sparkymat

Benjamin Jacob “Ben” Grimm was born in poverty and hardship. Orphaned at an early age, he was brought up by his uncle Jake and Aunt Petunia. His life in the rough streets of New York, moulded him into a street-wise scrapper.

Excelling in football in high school, Ben received a full scholarship to Empire State University, where he first met his eventually life-long friend, Reed Richards. When Reed Richards told Ben of his dream to build a space rocket, Ben jokingly offered to fly it.

Following college, Grimm joined the Air Force as a test pilot. Some years later, Reed Richards contacted him again. He had built his space ship and reminded Ben of his promise to fly it. The government had refused to give permission for Reed himself to pilot the craft. So, under the cover of darkness, Reed, Ben, Susan Storm (Reed’s future wife) and her brother Johnny Storm, sneak into the space ship and take off into space. During their unauthorized flight, they were pelted by cosmic rays from a cosmic ray storm against which the space ship had no protection.

Crashing on earth, the quartet discover that they have developed fantastic superpowers. Ben was transformed into a orange, lumpy thing and later evolved into a massive orange humanoid of slightly jagged earthy rock. The four decide to band together and thus was born the Fantastic Four - one of Marvel’s recognizable superhero team.

While the others had retained their human appearance and considered their powers to be a gift, Ben was trapped in a monstrous form and was very unhappy with his state, though he continued being a reliable member of the team.

To his fans, he is the ever-loveable Thing. His catch-phrase, “It’s clobbering time!”, is one of Marvel’s most famous quotes. The Thing’s most endearing quality is his indomitable spirit. Coupled with his excellent hand-to-hand combat skills that he had learned on the streets, and his tough rocky hide, the Thing is one of Marvel’s best scrappers.

When the Champion of the Universe, had challenged the heroes of Earth to hand-to-hand combat, with the Earth as prize to the victor, it was Ben Grimm who faced the unbeaten Champion in the final round. Even the Thing’s tough hide was not able to save him from the Champion’s onslaught. Though the battle lasted a long time, in the end, Ben was defeated. Bruised and broken, the Thing was knocked down and the Champion turned to the referee, who prepares to declare him the winner. Despite having broken both his legs, and several ribs, Ben drags himself to the ring corner and pulls himself up and turns to face the Champion. Amazed the Champion turns to face him, at which Ben declares that his body may be broken, but his spirit refused to be and as long as there was a single breath in him, he would continue to fight him. Impressed by Ben’s indomitable resolve, the Champion forfeits the match and declares Ben the winner.

Dr. Robert Bruce Banner was a military scientist working on a new weapon called a “gamma bomb”. During the first testing of the gamma bomb, Bruce watched with horror as a teenage boy strolled casually into the fenced test area. Instructing his assistant to cease the countdown, he rushes out to save the teenager. Unknown to him, his assistant is a Russian spy, who, having failed to obtain the secret of the gamma bomb, had received orders to kill the inventor of the gamma bomb. Reaching the teenager in time, Bruce pushes him into a military trench and needed one more second to save himself, a second that was denied him.

Catching the full blast of the gamma explosion, Bruce is wracked with intense pain and he blacks out. Hours later, he wakes up in a hospital bed. Agitated on finding his life’s work sabotaged and his life threatened, he gets worked up and loses his temper and in the process, transforms into the gamma powered being known as the Incredible Hulk. Originally grey and not much larger than a very large person, the Hulk soon mutated into a larger and emerald skinned form.

Bruce Banner has the most unique form of multiple personality disorder, in the sense that his multiple personalities manifest physically as well. The two most dominant personalities, apart from that of Bruce Banner’s, are the Grey Hulk and the Savage Hulk personalities.

The Savage Hulk was the largest and strongest of the Hulk persona and like all the Hulk variations, had immense strength that increased as he got angrier (”The madder Hulk is, the stronger he gets”). The Savage Hulk had the personality of a small child and just wished to be left alone. This personality represented Bruce’s inner child, a product of childhood abuse and emotional scarring caused by his mother’s abuse at his father’s hands. Not very articulate, the Savage Hulk’s frequent quote is “Hulk Smash!!!”.

The grey hulk was smaller than the savage hulk and considerably more intelligent and cunning. Adopting the name Joe Fixit, he worked for some time as an enforcer in Mardipoor, where he had a few run-ins with Logan (aka Wolverine). This persona represented the teenager in Bruce Banner.

Doc Samson, attempting to cure Banner of his disorder, tries hypnotic suggestion, which unleashes yet another persona, which calls itself the Professor. The Professor has the body of the Savage Hulk, with the face and mind of Bruce Banner. However, despite his thinking so, Professor is not Bruce Banner but just another persona of his multiple personality disorder.

