PEACEKEEPER
Real Name: Joshua Badham
Identity/Class: Human, martial artist (pre-modern and modern eras)
Occupation: Protector of the Underground society;
former vigilante
Group Membership: The Underground community/Undergrounders/Tunnel Dwellers (including Ed Arthur, Ralphie Jackson, Martha, others)
Affiliations: Blackwulf (Lucian), Daredevil, Deathlok the Demolisher, Kingpin (Wilson Fisk), Eddie Passim
Enemies: Bushwacker, Devourer, Walter Jenkins, King of the sewers, Kingpin (Wilson Fisk) and his sewer-dwellers
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: The sewers below Manhattan
First Appearance: Daredevil I#333 (October, 1994)
Powers/Abilities: Skilled in martial arts
Height: couldn't tell
Weight: couldn't tell
Eyes: couldn't tell
Hair: Gray
History:
(Daredevil I#335 (fb) - BTS) - Joshua was once the vigilante Peacekeeper.
(Daredevil I#336 (fb) - BTS) - As a child, Matt Murdock heard of the Peacekeeper.
(Daredevil I#335 (fb) - BTS) - Joshua rejected the friendship of Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of Crime.
(Daredevil I#335 (fb) - BTS) - Joshua's career as Peacekeeper cost him the life he had worked hard to make, and he eventually became part of one of the Underground communities dwelling below New York City.
(Daredevil I#336 (fb) - BTS) - Peacekeeper became known as the hero who had abandoned the city.
(Daredevil I#334 (fb) - BTS) - Despite Joshua's wishes for them not to become involved with the "Sunfolk," Undergrounders Ed Arthur & Ralphie Jackson worked for Walter Jenkins, a New York City criminal seeking to take over the old properties of Wilson Fisk (who had been toppled from power), obtaining money and supplies to help the community in exchange for running drugs, money, numbers, etc.
(Daredevil I#325 - BTS / Daredevil I#334 (fb) - BTS) - Joshua and other Undergrounders watched Daredevil bury Eddie Passim after he was taken by the Snakeroot. They also watched as Daredevil used the Hellspawn's body to fake the death of Matt Murdock.
(Daredevil I#334 (fb) - BTS / Daredevil I#336 (fb) - BTS) - Jenkins' agents planted bombs in several of the packages given to Ed & Ralphie without their knowledge, and these blew up several parking garages.
(Daredevil I#336 (fb) - BTS) - The Demolisher (Luther Manning,
formerly Deathlok) traveled into the sewers below Manhattan, seeking refuge from
the surface society. He provided protection for the Undergrounders for a time,
but then disappeared, abandoning them.
(Daredevil I#333 (fb) - BTS) - Joshua searched the trash for food in an alley in
Alphabet City, Manhattan, and he was chased off several times from by an
apartment superintendant while searching the trash.
(Daredevil I#333) - Frustrated to see him back again, the superintendant shoved Joshua and told him that his tenants shouldn't have to smell him. The superintendant raised a baseball bat at Joshua, but Daredevil stopped him, and Joshua took off. Joshua later approached a woman whose car and child had just been abducted, but she mistook him for an attacker and screamed, at which point the police arrived and began beating him. Curious about Daredevil's new costume and wondering what he was hiding from, Joshua accompanied him to a homeless shelter, but other residents of the shelter then tried to take Joshua's bag at knifepoint. Joshua hurled lighter fluid on his assailant, lit their clothes on fire, and dove through a window. Daredevil pursued Joshua, who fled into the long hidden tunnels into the sewers. They ran into some of the other members of the Underground society, and Joshua told him he shouldn't have come there. Then, police, having followed Daredevil, arrived, and Joshua led Daredevil away, where he and some of the other Undergrounders cooked a rat on a fire. Daredevil offered to help get them some real food and clothes, but the others told him they didn't need his help. Joshua then told Daredevil he was well known down there because of his past defeat of the King but that he was being used and should leave. Just then the King arrived and attacked Daredevil. After Daredevil defeated King, King's sewer-dwellers attacked him, considering both he and King as potential meals, but Joshua led the Undergrounders (including Ed Arthur & Ralphie Jackson) to help get Daredevil away from them. The sewer-dwellers told Joshua to give Daredevil to them so they could give him to Fisk.
(Daredevil I#334) - Joshua stopped Ed from yelling at
Daredevil for offering them help, reminding him that he and the others had
manipulated Daredevil into fighting King and that Daredevil had gotten King off
their backs for awhile. The police then showed up and arrested Ed & Ralphie on
suspicion of involvement in several parking garage bombings. The others shunned
Daredevil for having led the police down there, but Joshua told Daredevil of
their Underground civilization and noted that Ed & Ralphie worked as drug &
money smugglers but that they wouldn't have knowingly been involved in any
bombing; nonetheless, this is the price they had to pay for dealing with the "Sunfolk"
against Joshua's wishes, and for the good of the community, Joshua would stay
out of it.
Daredevil returned to the surface.
(Daredevil I#335) - Following an assault by Bushwacker,
Daredevil returned to the sewers and sought out Joshua. Daredevil told Joshua
that Bushwacker had been hired to kill Daredevil and the people in the sewers,
and they both noted that Ed and Arthur had been framed for the bombings and that
someone was trying to eliminate anyone who could clear them. Noting that
Daredevil's involvement had endangered his community, Joshua told him it was a
fight he couldn't win and that his trying put Joshua's people in jeopardy.
