Paint the Town Red
Marvel Knights: Instinct / Tech
Marc Spector was the son of a rabbi whose family had fled Europe in the 1930s to escape the Holocaust. As Marc matured, he rejected his father’s morality and embraced materialism. He became a heavyweight boxer, then a U.S. Marine, and then a CIA operative. At the CIA, Marc worked with William Cross, who betrayed the agency, later becoming the villain Crossfire. Marc’s brother, Randall, joined him in the CIA but he also betrayed the agency, selling weapons to both sides in an altercation in Italy. When Marc’s lover Lisa overheard Randall’s plans, he killed her with a meat cleaver. Marc hunted Randall down, inflicting injuries that left Randall psychotic. Marc befriended fellow CIA agent Amos Lardner, but unknowingly turned him over to Operation: Cobra, a CIA project designed to control its agents’ minds. Fed up with the CIA, Marc became a mercenary and spent several years as a hired gun. Although he ostensibly sought to fight for causes he believed in, Marc was easily persuaded to fight for anyone who paid him enough. While working in Africa, Marc met the French mercenary Jean-Paul DuChamp, whom he nicknamed “Frenchie”. Marc and Frenchie became close friends, and served together on several missions.