Heroes for Hire
PURPOSE: At First a "For profit" organization, it is still unclear as to the purpose of the latest team.
AFFILIATIONS: Avengers, Luke Cage, Ironfist
ENEMIES: Mandarin, Mandarin's Avatars, Shockwave, Grindhouse, Goldbug and Ghost Maker
CURRENT MEMBERS: Black Cat, Colleen Wing, Humbug, Misty Knight, Shang-Chi, Tarantula
FORMER MEMBERS : Ant-Man, Black Knight, Brother Voodoo, Cat, Luke Cage, Deadpool, Jim Hammond, Orka,
Hercules, Iron Fist, Paladin, She-Hulk, Thena, Spider-Woman, White Tiger
UNIVERSE : Earth-616
BASE OF OPERATIONS: Oracle, Inc. corporate headquarters, New York City; formerly Heroes for Hire, Inc. offices, Park Avenue; and Gem Theatre, Times Square
FIRST APPEARENCE : Power Man and Iron Fist #54 (1978)
SIGNIFICANT ISSUES : Misty Knight forms new team (Heroes for Hire #1, 2006)
HISTORY :
Heroes for Hire traces its roots back to the one-man “Hero for Hire” business founded by Luke Cage, which
offered superhuman security and investigation services for a fee. Cage later went into business with the
martial artist Iron Fist as Heroes for Hire, a profitable partnership that lasted for years until circumstances
forced the duo to break up, though they remained good friends. When most of New York's leading super heroes
seemingly died during the Onslaught disaster, Iron Fist enacted a radical two-part plan: he secretly performed
a ritual that would gradually merge the earthly plane with his other-dimensional childhood home K'un-Lun, the
mystical monarchy of which could impose new order on a chaotic Earth; at the same time, he also began to rebuild
Heroes for Hire, feeling that the world needed inspirational heroes more than ever, with or without K'un-Lun.
By this time, Rand's family business, Rand-Meachum, had been bought out by Namor the Sub-Mariner's Oracle, Inc.,
including Rand-Meachum's inactive Heroes for Hire subsidiary. Under the direction of Oracle executive Jim Hammond,
an expanded Heroes for Hire reopened as a partly charitable, partly profit-driven enterprise.
The initial roster included Iron Fist, the Olympian demigod Hercules (who soon quit due to alcoholic excess) and
the White Tiger, an actual tiger who had been evolved into a super-humanoid female form by the High Evolutionary.
She was created to seek and destroy the Evolutionary's evil rogue creation, the Man-Beast, and felt the Heroes
for Hire might be useful allies; however, she had difficulty functioning in human society, especially after she
developed an unrequited love for Iron Fist. Luke Cage refused to rejoin the business at first, but signed on after
the self-styled Master of the World secretly urged him to act as a double agent within the group. While Cage
sympathized with the Master's plans for a better world, he objected to the Master's ruthless methods and ultimately
helped the Heroes for Hire destroy the Master's operation. By this time, the group had taken on several more
recruits, such as team scientist the Black Knight, Ant-Man, Eternal warrior-scholar Thena and corporate counsel
She-Hulk, plus various temporary operatives and civilian staff.
Later, the Heroes for Hire and mutant speedster Quicksilver intervened in a three-way war between the forces of
the High Evolutionary, mutant terrorist leader Exodus, and the Man-Beast; after that conflict, the Black Knight
quit the team to mentor the victorious Evolutionary's Knights of Wundagore. Exodus and the Man-Beast were rendered
harmless, and the White Tiger-no longer able to bear the burden of human emotion-had the Evolutionary de-evolve
her back into an ordinary tiger. Shortly thereafter, Namor sold Oracle to the Stark-Fujikawa corporation, which
fired Cage and Ant-Man because of their prison records and imposed tighter controls on the rest of the group,
all of whom resigned in protest. In the meantime, most of the group's ex-members remain active as super heroes,
and Iron Fist eventually thwarted the spell that would have brought K'un-Lun to Earth, having realized the folly
of his one-time master plan.
When the Superhuman Registration Act was passed, Misty Knight decided to re-establish Heroes for Hire once again
and recruited Colleen Wing, Humbug, Shang-Chi, Tarantula, Black Cat, Paladin and Orka. The first sortie of this
new Heroes for Hire was against the newly reformed Mandarin's Avatars who they managed to beat quite easily.
In few days they also managed to subdue Shockwave, Grindhouse, Goldbug and Ghost Maker along with many others.
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