Powers/Abilities: Jake Travest is CIA-trained and highly proficient in both armed and unarmed combat. He is experienced with various firearms and has no problem with the use of lethal force.

    He is experienced with HALO *High-Altitude Low Opening" parachute jump.

    He can appreciate the direction of travel from within a helicopter even in unfamiliar areas.

    He is a capable equestrian.

    He fluently speaks English, Russian and Spanish, at least, and likely Persian and Arabic, and perhaps more.

     Travest apparently has some degree of dissociative identity disorder, shifting between his baseline persona and that of "Slash" Hannigan, who is more violent and merciless. He seems to enjoy inflicting pain, and he has little concern for harm to civilians, police or military who are blocking his progress or just within range of an attack on a target.

    He has also been described as being schizophrenic. His own mental issues may have provided him some resistance to mind control (while further protected by the cybernetic link to and while within the MAX armor)

    He also at least claimed to have trouble with his memories (perhaps due to shifting personae), and he claimed that this was due to Roth's manipulation.

    He was seen to shift from playing with children to turning a gun on a would-be thief and making him beg for his life. He has been known to toss away his own weapon to provoke a captive to attack, after which he may brutally beat and shatter the limb(s) of that person. He was sufficiently aware of his behavioral shifts to warn others to stay away from him before he might find himself killing them.

    Four months of solitary confinement further frayed his sanity.

   Following Wayne Tucker's telepathic orders to confess his activities, he was compelled to tell everyone he met his history and activities in full detail.

    He is willing to torture captives for information.

    For a limited time period, he wore MAX armor, the handling of which he rapidly mastered. He briefly wore the model II, and he fully operated the model III armor for a somewhat longer time period. The latter granted him flight, protection from injury, greatly superhuman strength, scanning technology, automatic firearms, lasers, stinger missiles, etc. He referred to the armor as having "a bathroom" in it, so it presumably had some system to collect and store urinary +/- gastrointestinal waste products.

    Even within the armor, he wore wrist-mounted knives to allow him to defend himself even if the armor were incapacitated.

History:
(Psi-Force#21 (fb) - BTS) <August 18, 1982> - Working for the CIA, Travest was sent to Iran.

(Psi-Force#21 (fb) - BTS) <August 18, 1982> - Travest terminated E. Bahriz-Juderin and at least one other person.

(Psi-Force#21 (fb) - BTS) <January 13, 1985> - Travest was sent to Libya.

(Psi-Force#21 (fb) - BTS) <February 4, 1985> - Travest terminated G. Haddiz, J. Kuffhar and K. Humann

(Spitfire and the Troubleshooters#7 (fb) - BTS) - US government agents Edmund Roth and Jake Travest sought to recruit Jenny Swensen - aka Spitfire, wearer of the MAX (Man-Amplified Experiment) armor and daughter of its creator, Karl -- into government service. They devised a plan to test her loyalty and qualification to serve as a government agent. 

(Codename: Spitfire#10) <Entire issue taking place over February 6-26, 1987> - With the lasso off of her saddle, Jenny led Travest to form a trip rope that took down the MAX armor-wearer who subsequently inadvertently blew up his armor and killed himself with an uncontrolled blast from his arm-laser.

    Back in the Afghan base, Travest shifted between playing with children to turning a gun on a would-be thief and making him beg for his life.

(Codename: Spitfire#10 (fb) ) - In his Slash persona, Travest waited up in a tree, as the Russian Max armor-wearer Uri passed underneath, after which he dropped down atop the armor, pointed his gun at its neck and -- speaking in Russian -- told the Russian of the vulnerable spot in its neck (presumably its infra-red sensor) and convinced him to exit his armor to avoid being killed. Toying with Uri, Travest tossed away his gun, leading Uri to charge him with a knife, after which Travest broke his arm in three pieces and left him behind.

(Codename: Spitfire#10) - Travest's returning to the base in the MAX armor led Jenny to shoot him in the infra-red sensor in the armor's neck, incapacitating the armor, only after which did she appreciate who was within the armor. Back in his other persona,Travest had no memory of how he had obtained the armor, but he apparently remembered it all the next morning. He told the story to a dog sitting by his side, advising him to run away before Travest found himself wringing the dog's neck.

    Later, alongside the dog, Travest watched as Jenny cannibalized the MAX armor, forming a sonic disruptor, and when she accused him of screwing things up around there, he reminded her that he had recovered the armor for her. She reminded him of how he had badly injured the Russian and left him to die, after which Danjit returned with Uri.

