie Goodwin and George Tuska.
I thought I remembered Mace as actually dying in that last Spider-Man issue, but there's no mention of it. You'd think he'd be back to get revenge on Spidey or Cage by now. C'Mon!
There were a few vague faces posted on Mace's board who were obviously planned targets for assassination during his war on heroes. The only other one I could make out is Hawkeye.
1968...Viet Nam war...topical
Clarifications: Gideon Mace has no known
connection to:
Burgundy was the widow of Jaime, the man killed in Viet Nam on
Mace's unauthorized mission. Not realizing that Mace had brought
about her husbands death with his actions, she aided him to honor
her husband's memory. She was genuinely interested in Luke Cage,
but twice turned him in to Mace. However, after leanring Cage's
experience with Mace, she managed to read Mace's army records,
and learned the truth. When she learned of his "plan"
to detonate the bomb, she fled and alerted the authorities,
exactly as he had planned. However, she joined Cage's assault on
Mace Headquarters, acting both as a distraction to, and then a
hostage for Mace, during the final battle. After Mace' s defeat,
Cage left her behind to locate the "bomb."
--PowM#43 (44-46
Security
City was an
armed compound under martial law. There was no crime in the city,
as anyone found committing a crime lost any rights and was
subject to the whims of the guards (and Mace himself). Bus
companies were warned to change their routes to stay outside its
city limits, and any that failed to obey were assaulted, and the
driver and passengers killed and looted. The residents, made up
mostly of the ultra-conservative, chose it for the feeling of
safety it gave them, allowing them to return to what they saw as
a wholesome lifestyle, akin to "Leave it to Beaver."
However, the citizens of the town were actually deliberately
recruited by Mace and his agents, who believed them to be sheep
they could mold: arming and conditioning them to become his
personal army. When the people learned that they were being
manipulated, they rebelled and ousted Mace and his men. (also
pictured above)--PowM#23
images: (without ads)
Other appearances:
Power Man#23 (February, 1975) - Tony Isabella (writer), Ron Wilson (pencils), Dave Hunt (inks), Len Wein (editor)
Power Man#43 (May, 1977) - Marv Wolfman (writer/editor), Lee Alias (pencils), Alex Nino (inks)
Power Man#44 (June, 1977) - Marv Wolfman & Ed Hannigan (writers), Lee Elias (pencils), Tom Palmer (inks), Marv Wolfman (editor)
Power Man#45 (Juley, 1977) - Marv Wolfman (writer/editor), Lee Alias (artist)
Spectacular Spider-Man II#50-51 (Janaury-February, 1981) - Roger Stern (writer), Denys Cowan (pencils), Dave Humphrys & Joe Rubinstein (#50) (inks), Denny O'Neil (editor)
Spectacular Spider-Man II#52 (March, 1981) - Roger Stern (writer), Rick Leonardi (pencils), Jim Mooney (inks), Denny O'Neil (editor)
Last updated: 03/03/03
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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