Who Is the Ghoul? Cooper Howard's Road From Cowboy Star to Fallout Bounty Hunter

Let's talk about the Ghoul, the man who enters a room and instantly makes everyone else look like they're essentially doing an apocalypse with cheat codes turned on. It's hard to believe, but once upon a time he was Cooper Howard, a Hollywood cowboy and proud owner of good hair and even better publicity photos.

Then the bombs fell, civilization nosedived, and Cooper slow baked into the Ghoul: a radiation infused, leather textured immortal with trust issues, impeccable aim and the resting expression of someone who has been disappointed since 2077.

The Ghoul spent two centuries becoming a wasteland legend

While Lucy was memorizing ethics flashcards and Maximus was being emotionally kneecapped by the Brotherhood, Cooper spent two full centuries strolling the wasteland, shooting anything that breathed aggressively.

By 2296 he was like a pub legend, the dead eyed gunslinger who could shoot the cigarette out of your hand and then ask you for a drag. He was a man feared, respected and dehydrated, and absolutely not someone you would introduce to your parents unless you wanted a dramatic fainting incident.

Cooper Howard learned in the Sino-American War that T-45 armor could fail

Before he became the wasteland's grumpy, immortal granddad, Cooper was a Marine in the Sino-American War. There he discovered that the West's shiny new T-45 armor had all the durability of a chocolate teapot. He watched friends die because of a welding flaw.

He learned that military tech is mostly vibes and hope, and he decided that Alaska was deeply overrated as a lifestyle choice. So he returned to California and became a Hollywood actor.

A conscience and a Vault-Tec thumbs up cost Cooper Howard his Hollywood career

To everyone's surprise, he got famous. Cooper starred in westerns, developed a devoted fan base and even adopted his canine co-star, which was probably the healthiest relationship he would ever have.

Unfortunately, Cooper was blessed with a conscience, which immediately put him at odds with Hollywood. He questioned the morality of a cowboy execution scene, which was unacceptable, because studios prefer actors without thoughts. Then came Cooper's wife, a Vault-Tec executive, who looked at her husband and saw a poster boy to put in the blue jumpsuit and smile like societal collapse wasn't imminent. Thus the cursed thumbs up pose was born, a marketing decision destined to outlive humanity.

Vault-Tec plastered him everywhere, and Hollywood immediately blacklisted him. Other actors refused to work with him on moral grounds, which in Hollywood translates to a complaint that your brand is tacky. Cooper's fame evaporated very fast.

Cooper overheard Vault-Tec and Barb discussing starting the apocalypse

Things then got worse. Cooper overheard Vault-Tec executives and Barb herself discussing secret vault experiments and casually entertaining the idea of starting the apocalypse "by dropping the bomb ourselves." He quit the ads and tried warning people, and Hollywood responded by calling him a communist. Classic.

Reduced to performing at children's parties, he clung to his daughter, the only person still impressed by him at that point. Then came October 23rd, 2077. Nukes lit up the sky in the middle of a birthday party. Cooper grabbed his daughter, fled into the chaos and lost her in the aftermath.

Heartbroken, irradiated and extremely done with everything, Cooper eventually transformed into a ghoul. Whether it was radiation, trauma or just cosmic irony is kind of still up for debate.

The Ghoul relied on inhaler vials to keep from going feral

After the war, Cooper Howard died and the Ghoul took over. He became a legendary bounty hunter, the kind of man whose job description is legally sanctioned violence and whose hobbies include more violence.

To prevent himself from going fully feral, which is ghoul speak for zombified and bad at customer service, he relied on inhaler vials. Think of an asthma pump, but for keeping your brain attached. He drifted across the wasteland, made a few ghoul friends (a support group, but with guns) and occasionally did work for people who weren't terrified of him. At one point he ended up near Vault 76, and he described bounty hunting as his hobby, which is an adorable way to label murder for pay.

He was then captured by a man whose love language is psychological torture, and he was buried alive yearly, dug up, mutilated and reburied like some deranged calendar ritual. The Ghoul survived out of pure spite and radiation fueled stubbornness.

That's kind of his trajectory: Marine to movie star to Vault-Tec mascot to divorced apocalypse whistleblower, children's party entertainer and irradiated murder cowboy grandpa. Not a single career adviser in history has ever recommended that path, but he made it iconic.

Which chapter of Cooper Howard's life do you find most compelling?