Gear
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Real Identity: Richard Osgood "Richie" Foley
Affiliation(s): None
Appearances (SS): All 52 episodes except Blast From The Past
Powers: Enhanced Intelligence, Technopathy, and Engineering
Voiced By: Jason Marsden
Richie Foley was a 14 year old teenager living in Dakota City. The son of Sean and Maggie Foley, he is half-Irish and half-Scandinavian. Foley attended Dakota Union High School with his friends Virgil Hawkins, Frieda Goren, and Omar Harmozi. He is the best friend and confidant of Hawkins for years. They share a passion in comic books, video games, sci-fi, hip-hop music, bowling, basketball, and football. Along with Foley, Hawkins even created a video game they named "Attack of the Blood-Hungry Gutsuckers." An avid reader of Plant Man, Particle Man, and other comics, Hawkins and Foley make weekly visits to their three favorite stores, including Dakota Comics and Collectibles and Off Your Rocket. But unlike Hawkins, Foley didn't initially excel in his academics and indulges in junk food more often. In his freshman year, Foley did run, unsuccessfully, for class president on the platform of fixing the school's faulty vending machines. He is also a fixture in the student body's gossip circles.
After Hawkins received electromagnetic powers from the Big Bang, he immediately showed them off to Foley. Foley quickly suggested he become a superhero. Unknown to him at the time, Foley's close contact with Hawkins exposed him to Quantum Vapor. His power would remain dormant for a year. Believed to be Static's faceless partner, Foley often invented gadgets for Static to use, including the Static Saucer, Shock Box, Zap Caps, and tracers. He even chose an abandoned gas station as Static's secret headquarters. In a support capacity, Foley kept Static responisble, acted as a publicist, and also helped investigate cases and searched the Internet for leads. One such instance came when Static needed to find the hideout of the Meta-Breed. However, Foley's close relationship to Static has made him a target of Ebon. He once kidnapped Foley and demanded an exchange for his cohort, Talon. Years later, he suspected Foley's friend Virgil Hawkins was Static.
Foley was ashamed of his father's intolerance towards African Americans and kept it secret from Hawkins until they were 14. Angered by his comments about Hawins, Foley ran away from home and hid in Ferris Row. After Static, Sean Foley, and Robert Hawkins saved him from several Bang Babies, the Foley's repaired their relationship. Afterwards, Foley opened up his father to his friend's various cultures.
Static and Foley's relationship were often tested to its limits. Foley secretly thought he was the one who should have gotten powers and once even tried to take on the Bang Baby Slipstream with only a few Zap Caps. A short time later, he was given the chance to prove himself when he met Ragtag at a Stucco City construction site. Ragtag gave Foley the power to manipulate energy blasts. He was smitten with the power to shoot energy lasts, create energy fields, levitate himself, and create constructs. However, when Ragtag demanded he steal for him, Foley realized the error of his ways and set off an alarm during a heist. Foley kept his distance from the action but during an unexpected confrontation, Foley found himself trying to talk down Jimmy Osgood from shooting his tormentor, Nick Connor. In the altercation, Foley was accidentally shot in the right leg.
Sometime in his sophmore year, Foley's super intelligence activated. At first he didn't realize it but noted how his brain felt like it was on fire and giving him so many ideas. He invented a scouting robot he named Backpack, improved the range of Static's tracers, made the Static Saucer fold up smaller, created next generation Zap Caps, programmed a police scanner to alert him if the word "metahuman" was spoken, and jet blades, using a few items such as a paper clip and circuit board. Static concluded he was a late bloomer Bang Bay and had a delayed reaction to the Quantum Vapor. Foley was beside himself and disappointed at what he thought wasn't a cool power. When Hawkins was kidnapped by Meta-Breed, he quickly combined his inventions into a costume and liberated his friend. While deciding on a codename, Foley considered Hardware and Steel but ultimately settled on Gear. After his debut, Gear set up a crime database computer index that cross-indexed all newspaper crime reports from the last 20 years. He felt the 850 million articles would help them in their investigations.
In his first year, Gear met most of the Justice League: Batman, Flash, Hawkgirl, J'onn Jonzz, Green Lantern, and Superman, as well as the second Robin and the Hoop Squad. He also encountered celebrities such as Shaq and Lil' Romeo. Gear's secret identity was discovered by the Justice League, She-Bang, Hoop Squad, Eddie Felson, Robert Hawkins, and Omnara. Together with Static, he managed to defeat Brainiac in the Justice League Watchtower by filling its memory with music files and crashing the system. Brainiac, however, survived and took over Foley's body until he could create a more suitable one to upload into. He was also more eager than Static to team up with more allies such as She-Bang and Nina Crocker, the latter making a space-time demodulator to help control her powers. However, Gear was targeted for his power twice, by Edwin Alva and Dr. Odium. Gear later intervened to help Static and HotStreak transfuse Alva's son with enough energy to revive him. Dr. Odium attempted to convince Gear to become his ally and heir but he refused.
Gear's enhanced intelligence also allows him to interpret and analyze data at a much faster rate, thus devising solutions many times over. Gear created a second Time Manipulator to fight Speedwarp, perfected Dr. Todd's Bang Baby cure, and created an anti-virus to use on Omnara. However, when Dr. Todd's cure was sprayed in Dakota City, Gear immediately felt the effects. He suffered mental lapses, could barely control Backpack, and couldn't understand data feeds anymore. Once he got his powers back aboard the S.S. Cheng, Gear went to work to devise a defense against the Bang Baby cure.
As an adult, Gear grew into a more heavyset body frame like his father and mostly due to his fast food intake. Over the decades, he upgraded his suit, devices used by Static and he, and built an advanced headquarters underneath the Abandoned Gas Station of Solitude. In the later 2050's, Gear undertook a secret mission on the other side of the world. It was so classified that only a select few knew about it, such as Bruce Wayne. During this time, Kobra created a fake hologram message of Gear to lure Static into a trap.