| Golden Boy | |
|---|---|
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | George R. R. Martin |
| First appearance | Wild Cards (1987) |
| Created by | Walter Jon Williams |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Jack Braun |
| Team affiliations | The Four Aces, Archibald Holmes |
| Abilities | Strength, resistance to physical damage, unaging |
Golden Boy is a character from the Wild Cards series of books and a member of The Four Aces.
Contents |
He is regarded, in the series, as possibly the strongest man in the world. His force field, which has a golden glow when active, grants him immunity from virtually anything. He is especially resistant to physical impacts, such as bullets and fists. Over the years, Golden Boy has developed a fear of heights; this came about after being told that a long fall could be one of the things that could kill him.
Jack Braun was born in rural North Dakota in 1924. As a youth he was impressed by the agrarian radicalism of the local farmers, including his family, and by the New Deal liberalism of FDR, as embodied in Agriculture undersecretary Archibald Holmes. He served on the Italian front during WWII, and afterwards moved to New York with the hopes of pursuing an acting career. When the Wild Card virus struck Manhattan he discovered that he had superhuman strength and a forcefield that protected him from harm. In the aftermath of the virus outbreak he met Archibald Holmes, who was directing relief efforts. Holmes recruited Braun, along with fellow veteran and ace Earl Sanderson Jr into a new superteam. The group was officially known as the "Exotics for Democracy" but after the addition of aces David "Envoy" Harstein and Blythe van Renssaeler they became popularly known as the "Four Aces". Holmes used the Four Aces to advance his liberal internationalist vision of the world. In the late 1940s they fought fascism around the world. They tracked down Nazi war criminals and overthrew the regime of Juan Peron in Argentina. Braun's physically demonstrative powers and good looks quickly turned him into a media celebrity. He quickly received a contract from Warner Brother's studios and starred in a fictional version of his exploits with the Four Aces. However, things soon changed as the Exotics for Democracy came under scrutiny from the House Un-American Activities Committee. The Committee was investigating Aces, who they portrayed as an insidious force undermining America. The fact that Braun's partner in the Four Aces, Earl Sanderson, had once been a member of the Communist Party and continued to be a fellow traveler aroused particular interest as did the fact that Earl was black. When an attempt by the Four Aces to prop up the Nationalist regime in China failed, the Committee subpoenaed all of them. Braun, naively believed that since they had not committed any crimes they had nothing to fear and bowed to pressure from the studio and his wife. He became a cooperating witness. In his testimony he tried to limit the damage he did to his friends, explaining that Earl Sanderson had abandoned the Communist Party years before and indicating that he, Braun, knew nothing of any other aces. However, he accidentally let slip that his teammate Blythe van Renssaeler had absorbed the mind of team advisor Dr Tachyon and thus would know of any aces which Tachyon, an uncooperative Witness, would know of. When van Renssaeler appeared before the Committee she suffered a nervous breakdown and was institutionalized for the rest of her life. In the wake of the Committee hearings the Four Aces broke up as van Renssaeler was institutionalized, Holmes and Harstein were imprisoned, and Sanderson and Tachyon fled the country. Braun survived any legal repercussions but faced condemnation from history and the Wild Card community over his cooperation and carried guilt with himself the rest of his life. After the hearings his movie career failed to take off. He starred in a hit movie based on the life of Eddie Rickenbacker but the movie based on his own life failed and other attempts at starring vehicles for him faced dismal results. Braun blamed his committee testimony for his poor box office performance, insisting that no one wanted to see "a rat" as a hero. Later he had several years of moderate success with a television series based on Tarzan. Braun fought in the Korean War and after retiring from acting went into real estate. Sometime in the 1960s he realized he did not age. In 1988, Braun served as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention and almost died when the ace Demise tried to kill him. Braun's last public appearance was in 2007 when he served as a judge on the reality television show American Hero.[1][2][3]