Duke

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**Duke** was the call sign of a G.I. Joe field commander, and Major **Conrad S. Hauser**.

## Biography

### US Military Service

Major Hauser led a night HALO jump into the jungle of Papua. Hauser gets his parachute caught in the tree branches. After a clumsy landing, he joins his right-hand man Weems and the other Rangers. They find the trailer with computers used to redirect one of the U.S. spy satellites. As there is more enemy force than anticipated and the lack of time for reinforcements, Hauser becomes concerned but his men assures him they can get the job done. However, he's reminded of the mission where he lost his best friend, Rex Lewis.

A large Russian is guarding the trailer. Not willing to damage the equipment inside, Hauser deals with the man hand-to-hand and a knife. After taking care of the enemy, Hauser's team gets to work. Their mission is to reprogram and reroute the spy satellite back to American control. Once the satellite is returned to US control, Duke activates the explosives his team has planted around the camp and in the control trailer.

### Joining the G.I. Joes

Duke and Ripcord lead a convoy (comprising various types of Humvees, all-terrain vehicles and two Apache helicopters) to deliver a case of four nanomite warheads to the United Nations (UN) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). However, this convoy is soon attacked by Baroness and her team of Vipers. Duke's men and vehicles are obliterated by the Vipers' superior weaponry, but Duke's resourcefulness saves Rip. Duke recognizes Baroness as Ana, his former fiancee and Rex's sister.

The G.I. Joe team arrives and clears out the attackers, while Duke recovers the case. Telling General Hawk his backstory and how he knows the Baroness, he blackmails his way onto the team, and through training, proves that he belongs. But soon, the Pit is attacked by Baroness, Storm Shadow and Neo-Vipers, after a fight, they escape with the case.

With a new sense of urgency, Duke and the Joes head to Paris, where he and Ripcord, wearing new prototype Delta 6 Accelerator Suits, track down Baroness and Storm Shadow. Rip failed to stop Storm Shadow from firing a nanomite warhead at the Eiffel Tower, but Duke manages to shut it down before it can completely eat away the monument. In the process, he is captured.

### Taken By Cobra

At the enemy's underwater Arctic base, he learns that the manufacturer of the warheads, M.A.R.S Industries owner, James McCullen, has been playing both sides against the U.N. and G.I. Joe, and has put in motion a plot to take over the world. Duke tries to convince Ana to help him, but it seemingly falls on deaf ears.

He is taken to the laboratory of The Doctor, a vengeful, masked man, who appears to know Duke. After Duke questions him, the Doctor shows him his unmasked face. The Doctor is Rex Lewis, brother of Ana, whom Duke thought lost on a mission four years ago. The Doctor begins a process to turn Duke into a Neo-Viper, but Ana combats her brother's mind control and frees him. When the Doctor uses his PDA to shut down Ana's consciousness, and McCullen arrives, Duke is able to neutralize them with Ana's pulse pistol, burning McCullen's face in the process and recovering the Doctor's PDA.

### Escaping Cobra

He revives Ana and they escape to a waiting enemy sub, and plan to escape, but instead pursue Rex and McCullen, hoping to capture or kill them. After much dodging and destroying of enemy subs, and also having to put up with falling chunks of ice, Duke and Ana are able to track down McCullen, now Destro, and Rex, now Cobra Commander, and surround them with the Joes' underwater naval forces.

With the leaders of Cobra now in custody, Duke tells his team that the world is safe and informed Ana is now in prison until her nanomites are removed He tells her that he will wait for her, unknowing that Cobra Commander has replaced the President of the United States with Destro's aide, the master of disguise known as Zartan.

### Final Missions

Some time after joining G.I. Joe, Duke became friends with Roadblock, who was with him in a mission in North Korea. He was later at Roadblock's house, where the two were playing video games, when they saw on the news the death of the Pakistani president and some time after that he and the rest of the Joes went on a mission to Pakistan to retrieve nuclear warheads. After a successful mission, him and Roadblock have a shooting competition, which Duke losses when Roadblock talks. The Joes' base is then suddenly attacked in an airstrike, later revealed to have been ordered by the president. Seeing Flint out in the open, he rushes out to save him, pushing him away from a truck moments before it is destroyed, killing Duke. After the three remaining Joes-Roadblock, Flint and Lady Jaye-see all the dead Joes, Roadblock vows to avenge Duke by killing whoever is responsible.

## Personality and Traits

Duke was a brave and noble man who cared a great deal about his friends and tried to save Rex just before the bunker Rex was trapped inside was blown up. Four years later he saved Ripcord during the battle over the case which contained the nanomite warheads.

Duke felt an overwhelming amount of guilt for Rex's presumed death, since he had promised to take care of him. He was unable to face his former lover, Ana, after her brother's presumed death fearing that Ana hated him for breaking his promise and probably thinking that Ana's life would be better off without him. However abandoning Ana was part of the reason Ana became the Baroness. Four years later, Duke told Ana that he truly was sorry for failing to save Rex and for abandoning her when she needed him most.

Duke truly did love Ana and hesitated from killing her when she and Storm Shadow invaded the G.I. Joe base. Realizing that abandoning Ana had been one of the worst mistakes, perhaps **the** worst mistake, he'd ever made, Duke vowed to never give up on her again after she turned against the Doctor and James McCullen.

Duke was a dedicated soldier who usually followed orders but was known to put his friends before his orders as shown when he saved Ripcord before going back for the case containing the nanomite warheads. He appeared to enjoy combat claiming "I'd rather be on the ground in the fight, not flying over it". Duke was stubborn and refused to give up while fighting against Snake-Eyes despite the fact that Snake-Eyes was a master of martial arts. His determination to prove himself eventually allowed him to become a member of G.I. Joe.

Duke was clearly a skilled soldier due to the fact that he'd been promoted to captain at some point during his career. He was a skilled marksman and was also skilled in hand to hand combat. In fact Duke even managed to land a blow on Snake-Eyes, something which no other known person in G.I. Joe had been able to do.