DUKE STRATOSPHERE

Real Name: Unrevealed

Identity/Class: Extra-temporal (Earth 2099) human/technology user

Occupation: former employee of Transnational Technologies; current living Cyberspace legend

Group Membership: The Avalon Five (Broken Haiku, Dot 33, Firelight/Gabriel O'Hara, Shiva Blue)

Affiliations: Chaos (his steed), Cydney Marquez, Firelight (Gabriel O'Hara), Wire, Doom 2099, Kid Current, Esmeralda, Mr. Bongo, Lena, Netgliders around the world

Enemies: Fever, The Phalanx

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: Knight Errant of the Glider Court

Base of Operations: Mobile throughout the net and otherwise, Earth 2099

First Appearance: Doom 2099#6 (June 1993)


Powers/Abilities: While possessing no real superhuman powers, Duke Stratosphere is an extremely gifted technician, whose work in the field of Cyberspace far exceeds anyone else of the time. He has implants in his head, which he created, which provide him the ability to enter Cyberspace at his will, and later exist in both Cyberspace and the real world at one time. Duke is also an elite Netglider, and a legend to all hopeful elite haxorz (...) Er... I mean, Netgliders the world around.

In the real world, Duke seems to be in his 30s, though rather fit for his age. In Cyberspace, he looks at least 10 years younger. He also is often seen with his horse, Chaos,  in Cyberspace.

History: (2099 Unlimited#5 (fb) ) - Working as a programmer for Transnational Technologies, Duke often had trouble focusing on his work. Noticing this, the company partnered him up with another programmer, Cydney Marquez. Together, they create a chip that provides a direct interface with the user. With working so close to each other, the two quickly fall in love, but one day, Cydney vanishes. Duke goes to his corporate bosses, who tell him it was a simple case of corporate headhunting, and that they won't be looking for her. Angered, Duke destroys his lab and breaks his contract with the corporation, putting a death sentence on his head.

Finding his way to the Midwest, a place mostly lacking in Corporate influence, Duke continues his work in neurotech research. Eventually, he creates an implant that allows him to walk both in the real world and Cyberspace at the same time. Amongst his early exploits in net gliding, Duke hacked Stark-Fujikawa's computer system, battled another Netglider named Fever, and, in 2097, saved Cyberspace along with the help of Shiva Blue, Dot 33, Broken Haiku and Firelight. The one thing he couldn't crack was the Chromosome Vault, where it was rumoured the DNA sequences of several of the last century's heroes were contained. But eventually, he even cracked that. But on his entrance, he finds the thing he has been searching for the whole time, Cyd. Stealing the DNA sequences from him, Cyd tells her ex-lover that she works for Alchemax now, and leaves him...

(Doom2099#6) - In cyberspace, Duke Stratosphere encounters and recognizes Doom and Wire, who were on the run from Fever. Duke leads them through a shortcut through the Wastelands--the nexus of unfinished and abandoned programs--and directly to Fever! He then acknowledges that he had just settled an old and unpleasant debt with Fever and that they were now square. Doom told the Duke that they would meet again and referred to him as Fever's lackey. Duke gave his apologies to Doom and admitted that he might have deserved his comment, as he trots off on Chaos.

(Doom 2099#8) - In a nameless club (in the real world) that is frequent by the elite netgliders, Duke Stratosphere watches the battle between Doom and Fever in cyberspace.

(Doom 2099#11) - Duke confronts Wire in Cyberspace. He hands him a passkey that he personally designed, and tells him that unless he starts paying attention to both sides of the world, he'll always be running into closed doors.

(2099 Unlimited#3) - Duke meets up with Kid Current, a net construct, and orders him to get to the bottom of some recent fluctuations on the net.

(Spider-Man 2099#22) After they defeat the insane netglider Discord, Gabriel "Firelight" O'Hara and Spider-Man 2099 meet Duke in Cyberspace, where he thanks his old friend for taking care of the situation, and tells Spider-Man that he is in the presence of greatness. Gabriel tells Duke to stop embarrassing him, but Duke tells him he was talking about himself.

