Cole Cash (Wildstorm Universe)

{{DC Database:Character Template
 * Image                  = Grifter Vol 3 1 Textless.jpg
 * RealName               = Cole Cash
 * CurrentAlias           = Grifter
 * Aliases                = Deadeye, Christopher Argent
 * Identity               = Secret
 * Affiliation            = Formerly The Authority, WildC.A.T.s, Team-7, International Operations
 * Relatives              = Max Cash (brother), unnamed mother (deceased), unnamed father (deceased)
 * Universe               = Earth-50; New Earth
 * BaseOfOperations       = Mobile; formerly Halo Building, New York City


 * Gender                 = Male
 * Height                 = 6'3"
 * Weight                 = 195 lbs
 * Eyes                   = Blue
 * Hair                   = Blond
 * UnusualFeatures        =


 * Citizenship            = American
 * MaritalStatus          = Single
 * Occupation             = Adventurer, Mercenary, Former VP of Halo Corporation, Operative for International Operations
 * Education              =


 * Origin                 = Cole Cash was a con-artist after his family passed away, after his life was exposed by his brother and he was abducted by monsters he decided to take control of his life in a different direction and become Grifter.
 * PlaceOfBirth           = Los Angles, California
 * Creators               = Jim Lee; Brandon Choi
 * First                  = WildC.A.T.s #1


 * Quotation              = But I dare you to find me... I dare you.
 * Speaker                = Grifter
 * QuoteSource            = Grifter Vol 3 1


 * HistoryText            =

Origin
There are various accounts of Cole's early youth: his father died while he was still young and Cole and his brother Max were raised by their mother and stepfather, with his mother dying when Cole was already an adult. However, his mother died while he was still young and he and his brother were raised by their father. It is certain though, that Cole left his family while still a teenager and turned to crime to survive. Despite being a criminal, Cole had his own code of honor and stopped one of his partners in crime from shooting at the police. Cole was arrested and offered a second chance. He was enlisted by International Operations and turned out to be a gifted marksman and an excellent soldier.

Team 7
Cole Cash's natural talent for combat landed him in black ops, taking the dirtiest jobs as part of a squad known as Team 7 (which also included John "Topkick" Lynch, Marc "Backlash" Slayton, Jackson "Arclight" Dane, Philip "Bulleteer" Chang, Stephen "Wraparound" Callahan, Alex "Slaphammer" Fairchild and Michael "Deathblow" Cray). Cash's codename during these operations was Deadeye. The group was deliberately exposed to an experimental chemical called the Gen Factor, which activated a variety of psi powers in them (in Deathblow's case, this did not happen until twenty years later), but which also detrimentally affected their sense of morality and mental health. After the experiment the survivors were classified as Gen 12. Some of their teammates went mad or committed suicide. Cole suspects that in fact their own superiors, International Operations (I.O.), were behind the experiment, while their superiors claimed that it was an unknown chemical weapon. One of the many missions Team 7 performed was destroying the dictatorship of a small African country. Andrew Johnson, one of the members, goes mad and glories in his ability to make people commit suicide. Disgusted, Cole kills Johnson. Cole grew more and more disgruntled with I.O.'s manipulations and secrecy and rebelled against team-leader John Lynch. Cash took charge and united the team's mental powers against a nuclear weapon that I.O. team-leader Miles Craven fired at Team 7 as a test. Team 7 went into hiding, but was eventually forced to return to I.O.

Coda
When the powers of many of Team 7's members started to wane, Craven became interested in their children, the Gen 13, who should have inherited their fathers' powers. Most of the team went into hiding again, while others stayed with I.O. The team finally fell apart and Cole came to work as an assassin for I.O., but he soon became disenchanted with them too. He went freelance, and it was during this period of his life he encountered the ancient Kherubim warrior Zealot. They fell in love, and she took the unprecedented measure of teaching him, a male, the ways of the Coda, the warrior order she had once belonged to. Her Coda-teachings stabilized Cole's sanity and locked away what remained of his psionic powers.

WildC.A.T.s
Some time later Cole and Zealot broke up; for Zealot it was just another relationship, but Cole had become devoted to her, being eternally grateful to her for restoring his sanity. However they remained on good terms, and both were recruited to become part of Lord Emp's Daemonite hunting team, the WildC.A.T.s. Grifter would later quit the team when they had to ally with Hightower, a Daemonite who had killed Grifter's friend Lonely. He rejoined when the team came back from Khera, even being the team's leader for some time. During this time Max Cash, his younger brother, was killed, came back as a zombie and was killed again by Grifter himself. He left the team again after Zealot's apparent death. At this point most of his teammates left as well and the WildC.A.T.s were disbanded.

