| “ | You keep calling me the good guy...I'm not the good guy. I'm the bad guy! | „ |
| ~ Joe Smith revealing himself as Nemesis |
Nemesis, real name Joe Smith, is the main protagonist of the 2022 film Samaritan. He was once a supervillain who terrorized Granite City, battling his brother Samaritan, but abandoned his life of villainy after their final battle, which led to his brother's death, eventually saving Granite City from a new threat. Throughout the film, Joe Smith was hinted at being a survived Samaritan instead of Nemesis, with the film's main protagonist, Sam Cleary, strongly believing that Joe was truly Samaritan. As Nemesis, Joe wore a grey armored suit with red blood-like markings, his visage completely hidden by his mask. His insignia as Nemesis was the image of a hammer within the letter N.
He was portrayed by Sylvester Stallone. While Nemesis first appeared in a 2014 graphic novel of the same name, said graphic novel was based off the movie script, then unproduced as just a spec script.
Biography[]
Past[]
Nemesis, true name Joe Smith, and his brother, Samaritan, were superhuman twins born in Granite City, the origin of their powers unknown, but seemingly a genetic mutation. When they were in school, their powers were revealed when a group of bullies attempted to attack them, and the brothers punched the bullies through walls and lockers. Some people of the city, terrified of the brothers and their power, rallied against them and set their house on fire, killing their parents, but the brothers survived. In the wake of the incident, Joe grew to hate humanity for what it had done to him, and became a supervillain who sowed anarchy and chaos throughout Granite City. Samaritan, on the other hand, vowed to use his powers for good, aiming to stop his brother and keep the innocent safe.
The two grew into adulthood, Joe adopting the costumed identity of Nemesis, and battled across the city for many years. Despite Nemesis' villainous actions, many of the city's poorer and criminal populations instead began to see him as a hero, or some sort of symbol of true "justice", seeing how Nemesis targeted the city's elite, the rich, the proud, and those who tended to oppress the lower classes, seeing Samaritan as nothing more than another dirty cop. Additionally, throughout all their battles, Nemesis and Samaritan remained evenly matched. Eventually, Nemesis forged a sledgehammer charged with both his own blood and the hatred he had accumulated against the populace and Samaritan, giving him an edge over the hero.
Samaritan and Nemesis' final duel
With his hammer, Nemesis attacked the city's power plant, rupturing many critical areas to set the plant to blow, drawing Samaritan in as the plant caught on fire. The two fought, and while Nemesis gained the upper hand with his hammer, the battle eventually went to the roof of the burning plant, where Samaritan successfully disarmed Nemesis and took the hammer for himself, striking Nemesis to the ground with it. He then raised the hammer, in the right position to bring it down for a fatal blow to Nemesis. Nemesis, beaten, simply ordered Samaritan to finish the job, but Samaritan refused to kill his brother, instead tossing the hammer aside. He turned to leave, but then, the roof he was walking on caved in, right above roaring flames. Samaritan managed to grab on to a half-melted beam to avoid falling, and Nemesis, seeing how his brother had spared him, rushed to his aid, reaching down to pull him up. However, just as Nemesis grabbed hold of Samaritan's mask and hand, the beam broke off, and Samaritan slipped out of his brother's grasp, falling into the flames and dying from the heat of the exploding plant, leaving his mask behind.
Nemesis, shocked, saw what his hate had cost him, and had a change of heart, throwing his mask and hammer into the flames as well, making it appear that he too died in the battle. He then went into hiding and adopted a civilian identity as Joe Smith, unknown to the populace, abandoning his villainous ways and any public display of his superhuman powers. However, wracked with guilt over his past crimes and how he failed to save his brother, he kept a nihilistic outlook on the world, and believed it was wrong for two "genetic freaks" to decide the fate of the populace, believing that humanity should solve its own problems.
Samaritan[]
25 years later, now aged, Joe lived in a run-down apartment complex, Granite City facing a financial crisis as crime ran rampant, the city's criminals spray-painting images of Nemesis' symbol across town. In an attempt to console himself, Joe got a job as a garbage collector, taking some broken mechanical objects home to fix, finding the hobby of repairing the devices to be quite therapeutic. Additionally, he kept a scrapbook of various newspapers of his time as Nemesis, the headlines mostly relating to Samaritan's exploits, and had his entire fridge run at freezer temperatures, stocking it with ice cream to help him cool down in emergencies. He soon met a young boy named Sam Cleary, who lived in the building across from his, when Sam asked him why he was taking a broken radio home, to which Joe responded that Sam was wearing a broken watch. Later, Sam got caught up with a gang run by Nemesis fan Cyrus, and some young members of the gang attacked Sam outside the building. Joe intervened and easily threw the gang members aside, shrugging off a punch from one, and broke the knife of another with his mere durability, scaring the gang members off. Later, Cyrus retrieved Joe's old Nemesis mask and hammer, both held in police custody since the battle, and began to sow chaos using the image of Nemesis, Joe awakening from the sensation of his hammer in use.