(2099 Unlimited#5) - Duke interrupts Mr. Bongo's tale of his past, then walks off into the cyber-sunset with Cydney.

(Doom 2099#22) - While walking down the streets of Chenaya, Wire meets a fellow Netglider named Lena. After some cybergeek flirting, she kisses him, knocking him out. Duke Stratosphere steps out of the shadows and thanks his friend for her help, and tells her he has big plans for Wire.

(Doom 2099#23) - As Wire slowly comes to, Duke apologizes for having to do that to him. He then offers him a chance to look at some interesting software he has found. The two go inside the program, which seems to be a Doom encyclopedia. Duke tells Wire that if this program was used on somebody, anyone could believe he was Doom... Further leading to the confusion over whether Doom was THE Doom.

(Doom 2099#27) - In Cyberspace and atop Chaos, Duke stood by the Whole Earth, keyhole into space headspace for dissident netgliders.

(Doom 2099#44) - Duke can only watch on, as the alien Phalanx assimilate everything in Cyberspace that gets in their way.

Comments: Created by John Francis Moore and Pat Broderick

The backstory from 2099 Unlimited#5 is possibly an exaggeration, as Duke says that Mr. Bongo never quite gets the story right.

A conspiracy theory claims that Duke is one of 3 biomech constructs left on Earth by the Shi'ar to undermine Earth's stability. If I was to guess who the other two are, I'd probably say Fever and Firelight (Gabriel O'Hara), two of Earth-2099's most prominent netgliders.

The character was probably named after The Dukes of Stratosphear, a side project by the British rock band XTC where they paid tribute to various psychedelic bands of the '60s.
--Sean

Profile by: Zerostar

CLARIFICATIONS:

Duke Stratosphere 2099 is not to be confused with...

Chaos, Duke's steed, has no know connection to:

Mr. Bongo has no connections to:


Cydney Marquez
A hardware ace, Cydney was brought in by Transnational Technologies to work alongside Duke Stratosphere. The two made many advances in the field of Neurotechnology. One day, it seems as though she dissapeared, and Transnational's complete apathy of the situation helped drive Duke Stratosphere out of the corporate world to search for her. When he did find her, she was working for Alchemax, and stole DNA sequences that Duke had taken from the Chromosome Vault, before leaving him. Despite that, they seem to still have at least a friendly relationship. @2099 Unlimited#5


Mr. Bongo
The "Sultan of scoop, lord of low down, the guru of gossip", Mr. Bongo acts as Duke Stratosphere's biographer, and all around nosey goof. According to Duke, he never quite tells the story right, however. @2099 Unlimited#5


Appearances:
Doom 2099#6 (June 1993) - John Francis Moore (writer), Pat Broderick (pencils), John Nyberg (inks), Joey Cavalieri (editor)
Doom 2099#8 (August, 1993) - John Francis Moore (writer), Pat Broderick (pencils), John Nyberg (inks), Joey Cavalieri (editor)
Doom 2099#11 (November, 1993) - John Francis Moore (writer), Pat Broderick (pencils), John Nyberg (inks), Joey Cavalieri (editor)
2099 Unlimited#3 (January, 1994) - Ned Sonntag (writer/artist), Joey Cavalieri (editor)
2099 Unlimited#5 (July, 1994) - John Francis Moore (writer), Kyle Baker (artist), Joey Cavalieri (editor)
Spider-Man 2099#22 (August, 1994) - Peter David (writer), Rick Leonardi (pencils), Al Williamson (inks), Joey Cavalieri (editor)
Doom 2099#22-23 (October, 1994) - John Francis Moore (writer), Pat Broderick (pencils), John Nyberg (inks), Joey Cavalieri (editor)
Doom 2099#27 (March, 1995) - Warren Ellis (writer), Pat Broderick & John Nyberg (artists), Joey Cavalieri (editor)
Doom 2099#44 (August, 1996) - John Francis Moore (writer), Jeff Lafferty (pencils), Vince Russell, Joe Rubinstein, Andrew Pepoy & Dan Panosian (inks), Suzanne Gaffney (editor)

Last updated: 04/20/11

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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