Formed from the ashes of the organization called the Agency, Checkmate was originally a covert action group headed up by Amanda Waller with the purpose of performing worldwide operations vital America's interests. Maxwell Lord took over Checkmate as part of his plot to destroy all superheroes across the world.
In the wake of Infinite Crisis, Checkmate was reformed as a United Nations-sanctioned organization tasked with monitoring metahuman activity. As always, the organization is divided into two teams: The White team that handles intelligence and the Black team that handles operations. The members of the organization are designated with positions similar to that of chess pieces. The King and Queen are the leaders, Bishops their advisors, Knights their field leaders and Pawns their foot soldiers. To further balance the organization, a "Rule of Two" has been implemented requiring every super-powered member to have a non-powered member in the same position. For instance the current White Queen Amanda Waller is checked by the White King, Mr. Terrific and vice versa. This rule goes down the ranks up until Pawn.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: Checkmate has committed a number of morally questionable actions in their fight against evil such as kidnapping and experimenting on the corpse of a dead soldier.
- Chess Motifs
- Dark Is Not Evil: Most of the morally upstanding members of the organization are on the Black team.
- Government Agency of Fiction: One of the many that exist within the DC universe.
- Light Is Not Good: The White side has featured most of the less ethical characters in Checkmate such as Waller, King Faraday and Count Vertigo.
- Multinational Team: The organization includes several Americans, an Israeli, a Frenchwoman, and a Brazilian, among others. The number of American characters has drawn criticism that Checkmate is still only truly loyal to the U.S. Waller's machinations don't help that image.
- Strategy Versus Tactics: The White team is in charge of intelligence while the Black team deals with operations.
Black Side
The former bodyguard to Batman, Sasha joined Checkmate after the events of Bruce Wayne: Fugitive. She ultimately rose through the ranks of the organization and became right hand woman to Maxwell Lord. When Lord murdered numerous Checkmate agents who opposed him and began his plan to kill all superheroes, Sasha feigned loyalty to stay alive but found she could not stay her hand any longer after he murdered Ted Kord.
Following her attempt to stop Max, Sasha was imprisoned but escaped with the help of another Checkmate agent named Jessica Midnight. While trying to escape, Sasha was attacked by an O.M.A.C. which transformed her into a cyborg. She now serves as Checkmate's Black Queen and began a relationship with Michale Holt aka Mr Terrific.
- Action Girl
- The Atoner: Sasha hates herself for her cowardice during Maxwell Lord's take over of Checkmate and vows to make sure the organization is never used like that again.
- Battle Couple: With Batman and later with Mr Terrific though in the latter case they don't go out into the field together often.
- Bodyguarding a Badass: Her old job was as Batman's bodyguard.
- Cyborg: She is cybernetically enhanced due to an encounter from an OMAC.
- Empowered Badass Normal: Sasha started out as a well trained martial artist and former Secret Service agent who was considered good enough to be a bodyguard to Batman. After her encounter with an OMAC, 10 to 20 percent of her body was transformed into cybernetic material. She now possesses enhanced strength, speed, endurance, dexterity, healing and Stat-O-Vision. That being said...
- Fights Like a Normal: Sasha doesn't rely on her powers all that much, instead using her espionage, martial arts and weapons training. This is justified by the fact that she isn't very comfortable with her enhancements to begin with.
- Healing Factor: She was able to regrow her arm after it was cut off by Chang Tzu.
- Magic Plastic Surgery: Originally, Sasha had blonde hair and fair skin
◊. After she was attacked in prison, she underwent surgery to alter her skin to a darker shade and make her hair black as part of her new service to Checkmate. - A Mother To Her Men: Sasha cares deeply for the people under her command from her bishop Jessica Midnight to one of her Pawns Lucas Terrell. She is saddened by the death of her first knight Jonah McCarthy and is incredibly distraught when her second knight Josephine Tautin is nearly killed by Deadshot.
- Super-Strength: She's strong enough to lay out August General in Iron with a single punch.
- Stat-O-Vision: Sasha sees everything like this, as a consequence of her OMAC infection. It causes her to angst a little bit. One reason she's attracted to Mr. Terrific is that his powers prevent her from seeing him this way.
A British woman who helped Sasha while she was held prisoner by Max Lord. The two became friends and following Checkmate's reformation, Jessica was made Sasha's right hand woman.
- Blessed with Suck: Her magic comes with a cost. When we see her using it for the first time she ends up having to vomit a tentacled creature.
- Boyish Short Hair: Keeps her hair short.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Sasha.
- Fights Like a Normal: Jessica possesses magical powers which she doesn't use due to it being a violation of Checkmate's Rule of Two that each super-powered or otherwise enhanced member in the “Royal Family” must have an un-powered counterpart in a corresponding position of power. Since there are already two black side bishops in Checkmate with superpowers (Thinker and August General In Iron), Jessica makes a third. She doesn't use her powers however and begs Bea not to tell Sasha. Bea, who has had her own secrets before, agrees to this.
- Undying Loyalty: To Sasha.
A French woman with a long and excellent career in French intelligence, Josephine Tautin grew up without siblings. Her parents were dead before she reached 21. She took over the role of Sasha's black knight after the death of Jonah McCarthy. She is also the latest French woman take the code name Mademoiselle Marie, an honor she takes very seriously.
