The Children of Liberty were an anti-alien movement group led by Ben Lockwood. It was composed of humans and given Raymond Jensen's membership, possibly some augmented humans. It was later revealed that they were unwitting pawns in Lex Luthor's latest scheme. With Ben incarcerated and Lex's crimes exposed, the Children of Liberty were dissolved and its members were incarcerated.
Overview
Knowing the threats extraterrestrials pose to humanity's future, Ben Lockwood decided to create a humanity first organization, to help empower and support human beings who have lost their financial assets, employment, and educational future to extraterrestrial activities and manipulations.
Ben seeks to either deport or kill all these extraterrestrials and bring the U.S. government back on working for the sole benefit of all of humanity.
History
Original multiverse
Beginnings
At some point, the Children of Liberty was led by Ben Lockwood, with the help of Mercy and Otis Graves, as an anti-alien group, Ben became Agent Liberty, committing unspeakable acts such as murdering innocent aliens in cold blood. His followers claim to be Agent Liberty themselves to protect Ben's identity.[1]
Eventually, the Children of Liberty make themselves publicly when a trio of Liberty agents assaulted an alien couple, which was thwarted by Supergirl and Manchester Black. Subsequently, the Children of Liberty's manifesto entitled "Twilight's Last Gleaming" was released across National City via dronves.
Around the same time, as Ben was praising James Olsen/Guardian as a pro-human hero, James decided to get in contact with the Children of Liberty. The group sent Tom to meet with James while he began tagging alien households for the Children of Liberty's planned attack on Thanksgiving. The attack was mostly thwarted by the Superfriends, who managed to erase the majority of the Children of Liberty's invisible tags, though one raid resulted in a Dracokardosian Spike going on a rampage.[2]
The day after, the Children of Liberty abducted James with the intention of recruiting him. Tom then decided to turn against the group once he realized that they were planning to use James to blow up Shelley Island's monument with Supergirl in it, but the two were caught trying to escape. Supergirl was delivered to Shelley Island by Manchester Black in exchange for a meeting with Agent Liberty, but Ben sent a decoy in his stead. As the Children of Liberty forced James to detonate the monument, a weakened Supergirl managed to get his attention, prompting James to rebel against the Children of Liberty. Meanwhile, Manchester managed to learn Agent Liberty's identity from the decoy before disabling the island's power dampeners, enabling Supergirl to safely detonate the bomb in the air.[3]
Alliance with President Baker
However, eventually, Ben was arrested and his identity as Agent Liberty was exposed to the public.[4] Unfortunately, he was released from prison since a crime is only defined as a terrorist act if it is committed against other humans, not aliens; even though, the Alien Amnesty Act grants all aliens in general, the same civil rights as humans, which was a result of Phil Baker's manipulation; to improve his poll ratings.[5]
Following Red Daughter's attack on the White House, Baker approved Ben's request to deputize the Children of Liberty.[6]
After Ben's wife, Lydia is murdered by an alien, he leads the Children of Liberty to raiding alien hideouts for her murderer. When they located the culprit, Ben had her associates arrested as accessories. When confronted by Guardian and Dreamer, Ben injected himself with Harun-El to give himself the same abilities as the former, but was ultimately defeated.[7]
Pawns of Lex Luthor and downfall
Following a confrontation with Lena Luthor, implying that Ben and his organization were (unknowing) pawns of Lex Luthor, Ben confronted Otis Graves, who confirmed Lena's accusations. Ben then killed Otis in a three-way fight between them and James Olsen.[8]
After avoiding an assassination attempt by clones of Eve Teschmacher, Ben learned that Lex was based on Shelley Island, Ben gathered a group of his followers to get revenge on Lex for using them as pawns and also to kill Lex's alien prisoners. Upon arrival, Ben and his agents got into one last confrontation with Supergirl and the Superfriends, which ended in their defeat as well as Ben losing his powers.
After Lex's crimes are exposed to the public, Baker is subsequently removed from office, impeached and arrested for his involvement with Lex, vice president Plastino is appointed as the acting president of United States until re-elections can be held again; he first acts were to take away the deputation of the Children of Liberty and re-enact the Alien Amnesty Act; unlike before, he makes sure that their human laws apply to Alien Amnesty Act, thus; Ben and various members of the Children of Liberty are incarcerated for domestic terrorism, and the group is dissolved.
