GUNSHIP GUNSHIP
Real Name: Carson Rowntree
Identity/Class: Human, Technology user
Occupation: Thrill seeker, former Navyman
Affiliations: Rush Club (Locomotive Breath, Sanction)
Enemies: War Machine, Quarry
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Rush Club Headquarters, unknown location, possibly Baltimore
First Appearance: War Machine I#12 (March, 1995)
Powers/Abilities: Gunship’s power armor, built by Locomotive Breath, gave him an unknown degree of superhuman strength, flight at high speeds, and was armed with claws, wrist-blasters and high-explosives firing shoulder cannons.
History:
Carson Rowntree was an ex Navy man and an old rival of Jim Rhodes
from his school and military days. Somehow, Rowntree later became
rich and joined the Rush Club, seeking thrills by hunting
power-armored opponents to the death, living for the rush of
life-or-death combat. Rowntree used his military connections to
visit veterans’ shelters, recruiting opponents for the Rush
Club. Rhodes describes him as "A smooth operator. A weasel.
Always causin’ trouble for someone."
(War Machine I#12)- The Rush Club met to determine their next opponent. Gunship was impressed with the Quarry armor Locomotive Breath had created, and showed the others the opponent he had chosen, Owen Segar, an ex-Navy plot and SEAL he knew, who he had met with two weeks earlier and had insisted they fight on his home ground, Philadelphia.
Gunship allowed Segar to test the Quarry armor in an abandoned industrial area, before their battle began. Segar quickly attempted to flee with the armor, believing that the Rush Club would not compromise their secrecy by following him into the city. Gunship pursued, however, despite Locomotive Breath’s order to abort the ‘game’, causing destruction in the heart of the city.
War Machine happened to be in town, and intervened, attempting to bring an end to the fight, but Gunship was overjoyed to have a chance to fight a ‘celebrity’, getting off on the action, until War Machine caught up to him and threw him from the sky into the ground. Locomotive Breath and Sanction arrived to help him, and the three of them struck War Machine down from behind while he dealt with Quarry.
(War
Machine I#13)- While Locomotive Breath and Sanction battled and
defeated War Machine, Gunship destroyed the Quarry armor with his
shoulder-cannons, not realising that Segar had escaped the suit.
The Rush Club then left, believing Segar dead.
War Machine managed to connect Rowntree to the Rush Club after talking to the badly-injured Segar, and, as Jim Rhodes, arranged to meet Rowntree in Baltimore, and ordered him to shut the Rush Club down. Rowntree figured out that Rhodes was War Machine, and, having dreamed about facing opponents like him, challenged Rhodes to face him in two days time at the Contraventure Redevelopment east of Baltimore, to settle things one way or the other.
Rowntree then justified his decision to the other members of the Rush Club, believing that an opponent like War Machine was a far better class of opponent for them, and that there was no better way to get him off their backs then to take him on and kill him. Convincing the others that there was no getting out of it now anyway, he left to face War Machine alone.
Gunship’s weapons proved less than effective against War Machine, and, taking the fight to the sky, he was caught by War Machine, and shot down by his unibeam, and saved by the other members of the Rush Club, who had prepared an ambush in case War Machine won.
(War Machine I#14 - BTS) - Locomotive Breath claimed to have shut down the Rush Club, and turned Gunship and Sanction over to the Baltimore police. However, given that much of the other information he gave to War Machine proved to be false, this may also be untrue.
Comments: Created by by Dan Abnett and Dave Chlystek.
For whatever it’s worth, back in ’98-’99, Gunship was a leading suspect for the new War Machine, but, in the tradition of Impossible-to-solve Marvel Mysteries, that ended up being some new guy.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Gunship should not be confused with:
Appearances:
War Machine I#12-14 (March-May, 1995) - Dan Abnett (writer), Dave Chlystek (pencils), Tim Dzon (inks), Nel Yomtov (editor)
First Posted: 11/29/2002
Last updated: 11/29/2002
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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