- Action Girl: Even before her career as a Checkmate agent, she was part of France's Directorate-General for External Security.
- Career Versus Man: In her backstory, Jo rejected the marriage proposal of her boyfriend Thierry Desmarais because her job as an intelligence officer was more important to her.
- Consummate Professional
- Crazy-Prepared: When her guide in Bialya betrays her, Josephine reveals she had expected him to do so because his greed made him predictable. She drugs with a neurotoxin Checkmate had developed and then kills the man he'd betrayed her to.
- Good Is Not Nice: Jo is one of the more ruthless members of the Black team. During her test to become a knight, she showed that she was willing to go to any lengths to accomplish her objective. When an objective was to climb a mountain to acquire a package, she cut her own partner loose when they were attacked by Count Vertigo, forcing him to save the man while she completed the objective.
- Heroic Seductress: In the crossover with Outsiders (2003), she poses as a stripper to lure Owen Mercer into a trap.
- Hidden Heart of Gold: Jo isn't the most openly affectionate person but she still took on a mission to save her ex-boyfriend's daughter.
- Legacy Character: Jo is the latest in a long line of women to take on the code name of Mademoiselle Marie. She is also Sasha's second Black Knight following Jonah's death.
- One Woman Army: Jo single-handedly rescued her ex-boyfriend's daughter from a Bialyan terrorist cell.
An Israeli-Arab Druze, Khalid serves as Checkmate's Black King. He operates in his own unique way, preferring more tangible things like index cards pinned to a board rather than computer monitors.
- Badass Israeli: A non-combatant example, but he is one of the few people in the DC Universe who can keep up with Amanda Waller in the brains department.
- Benevolent Boss: He went out of his way to help Bea get out from under Waller's thumb.
- The Chessmaster
- Foil: To Amanda Waller. While both are The Chessmaster, Khalid is a more benevolent figure and has no hidden agendas.
- Guile Hero
- Good Old Ways: Prefers to use index boards on a board as opposed to a computer.
- Non-Action Guy
- Reasonable Authority Figure
Khalid's first bishop. He comes into conflict with other members of Checkmate due to being torn between his loyalty to his homeland of China and to Checkmate. He leaves the series around issue 12 and is replaced by August General in Iron as Khalid's bishop.
- Conflicting Loyalty: Between maintaining China's best interests and serving Checkmate.
- Jerkass Has a Point: When the other Checkmate members call him out on China trying to keep the fact that their metahuman-development program had been infiltrated by Kobra a secret, Shen retorts that any other country would have tried to keep such a thing under wraps. Indeed, when Waller learned of this her focus wasn't on stopping Kobra but rather seeing how she could use this information to the U.S' advantage.
- My Country, Right or Wrong: Shen's Conflicting Loyalty to his country regardless of their morally questionable acts is what makes his job in Checkmate so difficult.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: He is sent back to China due to a "family problem". August General in Iron takes his place as Khalid's bishop. What actually became of Shen is unknown.
A member of the Chinese superhero team known as the Great Ten. Zhifu and the rest of the Great Ten encountered Checkmate when Sasha Bordeaux's team came to China to learn who was spying there for Kobra. The Great Ten intervened and subsequently there was a fight between the two teams before the Prime Minister and Alan Scott intervened and found out who was the traitor. This made China change it's veto on Checkmate.
August Iron General became a Bishop for Taleb follwing Shen's departure.
- Boom Stick: Zhifu uses an energy staff which can fire blasts or streams of energy.
- Extra-ore-dinary: His skin is an armored "biometal".
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Sasha is not pleased about working with Zhifu due to him standing by as Chang Tzu experimented on her. She punches him out the first time she sees him in headquarters.
White Side
The original White Queen and founder of the Suicide Squad. Waller is more concerned with using Checkmate to advance America's interests than global corporation. She is the biggest antagonist during the Rucka run aside from Kobra.
- Black Boss Lady
- Good Is Not Nice: And even calling her "good" might be a stretch.
- Fatal Flaw: Her paranoia and lack of subtlety. She believes that other people think like her and while she is smart her propensity for crazy-preparedness makes it very easy to learn what she is doing. This is how Holt, Khadid and Sasha were able to outmaneuver her and get her to resign from Checkmate.
- Put on a Bus: She is forced to resign from Checkmate after her enemies learn of Operation: Salvation Run.
- Villain in a White Suit: She is the closest thing to a Big Bad outside of Kobra and wears a white suit.
The Golden Age Green Lantern who joined the covert government agency to try and do some good after the breakup of the JSA. The questionable actions taken by the group lead to him becoming quickly disillusioned with the whole thing.
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The son of Hadley Jagger, the original Judomaster.
- Affirmative-Action Legacy: The first and thus far only openly gay Judomaster.
- Badass Normal: Like his father before him Tommy has no superpowers, just training, and backing from the US government. He was even able to defeat Bane, The Man Who Broke The Bat.
- Heroic Lineage: His father was a superhero. While Thomas didn't become one he does follow his father's footsteps by serving the side of good.
- Legacy Character: The third hero to use the Judomaster name.
- Light Is Good: He is one of the more ethical members of Checkmate's White Side.
- Lineage Comes from the Father: To the point that his mother is never named.
- The Fettered: Despite having a chance to avenge his father's death at Bane's hands, Thomas chooses to spare the criminal's life.
