Mayday


 * Ayana Jones is a G.I. Joe-aligned human.



Ayana Jones, codename Mayday, is an ex-member of Skywatch turned member of G.I. Joe turned member of Earth Defense Command. As you can guess from that CV, she prefers being in the thick of the action. In her long history she's worked with top officers like Duke and Marissa Faireborn, but now she's the one who gets to run squads.

IDW Generation 1 continuity
Ayana Jones was born in Brighton Beach, New York and grew up near Coney Island. She attended the University of California, Berkeley, where her thesis on "ancient aliens" attracted the attention of Joshua Red. Intrigued by her aptitude, she was swiftly recruited into Skywatch, the agency aimed at investigating Transformer activity on Earth. By the time that Joshua Red went rogue, however, Ayana's skills had already attracted the attention of Conrad "Duke" Hauser, who had her transferred into the top-secret G.I. Joe program.

Now operating under the codename "Mayday," Ayana was based out of Berlin during her first years with the agency, serving under the command of David "Big Ben" Bennet." She remained a G.I. Joe soldier during the Decepticon invasion of Earth; when both factions of Cybertronians abandoned the planet, the soldiers of G.I. Joe turned their attention to battling the forces of Cobra after the ancient conspiracy went public and invaded Nanzhao. Mayday's unit was one of the last to extricate themselves from the region before Cobra's nuclear weapons annihilated the country, but safely managed to evacuate thanks to the efforts of her teammate Heavy Duty.

Over the next few years, a series of escalating crises — including a public hack that led to the outing of the formerly secret organization — eventually led to the mothballing of the team. Though the Joes were able to take down Cobra from the inside, the team was decommissioned shortly afterwards. She and several other Joe soldiers transferred to General Daniel Witwicky's Earth Defense Command, the successor to Skywatch. For the next few years, Ayana worked out of the EDC's headquarters in the Marshall Islands.



When a group of Decepticons led by Galvatron arrived on Earth, the EDC cut a deal with the Cybertronians: if they worked with the EDC to protect the Earth from Autobot aggression,  they would provide the aliens with the resources and infrastructure required to build a commune where they could live in peace. The EDC's predictions would come true some six months later, when the Autobots returned to Earth in search of Alpha Trion, who had been taken prisoner by the EDC some time before. As Optimus Prime's forces stormed the EDC base, Ayana monitored the situation, and was surprised when the Decepticons revealed their trump card, the Nemesis.

Ayana and the other members of the base continued to watch the battle play out, but when the Prowl-controlled Devastator attacked the building, the humans were knocked unconscious and thus failed to witness Galvatron execute General Witwicky in retaliation for unleashing the EDC's anti-Transformer mind bomb. In the aftermath, former EDC operative Marissa Faireborn became the new director of the EDC, and Ayana rose to become her de facto second-in-command.



Following Spike Witwicky's hack of Onyx's new product launch, Jones accompanied Marissa Faireborn to Onyx's Tokyo HQ as the EDC's response to Garrison Blackrock's angry phone call. As a battle between Prowl's Autobots and Galvatron's Decepticons broke out in the city, the EDC took Blackrock to safety in an aircraft despite Jones' desire to intervene. She instead ended up trying to talk the Chinese out of invading Japan.

On Blackrock's request, they headed for Onyx's Wanmu facility, where Garrison showed them the collection of Cybertronian artifacts he'd built up, including the the crown jewel of his collection: the Enigma of Combination, an artifact that had supposedly guided the course of human civilization. Jones was skeptical of Blackrock's claim that he was descended from Gilgamesh; as the tour continued, however, the building was attacked by Devastator and Spike Witwicky. As Spike dropped in and grabbed Faireborn, Jones was ready to shoot him, but didn't get the chance before Devastator breached the walls. She and Faireborn ended up hauling Spike clear as the battle continued to rage between Devastator, the Decepticon forces, and their temporary ally Arcee.

At one point, Marissa and Ayana listened to Thundercracker's attempt to write a Christmas story. It went as well as could be expected.

Some time later, Faireborn and Jones accompanied Blackrock and the Decepticons on a visit to the satellite commune which Onyx was building for the Decepticons in Jupiter's orbit, and Jones expressed her dislike of spacesuits. During the tour, the pair discussed Blackrock's mysterious origins and wondered if he was on the level.



Back on Earth at E.D.C. HQ, Jones waited with Faireborn outside Spike's cell as Blackrock visited the prisoner. The pair were forced to listen to Thundercracker's latest script until Blackrock eventually emerged. Learning that Blackrock had been running several side bets of his own, including the revelation that he had captured several Autobots and imprisoned them beneath the EDC base, Ayana held him at gunpoint after Marissa and Spike took him down. Before they could take him into custody, however, Galvatron arrived and took Blackrock hostage, revealing that the man was a Cybertronian sleeper agent and a servant of Onyx Prime.

