RAPIDORAPIDO
Real Name: Roussel Dupont
Identity/Class: Human, "cyborg";
Frenchman
Occupation: Mercenary;
former French Foreign Legionnaire
Group Membership: None
Affiliations: Architect, Batroc, Chauffard, French military, Kingpin, Peregrine, Snakebite, Tarantula (Alvarez)
Enemies: Microchip, Jack Oonuk, Outlaw (Nigel Higgins), Punisher (Castle), Morgan Sinclair
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Europe;
originally France
First Appearance: Punisher II#65 (early June, 1992)
Powers/Abilities: Rapido is strong and
powerful, but his primary weapon is his right arm, which has been
replaced with a limb in the form of a chain gun, of which he has
mental control.
After being further enhanced by the
Architect's men, he gained a laser sight over his right eye, as
well as other weaponry such a grenade launcher.
Height: 6' 3" Weight: 290 lbs.
History:
(Punisher II#65) - The Kingpin gathered his allies in the plot to
use the European Channel Tunnel (Chunnel) as a means towards
establishing an international crime network in Europe, with Fisk
as its leader. Rapido, the Weaponsmith, met with Chauffard (computer
hacker and wheelman), Snakebite (field leader), and Batroc the
Leaper. Rapido joined this group in a series of assassinations of
criminal lieutenants. One of these missions--the assassination of
Phillipe Delon--brought them into conflict with the Punisher and
Morgan Sinclair in France.
(Punisher II#67) - Rapido and his allies again engaged Sinclair and Castle, and managed to kill another group of criminal lieutenants in Geneva. Castle managed to rescue one of the lieutenants and escape with him, leaving Fisk's agents temporarily incapacitated.
(Punisher II#68) - In Spain, Rapido and his allies once again fought Castle, Sinclair, and the Tarantula. They succeeded in killing another lieutenant, Sinclair's uncle, Paco Cardenas, but Castle and his allies escaped. The Kingpin called Rapido and his allies back to London.
(Punisher II#69) - Castle, Sinclair, and the Tarantula, joined by Outlaw, assaulted the Kingpin's London meeting in which he had planned to slaughter the head crimelords, so that Fisk's own men could replace them. Rapido attacked Outlaw, sending the vigilante fleeing.
(Punisher II#70) - Rapido chased Outlaw, who led him over an area where his chain gun's bullets had weakened the floor, and he fell through, incapacitating himself in the process.
(Punisher War Journal#61) - Rapido was in attendance at a large meeting of criminals in New York, organized by Vito Vaducci, in which they plotted the death of Frank Castle, the Punisher. However, the Punisher learned of this meeting and set his own trap. Lacing the ground floor of the building with explosives, Castle confronted the criminals, armed with a dead man's switch that would detonate the explosives if he released.
(Punisher War Zone#23) - Unable to use lethal
force on Castle at the risk of their own lives, the criminals
were mowed down by Castle. He managed to get the drop on Rapido,
put a gun in his mouth and then forced him to turn his chain gun
on the rest of the crowd. When the chain gun ran out of bullets,
Castle saw Rapido's usefulness as having ended, and he shot the
Frenchman.
Eventually, Castle detonated the explosives,
collapsing the entire building on their heads.
(Punisher Annual#7) - Shielded from most of the bullets by his own armor plating and protected by the collapsing building by a folding stairwell, Rapido was one of the only criminals to survive Castle's assault. As he crawled out of the wreckage, Rapido escaped from a few investigating policemen and fled into the city. He encountered Chauffard and the Architect, both of whom had missed the above meeting due to traffic. The Architect invited Rapido to join him, and Chauffard's presence relaxed the Frenchman sufficiently to agree. Rapido then accepted the Architect's offer to join his revised plot to unite the European criminal network via the Chunnel. The Architect's doctors rebuilt Rapido, better than ever.
At the Architect's meeting of international criminals, Rapido followed the Architect's orders to kill Mr. Cooley, the sole American criminal present, when he denounced the plan. Rapido then followed the Architect's orders to take out those who might oppose the plot. Believing the Punisher to have died in the above explosion, Rapido ambushed Morgan Sinclair in the Chunnel, and he left her to drown when the Chunnel flooded. Rapido attacked Jack Oonuk on a snow-covered mountain in the Pyrenees, Spain. Rapido launched a fragmentation grenade that caused a landslide which buried Oonuk.
Rapido also supervised the transport of the Architect's crime network's contraband imports attached to the bottom of the trains. When one of these transport pods arrived demolished, Rapido watched the security tape, which appeared to show his old ally Snakebite supervising its destruction. As Snakebite had been almost certainly killed in a fight with the Punisher in the previous Chunnel Plot, Rapido decided to be certain about this before volunteering the information to the Architect. Rapido then led an assault on Outlaw, blowing up his van when he fled.
As the opening ceremony of the revised Chunnel approached, Rapido told the Architect about Snakebite, and the two planned a meeting with him. However, when Snakebite arrived, he revealed himself to really be the Punisher, and then revealed himself to be allied with Oonuk, Outlaw, and Sinclair, all of whom had faked their deaths to give Rapido and the Architect a false sense of security. Enraged at the deception, Rapido leapt blindly into the fight. He ended up duking it out with the Punisher on one of the train tracks and, unlike Castle, he failed to get completely off the tracks in time. A passing train smashed him against the wall, breaking both of his legs and his good arm, and leaving him paralyzed. From his hospital bed, Rapido plotted vengeance against the Punisher.
(Civil War: Battle Damage Report#1) - Along with other mercenaries like Peregrine and the French military, Rapido fought American superhumans that attempted to infilitrate France's borders.
Comments: Created By Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, and Dougie Braithwaite.
Rapido's real name was created by our own Kyle Sims, and was revealed in the Marvel Knights Encyclopedia.
CLARIFICATIONS:
No known connection to:
Appearances:
Punisher II#65 (early June, 1992) - Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning (writers), Dougie Braithwaite (pencils), Al Williamson (inks), Don Daley (editor)
Punisher II#67-70 (August-September, 1992) - Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning (writers), Dougie Braithwaite (pencils), Al Williamson (inks), Don Daley (editor)
Punisher War Journal#61 (December, 1993) - Chuck Dixon (writer), Gary Kwapixz (artist), Don Daley (editor)
Punisher War Zone#23 (January, 1994) - Larry Hama (writer), John Buscema (pencils), Val Mayerik, Art Nichols & Jimmy Palmiotti (inks), Don Daley (editor)
Punisher Annual#7 (1994) - Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning (writers), Andrew Currie (pencils), Art Nichols (inks), Don Daley (editor)
Civil War: Battle Damage Report#1 (2007)
Last updated: 05/04/04
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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