Hero One

This article is about Great Britain's Hero One. For his successor, see Hero 1.

Overview

Very little is known about the British crime fighter known as 'Hero One', save that he was active in 1976 and helped save the world from nuclear annihilation. That year, the American hero known as the Statesman entered the Soviet Union to rescue the pilot of a downed spy plane. The Soviets reacted by launching a tactical nuclear missile at the Statesman. Hostilities soon escalated, forcing the world's heroes to step in and prevent a full-scale nuclear strike. Hero One then emerged as an international diplomat, negotiating a peaceful resolution to the crisis.

This heroic intervention had a lasting impact on world politics. While the governments involved were quite resentful towards the heroes, the world at large came to adore them – as far as the public was concerned, they truly were the saviors of the world. This marked the beginning of the break in close cooperation between governments and hero organizations that had characterized much of the post-World War II period. The many events of the cold war had shown heroes that they often worked better outside of government policies and politics. They began to see themselves as a kind of fifth estate, standing as guardians not only of the world’s safety and physical well being, but also of the rights of humanity as a whole.

At some point after the 1976 crisis, Hero One presumably retired (or died) and was replaced by Hero 1, another champion from Great Britain.