Sam, recovering the broken knife, began to suspect that Joe was Samaritan, as there was a rumor in the populace that Samaritan had survived the battle. In an attempt to prove this, he first spied on Joe, seeing burn marks on his back, and snuck into Joe's apartment some time later to steal his scrapbook. When Joe came back from work, he found the book missing and quickly deduced who took it, having had previously seen where Sam's apartment was. He confronted Sam's mother, Tiffany, about it, and had Sam return the scrapbook, although Tiffany tried to assure Joe that Sam meant no harm by the theft. Joe confirmed that there was no harm done, noting that Sam was lucky to have a good mother, but before he left, Sam called out to Joe that he was a fan. Later, Joe saw Sam gazing at Samaritan's symbol, spray-painted over a symbol of Nemesis on a dumpster. Joe asked him who Sam thought he was, and Sam pointed at the symbol. Joe tried to clarify that he wasn't Samaritan as he turned to leave, but Sam followed him and kept pestering him about Samaritan. Joe tried to again say that he wasn't Samaritan, only for a car driven by Cyrus' gang members, the same ones Joe had previously fought off, to run him over at high speed, leaving Joe with major internal damage.
While Joe appeared dead for a few moments, long enough for the gang members to speed off, he suddenly healed before Sam's eyes, standing up and quickly making his way back to his apartment as his body began overheating, Sam helping him walk as his ankles healed. Once inside, Joe quickly used a cold shower to cool off, and then began eating a whole tub of ice cream to stay cool, Sam excitedly thinking that Joe was indeed Samaritan. When questioned about the shower, Joe tried to explain the scientific principles behind his regenerative powers and how they generated heat, but instead opted to just say that overheating was lethal for him. He then offered some ice cream to Sam to get him to stop asking about Samaritan, sending Sam home soon, although Sam tried to insist that Samaritan once saved his now-dead father, who used to be a carjacker.
Over the next few days, Joe and Sam built a friendship, Joe explaining some more of his powers while leaving out details about his past, but when asked why he's in hiding and letting a man who was rude to him walk away, Joe revealed his nihilistic outlook, saying that he stopped caring a long time ago, refusing to show his powers to Sam, outside of ripping the metal handle off a door when exasperated. Meanwhile, Cyrus continued to create anarchy in the city, Joe watching reports of the events on TV and getting flashbacks to his final battle with Samaritan in his sleep. One day, Sam asked Joe to teach him how to fight, as he was getting into trouble with Cyrus' gang. Seeing that Sam seemed too scared to properly throw a punch, Joe advised him to just hit hard once and then run, saying that those who run to live another day and not pick fights out of their league are the smart ones. Sam then hurt his hand when he tried to punch Joe, the two returning to Joe's apartment as Joe began working on fixing Sam's watch. However, Sam continued to fixate on Samaritan, making Joe upset, Sam unable to understand why "Samaritan" would give up on the people.
One night, Sam, in an attempt to save a friend of his from Cyrus' gang, was severely beaten by several of the gang members, the same ones who ran over Joe. As the gang members returned to the apartment complex, carrying Sam in a shopping cart, they saw Joe glaring at them from a window, frightening them into fleeing as Joe quickly ran downstairs and got Sam to a hospital. After Sam recovered, he grew more upset with Joe, starting to see traits of Nemesis in him with his refusal to fight against Cyrus' crime spree. Then, Cyrus, learning that Joe somehow survived the car strike, suspected him to be Samaritan and sent his men to kidnap Joe on his way to work. As Joe passed through an alleyway populated by homeless citizens, he was assaulted by several gang members, but easily fought them off, shrugging off a few bullets fired at him. A little homeless girl who witnessed the fight asked him if he was Samaritan, but he tried to tell her to forget what she saw, the girl following Joe as he left the alley and entered the street on the other side. Then, one of the gang members, named Farshad, threw an EMP grenade at Joe and the girl, forcing Joe to grab the girl and jump over a car, using his super strength to flip the car on its side, using it to shield himself and the girl from the blast. While the girl was safe, Joe saw the surrounding civilians filming him, and quickly fled the scene, resolving to get out of town.
Joe quickly packed up his things and left, but Cyrus, now believing that Joe was Samaritan, tried to hunt him down, ransacking Joe's empty apartment, and then took Sam hostage upon realizing that Sam had been friends with Joe. Joe, at a train station, saw the rising chaos on the news and decided to return one last time, going to Sam's apartment to give him his now-fixed watch, only to find Tiffany beaten and the apartment wrecked. Tiffany told Joe that Cyrus had taken him, and Joe decided that he had to act, gathering up barrels of oil into a garbage truck and constructing a makeshift time bomb.
