History
Joey Wilson: 1979 - 1984
The second child of Adeline Kane and Slade Wilson, Joey was born much different than Grant Wilson. This difference was due to Joey's father already having been the recipient of an experimental military procedure that altered his genetic code. This genetic tampering affected Joey, even in utero. He was born after a difficult pregnancy for his mother and Joey himself almost did not survive the delivery. Joey's health did improve quickly after his birth, though.
Joey Wilson: 1984 - 1988
Joey was still young when his mother and father's marriage fell apart. He hardly remembered his father as anything more than the angry guy his mother shot when Joey was still a shy little boy. After his father left, Joey developed into a very empathic and intuitive child. Adeline was very happy to see young Joey excel at the arts, having a very creative imagination and a gift for anything expressive: painting, writing, dance, song, musical instruments, and even oration. He was a virtuoso, even though his military-focused family didn't really know how to nurture such a gift.
Joey Wilson: 1988 - 1989
Around nine years old, Joey began to get migraines, much like his older brother had at the same age, only Joey's were far worse. Grant had found relief from physical activity and boxing, but Joey struggled to find a remedy that would work for him. Eventually, when his pain was at its worst, he began to experience waking nightmares of distant battlefields, seedy bars, and all manner of things inappropriate for a boy of his age... and all starring the same one-eyed man. In one of these dreams, the one-eyed looked in the mirror while shaving. The man then smirked and said to his reflection "Hey Joe. How's your mother?" Joey knew two things: the man in his dreams was his father and his dreams had never actually been dreams at all.
Joey Wilson: 1989 - 1990
Across the world, Slade began to feel compelled to investigate what was going on between his sons and himself. He had left freelance work and was working under a long-term contract for his new employers, the HIVE, and so asked them for a leave of absence and permission to bring his two sons back to the compound to live with him. It was granted. Slade went back to Gotham and made contact with Grant. Grant eagerly agreed to run away with the father he had been missing for five years and even lured Joey away from Adeline so that Slade could abduct him as well, bringing both his sons back to the HIVE.
Joey Wilson: 1990 - 1993
Joey didn't like the HIVE. He felt sick there like he was poisoned by the presence of so many bad folks, but at least being close to his father eased his migraines. Having Grant there too helped. For over two years, that was Joey's life. While Grant would train with the HIVE, Joey would struggle through the indoctrination of his HIVE tutors by day and spent his nights with his brother and father in relative peace... until Slade went on his assignments.
Joey often had a migraine attack while his father was away caused by the psychic strain of maintaining a psychic connection with his father over such a distance. Left in charge of his younger brother during such instances, Grant could do nothing to help Joey but try to make him comfortable. Not that it mattered too much as Joey began to leave his body during these attacks, forced to mentally ride along with his father during these missions. Joey usually tried his best to tune out the acts his father was committing, but that had mixed results.
During a potent attack, Joey was as a passenger in Slade's mind as the mercenary infiltrated a high-rise apartment to assassinate a billionaire that posed an obstacle to the HIVE's agenda. When the billionaire was cornered and about to meet the business end of Slade's blade, the target's child ran in. Slade moved to silence the kid before they could scream but his entire body's muscles locked up as he heard Joey scream "No!" using Slade's own mouth to voice the defiant word. Slade was now the passenger as Joey made him lower his weapon and tell the target to go somewhere where the HIVE could never find him.
When Slade managed to retake control of his body, he got the next flight back to the HIVE compound out of fear for what the HIVE would do to his children for him having failed his assignment. By the time Slade got back, he learned that the HIVE had sent its enforcers to take the boys into custody. Grant managed to escape using the combat techniques Slade had taught him the week before, but Joey was still too weak from his migraine during the raid and was captured. Joey was then held hostage by HIVE until Slade could fulfill the original contract.
It took Slade a couple of days to find Grant in the wilderness surrounding the compound. Together they tracked down the target and killed him to the HIVE's specifications. All the while, Slade didn't feel Joey's presence in his mind anymore and feared the worst. When Slade contacted the HIVE to bring them proof of the deed and to get Joey back, the HIVE asked for Slade to do another mission for free as a way of paying off for his previous failure. Slade agreed to do that, but only if he could see Joey. The HIVE declined and when Slade insisted, they threatened to kill Joey if he asked again. Assuming HIVE had already killed Joey, Slade and Grant killed their HIVE handler and several members of the HIVE security force before they were brought to a stop by Damien Darhk entering the room with a knife to Joey's throat.