Wildcats
Months later, Cole joined the Wildcats, a small group that included Lord Emp, Spartan and the French weapons dealer known as Noir. After Emp's ascension, Grifter sank into a depression; he began drinking and having one-night stands with women who reminded him of Zealot. Finally Zealot herself returned, but at the time Grifter was too drunk to recognize her. After a night of sex, Zealot left him before Grifter realized who she was. He caught up with her again while she was fighting the Coda. Zealot told him that the Coda had betrayed her teachings and she had sworn to wipe them all out. She added that she would spare Grifter, despite being Coda-trained, because of their history. After this meeting, Grifter straightened out his life and joined Jack Marlowe's (Spartan) Halo Corporation.

During this time Cole was mind-controlled by the villain Tao into shooting his former teammate and current I.O. director, John Lynch, leaving him in a coma. Tao then erased Cole's memories of these events.

Halo Corporation
During a mission for Jack Marlowe, Cole's legs were shattered by Agent Orange. Therefore he could no longer operate as Marlowe's field agent. He trained accountant Edwin Dolby (Grifter II) to take his place. Dolby turned out to be unsuitable for the violent life that Grifter planned for him and resigned from Halo. After Marlowe apologized to him, he rejoined, but strictly as an accountant. Grifter remodeled the robotic body of former teammate Ladytron as a remote-controlled body for himself.

Several months later, Grifter's legs were healed, a side-effect of the dormant Gen-factor according to I.O. scientists. John Lynch, who had woken from his coma, restored Cole's memory. Cole was sent to take down Tao and working together with double-agent Holden Carver, Tao's organization was completely dismantled and Tao was imprisoned.

Since then he has joined a make-shift team of former Wildcats to take down the assassin Nemesis.

Worldstorm
When Jack Marlowe died Cole has taken control of Halo Corporation and all its assets. Being depress of Spartan's death, Cole has been in South America fighting Daemonites for a month.

He later arrived back in New York just in time to witness Captain Atom's arrival and subsequent battle with Majestic. Cash recognized an energy signature in Captain Atom that he'd previously only seen in his deceased teammates Void and Spartan. After consulting with Jeremy Stone, Cole was acknowledged that the Void's energy splinted into both of Captain Atom and Nikola Hanssen.

Cole later regrouped the former Wildcats to capture Captain Atom while he face a fearful Nikola. Cole tried to convince Nikola to accept who she is as a metahuman as she, like any other normal people, was deeply afraid of metahumans. When Captain Atom defeated the Wildcats in Washington, D.C., both Cole and Nikola arrive at the scene in which Cole convinced Nikola to use the Void's power of teleportation. From there Cole (as Grifter) was about to combat Atom but witness him being teleported away by the Authority via a shift-door.

While regrouped with the Wildcats, they were confronted by Mister Majestic who then gravelly informed them that killing Captain Atom would caused the destruction of their universe leaving Cole all the more frustrated of the situation and focus more on Nikola's power of the Void. Cole eventually helped Captain Atom in fending off the Authority from killing the misplaced hero, who they believe that killing Atom would save their universe, and was subsequently killed by Apollo and Midnighter: Midnighter buried two throwing stars in Cash's spine, then Apollo incinerated his head.

After Nikola harnessed her powers and remade the universe, Cole and along of many past deceased people such as Deathblow came back, but with no memories of the events with Nikola, Captain Atom, and the reboot of the universe.

Post-Worldstorm
In the wake of the reboot, Cole is shown to be a man who has attempted to change himself, but keeps getting sucked back in to the hero lifestyle. He appears to be an employee of Hadrian as a core member of the new WildCats team that he is assembling.

Cole Cash briefly worked as an assassin for the US government, targeting Islamist terror networks. His latest assignment went awry when his target turned out to be an alien shape-shifter who was being hunted by others of the same race. Zee, as he/she calls itself, has now drawn Grifter and Midnighter into an interstellar conflict involving weaponized giant worms.

World's End
Grifter returned to the Wildcats after Armageddon, helping survivors in Los Angeles. He was later summoned by John Lynch and regrouped with Team-7 where he and his teammates learned of Tao's nihilistic threat. After the Halo Building in Los Angeles was destroyed, Grifter had himself and the Wildcats teamed up with Team-7 in stopping Tao. Ultimately their battle ended with Grifter shooting Tao in the head at pointblank, thus relinquishing his powers from Void, Max Faraday, and Providence.

