Dan Briggs

Daniel Briggs

Created by Bruce Gellar

Real Name:  Dan Brigs

Current Occupation:  Unknown, former government agent

Parents:  Unknown

Siblings:  Unknown

Spouse:  Unknown

Children:  Unknown

Group Affiliation:  Impossible Mission Force

Place of Birth:  Unknown

Current Place of Residence:  Unknown

First Appearance: Mission:  Impossible "Pilot"

Biography:

Daniel Briggs's main role in the team was as its "captain," which called for him to select the best people for the mission at hand. The team usually ended up consisting of Cinnamon Carter, Willy Armitage, Barney Collier and Rollin Hand. He would brief the team, then if needed, hand out extra disguises or devices.

As was the case with most characters in the series, Briggs's background and personal life were never explored in detail. The first mission of the series indicated that he had not worked with the IMF for some time prior to that mission. (The 'Voice on Tape' ended the first mission's instructions with the statement, "I hope it's welcome back, Dan. It's been a while.") Another mission, "Old Man Out," revealed that he had once romanced an IMF agent played by Mary Ann Mobley.^[15] The only other insight into Briggs's personal life was his one off-book mission, "The Ransom," where the daughter of a personal friend of Briggs, a school teacher, is kidnapped in order to force Briggs to deliver a mob informant from police custody before he can testify before the grand jury.^[16]

Briggs was depicted at times as a cold, calculating character, quite willing to kill in order to complete a mission. Notably, he was the only member of the IMF shown personally killing a non-target in anything other than self-defense, when he ambushed and killed a sentry to get through a checkpoint in "The Carriers."^[17] At other times, he exhibited a father-like attitude towards his agents, and was frequently seen smiling encouragement and patting shoulders as missions progressed. Several episodes, such as "Shock," revealed that Briggs had acting, voice mimicry and disguise abilities similar to those of one of his agents, Rollin Hand.

Briggs was the lead of the IMF, presumably with the title of Director, in Season One (1966-1967) as he received the instructions from the 'Voice on Tape' and coordinated the team for all but one mission, and he played a significant role in most of the first season missions. At the start of the second season, James Phelps took over as lead of the IMF Team and no on-air explanation was offered for Briggs's disappearance. The real-life reason was that actor Steven Hill's Orthodox Jewish religious beliefs often conflicted with the shooting schedule, making it difficult for the production crew to meet deadlines. By mutual consent, his contract was not renewed for Season Two.^[18]

Comments:

Like the other Missions:  Impossible characters, Dan Briggs never appeared in a Super Comics story, but exists in the Wronskiverse because of Jim Wright's comment that he once belonged to the IMF.

Bruce Gellar

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Bruce Israel Geller (October 13, 1930 – May 21, 1978) was an American composer, screenwriter, and television producer.

Bruce Israel Geller
Born	October 13, 1930 New York City, New York
Died	May 21, 1978 (aged 47) Santa Barbara County, California

Born in New York City, New York, Geller graduated from Yale University. Geller left New York for Hollywood, where he was employed writing scripts for episodes of several television series, including Zane Grey Theater, Have Gun, Will Travel, and The Rifleman. He also worked as the co-executive producer of the Rawhide series for the 1964-1965 television season.


In 1966, Geller wrote, created, and produced the television series Mission: Impossible, the accomplishment for which he is best remembered. The show ran on CBS from 1966 to 1973 and earned him an Emmy Award in 1966 as the show's producer plus another for "Outstanding Writing Achievement in Drama." During the first season, a photograph of Geller was included in the dossier of Impossible Missions Force agents that IMF leaders Dan Briggs and Jim Phelps perused each week and was often visible on screen (such as in the episodes "Memory" and "Operation Rogosh"). The series was revived in 1988 and aired until 1990 on ABC.


Geller also wrote and produced for the popular Mannix series which was twice nominated for an Emmy Award. 


A flying enthusiast, Bruce Geller died when the Cessna 337D Skymaster he was piloting ran into difficulty in foggy conditions and crashed into Buena Vista Canyon nearSanta Barbara, California. He is interred in Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.


Comments:  


All the shows mentioned above are in the Wronskiverse because they are in Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers, which was incorporated into the Wronskiverse several years ago.  Thus, Bruce Gellar is retroactively a Super Comics creator and has earned his own bio here.

