THE DISCIPLINARIAN

Real Name: Bruce Crossman

Identity/Class: Human (possibly mutant/mutate or unconventional technology user, see comments)

Occupation: Assassin

Affiliations: Kingpin

Enemies: Crimson Daffodil and his gunmen, Dagger (Tandy Bowen), Francis Delgado

Known Relatives: None stated

Aliases: None stated

Base of Operations: Manhattan

First Appearance: Cloak & Dagger III#6 (August, 1989)

Powers/Abilities: Disciplinarian had a slow motion temporal field, like an envelope where time moves slower. He is very sadistic, and often sets up a duel or fast-draw scenario. While his victims appear to be moving in slow motion, he waits until they are about to pull the trigger and then shoots them. It was unclear if this was a natural ability or a technological one (see comments).

History: (Cloak & Dagger III#6-8) - The Disciplinarian was in a closed bar, about to kill Eddie (one of the Kingpin's employees) for skimming money, when his beeper went off. He used the bar phone to call Kingpin while putting his slow motion temporal field on Eddie, (who was reaching for a gun). Kingpin asked him to assassinate Ecstasy. The Disciplinarian finished Eddie off and left the bar to await further instructions. While waiting he spent the evening in the company of a lady. Kingpin told Ecstasy was at the Plaza Hotel. Once there, he called Kingpin from the lobby to let him know. Kingpin gave him the go ahead, and he got Ecstasy's room number from one of the Hotel staff. As the Disciplinarian walked over to the stairs, the staff member tried to phone Ecstasy and warn her. The Disciplinarian used his temporal field on the man. By the time he reached Ecstasy's room, she had teleported to the Holy Ghost Church to find Dagger. One of the Kingpins employees had warned her of the Disciplinarians coming, and he found the traitor dead on the floor where Ecstasy had left him. He found a note with Dagger's address on it and decided to follow Ecstasy there.

Once again he arrived too late to catch Ecstasy, but he found Francis Delgado. Francis had just shown Ecstasy a note stating where Dagger and her friend Mike were headed and Ecstasy had teleported after them, dropping the note. As the Disciplinarian stooped to read the note, Francis tried to kill him with a candle stick holder, but the assassin shot him and left to find Ecstasy. He found her at the bank on Bower Street, fighting with Dagger. Unsure which lady was which, he decided to kill them both. Before he could do that, however, he was attacked by one of the Crimson Daffodil's men, whom he shot. The Crimson Daffodil used his mutant persuasion on the assassin and tried to make him lower his gun, but was accidentally shot in the back with one of Dagger's light burst's. The Disciplinarian came to his senses and challenged Dagger to a shoot out. However, even with the temporal field on her, Dagger's light burst's were still fast enough to hit him before he could pull the trigger of his gun. The Disciplinarian was knocked unconscious.

Comments: Created by Terry Austin and Mike Vosburg

Apparently the Disciplinarian had never killed a woman before. He actually said "I never done a chick before" but that easily could be misconstrued (though, to paraphrase the old expression, I get the impression he was more of a fighter than a lover!).

Is the Disciplinarian a mutant, mutate or technological user? First off there's no way I can tell if he's a mutant or mutate, but I can still try to determine if the power is natural or technological. He seems to activate the temporal field with a snap of his fingers (though this may be for show). It could be that there is some kind of technological trigger hidden in the fingerless gloves he wears, and the field projector is part of his costume. However he also used the field on a lady whilst spending the night with her, and on that occasion he was wearing no clothes (I won't go into too much detail as to what they got up to, but the lady was under the impression the night had lasted forever... probably more like 30 seconds!). Therefore, if the power was technological the technology must be part of him, making him a cyborg. He didn't appear clever enough to have designed such technology himself. While I think the power was a natural one, and probably controlled mentally, I'll allow you to decide for yourselves! Bear in mind that this was during the time when Cloak and Dagger became The Mutant Misadventures Of Cloak and Dagger (I'd previously considered them Mutates as their powers were drug-induced, but suddenly it appeared they had latent mutant abilities that were twisted by the drugs), and mutants were "in" (at Marvel anyway, not in the story's!). Mutants started crawling out of the wood work... come to think of it they still are! Even if Disciplinarian had got mutate powers from, for example, being bitten by a radioactive timelord, he'd have eventually been retconed into a mutant anyway!

Presumably he was taken by the police and thrown in jail, possibly taken to the Vault or Project: PEGASUS. Whether or not the Kingpin considered him valuable enough to get him out (easy enough for the fat man!) remains to be seen, but it's doubtful as there are plenty of better assassins about. Why have this chump when you could hire Bullseye? Still it would be funny to see him return, perhaps hired by an enemy of the Kingpins. I can see it now: "Disciplinarian VS Bullseye: One Will Die!". Hmm. Maybe not!

His real name was revealed in Dagger's entry in OHotMU A-Z Hardcover#3.

Profile by Changeling

CLARIFICATIONS:

The Disciplinarian has no known connection to:

Appearances:
Cloak & Dagger III#6-8 (August, October-November, 1989) - Terry Austin (writer), Mike Vosburg & Barb Rausch (#6-7) (pencils), Mike Vosburg & Don Cameron (#8) (pencils), Carl Potts (editor)

First Posted: 06/28/2003
Last updated: 06/18/2003

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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