Years ago, Bishop Baines made a vow on the grave of his slain father, Reverend Albert Baines, to continue his efforts to clean up the rundown city of Atlanta, Georgia. He assumed his father’s former position as the head minister of their family church, but after years of trying to do things Albert’s way, Bishop grew to realize that the city was too far gone for the peaceful methods advocated and employed by his father to do any real good.
So he went another route. He took the mantle of The Preacher, a masked street vigilante who executed every thug and lowlife he came across. He gave up the morals of his faith to restore safety and peace to the city he’d called home his whole life. The legend of The Preacher grew over the years and his name quickly became a boogeyman like presence in the criminal element. Then, all of a sudden, he disappeared.
In reality, Bishop was badly injured on a routine patrol and the incident left him paralyzed from the waist down. He sat and watched as the crime lords and gangs began to take their streets back, powerless to stop them from the confines of his wheelchair.
So, after much deliberation, Bishop created Project Haven, the codename for a collection of wayward souls that he recruited from the mass of parishioners who came into his church seeking atonement for their sins. He focused on those with absolutely no sense of purpose or reason to live. Eventually, he amassed a pool of talent to cover all of the necessary requirements for running a crime fighting syndicate.
From this group, he selected a special squad to take the fight to the streets. Thus far, there are six on this team.
The year is now 2025, ten years after Haven was born. We pick up the story of Project Haven when a chance encounter in a back alley just might yield the seventh and final member.
Bishop Baines (Tony Todd)The leader of Project Haven and the head minister of Melkite Catholic Church that sits over Haven’s base. Even though a neurological device still allows him to walk and even assume his Preacher mantle from time to time, he’s an old man now and spends most of his days running the day to day operations of Melkite and Haven. His fierce, almost psychotic dedication to fighting the criminal element drove his wife to divorce him years ago. Despite his advocating extreme violence on the streets, he’s remarkable conservative in all other aspects of his life. He doesn’t smoke, drink, use foul language (or allow it to be used around him) and still remains a faithful student and servant of the Lord. He’s very selective about who he allows into Haven, tending to favor those with chips on their shoulders. It’s that anger and bitterness towards the world that he channels and gives focus to since it was those emotions in his own heart that drove him to become The Preacher in the first place.
Priest Baines (Brandon Jay McLaren)Bishop’s only son and the de facto leader of the street squad of Haven. Priest has been deaf since birth and though he has learned to speak and is very proficient at sign language and lip reading, his lifelong handicap has always frustrated him and made him envious of those who can hear. He’s generally a likable guy, but has a fiery temper that can be triggered at the drop of a dime. He’s a fantastic natural athlete and took to the instruction he was given in Haven like a fish to water. He has known about Haven since its inception and has been with Bishop every step of the way.
Roxanne ‘Rox’ Purcell (Taryn Manning)Rox is a former child model that let all of her early fame and popularity go to her head. She got caught up in the Hollywood party scene as a teenager, rapidly developing a substance abuse problem, despite her continued success on the runway. After being swindled into bankruptcy by her scumbag of an agent, she returned in shame to her hometown of Atlanta, only to discover her estranged parents were dead. Penniless and homeless, she was forced into a dark life of prostitution, drugs, and alcohol, doing whatever she needed to get through the next day and to her next fix.
Salome Arthur (Joy Lauren)A seventeen year old street smart girl with a slacker attitude, Salome was disowned by her father after a terrible accident took the life of her infant child. She bounced between orphanages for close to a year until Bishop adopted her and brought her into Project Haven. She is by far the youngest member of the squad and despite her tendency to be incredibly lazy, she’s incredibly resourceful and level headed in stressful situations, which is how she earned her place on the street squad with limited training.
Lokesh Singh (Maulik Pancholy)Lokesh lived a wealthy, playboy lifestyle that catered to his insatiable lust for women. All that came crashing down when he published an explicit sex video on the internet and the girl was found to be underage. He lost everything and only avoided incarceration because of the connections of his equally wealthy parents. He attempted to start over in Atlanta, but his reputation followed him and after several attempts on his life by the angry residents of a concerned neighborhood, Bishop brought him into Project Haven and erased his identity off the grid. To the public eye, Lokesh has been dead for years.
Rebekah ‘Bekah’ Grimsly (Kathy Lamkin)A sweet, Southern belle exterior belies a lifetime of heartache and depression. Bekah has been overweight her whole life, as has her entire family. Her girth grew to be so much that she spent all of her college life confined to her room and taking online classes because she was unable to move around or work. So she buried herself into her engineering work, quickly becoming one of the greatest mechanical engineers in the field and quite wealthy as a result. She used her money to undergo several gastric surgeries to reduce her weight and finally be allowed to step out into the world, finding that her size brought many harsh judgments and disgusted looks directed towards her. This only increased her depression. On the brink of suicide, Bishop managed to pull her back and utilize her talents to design most of the technology Haven uses in the field. Her place on the street squad was earned after she showed a surprising propensity for sharp shooting and weapons training. At thirty six, she’s the oldest team member and generally plays the mother role to the rest of them.
Tanya Anderson (Jaimie Alexander)Tanya grew up in an all male household after her mother died giving birth to her. She followed in the footsteps of her brothers and father, pursuing and excelling in every sport she tried. However, her accolades were never enough for her disapproving, sexist father, who unfairly blamed her for the death of his wife and for being a girl in the first place. Tanya’s older brothers were raised with the same misogynistic attitude towards her and as a result, grew to loathe the male species in general. Her life didn’t get any easier when she came out to her family as a lesbian and she got out of her home as quickly as she could, going across the country for college. From there, she went right into the Olympics and found success that was quickly taken from her after a steroid scandal. She walked into Melkite at the very end of her rope and ready to give up on life when Haven entered the picture.
Sage McDonald (Seth Green)Sage is the only member of the team that didn’t come to Haven through a want for absolution for his sins. He’s a brilliant computer hacker and embezzled his way to a fortune before the authorities finally caught up to him. On the run, he attempted to make a quick score through Melkite and was busted by Bishop. Rather than turn him in, Bishop blackmailed him into using his talents to acquire funds from the illegal accounts of various criminal syndicates all over the world. Sage has been with the team longer than anyone save Bishop and has grown to enjoy his work, eventually branching out into the physical training and garnering a place on the street squad.