Leon was brought
to America as a boy and brought up by The Family. Trained as the heaviest
of mob heavies, Leon learned every nuance of assassination; from sniping
on building tops to being a shadow armed only with piano wire. He took
his craft very seriously and learned to work with the coolness of a surgeon.
Leon became known throughout the underground as The Professional. His clinical precision had earned him a reputation. In fact, when he was not busy with his own clients, he was often called in to fix a job that had been botched by one of his less qualified cohorts.
A master of security by obscurity, Leon lived in perfect invisibility deep in the urban bustle of NYC. His apartment was suitably defensible and the neighborhood was reasonably quiet. Then Lou, Leon's neighbor, fucked up. Lou fucked up big.
Although neighbors, Leon and Lou were perfect strangers and yet they still happened to have something in common: Organized crime. Lou was a mule for a very corrupt faction of local Feds. When Lou thought he could skim some H off the top, things got bad. The Feds got even. Lou got dead. The Feds even went to the trouble of erasing Lou's family.
But the Feds missed one; the youngest daughter, Matilda. Realizing that this could be a huge loose end, the Feds were on a manhunt.
Matilda was a
savvy kid and managed to slip past the corrupt agents. She wound up, quite
by coincidence, on Leon's doorstep. And thus Leon's weak link was found.
He warmed to the orphan. Took her in. Loved her like his own blood.
They lived in an odd mix of secrecy and adolescent rebellion. Leon's patience was tested and their cover nearly blown several times. For Leon it was a labor of love. For Matilda it was shock at having someone truly care for her for the first time in her young life.
But it could
only last so long. Leon was eventually made by the Feds and the heat was
on. Knowing that Matilda's only hope was to fade into obscurity, Leon sent
her to an "uncle" in Little Sicily. Inevitably the conflict came. Equipped
with a veritable arsenal, the Feds swept in on Leon. Little did they realize,
however, that they were dealing with a Professional.
Escaping to the basement of the building, Leon sprung his trap. As he squirmed out to the alley and down the block, the fuse tripped. The building came down. Matilda was safe. Leon was dead. Or so it was reported on the streets.
More accurately, the old Leon was dead. Owing to his love for Matilda, The Professional reinvented himself. He positioned himself as a janitor in the offices of the FBI in NYC and kept an eye on his city. His justice was quick and silent. And while he occasionally crossed paths with what would become the JLA, he preferred to keep to himself. That was, after all, how vigilantes worked.
How professionals
worked.