Galvatron's arrival led to a tense stand-off with the E.D.C. and the newly revealed captive Autobots until Skywarp teleported Galvatron and his hostage away. His objectives realized, Galvatron mustered his assets to begin a full-scale invasion of Earth, beginning by shooting down the Ark-7. Jones tracked the crashing shuttle to Shanghai and the EDC prepared to mobilize against the Decepticons, but were unable to coordinate a response before Optimus Prime arrived and announced that Earth was now a protectorate of Cybertron's Council of Worlds. In the ensuing crisis, Ayana and Fairborne stayed behind at the EDC headquarters, overseeing the detonation of a full-spectrum mindbomb to temporarly incapacitate all the Transformers around the Ark-7.



With Galvatron's forces in retreat, Jones and Fairborne were called to the White House to meet with the furious President, who blamed the EDC for allowing Optimus to get this far. Ayana urged Marissa to keep a cool head, which proved futile. Following the White House's new orders, to reclaim Earth before the Transformers could colonize it any further, Ayana picked up Spike Witwicky in an EDC jet as part of a joint operation with China's People's Liberation Army Mecha Force. The two teams stormed Prime's last known base of operations — Thundercracker's old home in the Sierra Nevadas — but found that the Transformers had anticipated their arrival and evacuated, leaving behind graffiti that read "we are here to help."

Having tracked the Autobots to Monument Valley, the alliance launched a blitz on Prime's biouvac there, with Marissa and Ayana supervising from. Alerted to the position of Blackrock via secret signal, the duo headed underwater to the wreckage of the Nemesis to extract their asset. Though the two had a brief standoff against Arcee, Skywarp, having struck a deal with Blackrock previously, used his powers to teleport all three humans away. They arrived on the White House lawn just in time to learn that Optimus Prime had raised a titan from beneath the desert; the President was not pleased with this turn of events, concluding that they'd lost Monument Valley. Jones tried to stick up for her commander, pointing out that the EDC had secured several Cybertronian assets, though the President didn't want to hear it and stormed out to meet with the United Nations.



As a result of the EDC's disastrous attempts to contain the extraterrestrial threat, the President made the decision to replace Jones with celebrated special-ops legend Joe Colton, former head of G.I. Joe. Ayana was not pleased with the change, even as she tried to console Fairborne on her recent demotion. Following Sentinel Prime's rampage across Earth, deposits of Ore-13 all across the planet began destabilizing, threatening Earth with nuclear annihilation. Believing that the Transformers were at fault, the President opted to disband the EDC, reinstituting G.I. Joe as Earth's new international peacekeeping force.

Ayana was transferred back into the forces of G.I. Joe, taking up her old nom de guerre of Mayday. She joined the team for their first mission against Autobot relief efforts in Portland, Oregon, but the op went poorly; Mayday attempted to talk down Mainframe when the latter attempted to kill Soundwave, prompting the Decepticon to knock out G.I. Joe's mechanized forces with an EMP wave. While the Joes reeled from this attack, the Space Knight Rom arrived and began vaporizing Joes — unbeknownst to the humans, they had been replaced by Dire Wraith imposters, including "Joe Colton" himself.

Following M.A.S.K.'s capture of Kup in Greece,, Jones was stationed at Joe headquarters on Governor's Island when the British special agent Action Man breached the perimeter, intending to liberate Kup from his prison. Though she initially mistook Kup for an attacker, a few brief words with Action Man made her realize that Kup was escaping, and Action Man and Kup were able to escape unscathed. After Baron Karza arrived unannounced in Monument Valley, Mayday was one of the many Joes who joined the battle against the monstrous alien by riding into battle aboard a fleet of mothballed Joe hardware.



In the aftermath of the Ore-13 crisis, Mayday was promoted and began leading a team of her own. On her very first command, Mayday led a team, consisting of Heavy Duty, Flash, Quarrel, to the Schletevan city of Verenya to investigate a mysterious communications blackout. They soon discovered that the city's inhabitants had somehow been transformed into monstrous Dire Wraith hybrids, which drew the attention of Rom. The heroes joined forces, using Rom's Energy Analyzer to trace the energy to an abandoned I.R.O.N. bunker underneath the city. There, Mayday found the body of an Oktober Guard mercenary, which led the group to Blackrock and Action Man, fighting for control of an enigmatic "Talisman". When the rest of the Oktober Guard intervened, the Talisman activated again; while Rom used his Neutralizer to shield her, Blackrock, and Action Man from the energy surge, her teammates weren't so lucky and became Wraiths. The Oktober Guard absconded with the Talisman, and once back on the surface Mayday joined forces with Kup and Blackrock in the hopes of finding a way to return her teammates to normal... a quest that began with retrieving a kidnapped Action Man from the clutches of the Iron Ring. While her teammates were taken into the custody of the Action Man Programme until a cure could be found, G.I. Joe commander Scarlett authorized her to work outside the G.I. Joe's parameters during the subsequent adventure.