    Jenny ordered that Travest be kept away from Uri, but after what was considered the maximum safe dosing of sodium pentothal ("truth serum"), he still refused to tell them where the Russians with the other armors were based. Taking out a guard that night, Travest put a gun to Uri's head and forced him to reveal that their base was concealed behind the north face of Rymer Canyon. Having suspected Travest would do something like this and so having kept the hut under observation, Jenny delivered a chop to the side of Travest's face that knocked him out before he might have shot Uri.

    The next morning, Travest awakened, with no memory of how or why he had been knocked out, and the MAX armor-wearing Jenny -- perhaps having revealed her full plan to him -- again knocked him out and then carried him to the Russian base.

    Travest's apparently unconscious form and his obvious facial trauma convinced the Russians that he had been taken down by the armor-wielding Uri (despite Uri and the armor having been missing in action for 48 hours), and Uri's lack of communication was dismissed as due to his transmitter having been damaged. As a result, the Russians opened their access hatch, at which point Travest came to life and shot the MAX armor in the face, and the armor dropped to the ground.

    Believing Travest must have used anti-MAX technology, the Russians were desperate to recover such technology, and they sent out a pair of MAX armor-wearing agents, after which Uri's armor emitted a thick cloud of smoke. As the smoke cleared, the Russian agents brought Yuri's armor into their base and sealed it, but when they opened the armor, they found it to uninhabited, although a bomb placed within by the Afghani warriors -- unbeknownst to Swensen, at least -- exploded, destroying the base and apparently killing all.of the Russians within the base.

    Jenny was devastated, as her sonic disruptor weapon was intended only to incapacitate the other MAX armors, but Danjit admitted that his men had planted the bomb. Travest further advised Jenny that this was a combat zone and that it was "kill or be killed."

    Roth's return flight brought Travest and Jenny back to the USA for a meeting with Roth, during which time she accepted the truth of what Travest had told her, and she appreciated what the MAX technology was doing in the wrong hands. She further surmised that Travest had a multiple personality disorder (later defined as a dissociative identity disorder).

(Psi-Force#20/2) - At some point after Jenny Swensen abandoned the Spitfire/MAX armor shortly after December 24, 1987, the CIA and US Army took eight days to locate the armor, during which Travest listened to Col. McIntyre Browning repeatedly reference Swensen's insubordination. Travest considered that Jenny's only crime was that she cared too much, and for that she had lost everything.

(Psi-Force#20/2) <January 20, 1988> - At 4:30 AM, along Roth and Anne Pollicino, Travest was present on an army transport, led by Col. MacIntyre Browning, to around what was once Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, where the Spitfire/MAX armor stood inert after becoming inoperative and being abandoned by Jenny Swensen (circa DP7#20). He considered that a spook (CIA agent) involved in an Army operation meant that either the spook was really good at his job or the poop had really hit the fan. In this case, he felt that it meant both.

    Travest remained silent as Anne examined and opened up the armor, recalling Jenny's history with the armor. The armor was subsequently lifted via helicopter to a military base, and Travest apparently continued to remain largely silent for the first four days as Anne worked on the armor, and Roth and Browning discussed paranormals and who might be chosen to operate the armor.

    <January 31> - By the 11^th day, Travest was ready to climb the walls when Anne announced that the MAX suit was, from an operational state, better than ever, just lacking a final polish. Instructed by Roth, "Let's do it," Jake grinned and replied, "Freakin' A," before climbing into the armor. Rushing it, Browning protested, asking Roth who he justified placing a diagnosed schizophrenic with psychopathic tendencies in this powerful armor. Roth asserted that this was an official directive sanctioned by executive order, and Browning backed down.

    Sealing and activating the armor, Travest considered that he was now the country's best weapon and, unlike Jenny, he would not fail, because he did not care at all.

(Psi-Force#21 (fb) - BTS) - Travest was apparently instructed to locate and bring in Psi-Force's Tyrone Jessup and Wayne Tucker, who were lying low in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. He received all of the information that Medusa Web agents had accumulated via surveillance of the Psi-Force youths since July.

(Psi-Force#21) <February 29, 0930> - Wearing the Spitfire armor and using the armor's voice print scan function to identify Tucker, Travest appeared outside of the window of the room shared by Jessup, Tucker, and Lindsey Falmon, demanding that Jessup and Tucker surrender immediately; Jessup was out surveying the American Midwest. Identifying Tucker, gave him ten seconds to surrender, but then grew impatient with the countdown halfway through and fired a stinger ground-to-air missile at their room. Having fled down the stairs, Tucker and Lindsey were knocked down the remaining flight by the explosion, and they escaped.