Bruce Banner’s life is a sad one, always on the run, avoiding the police and the armed forces, forever hunted for the destruction he causes as the Hulk. The Savage Hulk persona (which is the dominant one of the Hulks) has also saved the Earth on many occassions and is also a founding member of the Avengers. However, his temper caused him to part ways (violently) with his former teammates. Seeking to escape his tormentors, he travels around the globe, wanting only to be left alone.

J’onn J’onzz (popularly known as the Martian Manhunter) is a native of the planet Mars and a green Martian by race. Accidentally teleported to the planet Earth by a human scientist, he was unable to return to his home planet through the portal that brought him to earth. Thus, he used his powers to fit in, adopting a human-like appearance and calling himself “John Jones”. He joined the police force and secretly used his alien powers to help the inhabitants of his new home planet.

John possessed most of Superman’s powers, as well as added abilities like invisibilty, telepathy and the ability to control his molecular structure, which enabled him to shape-shift. His only weakness was towards fire, which affected him in much the way kryptonite affected Superman.

A founding member of the JLA, Martian Manhunter has been a key member of the League since its founding. Telepathically linking the Leaguers during combat, John plays a pivotal role in the League’s functioning. Furthermore, his immense strength and durability makes him one of the team’s foremost powerhouses, along with Superman.

The death of his entire race, has caused Jones to choose to remain on his adopted planet. It was later revealed that his race’s sworn enemies, the White Martians, have survived and their plans of conquest of Earth have brought them into conflict with the JLA several times. The White Martians consider Jones to be a traitor for opposing them, and as such have captured and tortured him.

Superman and the Martian Manhunter have much in common. Both are super powerful aliens who have come to adopt Earth as their planet. Both are good hearted people who fight for truth and justice and wouldn’t hesitate to lay down their lives to save others. However, where Superman is loved and admired by the public, Jones is shunned and feared, primarily due to his alien appearance. Jones is well aware of this and tends to avoid exposing himself to humans, except in the guise of police detective John Jones. His complex is deep rooted and though he bears no malice or ill-will towards Superman, on more than one occassion, he has asked himself, why people love Superman and not him. This changes when, after saving the world yet again, for the first time ever, a small kid comes up to him and hugs him, thanking him for saving the world.

Frank Castle was a multiply decorated U.S. Marine Corps Captain who had fought in the Vietnam War. Later, he ran Special Black Ops training missions for Marine Commandos in the upper New York state area. One day, while picnicking with his family in Central Park, they become witness to a Mafia execution. Seeking to eliminate all witnesses, the Costa Family murdered them on the spot.

Castle was believed to be dead until he awoke sometime later in a body bag. Furious and confused, Castle struck out at the medics. It took the entire police squad on the scene and several tranquilizers to incapacitate him. He was hospitalized. Though two assassins attacked him in the hospital, he managed to kill one of them and savagely beat up the other. Though he was able to identify the killers who shot his family, the police were unable to help him as the killers were well tied with the Costa Family. Depressed, Frank turned to drinking and nearly shot himself in the head. Another attempt on his life resulted in the total obliteration of his house. Everything that had been left of his family, had gone up in flames.

From the flames of his anger and frustration, was born the persona known now as The Punisher. In his own words, “Frank Castle is dead. He died with his family. In certain extreme situations, the law is inadequate. In order to shame its inadequacy, it is necessary to act outside the law. To pursue… natural justice. This is not vengeance. Revenge is not a valid motive, it’s an emotional response. No. Not vengeance. Punishment“.

Armed with a wide variety of weapons - mines, pistols, a shotgun - and his extensive combat experience, he started his Holy Crusade against war by first eliminating the Costa Family - only the first of a four-figure body count - making Castle’s vendetta, a very bloody one. Ruthlessly, the Punisher hunted down and killed any one whom he deemed should be punished. Waging a one-man war on organized crime, he savagely and ruthlessly killed many villains, more than any “hero” ever. Highly skilled in martial arts, stealth tactics and marksmanship, Castle used killing, kidnapping, extortion, coercion, threats of violence and torture to wage his war against crime.

His willingness to kill has brought him into conflict against other costumed crusaders, often ending in a battle between them. Undeterred by others’ opinions, he continues his war on crime, maiming and killing evildoers and striking fear into those who prey on the innocent.

