Agents, also known collectively as the 1337 Crew (also spelled "l337" or "l33t"), are the primary rank-and-file combatant of the A.A.H.W, and are characterized by their signature black suits alongside Agent Smith shades, an obvious homage to the Smith agents from the movie The Matrix. This was proven when Krinkels was asked where the idea of the agents came from, he replied, "Literally the matrix." Another Matrix reference is their use of matt-black-finish Desert Eagles as their standard weapon in the earlier episodes. They make use of a great variety of weapons in both the common and professional category, but can most frequently be seen wielding small firearms including the aforementioned Desert Eagle.
First appearing in Apotheosis, they are higher-ranking operatives trained to stop Hank. Being the most versatile unit at the A.A.H.W's disposal, Agents can fill a number of several roles and can handle a variety of weapons. However, agents are often killed as easily as grunts, even mostly replacing them as the primary cannon fodder of the series after Madness Combat 4: Apotheosis.
Despite how easily they are killed, Agents are shown to still be more resilient than their predecessors. They are extremely brave and will almost never back down from combat regardless of the odds. The only time they have displayed cowardice was in Madness Combat 7: Consternation, where an agent tries to escape a chainsaw-wielding Hank by climbing up a ladder but is killed before he can escape, and in Madness Combat 12: Contravention, when the L337 agent is cornered by Sanford, so they run out the door into the next room, but are killed by Sanford very shortly after.
Cloned by the Auditor with technology purchased from the Nexus Core, their only goal in life is to eliminate Hank J. Wimbleton. Agents have little to no regard for their own safety, nor do they regard the safety of their fellow men. Unlike the lower-ranking Grunts, the Agents are professional, considerably more tactical and can wield a great variety of weapons in the common and professional category. They're incredibly zealous about eliminating Hank and will take any opportunity to engage him or any of his compatriots in combat. Despite the hive mind appearance of the A.A.H.W., members of this agency are not entirely without free will. They act independently, only sharing one common goal of the total extermination of Hank J. Wimbleton.
It is also noteworthy that members of the A.A.H.W. do not seem to feel fear. In CLIMB!, one of the final stages of Story Mode, the Nexus Core retreat out of fear for their lives after Hank J. Wimbleton and Sanford fight their way to the top of the Science Tower. The A.A.H.W. on the other hand, does not retreat at any point despite suffering severe casualties and losing multiple MAG Agents in battle.
The 1337 agents made their debut with one agent appeared in Madness Apotheosis along with a recruitment poster in the background. The agent showed obvious improvement over grunts, being able to hold up Hank notably longer. He also appeared to command grunts, giving one a queue to approach Hank. However, the agent was still easily killed when he was impaled in the throat with a baton. The agent later returned as zombie, using a G36 to successfully shoot Hank. However, Hank survived and sliced the 1337 zombie agent's face in half with a dragon sword.
The 1337 agents with black shades, as seen in Madness Depredation
1337 agents also appear in Madness Depredation, but in greater numbers, replacing grunts as the main enemy type. They also appear to have a standard issued weapon as most of these agents were armed with black Desert Eagles although a few were armed with batons, Uzis and AUGs. Despite their numbers, they proved to be no match for Hank and were slaughtered just as easily as grunts. Eight 1337 agents are turned into zombies by Jebediah Christoff but were killed with no extra effort from Hank.
The 1337 crew appeared all throughout Madness Combat 5.5, this time fighting Sanford and Deimos. They had the same black shades as they did in Madness Apotheosis and Madness Depredation.
In Madness Antipathy, further details about the 1337 crew's purpose and recruiting process was given. The agents were revealed to be units within the A.A.H.W. (Agency Against Hank Wimbleton). Part of the episode took place in a recruitment center, where most enemies were either grunts being reassigned or agents themselves. One of the signs directing enlistment procedures referred to a "New Lord and Master," likely referring to the Auditor.