    As Wayne and Lindsey sought to buy Wayne new clothes, Travest located them and smashed in through the store's front window. Seeking to delay Travest, Wayne telepathically commanded the store's staff and other customers to pile on what he thought was a robot, but Travest brutally smashed them and away with one arm and fired his automatic weapon from his other arm, shooting them. Travest subsequently grabbed Tucker, swatted away Lindsey when she tried to help and then flew away.

(Psi-Force#21 - BTS) - Medusa Web agents Backfire, Imprint and Thunderhead met up with Lindsey and shared their intelligence on the MAX/Spitfire armor and its wearer, including his multiple CIA-associated assassinations. Via a shell fired by Travest, Lindsey identified their location as in a park.

    As Travest used his laser to start burning off Tucker's hair, Tucker telepathically projected for Lindsey with all of his might. She soon arrived with the Medusa Web agents, and Thunderhead blasted Travest's armor, knocking Tucker free. The others fled as Travest fired on them, but Backfire warned that whatever he tried against him would be turned back against him, causing him to pause. Lindsey mocked Travest as a pervert for wearing Jenny Swensen's clothes, and then asked him about War Tiger, enraging him. He fired back, but Thunderhead disabled his guns, after which Wayne immobilized him. Having also sensed Wayne's summons, Tyrone Jessup then arrived, and he caused the Spitfire armor to blow apart.

    Tucker tried to question Travest, but when Travest slashed at his chest with a wrist-mounted knife, Tucker punched him back and then took telepathic control over him, forcing him to give him his wrist-blade weapon, strip off his outer clothes and tell him the fates of his friends, Thomas Boyd, Kathy Ling and Stasi Inyushin. Tucker then commanded him to walk until he found a policeman, surrender himself and tell them everything that he did but not to mention the names of those he had fought.

(Psi-Force#25 (fb) - BTS / Justice I#28/2 (fb) - BTS) - Travest was imprisoned at Fort St. James Correctional Institute in British Columbia, Canada, where he detailed his Spitfire-related activities to everyone he encountered.

(Psi-Force#25) - Within his prison cell, Travest laughed as Rodstvow destroyed Psi-Hawk; sensing this, Psi-Hawk suggested Travest keep laughing, as the last laugh was on him.

(Justice I#28/2 (fb) - BTS) - Travest was kept in solitary confinement for four months.

(Justice I#28/2 (fb) - BTS) - Seeking to obtain the schematics of the MAX armor, the Medusa Web (presumably Babel) sent Dustoff, Potiphar, Skybreaker and Troublemaker to capture Travest.

(Justice I#28/2) - When Travest was taken out of Fort St. James for a transfer (presumably to a U.S, location) Dustoff, Potiphar, Skybreaker and Troublemaker subdued the guards and broke Travest out. Still following Tucker's commands, he related his history as Spitfire to them. When Travest asked if it was Roth or Browning who had sent them to rescue him, Troublemaker told him it was both of them, although it was neither.

Comments: Created by Cary Bates, Alan Kupperberg and Tony DeZuniga.

    See the New Universe primer.

    Spitfire, with its technology far in advance of what existed at that time in the world, didn't fit the plan/mold for the New Universe being "the world right outside your door" prior to the White Event. 40-years-later, and that technology still doesn't exist in the real world.

    The events connecting Spitfire and the Troubleshooters#9 to Codename: Spitfire#10 were a little hard to follow. Same writer, but different penciler. As I review the former, it consistently seems that Danjit was captured by one MAX armor-wearer, while another MAX armor-wearer confronted Travest and Swensen. The latter armor-wearer was apparently slain during the conflict with Travest and Swensen in Codename: Spitfire#10, and then those two were back at the Afghani base, and Danjit was back there with no explanation of how he got away from the guy who captured him.
    Maybe it was actually the same armor-wearer, and he stashed Danjit somewhere before going after the others...and then they recovered Danjit after the armor-wearer perished?

    With regards to Jenny knocking him out twice in Spitfire#10: Not too many people in comics have to worry about concussions or suffer Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), but being struck in the head hard enough to knock one unconscious two days in a row is potentially lethal. Not much a problem in most fictional stories, but it is a concern in the real world...

    Travest's dissociative identity disorder and "Slash" Hannigan persona seemed to vanish after Cary Bates left the series with Codename: Spitfire#10.
    ...but Fabian Nicieza, who wrote Codename Spitfire#11, remembered it, and he brought it back in Travest's appearances in Psi-Force and Justice.

    I don't believe that Travest was in Codename: Spitfire#13, the final issue of the series