Searching for a lead on the Talisman, the team managed to corner the alien Micronauts at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, and after some initial tensions the two groups managed to reach an understanding while confirming Blackrock's suspicions that the Talisman was extraterrestrial in nature. Using the sensors of the Heliopolis, the group were able to track Action Man to an abandoned Cobra base on the Moon. Despite the best efforts Baron Ironblood and his forces, they were able to retrieve the Talisman and destroy the base, with Kup sheltering the two humans in his chest to protect them from the explosion.

Using data from the British National Security archives, the team, at Action Man's urging,  tracked down former Adventure Team operative and movie director Richard "Bulletman" Ruby. He told them the story of a mission in Egypt that led them to the Talisman; learning that I.R.O.N. founder Garrison Kreiger had connection to the Talisman, the group headed off to investigate the company's largest stockholder: Kalistanian dictator Count van Rani. On the way to his castle, they learned that the villain had found a way to recruit the Predacons, and so the team recruited Snake-Eyes for help infiltrating the base, using Blackrock as a Trojan horse. When their cover was blown, Ayana and the others stormed the castle, and while Kup and Action Man grappled with Predaking, Mayday linked up with Blackrock and Snake-Eyes, and hatched a plan to take down the artificial Talisman responsible for keeping the Predacons combined... only for an impatient Snake-Eyes to smash the machine, forcing the Decepticons apart. The trio subsequently fought their way back to the castle's M.A.S.S. Device and used its teleport function to escape. Thanks to Snake-Eyes masquerading as Ironblood's agent Tomax Paoli, the team learned that Ironblood and Kreiger had been involved in "Project: Ice Man," and set out to intercept the real Tomax as he arrived in San Francisco to retrieve data related to the "Ice Man".



The team managed to catch up with Tomax outside I.R.O.N.'s headquarters, discovering that Kreiger had forewarned him of their arrival and provided him with a Cobra Commander uniform. While Kup battled Tomax's limousine, Mayday and Action Man chased Tomax through the building. Mayday eventually managed to incapacitate Tomax by firing a bullet at his throat and grazing it. Tomax had little to offer the team, but Blackrock had learned from Kreiger's files that the base containing the "Ice Man" could be found in Brasnya. Realizing that their team would need extra muscle to break in, Ayana contacted Adventure Team veteran and G.I. Joe member Stalker for more information regarding the "Ice Man." Impressed by her idealism, he called in Matt Trakker and Gloria Baker of M.A.S.K. for assistance. During the subsequent mission to Brasnya, Mayday waited outside with the two M.A.S.K. operatives until until Action Man flooded the network of tunnels, at which point she hitched a ride aboard Matt's Thunderhawk as they battled the reanimated bodies of the "I.R.O.N. Cybertronians". The heroes and villains engaged in a running battle across the breadth of the base until they reached the nexus of the base; discovering that the "Ice Man" was, in reality, the barely-conscious remains of Mike "Atomic Man" Power, Mayday was able to take Kreiger into custody after his cybernetic asset committed suicide, deactivating the base with him.

With Kreiger now in their custody, the group brought him and the temporally-displaced Sgt. Savage back to Blackrock's Onyx tower in Buenos Aires so that the villain could be picked up by a G.I. Joe squadron. While they waited for them to arrive, Savage filled in Ayana on how he came to be transported fifty years in the future. As the G.I. Joe unit arrived, however, Centurion revealed himself as a traitor and hacked the building so that Ironblood and his forces could teleport in. In the ensuing battle between the Iron Ring, the Joes, and the Revolutionaries, Ironblood was revealed as none other than Joe Colton, who had survived his run-in with the Dire Wraiths. Mayday joined Action Man to fightStorm Shadow, but were unable to overpower the ninja before Kup ran Storm Shadow over. Though the villains ultimately absconded with the Talisman, the heroes found that Blackrock was able to engineer a means of returning the mutated Verenyans to normal, while the Talisman's energy had somehow fused Centurion's consciousness with Mike Power's. Down but not out, the Revolutionaries vowed that, on their next adventure, they'd have to try even harder.



As Earth prepared to formally join the Council of Worlds, the group travelled to Iacon to watch the ceremonies. Mayday joined Marissa, Earth's first interstellar diplomat, in the initial procession through the streets of Iacon. When Colton's forces attacked not long afterwards, the heroes battled their way through Red Shadows and Iron Grenadiers before learning that Centurion had kidnapped Blackrock and absconded with the bounty hunter Colditz. Tracking him through the Cybertronian wilderness, the the team caught up with the two Cybertronians, prompting Colditz to detonate a stash of explosives... and Kreiger, working his way down to the core of the planet, to remotely transmit a surge of destructive Talisman energy through Centurion, a bid to deliberately goad the Revolutionaries into eliminating Centurion and tying up another loose end in Kreiger's larger scheme. The team were able to convince Centurion to stand down, at the cost of temporarily knocking him into stasis lock. Deprived of their best shot to end the invasion, the team returned Centurion to Iacon too late to prevent Colton and his crew from advancing to the core.

After the invasion had been thwarted and communications reopened with Earth, Ayana returned home.