EARTH 2003: The Stunt Team (Roxy Rocket & The Cavalier)
One of the less talked about parts of Gotham City is its resident movie studio, Monoscope Pictures, where they had filmed such classics as the horror classic “The Crimes of Dr. Z”, the psychological drama “Clown”, and its most popular film series, “The Gray Ghost”, which would unknowingly later inspire the crime-fighting persona of Batman. That just goes to show the power of movies and what they can inspire people to do. But movies would be nothing without the people who make them. While most credit goes to the actors, directors, and screenwriters, not nearly enough credit is given to the makeup, effects, and especially the ones who take the hits that the actors mostly fake taking in the finished product. One such pair of stunt people was Roxanne Sutton and Hudson Pyle, who met while working on separate productions and quickly became friends and soon after, much more. Roxanne was a newcomer to Gotham, having moved there from California. At the same time, Hudson had been born and raised in Gotham's High Society, which led him to develop a bit of a haughty, pretentious personality and a love of older Errol Flynn swashbuckling adventure movies. Despite his parents’ prodding him to become a theater actor, Hudson always thought it would be more fun to be a stuntman so he could take up real sword fighting and other combat styles. Meanwhile, Roxanne became a stuntwoman due to her love of ‘80s and ‘90s action movies, always wishing she could be as strong and skilled as the people she saw on the big screen. But while most people would call big-budget high-octane action spectacles their favorites, Roxanne’s favorite was always an underrated ‘90s movie about a 1940s-based superhero who wore a rocket pack and fought Nazis and Gangsters. This also created her love of flight and airplanes, which she would train in when she was becoming a stuntwoman in Hollywood. After a few years in Hollywood, Roxanne moved to Gotham after getting a job offer there. After she and Hudson met each other, they quickly became friends and soon after lovers.
2 years into their relationship, Roxanne and Hudson were allowed to become more than just stunt performers and put their skills to use better. One day, while they were busy shooting a new action romance movie, the movie studio was taken hostage by the Film Freak and his gang. Film Freak had become disgusted and grouchy with the soulless and recycled garbage he thought movies had become, and was going to force the studio to make his own movie at gunpoint. While everyone else was horrified and begrudgingly obeyed his commands for fear of being shot, Roxanne and Hudson refused to stand back and do nothing. When the gunmen tried to force Hudson to help them move the props around, Hudson used his combat training to knock him out, with Roxanne doing the same. They then led the gunmen away so the hostages could get away, with the chase taking them all over the studio lot. Eventually, they made it to the prop warehouse, where they locked themselves inside to buy themselves some time. While Hudson was busy looking through the weapons for something to fight back with, Roxanne made her way into the workshop of the special effects man, James Jesse. After informing him of the situation, James decided now would be the perfect time to test something he’d been working on for a while: An Experimental Jetpack.
When the henchmen tried to shoot down the door, they had unwittingly just unleashed their hospital stay for the next few months. Out of the doors flew a sword-wielding Hudson Pyle and a rocket-pack riding Roxanne Sutton, who was armed with a prop gun that shot flash-bangs. While Hudson was busy disarming the henchmen by giving them non-lethal slices and cuts, Roxanne took the high ground and tried to round up everyone else still on the studio lot so she could guide them to safety. She soon caught sight of Batman swinging onto the scene and fighting off more of Film Freak’s Henchmen. She also caught sight of Film Freak and his cameraman hijacking a nearby camera van to escape, crashing through the gates of Monoscope Pictures and tearing down the road into the city. Just as Batman was about to call the Batmobile, Roxanne clumsily flew past him and the crowd, blowing hats and papers away from everyone, while some were too captivated to care. The jet-pack was like trying to tame a wild bull, with it seemingly wanting to go any direction other than what she wanted to head in. But it was during this chase that the stars aligned for Roxanne, and she knew what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. Meanwhile, Hudson was busy fighting off the gunmen and trying to let all of the hostages escape. It was terrifying for him, as he was facing men with pistols and machine guns and had merely armed himself with a sack of smoke bombs and a rapier sword he had grabbed. But despite his fear, Hudson had never felt more alive than ever, as he was putting his talents as a fighter and stuntman to use against real danger instead of fake danger made to look real. He began to love every second of his fight, throwing out one-liners like he was in a campy spy movie while he slashed the gunmen across the chests and arms, not enough to kill them, but it would certainly knock them down. He also made liberal usage of the smokebombs he’d grabbed, making a massive cloud that he used to sneak attack the ones lost in the fog. When the GCPD finally arrived, they were beyond surprised to see a masked man with a rapier sword fighting the last two henchmen with a sword. With the last attacker felled, Hudson noticed the cops and bowed like a gentleman, saying that he’d made their job much easier for them as he helped to round them up for the police.
