Liberation

And now for a little alternate history:

On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was shot and critically wounded, but survived. When the would-be assassin was revealed to be a communist sympathizer, the Red Scare of the 50's returned to the United States with a vengeance. All the old paranoia returned, matched only by the outcry that something be done to make the country safer. In the midst of this political climate, President Kennedy, now confined to a wheelchair by his injuries, oversaw the transformation of the nation into the single dominant political and military power in the world.

Fueled by outrage in the international community and unprecedented sympathy back home, Kennedy began America's War of Liberation against Communism. Under American military and technical leadership, the New Allied Nations drove the Communists from power in North Korea, North Vietnam, and most of the Warsaw Pact nations. Chairman Mao was forced to abdicate in China, and Chiang Kai-shek was installed as President in a pro-American government. Finally, in 1979, the Soviet Union collapsed and fractured into more than a dozen individual nations, all of them desperately seeking alliances with America.

Enjoying unparalleled prestige and popularity, Kennedy had also moved to consolidate his power base back home. The Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution overturned the Twenty-second Amendment in 1967, allowing President Kennedy to run for President in '68 and again in '72. He won both elections easily. By 1976 his newly-formed American Freedom Party had supplanted both the Republicans and the Democrats, and by 1984 he was making his quadrennial run for the Presidency effectively unopposed. In 1992, before cheering crowds, he declared himself President for Life.

Since then, the American Freedom Party has ruled politics in the United States with the proverbial iron fist. The government-sponsored press, the nationalized economy, and the largest military in world history are all answerable directly to President Kennedy. Crime is virtually nonexistent in the United States, as convicted criminals are shipped to prisons overseas and never seen in America again. Unemployment is unheard of; those without jobs are put to work building roads, bridges, power stations, and other projects essential to the nation's infrastructure. Those who will not work are deported.

In 2002, the American Union replaced the outdated United Nations as the world's premiere international organization. Those nations allied with the United States enjoy peace and prosperity. Those that aren't are crushed and left to fend for themselves.

Now well into his nineties, American President for Life John F. Kennedy effectively rules the world. Everyone in America is happy with the state of things—or if they're not happy, they don't say anything.

Late in 2006, a young and idealistic American history student named Marcus Norlander came to a startling conclusion: His country was no longer what he had always been taught that it was. It was not the country that had freed the world from the specter of Communism. It was the country that had supplanted Communism and taken over the world under the leadership of a despot. The Pax Americana was a lie.

That's when the 'accident' occurred. Marcus probably should have been killed in the explosion, but instead he gained superhuman powers: vast strength and resistance to injury, super-speed flight, and the ability to project blasts of pure force with devastating effect. Working with a small group of like-minded renegade heroes, he seeks to restore America to what it once was—and what it should be. Taking his code name from an American heavy bomber from World War II, Marcus now fights for the salvation and restoration of America as ...



The Liberator!

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Image by me; Story by me based on the "Brave New World" game.