Slade demanded his son back, agreeing to do whatever the HIVE wanted and even more to earn off his debt for taking the lives of so many HIVE agents. All Slade said he wanted was his son. Darhk stalled the debate until a massive security force funneled in to surround the room and take aim at Slade and Grant. Darhk claimed the problem with Slade was his pride and insisted that Slade needed to be humbled if he was ever to be brought back in line.
As Grant and Slade watched in horror, Darhk slit Joey's throat. Grant rushed in, ready to kill, but Slade grabbed his son and threw him through a thick window before he himself jumped out. Slade then carried Grant a considerable distance from the compound before Grant wrestled free and shoved his father. Grant was furious, calling his father a coward, and demanding to know why he did that after they killed Joey. That is when Grant heard his father say "You were always a good brother to me, Grant. I couldn't let them kill you, too. I love you..." with Joey's voice before Slade's one eye changed color from green to its original brown.
Slade and Grant swore vengeance on HIVE, signing an exclusive contract with the HIVE's enemy (and a past employer of Slade), Ra's al Ghul.
Joey Wilson: 1993 - 2013
But little did Slade and Grant realize, Joey didn't die. The HIVE had never intended to give Joey back to Slade. They used his failure to justify kidnapping the boy but always planned to simply exploit Slade's fatherly instincts for free work before killing Slade and taking the boy for their own needs. Slade was a thug, but Joey could be so much more than that. When Darhk slit the boy's throat, he did so more as a surgeon than a butcher and used the blood from the cut to power a spell to put the boy into a deep slumber that would mimic death while keeping the boy's body alive and unchanging.
While the HIVE was aware of Joey's psychic potential, they failed to anticipate his actual ability to project his consciousness. When Darhk cut the throat, Joey was already sending his psychic presence into Slade's mind. When the spell was cast, Joey was therefore locked out of his body. When he left Slade's mind and returned to his own body, the stasis spell prevented his psychic self from re-entering the corporeal body.
Unable to venture too far from his body, Joey became nothing more than a faint, unaging ghost haunting the various compounds that the HIVE transported his body around to as they attempted to study his genetics and keep his body out of the hands of Slade and the League of Assassins. Due to the stasis spell having blocked much of the psychic energy his body would provide, Joey was too weak to possess people regularly, usually only able to get a few minutes of activity out of a body every few months, but still Joey would use those minutes strategically to derail HIVE plans in an effort to save as many lives as possible.
Jericho: 2013 - Present
Eventually, Damien Darhk let it slip to Slade that Joey was still alive while taunting him during a hostile encounter. Slade got permission from Ra's to mount a rescue mission. During their mission, Deathstroke and Grant, in his new identity as the Jackal, managed to free Joey's body and return it to the League's hidden main compound. Arriving, they found 'Eth Alth'eban nearly abandoned as a result of the mass captures orchestrated by Tim Drake.
It was nearly a year before the League had reorganized their occult specialists in the Black Glove to break the stasis spell. When they performed the ritual, Joey's body collapsed into a coma as his very weakened psychic self finally rejoined the body. While comatose, Joey was treated by the League's best healers and El Penitente. Of course, El Penitente was never one to pass up the opportunity for arcane research and he studied the boy's aura intensely, to decipher the youth's ability. He shared this information with Talia who was diligently looking for a way to decisively seize control of the League from her sister without resorting to full-scale conflict.
After Joey woke from his coma and began to confide in his brother that he planned to run away from the League, Talia decided to poison Joey with an herbal concoction to feign MacGregor’s Syndrome in order to have Slade agree to place Joey in cryogenic stasis. However, as Talia and El Penitente began to employ methods which would cause Joey's consciousness to leave his frozen body while the boy's mind was being controlled by the mad monk, Slade realized that the League, under Talia's leadership, was becoming increasingly like the HIVE. After a successful field test, joining Joey's astral form with the brainwashed Shelly Gaynor, Slade demanded that Talia return his son. When Talia refused to surrender Joey, Slade broke ties with Talia.