Meanwhile, Roxanne finally managed to catch up to the camera van and clumsily tried to land on the roof, almost overshooting it and killing herself on a few attempts before she managed to land on the roof, just in time to see the Batmobile closing in fast. At that moment, one of Film Freak’s henchmen leaned out of the passenger side and tried to shoot her. Roxanne retaliated by shooting a flash bang and blinding him, causing him to fall out of the van and roll across the road, the Batmobile narrowly avoiding it. Batman then fired the car’s grappling hook and caught onto the van, reversing and slowing down the van until it stopped abruptly, sending Rxanne flying off the roof and onto the ground, where she managed to recover by tucking and rolling onto her feet. It was at that moment that the van’s side doors opened and Film Freak jumped out with a portable IMAX camera and made a break for it, filming the entire thing as Batman chased him down an alley. As Film Freak ran down the alleyway, he tried everything to keep Batman at bay by knocking anything over and climbing over and under fences until he could see the end of the alley. Just as he reached the end of the alley, he was knocked down by an outstretched arm that blocked his path, making him fly a few feet before falling flat on his back, sending the IMAX camera flying in the air until Roxanne managed to catch it. In no time flat, Roxanne and Hudson were swarmed by onlookers, the police, and the press, with everyone filming them with their phones. In a few minutes, they had become media sensations, with people already posting #swordsman and #rocketgirl all over any news platform and message board. Thankfully, Roxanne had been wearing a helmet, so no one recognized her immediately. When Roxanne tried to look for Batman, he had already vanished into the shadows. As Film Freak was pushed into the back of the Police Cruiser, his level of geeking out was beyond belief. He wasn’t angry in the slightest, as he had just created his magnum opus, which everyone in the city would see that night after the camera was turned over to the news, having been used to capture the entire chase.
A week later, a new pair of crime-fighters would make their debut in Gotham City, both of them being a very different flavor from Batman and his Batfamily. One of them was a woman dressed in a brown bomber jacket and a helmet while riding a jetpack and carrying a modified gun that shot flash pellets. She called herself “Roxy Rocket, The Bronze Bullet”. The other was a man dressed like a more flamboyant Zorro with shades of white and red in his costume, carrying a rapier sword and a whip, which he used for long-range attacks and to scale the rooftops of Gotham City. He called himself “The Cavalier”. This crime-fighting duo became known as “The Stunt Team”, using their skills to put a dent in the schemes of the criminals, gangsters, and supervillains trying to ruin the city. But unlike the ninja-like Batman and his partners, who fought crime in the shadows using deception and darkness, Roxy Rocket and The Cavalier used theatricality and showmanship to fight criminals, always trying to make a big show of everything. They also did interviews on the street and even made appearances on Talk Shows, enjoying every minute of their fame. But while most people in Gotham had fallen in love with this new duo, the only ones who weren’t impressed were Batman and Commissioner Gordon, not to mention the villains who had been foiled by this new duo, mainly Killer Moth, The Penguin, Catwoman, and The Joker II. But the one villain who didn’t hate them was the first one they had stopped, The Film Freak, who planned for many more encounters.
