History

A professional tracker and pilot, Canadian Royal Mounted Police Lieutenant John Johnston had earned dozens of awards citing his skills in finding, tracking and at times apprehending dangerous fugitives not only from Canada but also from the United States. Over time, Lt. Johnston started getting side barred from his duties by intervening Canadian and American super-heroes that started doing his job for him...and screwing it up royally.

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On several instances, Lt. Johnston was tasked to track escaped prisoners or fugitives in the dense Canadian wilderness only to have super-heroes who were completely unqualified in tracking instead alert or scare the escaped prisoners and/or fugitives that was being tracked by Lt. Johnson.  This usually resulted in the prisoners/fugitives taking either drastic actions or going deeper into hiding. The superheroes would then clumsily create problems in the towns or areas the prisoners/fugitives would run to, usually resulting in kidnappings, hostages or full scale battle.  More times than few, the said superheroes would leave a town, area or community a wreck in the process of apprehending the prisoners/fugitives, while Lt. Johnston instead would use more stealthy tactics to ensure local citizens or property wouldn't get hurt and/or damaged, respectively. This just added to this Canadian's growing anger; an anger that when surfaced could easily become a psychotic episode for him.

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Although screened and tested in the RCMP, Lt. Johnston also knew how to hide his anger and rage.  Anytime in his youthful past, if he was angered, he'd go out into the woods and slaughter whatever woodland or tundra critter he could get his hands on. He'd track them, box them in, capture them, fight with them if necessary, and once immobilized he'd used knives or even his bare hands to rip their bodies to pieces, all the while completely ambivalent towards what he was doing. With supers and capes intervening into his job, he felt inadequate and belittled, thus once again bringing rise to his psychotic tendencies.

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Finally, after being removed from his post as a tracking pilot and basically demoted to a desk job, Johnston met with his new supervisor calmly discussing why he needed to be back to aerial tracking.  His supervisor, a pencil-pushing, arrogant younger Captain, told Johnston that in today's economy, he was lucky to have a job and to stop complaining or he'd find another worthless post to place him in.  Johnston smiled, thanked him for his time and pumped three clips worth of bullets into his supervisor.  With no one hearing the shots in the supervisor's sound proof office, Johnston then took the stairs down to the operations center where three Canadian superheroes and a handful of other RCMPs were poorly planning how to track another band of super-villains across the Canadian wilderness with an out-of-date aerial map. Johnston kindly asked if he could help them out, with each hero saying 'No, we got it'.  Johnston then unholstered his weapon and killed two of the super-heroes and severely wounded the third.  The other RCMPs tackled Johnston to the ground and disarmed him, all the while Johnston went into his psychotic episode and started breaking their arms, hands and noses. He even plummeted his hand into one RCMPer's guts and pulled out the RCMPer's intestines, all the while asking 'You need me. I'm better at tracking the bad guys. Admit it, you need me". Nonetheless to say, Johnston was jailed and within an hour was sent to a psyche ward.

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The media had a field day with the news of a deranged RCMP pilot going crazy and killing two of Canada's most beloved superheroes and seriously maiming another.  Although the death penalty didn't exist in Canada, public opinion started decrying Johnston's death for his actions.  Johnston, under high security, did not deny his actions, but instead told investigators that he was ready to return to work now that the superheroes were no longer 'available' to do his job. His doctors soon realized the inherent danger Johnston would be in society and were opting to institutionalize him for life.

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After his first two weeks in the psyche ward, Johnston met with a man who was disguised as a doctor but was actually a recruiter from a super-hero killing organization known as Baltic Force. After discussions, the recruiter asked if he hated super-powered beings, for which Johnston said that unless he had a reason to dislike them, he thought most of them were 'ok people'.  The recruiter offered to spring Johnston from the psyche ward if Johnston would come and work for Baltic Force.  Johnston asked if he'd get to fly and track again if he'd go to work for Baltic Force.  The recruiter said yes to that...and told Johnson that he'd even provide more.  That night Johnston was slipped out of the prison hospital's psyche ward and on a flight to Baltic Force's facility.

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There in Lithuania, Baltic Force's base, several psychologists that worked for Baltic Force easily persuaded Johnston how dangerous super-powered beings, aliens, magical beings and unearthly creatures were to the human populace.  They told him that he was one of two tracker teams needed to find these beings and creatures and trap them, study them and eventually kill them.  It only took three days of psychological manipulating before Johnston fully agreed with the folks with Baltic Force and joined one of their hunter/tracker teams after being suited with a standard issue flight pack and armor set. Once Johnston learned to use the flight pack, he immediately was overwhelmed with joy and excitement for his new job.

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It didn't take long before Johnston started tracking and hunting down the supers, capes, aliens and creatures.  In less than a year, he alone tracked and hunted 70% of Baltic Force's 'assets' successfully.  Promotion after promotion, he worked his way up to Commander rapidly. If Johnston ever got into an altercation with an asset, Johnston would usually find a way to pin or impale the 'asset' into something that would immobilize the asset until the extraction team would arrive and transport the asset to the medical and sciences division for dissection and killing.  As a result, Johnston started picking up the nickname of "Shrike", based on the actions of the Shrike genus of birds that also liked to impale their meals and adversaries.

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By 1990, the Soviet Union was breaking up, with Baltic Force's existence teetering on the tip of a pin.  Nonetheless, Johnston was sent on yet one more assignment: hunting and tracking a new super-powered hero in Liberia.  While Johnston was on his assignment, Baltic Force was attacked and destroyed overnight by the CIA special operations division, led by the infamous Special Agent John Brown himself. When Johnston returned with his assigned asset, he made his way back to the Baltic Force facility where he saw the smoldering ruins of the new home he'd recently made. Johnston immediately snapped the African super-powered heroes neck followed by disemboweling and ripping the arms and legs from the Afrikaner's body. Unsure where to go, he instead started tracking other European heroes to discover if they were the ones that decimated Baltic Force.  In this time, Johnston hunted and killed over half a dozen superheroes and villains while interrogating said heroes and villains.  With no answers and a trail of bodies, Johnston was finally contacted by a remnant group of Baltic Force that got away after the facility's invasion and destruction.  When Johnston heard of what Special Agent Brown did to Baltic Force, Johnston hunted down Special Agent Brown and fought him.  The resulting fight put Brown in the hospital for three months, but nearly killed Johnston.  Once again, Baltic Force arrived and spirited away the broken and damaged Johnston back to a secret hideout in East Germany.

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After two years of recuperating and therapy, Johnston was ready to go back to work.  This time however, he was promoted to a Unit Leader of the Hunter Unit and given a special suit and a specially bladed staff.  Given the official codename "White Shrike", Johnston continued his hunting and tracking duties even as Baltic Force shifted to become the Exterminators under the new leadership of the nefarious Director 13. 

Today, Shrike is still out there...

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Hunting.

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Tracking.

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Impaling.

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Whatever targets White Shrike is given, he'll do them, regardless of the targets age, sex, race or status. White Shrike wants to eventually help rid the world of super beings, aliens, creatures and magical beings so that, according to Johnston, he could go back to work at the RCMP and do what he was supposed to be doing all along: tracking and hunting down bad guys...'normal' bad guys.

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