Albert Maverick

Albert Maverick is the President and CEO of Apollon Media, the company responsible for Hero TV and sponsor for Wild Tiger and Barnaby Brooks Jr.. He appears to have a great deal of influence as a result, and the city's mayor often turns to him for advice.

He is a protagonist/antagonist of the entire first series.

Personality
He is initially presented as the saint and savior of heroes, as he not only invented the tv program that gave people with newly found NEXT powers a positive image, but also financially supported and often provided his support for them and their actions.

He acted as a father figure to Barnaby after his parent's death, often giving him advice and support throughout the years. He even convinced Barnaby to become a hero to seek vengeance against his parent's killer. However, in reality he was only manipulating Barnaby to use him as a pawn. He was in fact the killer of his parents and used his memory manipulation powers to alter Barnaby's memory and make him think Jake Martinez killed them.

He is merciless in his goals, killing Barnaby's parents (who were his closest friends) after they found out he staged criminal activity to give heroes a good name. He is very patient and calculating, managing to keep the facade of a kind older man and leader for years. He has great charisma and great leadership skills, managing to handle crises very well and staging elaborate plans along with winning the public's and major CEOs' trust.

Though he seemed to care for Barnaby, in reality he only saw him as a means to an end and is willing to sacrifice him. He is willing to kill off anyone who he feels would get in his way or is no longer useful, such as when he kills Rotwang because he was no longer useful. He even held Kaede, a child, hostage. He cares for no one and believes he can get away with his crimes because of his ability to manipulate people's memories, along with having earned the trust of several powerful people. He is arrogant, selfish, horrifying and capable of the cruelest crimes.

His true motives remain unknown. He first started Hero TV in order to get people to accept NEXT, though there may have been more to his motives even then. He was also willing to team up with Ouroborus in order to have them stage flashy crimes for the heroes to stop and to improve the ratings, and selling them weapons Barnaby's parents made.

As to how he became connected to Ouroborus remains unknown. While he did start Hero TV, he seems to have grown tired of NEXT heroes, feeling that androids were more "perfect" and were the ideal embodiment of justice in the world, which seems to contradict his previous desire to have heroes with NEXT power to promote acceptance of NEXT.

Since he was the one who suggested making heroes out of NEXT in the first place, it remains unknown what caused this seemingly sudden change, though his attitude suggests he enjoys a level of control and that the heroes were too unpredictable for him to manipulate along with wanting to dominate Sternbild City by controlling the heroes who supposedly protected the people.

History
When Maverick first started Hero TV, people still feared and disliked the NEXTs despite good deeds they committed, and the only ones who would support him were Barnaby and Emily Brooks - who were longtime friends of his. They helped him by using their robotics research to construct the hero suits used on the show. In order to make the show more popular and garner more support, he thought of ways to make the heroes more likable to the public to boost ratings. As a result, Maverick joined forces with an organization known as Ouroboros and began staging flashy crimes for the heroes to thwart on live television. The Brooks eventually discovered that he was using the fruits of their research to supply criminals with weapons, and confronted him about it. When they tried to act on their intentions to tell the police, Maverick shot and killed them with his pistol.

Then, spotting the young Barnaby Jr. peeking at the scene through a door crack, he used his NEXT powers to alter the boy's memory of the event. Maverick also seems to have done the same to Samantha, as she believed that she was sick that day when she had actually been out with Barnaby Jr. the entire time. Maverick replaced her with himself in Barnaby Jr.'s memories in order to provide himself a foolproof alibi. Maverick subsequently took Barnaby Jr. in and raised him to be a hero and future star for Hero TV.

Jake Martinez and a City Held Captive
Maverick, along with the CEOs of the other major Sternbild companies, meets with the mayor when Ouroboros holds the city hostage and demands Jake's release from prison. While the mayor panics and cannot think of a suitable course of action, it is Maverick who takes control of the situation and states that they will have to answer to Ouroboros' demands in order to protect the city. He later convinces Barnaby to tell his story over a live broadcast in order to improve the public's waning belief in heroes.

Mistaken Memories
After his memories start to unravel and he subsequently has an argument with Kotetsu, Barnaby ends up turning to Maverick for support. He tells Maverick about recently-acquired information that disproves the theory of Jake being his parents' killer. During their conversation, Barnaby receives a phone call from Samantha, his childhood nanny, whose discovery of a photograph from the day of the murder reveals that Barnaby had been with her that entire day - and not Maverick. When confronted about the contradiction, Maverick admits to having killed the Brooks and reveals the entire story behind their murder. With Barnaby paralyzed thanks to a drug which had been discretely added to his drink, Maverick uses his NEXT abilities to once again alter Barnaby's memories: first to reinstate Jake as the Brooks' killer, and then to erase any connection between Wild Tiger and Kotetsu. He subsequently carts Barnaby off to a secluded vacation home to ensure the memory manipulation has maximum effect.

With Barnaby taken care of, Maverick turns his attention to the only other person who knows that Jake wasn't the Brook's killer: Kotetsu. He invites the latter to his office and attempts to drug and alter Kotetsu's memories as well, only to be prevented from doing so by a string of coincidences. He ultimately never gets the opportunity to alter Kotetsu's memories, as the latter leaves following a phone call from Samantha without ever taking a sip of his drink. In order to stall Kotetsu from meeting with Samantha, Maverick makes a call in order to stage a bombing elsewhere in the city. With Kotetsu out saving people, Maverick's subordinates intercept and kidnap Samantha. When Kotetsu returns to find that Samantha has already left, he opts to visit her house in the hopes of running into her, and calls Maverick to inform him as such.

As a result, Maverick changes his original plan and instead decides to kill Samantha and frame Kotetsu for her murder. While Kotetsu waits at Samantha's house, Maverick calls together the other heroes, Agnes, Saito and Lloyds to announce an upcoming Hero TV event. In reality, however, the announcement is merely a ruse to bring together everyone who knows Wild Tiger's identity. Maverick drugs everyone in attendance and alters their memories, erasing any connection between Wild Tiger and Kotetsu. He then releases (fake) information surrounding Samantha's murder, labeling Kotetsu a homicidal NEXT. The other heroes are subsequently sent to capture him on live TV, and an android is used as Wild Tiger's replacement.

While Kotetsu is off trying to get Barnaby to remember him and Barnaby is busy trying to kill the man he believes to be Samantha's murderer, Maverick uses the Wild Tiger android to incapacitate the other heroes (and Wild Tiger's daughter), whose memories have already been restored. Once Barnaby's memory is restored, Maverick decides to eliminate the pair - as neither is of any further use to him. Using Blue Rose's communicator, he contacts the pair and informs them that Kaede and the other heroes have all been captured. He then tells Kotetsu and Barnaby to meet him at Justice Tower.

Once they arrive, Maverick reveals that he has been backing Rotwang's robotics research and intends to replace the heroes with androids.

Powers and Abilities
Maverick is a NEXT who has the ability to manipulate a subject's memories and alter them. While the full capability of his power is unknown, he only appears able to alter existing memories and not create entirely new ones. Rather, his power acts akin to sealing away real memories or layering similar ones on top. As Maverick mentioned with the picture of Samantha and Barnaby on Christmas, even the slightest bit of contradiction will cause the true memory to surface.