Joshua subsequently met with Wilson Fisk, reaching out to him
to try to save his people from the struggle between him and Daredevil; Kingpin
reminded Joshua how he had rejected his friendship before but listened to him
nonetheless.
(Daredevil I#336 (fb) - BTS) - Fisk promised to send help to
the Undergrounders.
(Daredevil I#336) - Things escalated in the sewers, with
Bushwacker battling Daredevil there, and the fight was joined by the Devourer, a
Mayan monster resurrected by the King, and by the Demolisher, drawn by the
violent conflict.
Joshua told the Undergrounders that they needed to flee while
Daredevil held off the Devourer, but they blamed Joshua for allowing Daredevil
to become involved with them, as this had been the cause of the escalation; they
further felt that Joshua should have kept Ralphie and Ed from the Sunfolk.
Joshua told them to blame him all they wanted as long as they kept moving.
Seeing no aid from Fisk, Joshua realized that Daredevil had been trying to help
his people while he had turned his back on Daredevil when he needed help.
Deciding he needed to make a moral stand, Joshua located the box that held his
old costume.
Meanwhile, Walter Jenkins met with the imprisoned Ralphie &
Ed, telling them to confess to the bombings or he would destroy the entire
Underground community.
As King's sewer dwellers attacked Daredevil, Joshua, wearing
his old Peacekeeper and aided by some of the Underground, joined the fight,
driving back the Devourer when it rushed a momentarily fallen Daredevil. The
Undergrounders then struggled with the Devourer, briefly holding it back by
sheer numbers until it cast them off. The Demolisher then destroyed the Devourer
with his energy blaster. King then tried to force Joshua and the Undergrounders
to give him Daredevil, but the Demolisher cowed him with his blaster. Joshua
then sent Daredevil to return to the surface to find out what he could about
Jenkins Incorporated.
Jenkins' agents then planted a number of bombs throughout the
subway tracks over a 2 mile area leading to the Fisk Tower. Learning of this,
Fisk planned to make sure Jenkins was linked to his crimes.
(Daredevil I#337) - Matt Murdock's ally Randy Jillete
confronted Walter Jenkins with documents exposing his involvement in the
bombings, blackmailing him to keep the documents' originals from going to the
FBI and CIA, and Daredevil stopped Jenkins from sending Bushwacker to kill her
afterward. Jenkins gave Daredevil the locations of the bombs in exchange for his
own freedom. Fisk beat the real bombers and pressured them to confess, which
resulted in the rapid release of Ed & Ralphie. Upon their return to the sewers,
Peacekeeper told them that he had asked for Fisk's aid, after which they were
confronted by Blackwulf who had come to investigate the Demolisher, in whose
future reality (Earth-7484) both Blackwulf's father and brother had survived and
were forces for good.
The bombs began to go off, but Daredevil arrived and gave
them the locations of the bombs. Deathlok & Blackwulf agreed to help defuse the
bombs, while Peacekeeper guided those sewer dwellers he could to safety. After
Daredevil was stunned by a bomb and trapped behind some wreckage, Peacekeeper
led the others to clear the debris to help him. Meanwhile, King, having found a
number of the bombs and attached them to his body, attacked Daredevil, intending
to beat him into submission and then kill them both. Daredevil instead defeated
King and defused his bombs.
After the others reached Daredevil, Ed & Arthur told him that
they owed Fisk, and they might tell him that the "new" Daredevil was actually
still Matt Murdock, but that he had helped save their community and they owed
him. They agreed to keep his secret.
As Daredevil headed back to the surface, Peacekeeper noted
that he never did like the costume, though it did provide a certain
psychological advantage over his opponents. He further noted that things didn't
seem as bleak as they had before, and he thanked Daredevil for making him
believe again.
Comments: Created by Gregory Wright, Tom Grindberg, and Ray Kryssing.
Figuring that Matt Murdock was out of law school in Daredevil#1, making him like 25 years old, I'd guess him "being a kid" would have to be at least 10-20 years before that. So I'd place Peacekeeper as being active then, though if Matt had only heard of him as the hero who had abandoned the city then maybe it was even before that.
Peacekeepers' last name was revealed in Bushwacker's profile in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z SC#2 (2011).
Profile by Snood.
CLARIFICATIONS:
No KNOWN connections to:
images: (without ads)
Daredevil I#333, p13, panel 2 (unmasked face)
#336, p11, panel 3 (Peacekeeper)
#337, 2nd to last page, panel 6 (Peacekeeper face, close-up)
Appearances:
Daredevil I#333 (October, 1994) - Gregory Wright (writer), Tom Grindberg (penciler),
Ray Kryssing (inker), Ralph Macchio (editor)
Daredevil I#334-335 (November-December, 1994) - Gregory Wright (writer), Tom
Grindberg (penciler), Don Hudson (inker), Ralph Macchio (editor)
Daredevil I#336-337 (January-February, 1995) - Gregory Wright (writer), Tom
Grindberg (penciler), Don Hudson (inker), Ralph Macchio (editor)
First Posted: 06/08/2008
Last updated: 06/08/2008
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
Non-Marvel Copyright info
All other characters mentioned or pictured are ™ and
© 1941-2099 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. If you
like this stuff, you should check out the real thing!
Please visit The Marvel Official Site at: http://www.marvel.com
Special Thanks to www.g-mart.com for hosting the Appendix, Master List, etc.!