Tag: the ace of spades

G. Brett Williams #13 – Atticus Spade, the Ace of Spades

Atticus Spade – A member of the all-black 369th Infantry, the group known by the nicknames “Harlem’s Hellfighters” and “Black Rattlers,” Henry “Hank” Needham was the first African American to earn the French Croix de Guerre. During a battle in WWI, Needham and his fellow infrantryman William Roberts were attacked by a German raiding party. Roberts was injured in the battle and was being dragged off by German soldiers when Needham, out of ammo, attacked his friend’s captors and beat them savagely with the butt of his rifle. The Germans were cowed by Needham’s savagery and abandoned their plans. The two men had driven off an entire German raiding party. Needham came home to a country still divided on the issue of race. Weary of war and death, he did everything he could to distance himself from the military and his legacy, not that many people cared much for his legacy anyway. He bounced around the country, always finding odd jobs where he could and supplementing his income with a little gambling here and there. Eventually he ended up out West where he found work on the Boulder (eventually Hoover) Dam project. The project’s proximity to Las Vegas, which legalized gambling in 1931, made it the perfect place for Needham to find some extra cash. At that point in his life he was a very accomplished con man and card sharp and he put those skills to good use in the fertile ground of a young Sin City. He was enjoying life on the grift, as much as anyone can, when the government came calling. While Needham had abandoned the US military as soon as his service was up, his friend Will Roberts had continued to serve. Roberts had been trained as a spy and sent to Africa in an attempt to gather intelligence on strange occurrences on the African continent that led back to the rising socialist movement in Germany. Roberts lost contact and was presumed compromised. Rather than risk losing those secrets to a mounting German threat, the Americans went after the one man they thought best capable of finding and rescuing (or eliminating) his former partner. This is how Hank Needham became Atticus Spade, the Ace of Spades. It is the retrieval of Roberts that serves as the first team mission for the Aces.