The New World
Revolution and Westward Expansion
In the late 18th Century the Thirteen Colonies would defeat the British to gain their independence in the American Revolution. During the war, patriot and alchemist Taylor Samuel Hawke, with the help of a group of other mystics, creates a powerful talisman for the new nation being fought for in the Revolution. When Hawke is killed he calls on the talisman's power and is transformed into the embodiment of the American spirit, which would become known as the Minuteman. As the country evolved so too would the spirit that represents it, with it assuming its current form as Uncle Sam in 1870.
Many patriots would fight for the nation's independence during the Revolutionary War. Thomas Haukins, aka Tomahawk, was a frontiersman and soldier who engaged in many battles with the British and their allies, sometimes alone and sometimes with his partner Dan Hunter and with his band of soldiers, colloquially known as Tomahawk's Rangers. Another sometime ally of Tomahawk's was nurse Bess Lynn, who donned a wig and mask with a stars and stripes adorned costume patterned after one of the early American flags and fought for the new nation as Miss Liberty.
Across the Atlantic, another revolution was unfolding in France inspired by the one in the colonies. Many acts of brutality were committed during the French Revolution, and to protect the innocent Lady Elisabeth Saint-Marie would adopt a masked identity as the first Mademoiselle Marie. She would inspire a long line of women who would later adopt the identity, always to help protect the people of France.
The early 19th Century saw the fledgling United States expand its territory westward. In 1838, a young Army messenger on the western frontier who had befriended the local Blackfoots was granted the power of superhuman speed by the tribe's shaman to help save them from a massacre. The messenger protected the frontier for several years and was known as Windrunner. One day, after running faster than he ever had before, Windrunner found himself thrown forward in time to the end of the century. This would happen several more times until the messenger reached the 1940s, where he was the costumed Mystery Man first called Quicksilver and later known as Max Mercury.
In California the Spanish swordsman known only as Don Caballero used his expert fencing skill to fight thieves and desert bandits and protect the innocent of Hawk Hill.
The Wild West
The Civil War threatened to tear the new nation apart, but the United States survived and western expansion continued. The American West of the period was the home of men, and women, seeking their fortunes. From cattleman and trail boss Matt Savage to those of slightly more dubious morals like the gambler Bat Lash and bounty hunter Jonah Hex.
The west was a lawless place during these times, where justice often came from the barrel of a gun. What little law enforcement there was often came from local sheriffs, like Ohiyesa "Pow Wow" Smith, the Sioux sheriff of the town of Elkorn; and Walt Trigger, who was secretly assisted in his job as sheriff of Rocky City by his identical twin brother Wayne. When the local law enforcement was incapable or corrupt, justice sometimes fell to vigilantes, both men and women, sometimes masked to protect themselves and their loved ones, like Nighthawk, Cinnamon, Johnny Thunder, Madame .44, El Diablo, and Scalphunter.
The Great War
As law and order finally came to the American West, chaos was rising in the rest of the world. Wars of the late 19th Century would prove to be only rehearsals for the conflict to come at the beginning of the 20th Century. World War I would be the largest conflict the world had seen to date, a horror that was thought at the time to be the War to End All Wars, though time would prove otherwise. The Great War was also the first to see battle in the skies in addition to land and sea, with pilots like American "Balloon Buster" Steve Savage and German aces like Baron Hans von Hammer, whom the allied forces called the Enemy Ace.
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