Three agents shown receiving upgrades from the Auditor in Madness Combat 6.5
The agents appeared in this episode with A.T.P. engineers. It was revealed that the crew got their red-tinted shades through an upgrade from the Auditor, which also slightly enhanced their strength and agility. Despite the upgrade, Sanford and Deimos were still easily able to kill them.
An agent with solid red shades, as seen in Madness Combat 7 to Madness Combat 11.
In Madness Consternation, the agents wore solid-red shades instead of red-tinted ones. Also, two members, who were apparently rebellious or incompetent, were shown stabbed to walls with spikes in two parts of the episode. The crew seemed to be led by a mysterious shadowed figure, The Auditor, seen at the end of the episode. They appeared to have slightly enhanced abilities, as two of them managed to injure Hank with bullets. This episode also debuted the A.T.P. engineers, the superiors to 1337 agents.
In Madness Combat 7.5, the agents already have solid-red shades. This episode also introduced the A.T.P. Soldat, a second possible promotion from agents. A TV screen shows that qualities 1337 agents have over grunts include commitment, devotion, and sacrifice.
The l33t appeared again in Madness Inundation along with advanced engineers, who now appear more often. They wore the same red sunglasses as they did in Madness Consternation. Unlike previous episodes, their main enemy was not Hank, but Jebediah Christoff instead, and they are still just as easily defeated.
In Madness Aggregation, the l33t crew fought against Sanford and Deimos. In the start of the episode, they rode scooters while shooting at the protagonists. A few agents in the episode were playing cards until the Auditor interrupted and sent them away. Several corpses of agents were absorbed by the Auditor at the end of the episode.
The agents, alongside Engineers and Soldats, are seen fighting against Hank in The Other Place. An agent can be seen writing "We are abandoned" on a wall before being killed by Hank.
The crew returns to fight Hank and Sanford. They assisted the Auditor as he confronted the protagonists, though they were no match for the magnified Hank and the agile Sanford. One of them managed to stab Hank's head with a Bowie knife, but without much effect. In this episode, two agents were successfully resurrected by the Auditor, giving them significantly enhanced fighting ability. In addition to the corpses of their deceased co-workers, several living agents were absorbed by the Auditor in order to heal his wounds and enhance his power.
The Auditor resurrected two l33t agents with his powers in an enhanced form (similar to the enhanced engineers in Madness Aggregation). These agents were able to take multiple hits to the body and head and had much faster reflexes than normal agents. For instance, the first resurrected agent managed to dodge Hank's sword swings and land a few punches on him. Like Jebediah Christoff, they also had bloodshot eyes, which were partially hidden behind their shades that turned dark grey during the resurrection process. Sanford managed to interrupt a resurrection by destroying the body with a Mossberg 500 before the process was complete.
The crew appear as some of the A.A.H.W. units summoned by Tricky in the hell dimension Hank and Sanford were sent to. All of them were killed by either Hank or Sanford.
The agent with black shades, as seen in DedmosRebuilt.fla.
After Deimos restored and enhanced his body, he fought and killed several 1337 agents with black sunglasses. Like most of Deimos's opponents in the episode, these agents were significantly larger than normal, although not quite to the level of a MAG Agent.
One agent had the misfortune of being impaled on a chain over a hole in the floor; as he struggled to free himself, Deimos walked on the chain, stole his shades, and then punched him along the chain and into the wall. Another agent had a baton jabbed into his throat, leaving him choking and bleeding from his neck as he staggered into the next room and died.
After Doc retrieved Deimos from The Other Place, three giant 1337 agents emerged from the cliff wall to attack them. These agents wore fully red shades and had small protrusions of bone or rock scattered around their faces.
Two agents with crimson-tinted shades appear in this short, both of them are on the unknown building's raid. Both agents got killed by an A.T.P. Soldat that fired a rocket at them.
In Madness: Project Nexus (Classic), agents are a major Nexus unit type. Their skills are superior to those of grunts, but they're still quite easy to kill. In Arena Combat and Episode One of the Story Mode, the agents wear crimson shades. In the prequel, Episode 1.5, the agents wear black shades instead.
