Batroc the Leaper, is a villain who has had a string of bad luck and moral ambiguity. The Marvel supervillain was created by Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, making his first appearance in Tales of Suspense #75 in 1966.
He was born Georges Batroc in Marseille, France. He served in the French Foreign Legion, speaks fluent French and English, and is a thief, smuggler, and is a skilled in military tactician. Batroc has no superhuman abilities, but is an Olympic level weightlifter who uses acrobatics and flexibility as weapons. He works as a mercenary, specializing in savate, a form of kickboxing.
In his first appearance, Batroc was hired by Them to steal the Inferno-42 cylinder. He fought Captain America in that first event and was proud to learn that Cap had already heard of him. Later he was hired by Hydra to kidnap Sharon Carter. This led to another fight with Captain America, which he lost. When Hydra threatened to execute both Cap and Batroc, he switched sides to help Cap escape.
In another mission he was hired by a foreign power to find a seismo-bomb. This was the first time he worked with Batroc’s Brigade, a group of supervillains led by the French mercenary. The second Batroc’s Brigade was hired by Machinesmith’s Baron Strucker android, called “the Hood” to fight Captain America. The third incarnation of Batroc’s Brigade included a group of henchmen rather than the usual supervillains, since they had let him down before. They were hired by the alien Jakar to abduct children and ended up fighting Cap and Falcon. Though Batroc didn’t feel bad about kidnapping children, once he learned that Jakar planned to harvest their souls to save his comatose race, he felt honor bound to stop the plan. Once again he switched sides to work with Captain American and Falcon.
He went back to working without Batroc’s Brigade, but did take on a new ally. Batroc and an extra-dimensional demon tried to steal transuranium, but were thwarted by Cap and Spider-Man. He was also a member of the “Defenders,” which was a villain group impersonating the actual Defenders. They committed robberies in these disguises until the real Defenders stopped them.
Then while working with Mister Hyde, Batroc tried an extortion scheme against Manhattan. He fought Cap during this incident, but when Mister Hyde threatened to kill thousands of people Batroc stopped him by working with Cap once again.
His next mission was to form a better Batroc’s Brigade with Zaran the Weapons Master and Machete. They were hired by Obadiah Stane to steal Cap’s shield, which Batroc successfully accomplished. Then they worked for Trick Shot to fight Hawkeye, followed by a job for Baron Helmut Zero to find fragments of the Bloodstone, and one for Maelstrom to build a device that could destroy the universe, which led to a fight with the Great Lakes Avengers.
He worked for a short time with a group of villains in Baron Zemo’s Thunderbolts army. After he was put in federal custody, Batroc registered with the Superhuman Registration Act. Batroc was sent to a superhuman training facility where he trained recruits in martial arts. He found the work unsatisfying, however, so he returned to his life of being a mercenary.
