Ulysses Hadrian Armstrong (New Earth)

Ulysses Armstrong is a young Gotham City gang leader. He united the street gangs under the name The General and later usurped the name Anarky from Lonnie Machin.

History

Origins

Ulysses Hadrian Armstrong was born in the suburbs, to a family of four. Since childhood, he had displayed an obsession with violence and warfare, which greatly disturbed his father and siblings (his mother remained delusionally unaware, and enjoyed pampering and spoiling him). Eventually, Ulysses was sent to Valley Pines Military Academy, which increased his bitterness toward his parents.

At Valley Pines, Ulysses was bored by the schoolwork routinely bullied by upperclassmen, but found solace in the academy's library. Over the years, he read every volume of military history that the academy had to offer, honing his intellect and bloodthirsty personality into the visage of a great general. By age eleven, Ulysses finally reached his breaking point with the academy, and set fire to the bullies' dormitories. Subsequently, he fled to Gotham City, intending to use his military acumen to rule its massive and lucrative underworld.^[1]

Criminal Career

The General first arrived at Gotham and started gathering a large group of people from street gangs. With his knowledge about military strategy, he organized the gangs into one large group and stole many weapons that would be used to take over the law enforcers of the city.^[1] However, he was stopped and captured by Batman.^[2]

The General has teamed up with other costumed criminals, including a henchman of Maxie Zeus known as Julie Caesar. Picking up the delusional criminal in a museum, he brought Caesar to his home (much to the dismay of his father). Wanting even more membership, the General and Caesar use a stolen circus lion to threaten a biker group known as "Los Bandidos" into becoming their henchmen. A fight erupts between the biker gangs, but is stopped quickly by Robin and a combo of his detective skills, intel from the General's sister, and the help of Sheriff Shotgun Smith. Meanwhile, the General and Caesar steal money from the bank, hijack a police car and would have gotten away but for Robin's intervention. The General then went to jail for a number of weeks.^[3]

Several weeks later, the General teamed up with Toyman, as they plan to steal a toy collection made by Schott from a collector. Robin tracks them down to the collector's house, only to find Schott (a homicidal maniac who hates kids to begin with) pointing a gun at Ulysses. The General saves himself using an automized panzer toy, a train, and help from the Boy Wonder. After the two crooks were caught, Ulysses claimed that Toyman made him do it and only serves a brief sentence in prison.^[4]

Once out, he meets the pre-teenaged ruler of an Middle Eastern country, and they become fast friends. Deciding to help the ruler thwart his enemies, the General travels to his aquaintance's home country, and wages war. Hiring four dangerous mercenaries - Gunhawk, the NKVDemon, Hatchet, and Deadline - and using a vast army, Ulysses was on the brink of comitting genocide when Robin and Nightwing arrived. Robin stops the mercenaries, and was about to grab the General when he noticed how unhappy his "friend" was with the General for starting a war. Now a slave, the General spends several years scrubbing floors and cleaning palaces.^[5]

After a very long absence, the General returned to Gotham City, having aged several years, grown several feet, and become a more formidable hand-to-hand combatant. For reasons yet unknown, he was hired by Spoiler to gather information about the gang wars, and find a possible solution to them. He continues to hold a grudge against Robin and betrays Spoiler. Spoiler survives a gunshot to the shoulder, and then distracts him long enough to get the drop on him and escape.^[6]

Anarky

He later comes into possession of the Red Robin costume worn by Jason Todd, and uses it as part of a campaign of psychological warfare against Tim Drake. More formidable than ever, he is revealed to be holding Lonnie Machin, an anarchist vigilante, hostage while commandeering his identity as "Anarky". Where Machin's approach as Anarky had been to cause social change, Armstrong's approach bordered more on psychotic and meaningless acts of chaos and destruction.^[7]

Armstrong managed to catch Robin in his warehouse; Robin escapes through unknown means, but not without sustaining serious burns to his head. Soon after, a final confrontation ensues, where Anarky attempts to kill all of Gotham City's gangs, so as to create more violence. The combined efforts of Robin, Spoiler, Commissioner Gordon, Officer Jamie Harper and the Gotham Gangs, results in Armstrong's defeat. In order to take the edge off of Armstrong, Robin asked Officer Harper to bring the Armstrong family to confront Ulysses. Unfortunately, while the action worked, Armstrong caused a bomb to explode, killing his brother and sister in the blast. Armstrong blames Robin for their deaths.^[8]

Managing to escape from the police, Armstrong returned to his hideout, where he had Lonnie Machin paralyzed. There, the pair of them argued about the true meaning of anarchy and Ulysses stated he could create enough anarchy with only one question: "Who is Robin?"^[9]

Powers and Abilities

Abilities

Tactical Analysis: Armstrong is a military genius. He has vast knowledge of military history, and his careful planning are what earned him the respect of his henchmen.
Hand-to-Hand Combat (Basic): Growing up, he gains a muscular build and a lesser degree of martial arts knowledge, not nearly enough to best seasoned fighters like Robin, but quite formidable nevertheless.
Acting: While he was a child, Ulysses possessed some rudimentary acting skills. He was occasionally able to trick others into underestimating him, even temporarily getting Batman to drop his guard when the latter had actually seen Ulysses' viciousness in action.

Trivia

Ulysses supposedly memorizes the World Defense Almanac every year. He was able to immediately name the military size and strength of Dhabar, the home country of Ali Ben Khadir.