Agents are an enemy unit in MADNESS: Project Nexus. There are two types of agents, the ones that work for the A.A.H.W., who once again play their role as being slightly-harder-to-kill underlings, and the ones that are affiliated with the NEXUS Core, who are superior in comparison with the A.A.H.W. Agents. These NEXUS Agents are distinguished from their A.A.H.W. counterparts by their red sunglasses and darker suits, which have red stripes on the side and on the lapels, they also wear earpieces and a belt around their torso.
In the game, it was shown that A.A.H.W. Agents. have access to communications with the rest of the Agency, they also request reinforcements through communications and report the situation they are in, although the Agents, ATP Engineers and ATP Soldats don't wear walkie-talkies and large headphones like their NEXUS Core counterparts, but they clearly have them, it's probably 1 small earpiece with a microphone in one ear (although the MADNESS COMBAT characters aren't shown with ears, it doesn't stop them from wearing different kinds of headphones and other things).
The A.A.H.W. agents as they appear in MADNESS: Project Nexus.
Although a non-canon episode, Incident: 001A showed that the agents still retain their usual role of fighting Hank. They were first seen unloading boxes from a truck, with the last crate containing Hank, who leaped out in a surprise attack and killed them with dual Beretta 92s. Hank later advanced into the building, where he threw several agents into a giant blender.
Agents in Incident: 010A appeared to be guarding themselves in a building against a horde of zombies outside. Hank managed to break in and kill both the agents and the zombies.
The l33t crew appear in Incident: 100A as the main antagonists against Sanford and Deimos. At the beginning, one agent fired at a Deimos-like decoy before getting stabbed by the real one. One of them was beating up the person who Sanford eventually kidnaps. Additionally, there were eight 1337 agents wearing paintball masks instead of shades. Deimos stunned them with a flashbang and kills them just as easily using an AR-15 with a grenade launcher attachment. According to Krinkels, these agents wore paintball masks because they somehow (incorrectly) thought that they would improve their odds.
Only three agents appeared in Incident: 101A, guarding a building while watching a delivery man pass by. This is the only animation where they neither fight nor get killed.
The agents in this animation retain their usual role as victims killed in large numbers by the protagonist, Jebediah Christoff. At the end of the episode, Jeb was mowing down a horde of oncoming agents with a minigun in a comical display.
Three agents appear in Incident: 111A, being sniped by Jeb from afar. However, they are simply targets of Jeb rather than antagonists in this animation.
Two agents appeared in Krink Test - one was being toyed with by Hank, who evaded all of his attacks for about eight seconds before finally killing the agent. A second agent appeared later during the animation, but ended up as a cushion of sort, to absorb the power of a Half Mag Engineer trying to smash Hank against the floor. His remains were later used by Hank to damage the engineer's mask.
In Madness Interactive, the player has the option to dress in a business suit and/or Smith shades, similar to the ones of the 1337 crew. In the last several stages of the Story Mode, almost all enemies that appear wear business suits and sometimes Smith shades, likely representing agents. They also sometimes wear hair similar to that of Agent Smith from the Matrix, furthering the connection.
The Agents of Madness Combat were inspired by Agent Smith from The Matrix.
Old concept art shows that A.A.H.W. Agents were splinter faction from NEXUS forces, were well equipped and had private funding. In the final game, the A.A.H.W. does have access to some decent weaponry, as shown in The Escape, where they are seen with iron swords, CP5s and NS-19s, but can still be deployed with weak melee weapons, cheap revolvers and sometimes with no weapons at all.
On the Kickstarter page and pre-alpha stages of the game, Agents wore solid red shades. They now wear black shades. It's unclear why this change was made, but possibly to make their NEXUS CORE counterparts more distinct.
The first ever 1337 Agent lasted 9 seconds before a police baton was driven through his neck in Madness Apotheosis.
The second 1337 Agent lasted 6 seconds before he was strangled with a wire in Madness Depredation.
The third 1337 Agent lasted 5 seconds before he was strangled and hung with a wire in Madness Depredation.
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