Barnard "Barney" Collier

 Barnard "Barney" Collier

Created by Bruce Gellar


Real Name:  Barnard Collier


Alias:  Barney Davis


Current Occupation:  Unknown; former government agent and head of his own firm


Parents:  Unknown; mother was living during the original run of the series


Siblings:  Larry Collier (deceased)


Spouse:  Unknown; Grant Colier's mother is deceased, but it's unclear if she was ever married to Barnard Collier


Children:  Grant Collier


Group Affiliation:  Impossible Missions Force


Place of Birth:  Unknown, though it seems implied he grew up in the ghetto of a major American city


Current Place of Residence:  Unknown


First Appearance:  Mission Impossible "Pilot", September 17, 1966


Biography:

Barnard "Barney" Collier's main role as an IMF agent was that of an electronics and forgery expert. He also had an extensive knowledge of building infrastructure such as wiring and plumbing standards, including building standards in foreign countries. Generally, Collier was brought in on missions to supply high-tech custom mission support. On occasion, he would custom build a computer which would be well ahead of its time, such as a computer that could read playing cards face down on a table or a computer that could beat the world's greatest chess players.^[35][36] Starting in Season Five, he was revealed to possess criminology skills that were key to several missions. He was a veteran of the US Navy, specifically the Sixth Fleet. In his IMF dossier, it was noted that he owned his own electronics firm.^[37] In order to maintain cover when on personal travel to foreign countries, he once used the alias "Barney Davis."

Due to his being black, his role play in earlier missions which took place in Eastern European countries was often as a supporting character. Those missions which took place in Latin America or the United States gave him the opportunity for more visible roles within the mission. Although Barney Collier is primarily remembered as an electronics expert, he was often called upon for his hand-to-hand combat skills. Notably, he was an accomplished boxer, having been the champion of the Sixth Fleet when he was in the Navy. His boxing skills were the centerpiece of a two-part mission in the third season, "The Contenders."^[38] He also had the strength and agility to penetrate denied areas going hand-over-hand using grappling lines without any assistance, shimmy up drainpipes, and rapel down elevator shafts.^[39] He demonstrated incredible fortitude even when injured, continuing with missions even after being shot in the back, the knee or the head, temporarily blinded by a concussion, or poisoned.^{[33][40][41][42][43]} In the course of seven seasons worth of missions, on rare occasions he killed men in self-defense both in hand-to-hand combat as well as with firearms.^[27][44] A recurring sub-theme for Collier was, when a mission was at risk, his unwavering faith in his fellow agents in their ability to come through.

Barney Collier, along with Willy Armitage, was one of only two IMF agents that were regulars on the team for the entire seven-season run of the original Mission: ImpossibleTV series, and he was the only one shown in the opening credits of every episode. Like all of the regular IMF agents, he was not used in every mission, but he was the only character in the opening credits of every episode of the original series. On occasion, he would not appear during the course of a mission, but the characters would use devices that were noted as being supplied by him. In later years of the series, that stayed in the United States and dealt with organized crime, Barney, although still supplying gadgets and devices, did less of the physical duties, and began to be a character more in line of the Mimic and Master of Disguise roles played by Rollin Hand and Paris in earlier seasons. In later seasons, Barney was also a de facto second-in-command of the IMF team in situations where Jim Phelps was missing or incapacitated.^[10]

Barney had a brother Larry who was a newspaper publisher that was unwitting to Barney's career in the IMF. Barney's brother was killed in the fifth season episode "Cat's Paw" for his efforts to bring a ghetto mob to justice. Larry's murder was the catalyst for the off-book mission in that episode to bring down the mob as a way to avenge Larry's death.^[45] It was noted in that episode that, at the time, Barney's mother was still alive.

In the series canon, Barney had a son named Grant, who would have been born in approximately 1960, corresponding roughly to the actual age of Phil Morris, actor Greg Morris's real-life son. However, some ten years later, Barney was single in Seasons Four and Five when he twice met and romanced women in foreign countries in an off-book mission and in the aftermath of an on-book mission gone bad at its finish, and brought them both back to the States at each mission's conclusion.^[40][46] Barney would reprise his role for three episodes across two missions in the Mission: Impossible series revival in the 1980s, where his son Grant was an agent. It was noted in one of those missions that Barney was extremely despondent at the recent death of Grant's mother.

Comments:  

The above biographical information is taken from Wikipedia.  Barnard Collier never actually appeared in any Super Comics stories.  His inclusion in the Wronskiverse is due to a remark in The Man Who Stole Brains in which Jim Wright says that he used to work for the IMF.

Impossible Missions Force

Impossible Missions Force

Created by Bruce Gellar

Members:

Dan Briggs

Jim Phelps


Cinnamon Carter


Barnard "Barney" Collier


William "Willy" Armitage


Rollin Hand


Grant Collier


"The Great Paris"


Dr. Doug Robert


Tracey


Dana Lambert


Casey


Mimi Davis


Jim Wright


 Ethan Hunt


Claire Phelps


Sarah Davies


Jack Harmon


Luther Stickell


Franz Krieger


Billy Baird


Sean Ambrose


Benji Dunn


Declan Gormley


Zhen Lei


Lindsey Farris


First Appearance:  Mission Impossible Episode "Pilot", September 17, 1966


Biography:


The U.S. government has a lot of different agencies, so many so that they don't even know about each other, nor does even the president know about all of them.


One such agency is the Impossible Missions Force, later changed to the Impossible Mission Force.  


Jim Wright has claimed to have worked for this agency before working for the International Missions Bureau.


