Roster
Current HQ: Unknown
Turf: Unknown
Benefits/Rewards
·None known at this time. Like other heroic organizations, the Dawn
Patrol may recruit new heroes, providing new members with support and training as
well as mission assignments.
History
"In 1923 a group of former British fighter pilots met together at the ancestral
home of Alistair Sutton to form a sacred trust. Bound together by the horrors they'd all seen together during the Great War
they decided that they must do all they could to prevent such atrocities from ever happening again. They devoted themselves
to the cause of peace and justice in the world, no matter what the personal cost. These were not men with super powers or
special technology but simply brave soldiers willing to do whatever it took, to give whatever they had.
"They spent their family fortunes on experimental technology, explorations
to distant lands and the building of a secret headquarters. They learned the most deadly and esoteric martial arts, became
lethally adept with all manner of weaponry. They fought fascist warlords in Asia and anarchist terrorists in Europe. They chased down madmen bent on destroying
or ruling the world. They clashed again and again with some of the world's first and most deadly super villains: Eight Finger
Tang, The Air King, The Red Dreadnought and countless others. Greatest of all however was Nemesis, the Prussian Prince of
Automatons whose mad genius and devious creations caused the Dawn Patrol and the world no end of trouble.
"Throughout the 20's and 30's the Dawn Patrol fought evil wherever they found
it until they were blindsided by an evil even they couldn't imagine. Sutton and his fellow heroes, for all their bravery,
could not stomach the idea of another great war in Europe. Thus they unintentionally turned a blind
eye to the evil taking seed in Nazi Germany. They, like Prime Minister Chamberlain, wanted to assure Peace in Their Time and
utterly failed to take any action against fascism. When war finally came, of course, they changed their minds and leaped to
their nation's defense." After America was drawn into the war, the Dawn Patrol was bolstered by members of the Freedom Phalanx
and other heroic groups, establishing partnerships that exist to this day.
During World War II, the Dawn Patrol "fought bravely alongside the RAF during
the Battle of Britain and escorted Royal Navy and American convoys across the Atlantic, taking terrible losses in the process.
However, they found their greatest challenge in fighting off the Storm Korps, Germany's elite super soldier cadre. After the
fall of France, The Storm Korps began a prolonged series of raids into the British Isles. Their super powers allowed them
to cause tremendous damage, much more than normal Special Forces operations could ever hope to accomplish.
"The most daring Storm Korps raid came within a hair's breadth of striking
a tremendous blow against British morale. Three Storm Korps super soldiers, led by the nefarious Eisensturm, managed to breach
Buckingham Palace's defenses and kidnap his royal highness the King of England. Alistair Sutton, leader of the Dawn Patrol,
chased the kidnappers down and fought Eisensturm to a standstill in the Scottish Highlands. He bought enough time for the
rest of the Dawn Patrol to arrive and help rescue the captured monarch from the hands of fascist villainy. It was shortly
after this that American victories in Africa drew off much of the Storm Korps' resources and many credit Sutton's victory
over Eisensturm as the turning point of the war for Great Britain and the Dawn Patrol." Members of the Dawn Patrol were also
part of the first wave to enter France during the D-Day invasion. Despite the Dawn Patrol's heroic efforts during the war,
they are still remembered for their initial reluctance to enter the war. All subsequent incarnations of the Dawn Patrol have
struggled to erase the memory of this inaction.
After the war, it's likely that the Dawn Patrol aided the Statesman and the
Freedom Phalanx in battling Nemesis, their old foe who had resurfaced in America. Nemesis seized control of Washington, D.C.,
taking the President and many other high-ranking leaders hostage. He also planted deadly nerve toxin bombs in twenty of the
largest U.S. cities. It required the combined efforts of dozens of heroes, along with the United States Air Force, to finally
neutralize the nerve toxin and defeat the villain. Unfortunately, Nemesis escaped yet again; this failure to capture the villain
would eventually prove devastating to the Dawn Patrol.
