Real name: Hector Hammond
First appearance: Green Lantern II#5 (Mar./April 1961)
Abilities: (at the time) being darn lucky
Worst act: Theft, kidnapping
Quote: "Yes! It's my own invention--a house that can rise above the clouds to fine weather anytime I wish! At the turn of a switch!"
Created by: John Broome (script), Gil Kane (pencils), Joe Giella (inks)
Of all the foes we've seen so far, Hector Hammond was the biggest one (aside from the Weaponers, although I'd say he had more impact).
We'll be ignoring his turn as the giant headed genius and focusing on his first appearance in Green Lantern. He's like the 1960's techbro. He's out in the woods one day when he finds a meteorite that's mutating the local plant life.
So he figures he'll kidnap some local eggheads and expose them to the weird radiation. This makes them all super geniuses, instead of dead. He then takes credit for all their work and passes their inventions off as his own.
The fact that a man in 1961 is passing off a flying house as a 'tinkering hobby' is either very clever or very dumb; hadn't quite figured that out yet.
Somehow Hammond has only become more relevant and I can see how he works as a villain. He claims to have all this genius but he's an empty suit, he only gets by on sheer dumb luck and the work of others. It's almost a pity they altered him so much later on, I think this version of the character would work just fine for a reoccurring foe.
No comments:
Post a Comment