Funnier Valentine

Age lines and heavy brows mark Funnier Valentine, whose long hair coils into thick rings much like his father's. He dons a dark uniform bearing three rows of stars, worn over a turtleneck stamped with an eagle at the chest. The net patterned gloves on his hands echo those his father favored.

Patriotism runs in his line, and Funnier tends to command whatever group he enters, the Mars expedition included. Outwardly composed, he is a gifted actor whose scheme catches his entire crew off guard, Jorge among them. Beneath that calm lies a cold, calculating manipulator willing to murder his own crew to reach his aim. He claims a sharp read on the true nature of those around him, going so far as to brand Enrico Pucci a sinner despite Pucci's service to God.

Born in 1962, Funnier chooses a career among the stars rather than the presidency his father held. In July 1997, a metal panel shed by the Giotto probe crashes into Enrico Pucci's home and wipes out his family, and Valentine slips in afterward to read a message left there. For roughly eleven years before the novel's events he keeps contact with Kars and the villain's many counterparts, arranging his own return in exchange for a promise that Kars will spare Americans. By 2012 he captains the vessel H.G. Wells on a flight to Mars and its hidden third moon, taking Jorge and Narancia Ghirga prisoner aboard and binding them to a bed; Narancia's attack ends with his lower jaw shot away. The ship is soon seized by the groping tentacles of The Eyed Balloon. Vowing to punish Pucci as a sinner, Funnier meets his end when his escape pod is destroyed by a U-Boat.