Grifter was among the many heroes that were notified of the Authority's Carrier's leaving, in which Grifter was among the few heroes to leave Earth when he was ordering the panic refugees who were boarding the shift-ship. Grifter and along with his old comrade Deathblow officially joined the "new" Authority and together helped in establishing order among the Carrier's influx of refugees. During the journey Cole entered into a sexual relationship with Stormwatch member, Flint.

Cole's journey with the Authority led them to discovering a genocidal alien race known as the Karibna and helped in destroying them, and thereafter returning to Earth.

DCnU
Grifter was incorporated into the DC Universe following Eobard Thawne's manipulation of history. In this timeline, Grifter was the leader of Team-7 that was assembled to combat Muslim extremists in the Middle East, until they were killed. Grifter was saved by Penny Black (Britannia) and escapes from the Middle East. While Grifter was recovering, the United Kingdom was invaded by the Amazons. Grifter pulled together a resistance cell to fight against the Amazons, and were responsible for rescuing Lois Lane from a camp just before she is converted into an Amazon.

Grifter led the Resistance in finding Penny's armor prototype at Westminster, as it could turn the war around. After recovering the armor, Grifter and Britannia lead the Resistance in an all-out battle against the Amazons in the midst of the Atlantean/Amazon war. Unfortunately, Grifter is killed by the Enchantress.

In the new timeline, Cole Cash was a former U.S. Army Special-Ops soldier who deserted and became a con-artist. During one of his latest cons, Cole Cash is assaulted and abducted by Daemonites, aliens who can "possess" human bodies. Cash is held for 17 days, while a Daemonite attempts to take possession of his body. For unknown reasons Cole wakens prematurely, aborting the transfer and leaving him with the ability to overhear the telepathic communication of Daemonites. He subsequently hijacks a plane and kills several Daemonites disguised as humans resulting in him being wanted for crimes and terrorism, and is hunted by his own brother Max, who is sent by the military to apprehend him. Furthermore, the Daemonites also wish to retrieve Cash in order to maintain their secrecy. On the run from his many pursuers, Cash dons a costume from a costume shop in order to conceal his identity.

After being experimented on by horrible blue monsters, Cole Cash began to experience new abilities he's never had before. Selecting him as a host for a powerful psychic being, he was exposed to immense psychic energies which left lasting effects such as:
 * Powers                 =


 * Telepathy: showing he can pick up on other peoples thoughts and read them with his mind. While still inexperienced in their use he's shown he can pick up well enough on the brainwaves of a hosting Daemonite, as well as possibly seeing their true form even while hiding in human skin.
 * Telekinesis: shown recently during a surprise assault by Daemonite elite troops. His proficiency in it's use is questionable, but he has shown skilled enough to levitate and operate multiple firearms at once as well as move/smash and repel an entire Daemonite Shock troop platoon off a cliff.
 * Tactile Superstrength: Shown strong enough to knock over a red Daemonite Juggernaut with a simple backhand, when initially so much as punching one would hurt his fist.
 * Superhuman Reflexes: as of yet unknown reasons The Grifter seems to have enhanced reactions well beyond his peak conditioning. Demonstrating this once by griping an arrow from Green Arrow out of thin air before it could reach him.
 * Abilities              =
 * Peak Human Conditioning


 * Indomitable Will


 * Master Tactician


 * Master Marksman


 * Master Combatant
 * Strength               =
 * Weaknesses             =
 * Equipment              =
 * Transportation         =
 * Weapons                =
 * Various Guns

}}
 * Notes                  =
 * Grifter's real name, Cole Cash, bears resemblance to the phrase "Cold Hard Cash". Cash (or money) is associated with a 'grifter'-defined as a swindler, dishonest gambler, or the like.
 * Trivia                 =
 * In the events following Number of the Beast, Grifter has apparently entered into a sexual relationship with Zealot.
 * Grifter's original mask is not only used to conceal his identity but also has the ability to filter out any noxious gases he may come in contact with (as seen in Grifter #1 Vol. 1).
 * Grifter's psychic abilities were originally caused by a Gen-Factor. They included Psionics; such as Telekinesis, Telepathy, Enhanced Healing, Longevity, Life Sense and described as immensely powerful which caused a deadly side effect called the Rush. Which included adverse physical and mental trauma on his body.
 * Grifter's physical abilities were originally caused by his intense training with various groups such as Team 7, Wildcats and Coda. They included Physical Conditioning, Tactical Analysis, Marksmanship, and Combat Training.
 * Links                  =
 * wildstormresource.wetpaint.com