Although originally based in Great Britain, it appears that the Dawn Patrol
relocated to (or created a satellite headquarters in) Paragon City sometime in the early 1950s. "In 1952 the city decided
to expand upon the groundbreaking Citizen Crime Fighting Act, expanding it to include officially licensed hero organizations
that could in turn deputize their members. In 1953 the Freedom Phalanx became the first group to take advantage of this new
law, and the Dawn Patrol and the mysterious Midnight Squad quickly followed suit."
The Dawn Patrol's membership has always been in flux, with members falling
to villains or old age, only to be replaced by new recruits. Despite an ever-changing roster, the group continued to remain
active during the Cold War, but lost much of its focus. "Its members muddled through, fighting second string and has-been
villains. Compared to high-profile teams like the Freedom Phalanx and government sponsored hero programs, the Dawn Patrol
became a bit of a joke."
In 1976, the world was brought to the brink of nuclear annihilation when the
Statesman was attacked over Soviet airspace while trying to rescue the crew of a downed American spy plane. Realizing the
danger posed by the rapid nuclear escalation, the Dawn Patrol joined forces with the Freedom Phalanx to stop hostilities.
They organized a group of two-dozen international heroes and coordinated efforts to stop both American and Soviet launches.
The Dawn Patrol's tactics shifted dramatically in the late 1970s, when the
U.S. was trapped in a deep economic recession. In Paragon City, crime rates, poverty, and drug abuse all rose sharply. In
an attempt to stop the flow of drugs into America, the Dawn Patrol and another group known as the Regulators began "a series
of controversial attacks in South America and Central Asia, burning coca and poppy fields to the ground. These assaults, while
popular in the U.S., were not very well received abroad, with over a dozen nations forbidding members of both hero organizations
from ever setting foot or flying over their sovereign territory again."
Despite their literal war on drugs during the 70s, the Dawn Patrol remained
a poorly recognized hero organization. "It took the worst tragedy in the group's storied history to bring it back from the
brink of obscurity. The resurgence of their age-old enemy Nemesis came in the mid 1990's. The arch-villain had kept a low
profile for many years, so low that most thought him utterly defeated. When he did re-emerge, he did so with a bang, massacring
over half the Dawn Patrol's membership in one fell swoop. The sneak attack rocked the Dawn Patrol to its shaky foundation,
but rather than collapse the team rallied and came back fighting. Indeed, The Dawn Patrol, thanks to an infusion of new members,
had Nemesis cornered when the Rikti invasion began. The alien attack forced the team to focus its attention elsewhere, allowing
Nemesis to escape once again."
When the Rikti's teleportation portals first appeared, the members of the Dawn
Patrol were among the heroes to investigate this new threat. During the war with the alien invaders, the Dawn Patrol battled
bravely, despite the loss of many of their number. The Rikti proved cunning and intelligent adversaries, eventually realizing
that the world's superheroes were critical to humanity's defense. They began attacking the heroes directly, destroying buildings
belonging to the Freedom Phalanx, the Midnight Squad, and the Dawn Patrol all in one afternoon. By the end of the Rikti raids,
the Dawn Patrol had been reduced to just a handful of its toughest and most powerful members. Although still unconfirmed,
it's likely that some of these heroes participated in a daring counteroffensive that eventually led to the Rikti's defeat.
The Dawn Patrol has managed to regroup since the Rikti invasion, although the
size and strength of the organization is unknown. The team has recently lost one member, Quint Velasquez, while researching
a mysterious underground cult known as the Lost. The group has also uncovered evidence that Crey Industries is conducting
illegal experiments on heroes who were killed or went missing during the Rikti war.
The Dawn Patrol's current roster has yet to be revealed. "All the founding
members of the Dawn Patrol are now dead with the exception of Geoffrey Cartwright who doesn't seem to have aged a day since
1938. However, scores have stepped up to the plate to take the places of the fallen."
