Black Eagle
Earl Sanderson
| Fighting |
Good |
| Agility |
Excellent |
| Strength |
Typical |
| Endurance |
Incredible |
| Reason |
Good |
| Intuition |
Good |
| Psyche |
Excellent |
| Health |
76 |
| Karma |
40 |
| Resources |
Typical |
| Popularity |
20 |
Powers
- True Flight: Unearthly
- Telekinetic Force Field: Incredible
Kinetic Bolt: Remarkable
Limitations
- The Force Field is active only while in Flight.
Talents
Martial Arts B, Aerial Combat, Pilot, Military, Law, Football and Basketball, Thrown Objects, Mulit-Lingual (English, Italian and Russian)
Contacts
The 'Four Aces', Dr. Tachyon, The Communist party, Orlena Goldoni
Appearance
Sanderson is about average height, well-built (5'1 1 ", 170 lbs.). He is black with fairly dark skin coloring. When flying or in combat he wears a black leather flier's jacket, white silk scarf, black leather flying helmet with goggles, and blackjackbools. Under the jacket he usually wears tan Air Corps officers' fatigues with the insignia removed. He carries a beret stuffed in a pocket, and dons it after landing. His jacket has the 332nd Fighter Group patch on the shoulder.
History
Sanderson was born to a middle-class black family in Harlem in 1913. His father, Earl Sr., was a rail road porter and his family was fairly well-off by contemporary standards. Earl Sr. was a great believer in education, hard work, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and in the necessity of struggle in order for blacks to achieve equality.
Earl Jr. grew up a brilliant student and great athlete. When he was younger he was an uncompromsing radical. He went to Rutgers on an athletic scholarship in 1930 and joined the Communist Party in 1931. He graduated summa cum laude from Rutgers in 1934 and married Lillian Abbott. Two months later he left for the Soviet Union, where he attended Lenin University for a year.
Sanderson then returned to America and earned a law degree at Columbia. Upon graduation in 1938 he went to work fulltime for the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the Communist Party U.S.A. His increasing distaste for the Party's rigid dogmatism resulted in his falling away from it. He resigned in 1939 in shock over the Nazi-Soviet Pact.
After Pearl Harbor he volunteered for the Air Corps, and, after a certain amount of maneuvering and string-pulling (he was a little old for pilot training, but still in superb physical shape), was assigned to the all-black 332nd Fighter Group, the "Lonely Eagles," arguably the best American fighter group in the European Theater. Earl ended the war with 53 unconfirmed kills (official records were not kept for the black squadrons) making him unofficially the 12th American ace of the war, after Jetboy. While based in Italy he met and fell in love with Orlena Goldoni, 24, a cabaret performer and anti-Fascist underground fighter.
After the war Sanderson returned to the United States, Lillian, and his work as a civil rights attorney. He was stricken by the virus in 1946 and became an ace, consciously using his powers to publicize the cause of civil rights and to mid himself into a symbol of black aspiration. He was soon recruited by Archibald Holmes for the Exotics for Democracy, better known as the Four Aces.
Things fell apart in 1950, when, in a growing climate of fear and repression, the Four Aces were summoned before the House Un-American Activities Comniittee (HUAC). Sanderson could not stand silent before the conunittee, most of whom were bigoted Southern rednecks. He eventually denounced them to their faces and was sentenced to five years in prison for contempt of Congress. Sanderson was told by his associates in the civil rights movement that he had set the cause back 50 years, and was asked to disassociate himself from it. He left the country, flew to Switzerland and renounced his U.S. citizenship. He never saw Lillian again.
Through the Fifties he did not permit his name to be used in association with any cause. He lived off and on with Lena Goldoni, who was now an established actress, until her death in a plane crash in 1971. When the civil rights movement took a more militant turn in the 1960s, Earl's name was often invoked and the Black Panthers even imitated his style of dress. But Sanderson kept to himself. He'd simply been away too long. By the 1970s Earl had settled more or less permanently in Paris, in an apartment inherited from Orlena Goldoni. People solicited his aid for various causes, but he was wary of being used, and if he gave help it was always quietly, without publicity. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1979.
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