The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.
- Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince.
Chapter 1: The Prodigal Son.
Ogier is the son of Spade K, the godfather of the Spades crime family, one of the most powerful and influential criminal business empire amongst the existing Four Families of the City. Ogier was brought up together with his younger sister, Ada, in a considerably comfortable and normal lifestyle, insulated from the brutal and murderous reality of the family businesses. However, all this changed when Ogier's mother died of cancer, subsequently leaving him and his sister an emotional vacuum in their lives. Spade K remarried but Ogier's stepmother did not show any emotional support nor attention towards Ogier and Ada. They also learnt about the truth about the Spades Family business and what their father really does. After his ambitious stepmother was announced as the new Q of Spades, Ogier decided not to have any involvement with the criminal activities of the Spades Family. Upon completion of high school, Ogier enrolled into the military. He was an exemplary soldier, eventually selected into an elite Special Forces team whereby Ogier carried out numerous black ops in various hot zones. However, when a mission ended up in disaster with high casualty rate due to a direct disobey of his superior's order, Ogier was dishonourably discharged and sentenced to a year imprisonment.
Outside the prison, Ogier was received by the awaiting Spade K and his entourage of bodyguards and associates. But he turned down the reception and left in a cab. There Ogier searched and met up with a former teammate, The Baron. Together they went to visit a late team member, Tyrone whom died in the mission and gave his mother a huge sum of money. The truth was that Ogier, The Baron and Tyrone had discovered a cache of gold bullions hidden in a bunker which belonged to a late dictator of the foreign country. The trio decided to take the loot themselves, engaging the help of local dissidents but the commander of the team learnt of the gold and wanted it for himself. Disagreeing on how to divide the loot, a firefight occurred, leading to Ogier being found guilty after admitting to all responsibilities personally without revealing the actual nature of the incident. The gold bullion managed to be transported to the City by The Baron.
Ogier wanted to lead a normal comfortable life, but fate seemed to have other plans for him. When the truth of the incident involving the gold bullions was discovered, Ogier's life was in danger but being the son of the Spade K, anything could be resolved. When the incident was settled, Ogier was forced to re-join the family for "indebted gratitude". Spade K personally mentored him, grooming him to be his successor. He bestowed upon Ogier the "card", as rankings are called within the hierarchy of all the Four Families, the J of Spades, which means Ogier's rank and authority are secondary only to Spade K and Spade Q respectively. The latter was uncomfortable at Ogier's return. Her brother and herself were determined to make life difficult for Ogier, now known as Spade J. The opportunity came when Billy Kid, the wayward son of the K of Hearts, the self-styled "Red King", leader of the Hearts Family, killed several of the Spades Family associates as part of a series of personal and ambitious territorial expansion. The J of Hearts or "The Hedgehog", due to his prickly disposition, was a brutal, cold-hearted and merciless crime underboss whose passion for violence was well known. In a meeting between Spade K and the Red King to settle the matter, the former promised not to pursue the incident any further in the interest of all the Families. But in his shrewdness and dog eats dog world of the Gangsters Kingdom, Spade K ordered The Baron, whom by then a contract killer for the Spades Family, to take out Billy Kid. The Red King, of course knew and hid his son in an undisclosed location in the City while arranging for him to be sent out of the country. The Q siblings assigned Spade J to locate and kill Billy Kid, much to the protest of Spade K but the Q of Spades countered and said that it was time for Spade J to be a "made man" as well as to prove his abilities and earn his rank. Otherwise Spade K would be accused of blatant, outright nepotism.
Ogier reluctantly accepted the job. He and The Baron worked together, scouring the City and eventually learnt that Billy Kid and an entourage of his bodyguards were at Poison, a strip club downtown, against the order of The Red King. Billy wanted to celebrate before leaving and left upstairs with a stripper. After all his bodyguards were killed, Billy pulled out his semi-automatic and shot blindly at a moving shadow but Spade J emerged from behind him in the bedroom, quietly slitting his throat with a switch blade. As The Hedgehog gurgled and bled like a stuck pig, Spade J disappeared into the darkness.
The success of Spade J cemented his position within the Spades Family and earned the respect of his peers and elders. Spade K knew a war was inevitable and acted first. In a series of subsequent acts of attack upon the Hearts Family members and associates led by Spade J, The Red King was defeated, followed by his death from a heart attack shortly after. The newly appointed K of Hearts, with their powers greatly reduced, made amend with the Spades Family, ending the vendetta between the two families.
Spade J slowly adapted and accepted his life within the family. The Baron became an official member of the Spades Family, with the card, 5 of Spades. But the Q siblings began to scheme and eventually caused Spade J to be side-lined. He left once more and travelled the world.
However, it would not last, as Alger, his childhood friend and former right hand man whom possessed skills and intelligence at least the equal of Ogier, joined the rival Diamonds Family and had secretly amassed his own power from within. As Alger the Diamond 2 began to exact his grand schemes and plans to become the overall leader of the Four Families, leaving a trail of death and destruction in his wake, Spade J was forced to return, resulting in a series of bloody acts of retribution in the Gangsters Kingdom.
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Just when I thought I am safe from spending on figures of which I know I wanted but couldn't get, like, exclusive ones available only from physically attending a toy exhibition, lo and behold, got a call from xl-shop and was offered that DAM Toys exclusive 300 pieces release of special colour edition of Spade J, available only via Singapore Toy, Games & Comic-Con 2014 selected booth. As mentioned in one of the previous post, I skipped GK series initially and only got onto the bandwagon from Diamond 2 and 3 onwards, so I didn't have the titular first character of which was a caricature of Jason Statham, when this was announced, the inability to obtain one at retail, thus through secondary market where the flippers flipped the price higher than a mamak doing his thang on a roti canai, I forgo it altogether. Until that call. The catch is that I would need to purchase Saxon (GKS001) together as a package. Always a catch. And without that t-shirt which supposedly comes with each purchase. Otherwise I calculated that I would have had to pay higher than actual retail. There's subtle difference between this version and the older one, from the headsculpt and clothes. It include an additional hoodie but the most obvious is the cap, the first one is much like newspaper boys style whereas this one leans toward the classic flat cap. The box is replicated but with different effect and colours. The write-up is brought over and its nice to read the first write-up of the series, which is quite different from the subsequent ones and admittedly, it was kinda hard for me to digest due to the rather "unusual" manner it was written. All in all, what a score and this is for keep. So with this in hand, no upcoming third version of this figure, Memories Version, for me. And that's fine.
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