A.J. Quartermaine (Sean Kanan)

'''Alan James "A.J." Quartermaine, Jr.' is a fictional character on the ABC soap opera General Hospital''. The son of the iconic and wealthy Drs. Alan and Monica Quartermaine, A.J.'s storylines have centered on his battle with alcoholism; rivalry with his cousin, Ned Ashton; his family's preference for his brother, Jason Morgan; and his failed attempts to regain custody of his son, Michael Corinthos. After being SORASed, the character was played by Sean Kanan from 1993 until 1997. Billy Warlock then took over the role from 1997 until 2003, and reprised it in 2005. Kanan returned to the role on October 26, 2012.

Childhood
Alan Quartermaine, Jr. is born onscreen into the chaotic Quartermaine family on December 13, 1979. At the time of his conception, his mother, Monica, was sleeping with Rick Webber, despite her being married to Alan. Alan's sister, Tracy, attempts to drive a wedge between the couple by planting seeds of doubt in Alan's mind that Alan Jr. is really Rick's son. In early 1980, it is learned that Alan Jr. has a heart condition and Rick comes back to to perform the surgery. Rick soon confronts Alan, who is already aware that Rick is Alan Jr.'s father, and claims the infant. However, Monica soon discovers that Alan Jr. carries a birthmark identical Alan's. A DNA test later confirms his paternity, that Alan truly is his father. In 1981, Alan has an affair with Susan Moore, which results in his illegitimate son, Jason. Monica and Alan separate when he moves in with Susan, and Monica files for sole custody of Alan Jr. Alan and Monica soon reconcile, and Susan sues the Quartermaines for Jason's inheritance. After Susan is murdered, Monica legally adopts Jason. Some time during childhood, Alan Jr. and Jason are sent to a boarding school in Switzerland.

College years
Alan Jr., now going by the name A.J. leaves school, and ends up in jail for drunk driving. A.J. of course blames his troubled childhood, while his grandmother, Lila, promises to give him and his cousin Ned their inheritance if they can stay out of trouble for six months. Meanwhile, A.J.'s parents remarry; and his little brother, Jason, returns home from boarding school. A.J. takes pleasure in reminding Jason that he is illegitimate. A.J. meanwhile starts a loan shark operation in college and has an affair with Nancy Eckert, the ex-wife of Spencer cousin Bill Eckert. He pays someone to have her beat up to keep quiet about his misdeeds. In 1992, Nikki Langton comes to town looking for revenge against Monica for her father David's death. When her malpractice suit against Monica fails, she begins dating A.J. Nikki soon tricks A.J. into proposing marriage so that she can get her hands on the Quartermaine fortune. In November 1992, A.J. is devastated when Nikki leaves him at the altar after Alan pays her to leave town. A.J. turns to alcohol to numb the pain. After learning about his father's schemes, A.J. tracks Nikki to Malibu and attempts to win her back, but she has already married another man. A.J. starts drinking even more, and develops a drinking problem that grows worse over the next years.

In 1993, A.J. has an affair with Ned's former lover, Julia Barrett, before she leaves town.

In 1995, A.J. and Jason happily welcome their new adopted sister, Emily Bowen, to the Quartermaine family.

In 1996, Jason is injured while trying to prevent A.J. from driving drunk. Jason falls into a coma; and when he recovers, no longer remembers anyone. He becomes estranged from every Quartermaine except younger adopted sister Emily, cousin Ned and grandmother Lila. Jason goes to work for mobster Sonny Corinthos as a hitman. Because of this, the Quartermaines have never fully forgiven A.J. for his role in the loss of Jason.

Michael and Carly
A.J. has a drunken one-night stand with Carly Benson, who is involved with Dr. Tony Jones. When Carly learns she is pregnant, she is unsure which man is the father, but goes to great lengths to keep A.J. from becoming suspicious. A.J. has stopped drinking and is attempting to straighten out his life, but Carly drugs him, hefts him into a laundry cart, dumps him in a back alley behind a bar and pours alcohol all over him. She wants him to think he's been drinking so he will go to a rehabilitation facility out of state, as she does not want him around when the baby is born. Her efforts backfire, and A.J. becomes suspicious. He demands a DNA test and tells Carly he wants custody of the baby if it's his. Carly persuades Jason, another of her ex-lovers, to assume paternity of the baby. When Michael is born, A.J. misunderstands a doctor's explanation about the baby's blood type and mistakenly believes Michael could not be his. A few years later, Jason's girlfriend, Robin Scorpio, tells A.J. that he is in fact Michael's father. A custody battle between Jason and A.J. follows. A.J. decides to patch things up with Carly to please his grandfather, Edward, who is adamant about keeping the Quartermaines together under one roof. A.J. eventually wins Carly over, and they marry on May 26, 1999 at the Quartermaine Mansion, much to the dismay of both Alan and Monica. Carly and Michael come to live with the Quartermaines, but A.J. finds it difficult to connect with the toddler, who is closely bonded to Jason. Ultimately, Carly has an affair with Sonny Corinthos, becomes pregnant by him, and Jason leaves town. A.J. agrees to pass the child Carly is carrying off as his own in order to get revenge on Jason for hiding Michael's paternity, but is still furious that the child is fathered by Sonny. Sonny eventually comes to claim the unborn child and blackmails A.J. with his knowledge that A.J. hired an arsonist to burn down Sonny's warehouse, also in an attempt to regain custody of Michael. Sonny then takes Carly and Michael to live with him, away from the Quartermaine Mansion. A month later, Carly and A.J. get into an argument; and she ends up falling down a flight of stairs and miscarries. A.J. is later disinherited by his family and forced to move out of the mansion. Meanwhile, Sonny and Carly schemed to gain custody of young Michael. Sonny kidnaps A.J., and his henchmen hang him from a meat hook. Sonny then threatens to kill him unless A.J. signs away all parental rights; Sonny later adopts Michael.

