Gender: Male
First Appearance: (in photograph) "The Silver Falcon" (in person) "Revelations"
Other Appearances: None
Mason "Mace" Malone was a prominent crime boss in the 1920s in Manhattan, and a partner of another gangster, Dominic Dracon. However, he allied himself with the Illuminati Society in 1920, giving away secrets that eventually allowed the Society to become organized crime's "silent partner" ever since. However, "Mace" was now a marked man when he was discovered, and the Illuminati helped him go into hiding four years later. He left behind his wife, film actress Flo Dane, and a very young son, Jack. Doing this was hard for him, and he had a place in his heart for his family for the rest of his days.
It is unknown exactly how Mace spent the seven decades between his going into hiding and his encounter with Matt Bluestone. What is known is that he stole jewels from his partner when he fled, and hid two red herrings for his partner to find- one below the Silver Falcon nightclub they had owned, and the other in a silver falcon on the Chrysler Building. He also operated the Hotel Cabal, a vast improbable structure designed to destroy a victim's sense of reality, allowing Illuminati interrogators to excise their most precious and darkest secrets.
When his ex-wife died in 1980, he attended her funeral- thereafter, he would often stop by her grave in Pine Lawn Cemetary and leave a flower. Longevity drugs kept Mace in incredibly good health for a man of his age in his later years.
In 1995, Matt Bluestone caught him one day as he visited his ex-wife. Mace was expecting this, and told Bluestone that the Illuminati had been watching his quest to expose them, and were impressed with his tenacity. He offered the detective membership in the Illuminati, and told him of Elisa Maza's relationship with the gargoyles as an act of good faith. When Matt verified the truth of this, Mace stated his price for allowing Bluestone in- he was to bring a gargoyle to the Hotel Cabal. He gave him a key for this purpose.
Matt wanted Illuminati membership, but he would not gain it at the cost of endangering Elisa's friends. So, he and Goliath came up with a plan. Matt gave the key to Goliath, and then the two went to the Hotel Cabal. Bluestone pretended to have become a Judas, while Goliath acted the part of an unwitting dupe. Mace trapped Goliath, and subjected him to several rooms in the Hotel while Matt- who lied that he'd dropped his key- and Malone watched from a control room. Soon, however, Goliath discovered the key gave safe passage, and used it to navigate the rooms towards freedom.
Mace would lose his position in the Illuminati if he allowed Goliath
to escape, so he chose the lesser failure of killing the gargoyle, which
would only be a "black mark" on his record. The gargoyle leader found his
way to an elevator shaft, and began to climb out- Mace manually activated
a trap the shaft, and stood behind a one-way mirror, ready to shoot him
through of
holes. Matt interfered, pushing them both through the glass into the
shaft. Malone grabbed onto the elevator cable, saving himself, then realized
he'd been duped. He and raged at the pair, furious, as he crawled out of
the shaft, and stomped off back towards the control room. However, he failed
to notice that he had lost his key in the fall.
Mace became trapped in the Hotel Cabal, and apparently went mad before, according to Greg Weisman, he starved to death. Despite this (or perhaps because of this), Matt still became an Illuminatus.
Mason Malone was a clever, crafty man. He had no superhuman abilities, but Illuminati longevity drugs kept him physically fit up to the time of his death.