Comments:


Jim Wright's comment in the Man Who Stole Brains brings this show and film series into the Wronskiverse.  One bad guy says mistakenly says that Wright works for the IMF, and Jim relies that it's the IMB.  He doesn't work for those other guys anymore.  No other agents from the series have ever actually appeared in a Super Comics story.  This little conversation exchange is the only presence Mission Impossible has had in the Wronskiverse.

Jim Wright

Jim Wright

Created by Robert E. Wronski, Jr.

Real Name:  James Perfect "Jimmy" Wright

Current Occupation:  Government Agent

Parents:  Unnamed

Siblings:  None

Spouse:  None

Children:  None

Group Affiliation:  Impossible Missions Force, International Missions Bureau, National Heroes

Place of Birth:  Unknown

Current Place of Residence:  Washington D.C.

First Appearance:  The Man Who Stole Brains # 1, September 1987

Biography:

Little is known about the early life and background of Jim Wright.  What we do know was that in 1987, he was already established as one of the greatest secret agents in the world, and a thorn to enemies of America all over the world.  In 1987, he was working for the U.S. Government's International Missions Bureau, though he has stated he once worked for the Impossible Missions Force.

Jim went on special solo missions on operations that the government could deny knowledge of.  In his first story arc, he was first seen running from the Wronskovian Army, then later having to rescue a captured scientist and his daughter.

In 1992, Jim was on a mission in Iran with the mercenary known as the Scorpion.  The two had a romantic interlude during the mission (not something new for Jim on a mission.)  Later, they were captured, and both were executed by firing squad.

Three years later, when the mutant named Adam conquered the world, a resistance army was formed, and Jim Wright was part of the army.  Jim never revealed how he survived being shot to death.

In 2009, Jim resurfaced, now working for the government agency called the National Heroes, whose primary mission was to fight the New Power Organization.  He still serves in this position today.

Comments:

James Wright would have been my sister's name if she had been a boy.  That is where I got the name from.  I should note that in my own life, I've suffered from time to time from a sort of dual identity problem, and Jim Wright was my Buddy Love.  When I was a teen, I also used the identity as my alter ego during my short wrestling career in the Wagner Wrestling Federation and Wronski Wrestling Federation.

The Man Who Stole Brains was actually a novel I wrote, that I later broke up and serialized as a comic mini-series.  It was my first attempt at a spy novel.  My previous and first novel was Star Patrol, a rebooted  adaptation of Space Patrol, a comic series previously co-written by Phil Sheridan and myself.

The series only lasted a year, as it was only meant to be one story arc.  And then I didn't use the character again.

Until my Death of the Super Universe event, in which in one month I killed off every character I ever created.  I actually brought back Jim Wright for one story, four years after his last appearance, which was really his first appearance, just to kill him.  But it really was a good story, and the story was really about the Scorpion, which was really a story about Allorin Vonski and Shon Crest, who weren't in the story.  But it is about them.  Really, it is.  Trust me.  I wrote the story.

Anyways, so...

I killed him in 1992.  In 1998, in the mini-series called Timeline, he shows up.  Yes, I forgot he was dead.  Sometimes writers forget about that when they are dealing with large comic book universes with thousands of characters.  By the final issue, I had remembered that he was supposed to be dead, and in fact I address it by not addressing it.  At one point, Alison Swift meets Jim Wright.  Alison Swift happens to be operating at the time as the hero called Speedy.  Just before Alison's first appearance, all the speedsters on Earth had perished, absorbed into the Speed Force.  Then when Alison was visiting the Flash Museum in Central City, she was struck by lightning in a recreation of Barry Allen's lab.  She not only gained the powers of super speed, but all the memories of every speedster that came before her.

So as I said, she met Jim Wright.  And when she saw him, she looked shocked, and asked "How did you survive?"  You see, the Scorpion was one of those speedsters.  Thus, young Alison had her memories...all those memories.  Jim replied "I always survive."  Jim had thought she was referring to the recent scrape the heroes in this current adventure had been through.  He didn't recognize Alison was the Scorpion.

Or....

Perhaps he did somehow know, and was being coy.  Jim has never explained how he survived.

So after that mini-series, Jim Wright again went into obscurity, until he returned in the 2008 - 2009 mini-series called Crisis, where he was seen amongst those trying to take down the New Power.  Following that series, the National Heroes, a series from the 1980s, was revived.  The National Heroes in the 1980s had been a military group that had one goal:  the take down the New Power.  They didn't accomplish the goal.

Now, in 2009, the team was reformed.  This time, the government had the same mission, but they canned the military guys and recruited the former members of the Champions, all of whom had formerly been hunted by the government.  To work with these meta-humans, a few government types joined the team as well, including Jim Wright.

Jim Wright is a very sarcastic guy.  He loves danger.  He loves the ladies.  He hates authority figures.  He hates bureaucracy.  He hates dictators.  Oh, and he happens to sometimes seem to realize that he's a fictional character.  He even knows the name of his author.  And sometimes the author helps him out when he asks for it.