He methodically scanned the room for clues. He knew he had less than seven minutes before the cops arrived. He examined every nook and corner of the room, taking care not to disturb any clues the police might need. The murder was not as mysterious as it was gruesome. There was blood everywhere. Disturbingly, there were portions of flesh missing from the body. It almost looked like the killer had actually bitten out portions of the victim’s body. He noted that there were distinct possibilities of the murderer being cannibalistic. He heard sirens on the street down below. With less than three minutes remaining, he knew that his last hopes for any clues, lay in the flesh wounds. He photographed the portions with missing flesh from various angles. His computer would be able to generate a rough model of the killer’s teeth. He noted that the canines seemed to be unnaturally large. Finally, he used the aero-analyser to detect and store any scents in the room. He could hear the footsteps thundering up the stairs, but by the time they opened the door, he was gone.

It had to be Creed. Firstly, the denture patterns matched. Secondly, no one in the building had seen anyone suspicious going in or coming out. No one else with this ferocity and fangs like this, could just walk into a busy apartment and then again leave without causing any suspicion. There had been a lot of blood spill, yet none of the witnesses had become suspicious of the large gentleman in the trench coat who had left room 311. Bruce was hardly surprised. After all, Creed had MIA training. He had laughed at lie detectors and confounded psychics. This would have been a piece of cake for him. Yet, if Creed had a fault, it was his arrogance. He thought himself to be too clever. He had been arrogant enough to be messy with the actual murder. Possibly, he had tortured her before actually taking her life. The absence of any screams or gags in the victims mouth meant that she was too terrified to make any sound. There were some injuries on her face, possibly caused by Creed covering her mouth, whenever he took a bite out of her. In the end, he just ripped her throat out. Bruce was confident on what had happened. Now he had to find out why.

Finding Creed was not going to be easy. Bruce had the current locations of over 98% of the villains he had records on. It was the remaining 2% that were the really dangerous ones, for the simple reason that even he could not find them or predict where they would surface next. Creed was one of them. Bruce had last gotten information that Creed was sighted in near a village in Mexico. From there, he had just disappeared. Now he has returned to Gotham City. This time, he was going to find him and put him down hard.

While the police were still searching futilely for clues, he tracked Creed’s fast fading scent, following it rapidly before it was lost. However he lost it at the abandoned Wayne warehouse near the river. Not only had the scent become faint, Creed apparently had entered the river, and probably swam to the opposite shore. However, with Creed, anything was possible. He could have re-traced his steps. He could have gone further downstream or even upstream. He had lost track of Creed. Frustrated he returned to the cave. He however noted that Creed had taken care to obliterate his smell track. It could be possible that he was just taking precautions in case the police decided to use bloodhounds to track his smell. Another more cheerful possibility occurred to him. What if Creed did it to throw someone off the scent, someone who could track Creed without any device or beast to aid him, one who was almost a beast himself - Logan. Yet, Bruce would never call Logan a beast. Logan had proved himself in the past to be more than the beast he had been made out to be by the public. Much more. Creed, however, deserved no such respect and should be hunted down like one. If Logan was indeed on Creed’s trail, it might actually make sense to join forces with Logan. As much as Bruce preferred to work alone, Logan was one person who knew Creed inside out. He would be very useful in bringing down this monster who had eluded capture for several murders now.

Bruce’s body immediately went tense. His cowl’s radar was picking up a heat signature several feet behind him. He immediately melted into the shadows and waited for the stranger to come around the crates. He held his breath, knowing that if it was Creed, he would probably be able to hear him breathing even from that distance. Long tense moments passed. Then a familiar voice whispered to him nearer than he had gauged. ‘Hello Bruce!’ . Relief washed over Bruce. He was sure it was Logan himself and not an impersonator. His suit computer had analysed the voice pattern and it was a perfect match. Bruce slowly detached himself from the shadows and approached Logan. Logan was attired in his yellow and brown costume. Like Bruce suspected, he seemed to be hot on Creed’s trail.

‘How did you get Creed’s scent?’ .
‘I got a chance to slip into the apartment. Old Jimmy owed me a favour’.
‘I have lost his trail. He has obilerated his scent by entering the water.’
‘He would head back to the city and lie low for a while.’
‘Wait!’

Bruce slowly faded away into the shadows. Logan cautiously followed. Even as he approached Bruce, he could smell Creed. He knew Creed was unconscious from the slow heartbeat. Bruce was bent over him, apparently examining him. The circular hole in Creed’s forehead coupled with the faint acrid smell of gunpowder told him that they were late. Someone had exacted justice on Creed. Someone whose smell Logan had started to get. Bruce looked at him. They both understood who it was.

Castle.

Frank Castle.

The Punisher.