George (a former member of the group) would later become a peacemaker between aliens and humans to ensure that no family would be divided by hatred, thus; putting an end to the Children of Liberty's crusade against aliens for good.[9]
New multiverse
After the Crisis, they were a part of Earth-Prime but like what happened on Earth-38, a post-Crisis Children of Liberty were taken down by the Superfriends and the D.E.O. Whether or not Lex Luthor had any involvement with them is unknown.[10][11]
Alternate reality
The Children of Liberty was in action in a reality created by Kara Danvers and Mxyzptlk where Lena knew Kara was Supergirl and were very close of friends. They kidnapped Lena and the leader of the Cult of Rao, Thomas Coville in a successful attempt to get Supergirl to reveal she's Kara Danvers. After she rescued Thomas and Lena, they murdered each and every single friend and family Kara Danvers ever had, including Cat Grant in order to make Kara suffer.[11]
Legacy
Original multiverse
During the Anti-Monitor Crisis, the Coluan, Querl Dox showed concern for the human population because many of the resources needed to be called into bare in order to evacuate Earth-38 during the crisis were alien-owned and that they would not lift a finger to help humans; due to the actions of the former president Phil Baker and the Children of Liberty. But the Martian, J'onn J'onzz had faith that both aliens and humans put aside their differences and do the right thing. Thankfully for three billion citizens of Earth, J'onn was proven right.
Despite the Alien Amnesty Act being revoked (and later reinstated) by the last administration, the aliens did the right thing and helped the humans escape the antimatter wave sent by the immensely powerful interdimensional war criminal, the Anti-Monitor, and they made it to Earth-1, though one billion of those who were successfully evacuated owe their lives to one of Earth-1's greatest heroes, Oliver Queen as he made the ultimate sacrifice, buying enough time for them to escape Earth-38's destruction. This showed that good human-alien relations survived despite the actions of the Children of Liberty.[12]
Known members
Current members
- Thack
Former members
- Mercy Graves (deceased)
- Otis Graves (returned to work for Lex Luthor; deceased)
- Caldwell (deceased)
- Frank (incarcerated)
- Raymond Jensen/Parasite (defected; incarcerated)
- James Olsen/Guardian (undercover; betrayed)
- Dean Petrocelli (deceased)
- Fred Roberts (incarcerated)
- Taylor (briefly; deceased)
- Tom (betrayed)
- George Lockwood (acting leader; defected)
- Ben Lockwood/Agent Liberty (founder; leader; incarcerated)
Known allies
Current allies
- Domingo
- Earl
- Warren
Former allies
- Phil Baker (incarcerated)
- Fiona Byrne (forcibly; deceased)
- Natalie Hawkings (incarcerated)
- Hellgrammite (forcibly; incarcerated)
- Kopy (forcibly; incarcerated)
- Lydia Lockwood (deceased)
Known enemies
Current enemies
- Lex Luthor
- Olivia Marsdin
- Superfriends
- D.E.O.
- Alex Danvers (director)
Former enemies
- Fiona Byrne (deceased)
- Hellgrammite (incarcerated)
- Kopy (incarcerated)
- The Elite
- Manchester Black (former ally turned enemy; founder; deceased)
- Pamela Ferrer/Menagerie (jewel thief turned terrorist; incarcerated)
- Hat (field agent; incarcerated)
- Mo (field agent and infiltrator; incarcerated)
Appearances
Supergirl
Season 4
Season 5
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Trivia
- Since vice president/acting president Plastino reinstated the Alien Amnesty Act, which allows aliens to come to Earth whenever they want and gives them the same equal rights as humans, the Children of Liberty are now considered a terrorist organization; as various members, along with their leader, Ben Lockwood have been imprisoned for crimes of domestic terrorism against the alien citizens of National City.
- The Children of Liberty share several similarities with Project Cadmus;
- Both are anti-alien hate groups.
- Both had Mercy and Otis Graves working for them.
- Both organizations secretly had U.S. government backing.
- Both had a member of the Luthor family as masterminds of each group.
- Lex Luthor was for a long time the unknown mastermind behind the Children of Liberty while Lillian Luthor was the mastermind behind Project Cadmus, albeit more openly.
References
- ↑ "Rather the Fallen Angel"
- ↑ "Call to Action"
- ↑ "Rather the Fallen Angel"
- ↑ "Bunker Hill"
- ↑ "Menagerie"
- ↑ "Crime and Punishment"
- ↑ "Will The Real Miss Tessmacher Please Stand Up?"
- ↑ "Red Dawn"
- ↑ "The Quest for Peace"
- ↑ "The Bottle Episode"
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 "It's a Super Life"
- ↑ "Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part One"
