Characters: Whisper
Real Name: Capt. Sin Jon Banh
Occupation: Detective (Vietnam National Police)
Identity: Known to the general public
Legal Status: Citizen of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam with no criminal record.
Place of Birth: Hồ Chí Minh City
Known relatives: None
Group Affiliation: T.A.S.K.
Powers and Abilities: Whisper possesses the ability to absorb sonic vibrations which reach his body and use them to augment his strength, speed and stamina to superhuman levels. This ability operates over almost all frequencies and a great variation of sound pressure levels; regardless of the complexity, dissonance, or randomness of the sound. The precise means by which this conversion process works is as yet unknown. A side effect of his ability is that Whisper creates a "null space" of sound in a certain radius of his person as a result of "pulling" the sonic vibrations in his area to himself. This means that Whisper can move in absolute silence.
When fully charged by sonic vibrations Whisper has the potential to lift a maximum of 3 tons, and can run at a top speed of 90 mph over short distances.
As a result of his sensitivity to sound and sonic vibrations, Whisper's hearing (and reaction time upon hearing/receiving sound waves) is comparable to that of owls.
Capt. Banh is an excellent marksman and is a practitioner of the Vietnamese martial art of Vovinam. He wears specially designed gloves to add sonic bursts of concussive force to his punches.
Brief personal history: Capt. Sin Jon Banh was a highly regarded and decorated detective in the Vietnam National Police. As a reward for bravery under fire and his efforts to bring members of the Spyder Night criminal syndicate to justice, he was selected to be a part of T.A.S.K.'s International Joint Security Operations Group (IJSOG); a group comprised of military and law enforcement personnel from all over the world. On his first night as a member of the group he and USMC Sgt. Matthew Nighy (a.k.a. Nightfire) engaged in a bar fight with other members who objected to the Vietnamese detective's admittance to such an elite group. Captain Banh and Sgt. Nighy won the fight and an impressed Nighy requested that Banh become his sparring partner and the two men soon became fast friends. A few weeks after their advanced IJSOG training was complete, both men were deployed as part of an expeditionary force sent to the moon to investigate an energy anomaly. The anomaly was in fact an inter-dimensional breach, which transported the vanguard of an extra-dimensional army to the moon's surface. This event became known as the Foretold Lunar Incursion.
During the fight, Capt. Banh was attacked and briefly taken prisoner by a force of mouthless humanoid creatures. He was taken to the creature's leader and as part of an apparent battle ritual, stabbed through his combat spacesuit with a blade composed of hardened sound vibrations. Gravely injured and leaking oxygen, Banh managed to kill the creature that stabbed him and make his escape in the ensuing chaos. Eventually his unit's commanding officer, Lt. Col. Christina Lellios (a.k.a. Centurion), saved the surviving members of the team and managed an extraction back to Earth. Capt. Banh was once again back on Earth, but with an alien weapon stuck in his abdomen.
Capt. Banh suffered seizures and debilitating fever as the "sound blade" wreaked havoc on his body. It took the combined efforts and expertise of Meridian and Kraken to save his life and many weeks passed before he was even strong enough to stand. His caretakers soon discovered that the sound based weapon had radically altered the Vietnamese detective's body. At first it was thought that he had lost his ability to speak but eventually the truth was deduced; Capt. Banh could now absorb sonic vibrations. In fact he absorbed them so quickly that even sounds he produced were absorbed almost instantaneously. (Kraken would go on to create a specialized mask designed to capture and convert the vibrations that Capt. Banh would create while speaking, into transmittable signals. Those signals would then be received and deciphered by corresponding earpieces)
Further tests revealed that Capt. Banh could convert the energy from the sonic vibrations he absorbed and use it to augment his strength, speed and stamina to superhuman levels. He was immediately recalled to Vietnam and (in spite of his stated desire to retire from duty) hailed as the country's first super powered hero. He was given the codename Whisper, and now (often reluctantly) serves his country as its super powered champion; and the world as a member of T.A.S.K.
Whisper, Centurion, Nightfire and Obelisk often refer to themselves as "the Foretold" in honor of the USS Foretold, the shuttle that Centurion piloted to bring them back to Earth.
Written by Damion Gonzales
Character design by Sean Isaakse