Lancelot Strong – The Shield (Icons Writeup)

THE SHIELD
AKA LANCELOT STRONG AKA ROGER FLEMING

Prowess 5
Coordination 6
Strength 7
Intellect 5
Awareness 4
Willpower 5

Stamina 12

Powers
Lancelot harnesses mental energy into various feats of physical prowess, such as:

• Damage Resistance 7 (Limit: Ineffective against gas attacks; Extra: Increases to 8 against cold and heat attacks)
• Aquatic 4 (Coordination and Awareness are boosted +1 while in water)
• Lightning – Blast 8
• Leaping 2
• Enhanced Vision 5 (vision-based Awareness tests are level 5)

Specialties
*Athletics (Expert +2 bonus), Military (+1 bonus), Underwater Combat (+1 bonus), Wrestling (+1 bonus)

Qualities
*Vocally Patriotic
*Considers himself the ‘real’ Shield
*Routinely risks his life for others

Background

Lancelot Strong was born Roger Fleming, the son of Cooper City scientist Malcolm Fleming. Fleming’s career was devoted to tapping the latent powers of the human brain, to make men “more than mere men.”

Testing his theories on his own son, Malcolm kept the boy in a germ-free environment within a huge bubble. He also fed him micro-electrical stimuli through a specially designed helmet. When fellow scientists threatened to bring Malcolm up on charges of mistreating his child, the scientist drove off with his son. They were pursued by Communist agents who wanted Fleming’s secrets ; trying to elude them, Fleming drove off a cliff.

The child survived and was found by Fairfield County farmers Abel and Martha Strong. They raised him as their own. Years later, when he returned to the overgrown wreckage of his father’s van, Lancelot found a notebook which explained powers he never realized he had.

Lancelot also found a costume which his father intended him to wear when, according to the notebook, he would “protect all mankind from the forces that would cause it harm.”

Drafted into the army, Lancelot became a career soldier. Assigned to the tank division at Fort Patton, he was later transferred to Fort Sherman in the Midwest, where he worked his way up to Captain. Strong was a member of the Mighty Crusaders along with the original Shield (Joe Higgins) and Shield III.

A note about stats: while doing research for this character I found various sites that varied wildly in their descriptions of his powers and their respective levels. Ultimately I based this writeup on the 1980s version from the Red Circle line of books. He’s not a straight-up copy of the Joe Higgins version of the Shield… he has different abilities and seemed a little more hot-headed than his predecessor.