A.J. becomes even more self-destructive and destroys his relationship with Hannah Scott when he nearly died from alcohol poisoning. When Monica has a health scare, A.J. decides to move back into the mansion and reconciles with his family.

Marriage to Courtney
A few years later, A.J. bonds with his long-lost sister, Skye Chandler, who also battles with alcoholism. Together, they plann to bring Michael back into the Quartermaine fold. A.J. marries Sonny's half-sister, Courtney Matthews, thinking he can use her to gain revenge against Sonny and regain custody of Michael. A.J. falls in love with Courtney and is happy for a time. When faced with the choice of choosing Courtney or the Quartermaines, he chooses his wife, and is cut off financially from the family. Faced with endless ridicule at his new job, he gets drunk one night and drives into Coleman Ratcliffe's strip joint, with Courtney a passenger in the car. Courtney then starts working as a stripper to pay off A.J.'s debt and to keep A.J. out of trouble with the law. However, Sonny assigns Jason to be Courtney's bodyguard and Courtney slowly falls in love with Jason. A.J. burns down the strip joint when he learns that Courtney is stripping there, but Jason pulls him out of the rubble. Hurt and angry that Courtney has fallen for his brother, "the golden boy," A.J. hires Ratcliffe, who is obsessed with Courtney, to stalk her. However, the plan backfires when Courtney learns the truth. Courtney wants to end the marriage, and A.J. swears revenge on Jason. He teams up with Skye to frame Jason and Brenda Barrett for the murder of Luís Alcázar.

Later, A.J. finally gets his chance to run the family business, ELQ, when he becomes CEO after Ned is falsely accused of rape. After various other financial and illegal misadventures, he becomes involved with Lydia Karenin. The couple leaves town together in 2003 after A.J. empties all of the family's bank accounts.

Kidnapping and "death"
A.J. resurfaces in 2005 with another plot to get Michael back. He hires Faith Rosco to kidnap Sonny's children. The two younger children, Kristina and Morgan, are rescued by Jason and Sam McCall, but Michael is presumed dead. A.J. plans to take Michael out of the country. Alan, who is sympathetic toward A.J., initially helps him, but turns him in after seeing A.J.'s willingness to commit violence to get his own way. A.J. later shoots his own father, Alan; and when Jason tries to apprehend him, A.J.'s back is broken and he is hospitalized. While in the hospital, he is smothered by Dr. Asher Thomas, a man who A.J. was blackmailing, for years ago having attempted to kill Jason at A.J's request. After A.J's "murder," his son Michael is a suspect for awhile, but is eventually cleared.

As the years pass, Jason realizes that he had been wrong about his decision to help Sonny and Carly keep Michael away from A.J. because he had taken his brother's chance of being a father and getting to know his son away from him. In 2007, Jason visits A.J.'s grave to apologize, and to tell him that he himself would never get to be a part of his son Jake's life. His regret over his decision increases even more after Michael is shot and falls into a coma because of Sonny, and Jason feels that Michael would have been safer with A.J. as his father.

Michael later awakes from his coma in the summer of 2009, a bitter teenager. Carly fears that her son will be in danger, and places him under the custody of the Quartermaines for the summer, which greatly pleases Monica and Edward. Michael later moves out after he himself chooses to live with his stepfather, Jasper Jacks.

Return
In October 2012, Jason is shot by a person with the face of Duke Lavery and presumed dead after being kicked into the harbor. After hearing the news from Michael, Monica makes a phone call to an unknown person. On October 26, 2012, A.J. is revealed to be alive when he comes to see Monica in the living room at the Quartermaine Mansion.

It is revealed that Monica and Dr. Steve Webber had faked A.J.'s death in 2005. After A.J. was smothered by Dr. Thomas, Steve worked on him to revive him, but A.J. flatlined and pronounced dead. Monica was then left alone with her "dead" son, to whom she talked and cried over. A.J. then miraculously gasped for air and awoke. Seeing as A.J. was going to be sent to prison for shooting Alan and kidnapping Michael, Morgan and Kristina, Monica agreed to fake his death, and asked Steve to help her do it. No one, not even Alan, knew that A.J. had survived, except Monica and Steve.

Monica is shocked, but overjoyed, to see A.J. She wants him to leave town because he is a wanted man if anyone knows he's alive, but A.J. refuses, saying he wants to get to know his son Michael. A.J. later goes to a Halloween costume party at The Haunted Star, dressed as the grim reaper. There, he reveals his identity to Michael. Michael eventually indirectly tells Carly that his father is alive. Carly calls Todd Manning to help deal with A.J. being alive. Tracy walks into the Quartermaine living room and eventually turns towards Monica and sees A.J. Tracy then is knocked out by Alice and is transported to the boat house. Then A.J. is found by Carly and Dante Falconeri comes to arrest A.J.