Joe reveals his origin to Cyrus
With his truck, Joe tracked down Cyrus' warehouse headquarters and rammed through several gang-held roadblocks, crashing through the wall of the warehouse. Joe then got out of the truck, which fell on its side, and beat up several gang members, demanding Sam. Cyrus had his gang members stop firing and brought Sam out, and wielding Nemesis' hammer, Cyrus confronted Joe, using the hammer to knock Joe around, mocking him for being a "good guy." However, when he brought the hammer down again, Joe caught it, standing up and forcing Cyrus back, and revealed that he was truly Nemesis, much to the shock of Cyrus and Sam. Then, the time bomb in Joe's truck went off, the oil making the warehouse catch on fire, faltering Cyrus and blasting many gang members away. Ripping the hammer out of Cyrus' grasp, Joe swiftly begins decimating the gang, killing several of its members with his hammer and by dropping the upper walkways of the warehouse on them, as Cyrus rushed to an elevator with Sam, taking him to the upper levels.
Joe kept fighting his way through the warehouse to reach Sam, eventually finding Farshad, who had tried to run. Farshad pulled another EMP grenade on Joe, but Joe grabbed it, impaled it to the criminal's chest with a sharp component on its end, and pulled the pin, walking away and letting Farshad get vaporized by the blast. He then managed to get to the upper levels, which were burning, the heat starting to weaken Joe, making him drop his hammer. As Joe saw Sam chained to a pipe, Cyrus, now donning Joe's old Nemesis mask, snuck up on him and took the hammer, striking Joe with it as part of the floor over flames collapsed, Joe almost falling in. With Sam's encouragement, Joe got the strength to fight back against Cyrus, the two struggling by the hole in the floor, where Cyrus declared that he would fulfill Nemesis' plan of destroying the power plant. Joe protested that it was never about the plant or the chaos, just his brother, but Cyrus refused to listen, almost pushing Joe in, until Sam managed to break the rusty pipe off and strike Cyrus with it, stopping him. Joe then ripped the hammer away again and then bent the handle around Cyrus, effectively restraining him with it, and then lifted the crime lord over his head, tossing him into the burning abyss and to his death. Then, Joe's healing abilities kicked in from the damage from the hammer, starting to critically overheat him, and Sam quickly broke a water faucet open, the jet of cold water cooling Joe enough to stand. Seeing the building about to collapse, Joe grabbed Sam and charged at a wall, crashing through it and jumping to the next building over, using his own body as a shield for Sam, jumping over a group of reporters and spectators who were attracted to the burning building.
At the other building, Joe and Sam recovered, and Sam asked if it was true that Joe was really Nemesis. Joe confirmed it, but told Sam that good and evil lived in everyone, and that it was up to Sam, and the people, to choose for themselves. Sam was then distracted by some helicopters approaching, and Joe quickly left. Sam then went downstairs, meeting the reporters, and, spotting Joe in the crowd, claimed that Samaritan saved him. The crowd, reinvigorated with hope, began chanting Samaritan's name as Joe walked away, smiling satisfied.
Powers and abilities[]
Powers[]
- Superhuman Strength: Nemesis, like his brother, possessed considerable superhuman strength with an unknown upper limit. He could send opponents flying with punches, flip cars with one arm, crush metal with one hand, crash through brick walls with ease, and had his strength extend to his legs, enabling him to jump the length of 10 cars in his prime. In his old age, he appeared to keep most of his strength, although he could now only jump the length of 9 cars.
- Superhuman Durability: Nemesis' body was significantly more durable, sturdy and resilient than a normal human, able to bounce bullets off himself and break knives that struck him, also not being fazed or moved by most physical attacks from non-powered opponents.
- Fast-Regeneration: Nemesis could quickly regenerate from internal wounds, like broken bones, within less than a minute, with full recovery of all motor functions.
Abilities[]
- Expert Combatant: Nemesis was a skilled unarmed combatant, able to overpower dozens of non-powered opponents hand-to-hand and keep an even playing field with Samaritan. Additionally, Nemesis was proficient in using a hammer in combat. He kept these skills in his old age.
- Blacksmith: Nemesis possess blacksmithing skills he was able to forge his powerful hammer.
Weaknesses[]
- Durability Limit: Nemesis is not completely invulnerable, as his body is still susceptible to internal injuries from high-power impacts, such as being hit by a car.
- Overheating: Nemesis' own regeneration creates excessive amounts of heat as it works, enough to make his body start literally steaming. If he were to overheat too far, Nemesis' heart would explode, and this also makes him vulnerable to the heat of flames and explosions. To negate this, Nemesis must quickly cool off his body upon regeneration or otherwise overheating, able to use cold showers to do so, also able to use the ingestion of ice cream to keep his body temperature low.
- Nemesis' Hammer: Nemesis' own hammer was capable of easily harming him the same way it could harm his brother.
Equipment[]
- Nemesis' Hammer: Nemesis wielded a mystically charged hammer, forged with his blood and infused with all his hate against humanity and his brother. The hammer was capable of reliably harming Samaritan, and even non-powered wielders of the hammer seemed to gain some abilities while wielding it, able to strike with superhuman force. Additionally, Nemesis could sense when the hammer was being used by someone else.