Slade reunited with Grant and together the two returned to 'Eth Alth'eban to rescue Joey but arrived too late to find his body had been rescued by Cassandra Cain. Slade decided that maybe Joey was better off returning to Gotham.
Joey was taken in by his uncle Jacob Kane but kept in a medically induced coma while recovering from the cryogenic and all the trauma the League's experiments had inflicted upon him. But after over two decades in a sleepless state in which his psychic power was pushed to its absolute limits, Joey had lost all sense of his identity. In all that time, only one person had given him a name he identified with. That name was Heretic.
Threat Assessment
Resources
- Enhanced Brain Capacity: Due to his father's metahuman gene, Jericho possesses a metahuman gene, which enables him to access his brain functions on a cellular level, granting him psychic-based abilities.
- Possession: Through eye contact, Joey is able to enter another's body and control their motor functions. If Joey has possessed the person previously, he may be able to re-establish the link without eye contact. In the case of persons with a deep personal connection to Joey, neither eye contact or physical proximity may be required. While in possession of a person, Joey can use his own skills (but not most of his powers) or the skills of the host. Joey can even comb through the memories of his host but needs to know a little about whatever he is searching for. If possessing a metahuman, Joey has been able to use their powers.
- Astral Projection: Joey can separate his "soul-self" from his physical body to explore the astral plane or enter into psychic realms, such as the Dreaming.
- Psychic Feedback: Joey can project pure psionic force from his mind which can have devastating effects on the target, especially other psionics.
- Psychic Bridge: Joey has an innate connection to his father and by extension, his brother and half-sister. Of those connected to this network, Joey is the most powerful psionic and thus is able to fully exploit this network, allowing him to fully draw on the skills and memories of the other minds in the psychic web or hide from detection and mental intrusion. This linking of minds also permits Joey to speak with the others regardless of distance. It is worth noting that this connection is not telepathic and does not permit the sharing of thoughts themselves, only sensory memories and knowledge-based skills.
- Martial Arts: Though Joey (when in his right state of mind) prefers solving things through nonviolent means, he is an above-average fighter, having been trained by his brother and also via his psychic connection with his father.
- Weaponry: Joey is skilled in the use of multiple weapons types. His reflexes are honed enough that he was able to use a bo staff to block projectiles such as shuriken, kunai, and arrows.
- Acrobatics: Joey is a highly skilled acrobat while in his own body, or in the bodies of similarly athletic persons.
- Espionage: Thanks to his training with the HIVE, Joey has extensive skills in espionage.
- Investigation: Thanks to his amplified mental prowess, Joey has impressive perceptive and deductive skills, making him a capable detective.
- Stealth: Joey excels at remaining undetected when in or out of his own body.
- Acting: Joey has been shown to be a capable enough actor to impersonate the person he is possessing.
- Sign Language: In preparation for his awakening and knowing his vocal cords were severed, Joey learned sign language.
- Artistry: As a child, Joey was a talented painter and musician.
- KordTech Speech Fabrication Implants: Joey has sensors installed in his throat and mouth which detect movements in his throat and placement of his tongue to send information to a small handheld computer usually mounted on his belt. When working properly, these devices allow Joey to overcome his inability to speak.
Weaknesses
- Mental Illness: Joey has lost his own identity due to years being detached from his body and brainwashing conducted by El Penitente.
- Dormant Body: When Joey leaves his body to possess someone, his body is left vulnerable and immobile.
- Power Instability: Joey's powers are powerful but he has not yet learned to control them fully due to a lack of being connected to his body and allowed chances to practice them in an alert state.
- Migraines: Joey suffers from migraines, like many other psychics.
- Suicidal Thoughts: At times, Joey just wants his suffering to stop.
- Mute: Joey lacks working vocal cords due to a severe throat injury.[1]
Analytics
Missing Data
Trivia and Notes
Notes
- In the comics his throat was slit by William Walsh / Jackal.
Links and References
- Appearances of Joey Wilson
- Character Gallery: Joey Wilson