Ian Noble

## [Source]

**Ian Noble** is the latest operative to operate under the Action Man codename.

## Biography

### Early life

Ian Noble was born in Cambridge, England. In 2012, Ian was attending Sixth-Form in North London. Generally unhappy with the course of his life, Ian was disliked by his fellow students and teachers, and unwanted by his family. He developed a skill for pick-pocketing by committing petty crimes, and evaded detection through his physical abilities.

During one mathematics class, Ian's teacher asked him a question on the relative velocities of two trains and their eventual meeting point between Cambridge and London. Ian—who was drawing in his exercise book rather than studying—responded that he did not care, and that his future would be about more than train schedules.

One evening, while walking along the River Thames, Ian observed a man entering a derelict building using a high-tech lock. Curious, Ian pickpocketed the man's entry card and gained entry into the building himself by bypassing an I.D. scanner. The base was the then-current headquarters of the Action Man Programme, and Ian was discovered by the current Action Man, Mike Brogan. Impressed by Ian's skills, Brogan offered him the chance to join the Action Man Programme and he agreed, joining the technology division where he worked alongside Bryce Chan.

### Antimatter Crisis

"*Talk to me, Ian. Where are you?*"
"*You're here! Fantastic. I'm under fire in, uh, Laboratory 6-C-Sub-Level Five.*"
—Action Man Mike Brogan and Ian Noble[src]
Ian worked in the technology division of the Action Man Programme for almost four years, and occasionally participated in fieldwork. Some of it was authorized, but often it was not. But in both instances, the majority of his deployments were in relation to the activities of Doctor X. On one mission, Ian infiltrated one of Doctor X's bases underneath the River Thames, uncovering a plot which involved a stolen experimental spacecraft with an antimatter generator. The experimental drive had been accidentally set to overload, threatening to trigger a chain reaction that would destroy the Earth.

Ian's infiltration of the base was uncovered, and Action Man was deployed to neutralize the threat. While Ian took refuge from Doctor X's personnel, Action Man breached the facility and rescued him. Ian, now armed, joined Action Man as they proceeded towards the spacecraft. Upon arrival, they found that they only had seventeen seconds until it exploded, and no idea how to shut down the reactor. Action Man took the only course of action available, and piloted the spacecraft into orbit, where it exploded without endangering the Earth.

### A New Action Man

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom considered Ian to be a hero for his part in uncovering Doctor X's plan. He pressured Director Pauline Bestley to promote Ian to become the new Action Man. Bestley reluctantly agreed, although she felt that Agent Terrence Salmons was the more qualified choice. For his part, Ian felt responsible for Brogan's death.

### The Greatest Hero Of Them All

One of Ian's first missions was to deal with a train hijacking. Terrorists had hijacked a commuter train between Cambridge and London, and placed a dirty bomb on board. To make makes more complicated, a tanker train filled with petrol was out of control. The two trains were heading for a collision. With command and control provided by Director Bestley and Agent Chan—now the Action Man Programme quartermaster after Professor Ernst Sinclair's death—Ian boarded the commuter train, but was informed that his support team was engaged in Milton Keynes. Five terrorists with firearms and jet packs were holding several hostages in one compartment with the dirty bomb. Ian breached the compartment via the window and neutralized the terrorists with his own weapons. Securing the dirty bomb, Ian requested a way to disarm it. Bryce pointed out that he had no idea how the terrorists had constructed the bomb and that even if the bomb was disarmed, it would still explode once the petrol tanker train hit the commuter train.

With no chance of stopping the train in time, Ian took one of the terrorist's jet packs and proceeded to the train cab. Killing two more terrorists, Ian blew out one of the cab's windows and told the driver to tell everyone to hold on. Throwing the jet pack out of the window, he fired at it, detonating the fuel tank and causing the commuter train to derail. With the track clear, the tanker train moved through the now clear stretch of railway. After checking that the dirty bomb had bot been cracked, control reported that the atmospheric readings were clear. As Ian relaxed, he was surprised to find himself confronted by a pair of tigers. He was about to shoot them when they were scared off by his support team, consisting of Agents Terrence Salmons and Mercy Gale. They informed him that the train had crashed into Shepreth Wildlife Park which had a Tiger Enrichment Programme. With the immediate danger past, Ian boarded the VTOL and returned to Secret Intelligence Service Headquarters. On the ride back, Ian asked Gale if there was evidence that Doctor X was behind the train hijack. She was of the opinion that he was dead, given the fact that there was no evidence he had made it out of the base under the River Thames. Salmons admonished him as well, saying that the previous Action Man would have resolved the situation without endangering civilians.

### Hauteville House

Ian was dispatched to Guernsey after separatists took over Hauteville House. As a former Action Man Programme facility, Ian was deployed to recover an O.S. Codex from the building. During the infiltration, he came across the separatists. Despite having orders not to engage, Ian noticed that one of them had an X scratched on his belt and decided to intervene.

## Skills and abilities

Ian Noble's training has given him an above-average level of strength and extremely high agility for a Human of his age and build. His agility is considered to be at the upper end of the baseline Human scale. Ian is also accomplished at sleight-of-hand and has an exemplary grasp of battlefield reasoning.

## Equipment

Ian Noble has access to a vast array of high-tech weapons, vehicles, and equipment at his disposal, depending on the parameters of a given mission.

## Appearances

* *Rom #0*: "To The Victors The Spoils"
* *Secret Raiders: A Revolution Prelude*
* *Action Man #1*: "Absolute Beginners"
* *Action Man #2*: "England, Half English"
* *Action Man #3*: "Out of the Way"
* *Action Man #4*: "Mr. Love and Justice"
* *Revolution #1*: "Chapter One: Concord Hymn"

## Notes and references

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 *Rom #0*: "To The Victors The Spoils"
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 *Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook #1*—**Action Man** biography
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 *Action Man #1*: "Absolute Beginners"
4. ↑ *Revolution* is established to have occurred in 2016 in *Revolutionaries #1*. Ian was attending Sixth-Form four years earlier.
5. ↑ *Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook #1*—**Bryce Chan** biography