Villain Bio: Vincent Hammer

Known Aliases: Vincenzo “Vincent” Hammer 
Height: 6’4” / 7’0” in armor
Weight: 260 lbs. / 520 lbs. in armor
Hair: Sandy brown
Eyes: Black
Ethnicity: European (Italian-American) 

Personal Quote:
“Sometimes every problem really is a nail!”

Background/History:
Vincenzo Hammer is the son of lower class Italian immigrants.  His father worked for Ford until a slump in the industry forced him onto the dole; his mother worked on an assembly line until an on-the-job injury put her out of work.  Worker’s compensation was insufficient to cover her medical expenses and the senior Hammer was forced to seek extralegal help in order to see his family through the rough months.

In exchange for Mr. Hammer’s help and loyalty, Cosa Nostra relocated the Hammer family to Angel Falls and saw to it that little Vincenzo was afforded a good education and very competitive loans to see him through business schools.  That Vincenzo proved to be a highly competitive boxer, a reasonably successful cardsharp, and a loyal Family man only served to cement his place in the echelons of Angel Falls’ criminal underworld.

Despite, or perhaps because of his ties to the Italian mafia, Vincenzo was a fairly popular student at Franklin D. Roosevelt High School, where he met the young Eloise Costanza.  Eloise was a year younger than he, fascinated with metallurgy, cybernetics, and robotics, and every bit as innocent as Vincenzo was worldly.  They quickly became an item, their devotion to each other sealed indelibly when Vincenzo managed to use his physical presence- coupled with his growing reputation as a wise guy- to protect young Eloise from a mugging.

Eloise, no dummy, realized that Vincenzo’s lifestyle was likely to bring him to harm.  Using her rather exceptional skills in the mechanical sciences, she developed a prototype armor suit for him to wear; the suit successfully protected him from multiple gunshots the first time he wore it, thus cementing both their working relationship and their romantic partnership from that day forward.

Personality:
In his civilian guise, Vincenzo is neat to the point of prissiness.  He wears immaculately tailored suits, expensive ties and jewelry, and exquisitely coiffured hair.  His deep voice is cultured, quiet, and deeply respectful, yet he carries himself with confidence and is utterly unafraid, both of his superiors within Cosa Nostra and of law enforcement.

When he dons his armor, Vincenzo’s personality seems to undergo a radical shift; he becomes a juggernaut of unbridled fury and raw destruction.  Although he remains a consummate professional, his role within Cosa Nostra is to create an unmistakable message, and he does this by visiting unspeakable violence upon his targets.

Powers/Abilities:

Vincenzo has no actual powers when he is not in his armor.  He is a tall, strong man and a skilled pugilist, but he is far from superhuman.

His Hammer-suit, however, makes him more than a match for most street-level metahumans.  He is armored, capable of flight, and has a fairly comprehensive sensor suite.  One thing he does not have is a wide range of projectile weaponry.  While Hammer is capable of using ranged weapons, he tends to view his role as that of a blunt instrument, and so prefers to do his work up close and very personally.

The powers his Hammer suit can manifest are:

Combat sensor suite: Hammer’s sensors provide him with RADAR, sonar, near-real-time targeting and IFF data, infrared and ultraviolet light amplification, and limited shielding against sonic and visual effects.  His suite can also prioritize targets based on perceived threat levels or intrinsic values, as needed.  A fairly comprehensive suite is regularly updated with the information that Cosa Nostra has managed to obtain concerning all active metahumans and vigilantes, and, in turn, feeds new data to the system as he encounters and assimilates it.  It should be noted that, while this suite can and does provide a lot of handy combat notes, it is not as comprehensive as, for example, government files would likely be- it will not, for example, have any record of dependents, non-combat critical known associations, or current tax records.

Protective Exoskeleton: Hammer’s suit covers most of his body with a combination of rigid ceramic armor plating, ballistic weave fabric, and a low-intensity force screen.  This is more than sufficient to deflect even high-caliber bullets at close range with little notable effect.  A more powerful attack, such as a metahuman might produce, could potentially overwhelm the suit’s defenses.  The suit is largely insulated against energy, and intense heat, cold, and even powerful electrical attacks have very little effect unless the outer carapace is breached.

Gravity Impellers: Hammer’s suit uses precisely incremented manipulations of gravity to allow him to fly and manipulate weight far in excess of what his suit ought to be able to handle.  It is also capable of maneuverability that normal (mechanical or chemical) means of propulsion simply cannot replicate.  Vincent’s maximum speed is indeterminate, although the maximum speed he could go before an impact is a bit under mach 6; his fastest cruising speed is approximately mach 0.9, a speed that he can reach (from rest) in about six seconds.

Inertial Compensators: Hammer’s suit can negate up to 300G of constant acceleration and up to 2,000G from a sudden impact.  Hammer can use this ability to turn himself into a highly effective projectile, although he does this sparingly due to the possibility that a system malfunction or even a minor miscalculation could turn him into a smear inside his suit.

Enhanced Strength: Hammer’s suit gives Vincent enhanced strength, allowing him to lift up to four tons at all times.  With a little warning, his suit can generate up to five times that strength rating for short periods before needing to recharge.

***************************************************************************************************************************************

One of my lesser known villains, Vincent Hammer is one of the antagonists in When Angels Stoop.

The artwork for this was trimmed from cover art provided by and shows Hammer off to his malevolent best.

Hammer commands high prices for violent executions in .