Being an examination of the ancestry and descendents of Henry Jekyll alias Edward Hyde, with a brief discussion of his connection and visitation to outré dimensions

By Dennis E. Power

PART THREE: HYDDEN SELF

By 1909, Edward Hyde was in total possession of the shared body; Henry Jekyll had been reduced to a voice inside Hyde's head. They were living in New York, how they had arrived there or the reasons they went there are as of yet unknown. Allowed to rage freely, Edward Hyde committed murder and in doing so ran afoul of the visiting Jean C. Tarzan who was also known as Tarzan of the Apes.

    Tarzan and a mangani he rescued from the zoo tracked Hyde. In an epic battle with the mangani, Hyde was defeated. Severely injured, he went into Hyding, allowing Jekyll's consciousness and form to take the consequences of their actions.

    The Mangani tossed Jekyll off the bridge and into the river. He was presumed dead. His theiromorphic body was however quite resilient and Jekyll found himself washed ashore, bruised but otherwise uninjured.

    A point should be clarified about Jekyll and Hyde's invulnerability. Like most theiromorphs, he did indeed have rapid tissue regeneration, aged slowly and was extremely hard to kill. There are however often depictions of Hyde or Jekyll being injured and having the injury show up when transformed into the other form. This was not a failure of the theiromorph's tissue regeneration traits but rather an example of just how much unconscious control over his shape changing abilities Jekyll possessed. He retained certain injuries and even carried them over from one form to the next; a good example is his wounded ear in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Jekyll retained this wound and in both forms because he subconsciously wished to perhaps out of guilt and so overrode the healing process. There were also depictions of Jekyll in Hyde form and while in a rage being shot at yet the bullets seemed to have very little injuring effect on him.

    Jekyll quickly decided to leave America and found a hidden stash of Hyde's. He used the money to buy clothing and a passage out of the country. He traveled to South America and thence to Australia. He picked Australia as his final destination because it was sparsely populated and he believed what population existed there were mostly convicts. As such they  would be less likely to scrutinize or ask questions and should Hyde burst forth, then the only people injured would be criminals.

    However he soon discovered that Australia, especially in the Melbourne and Sydney areas, resembled for the most part typical English cities. These were not the rowdy frontier towns where lawlessness was lax that he had mentally pictured them to be. Jekyll first sailed into Melbourne and found that his upper crust, English background fit in quite nicely. For a few months anyway. Melbourne had the usual temptations of civilization, including drink, gambling and prostitution.

     He also found the Australian temperament, while still having a veneer of English deportment was also more apt to become violent. The Aussies were also more prone to casually use insults and foul language in their everyday speech. Jekyll found himself drawn to places of bad repute. In one rather seedy pub/boarding house called Magwitch's a young Australian jokingly mocked Jekyll's efforts to win over a young lady, using crudity and curses to make his point. Highly offended, Jekyll felt Hyde's personality slipping out from his control. Jekyll managed to slam the cork back on the bottle of his consciousness but by then one man was dead and his companions were sorely wounded. The rest of the patrons had fled in terror; the owner had run for the constable. Jekyll heard the owner (1) give a very exacting description of him

    Jekyll  fled north to Sydney. He found Sydney while still a paragon of English colonialism, a rougher, more bustling city. With all the immigrants it reminded him a bit of an American city. There was a Chinatown district similar to London's the Limehouse. When he felt his Hyde begin to surface every so often, he would self prescribe a visit to an opium den. The opiate soothed away his rage and anxieties, quelling the presence of Hyde.

    During one such visit to an opium den, Jekyll blearily became aware of an elderly Chinese gentleman staring directly into his face. The Chinese quickly lay back on his pallet and went back to his own opium pipe. Jekyll had the nagging feeling that he should know this person but could not place him.

     One evening a few days later while Jekyll was exiting Dawkins' gaming house) whose motto on the door was "We don't pick your pocket!" five men pushed him into an alley and threw fishing net over him. The men were yelling at him in accented English and attempting to quiet him by hitting him. Henry Jekyll's control slipped away as rage consumed him. Edward Hyde emerged, ripping the net apart and he killed four of Jekyll's would be abductors. Hyde ran after the would be abductors and caught an old Chinese man who had been directing the abduction. Jekyll battled for control and emerged. The older Chinese man slipped away as Jekyll and Hyde fought an internal battle.

    Jekyll noticed a ring upon one of the dead attackers. A chill went down his spine. He heard a constable's whistle and ran from the scene of the crime. Jekyll regretted not letting Hyde kill the elderly man. The elderly man was one of the henchmen of the Devil Doctor whom Jekyll and team members had run against in 1898. He had heard that the Devil Doctor had returned to Asia and had been crippled but that could have been just a rumor.

    Yet, whatever the truth the Devil Doctor's organization seemed to still be functioning. Jekyll decided to once again pull up stakes and hit the road. He traveled by rail to Brisbane. He took rooms in the better area of town, reasoning that he would be able to spot the Devil Doctor's agents easier that way. Jekyll stayed at the Transcontinental Hotel. He was startled to see a photo of Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes behind the desk. (2)  The clerk informed him that Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson had been guests at the hotel in 1888. Jekyll was not there for two days when he spotted a tail. At least he thought it was a tail. Buying a few supplies and a horse, he headed out of Brisbane for the bush.

    Late afternoon, just outside of Ipswich, he came across a traffic accident; a wagon had overturned, seriously injuring the driver. Four men, one of whom appeared to be a young constable albeit curiously a half-caste, were attempting to lift the wagon from off of the victim. Jekyll dismounted and gave them a hand. His added strength made the wagon seem much lighter. (This may have been the result of his lycanthropic strength).

    Jekyll informed the men that he was a doctor and that he would treat the man. He told the four rescuers what supplies he would need. Two of the men and the Constable took off for supplies.

    The driver had a couple broken ribs and a compound fracture of the leg. Fortunately none of the major arteries or veins were ruptured.

    Jekyll boiled the water that the men brought and sterilized the rags. Dosing the patient with some of his supply of laudanum, he and the men straightened the leg, pushing the bone back into place. He stitched up the tear and they bound the leg in cloth and bark strips that the Constable had brought. Jekyll then sealed the leg with a cast of mud and clay, using sterile water as a base.

    Two of the men were passing colliers; the third was the owner of a house near to the scene of the accident. He told Jekyll that they could take the injured man to his house for the evening then in the morning, Jekyll and he could take the patient to his family's holdings near Darling Downs

    The man who took in Jekyll and his patient as his guests was Johan Mengel. His wife Mary came bustling out of the house and helped Jekyll and Johan carry the unconscious man inside the home where they rested him on blankets on the floor. Jekyll was surprised that the young Constable who had followed them had not helped carry the man inside. He stood outside the door by the horses and wagon.

    As soon as the patient was settled down, Johan told the Constable he could come inside the house but not to touch anything. The Mengels gave him water and a half a loaf of bread but had him eat out by the wagon.

    Jekyll was treated to a full meal. He ate two thirds of it and asked if he could give the rest to the Constable

    Mary replied it was better than throwing it away.

    The Constable eagerly ate his plate. Johan Mengel sat outside in a straight back chair and smoke while he watched the young police officer eat Jekyll declined th offer of tobacco.

    "Hey drongo, you're the half caste boy with the fancy moniker from the orphanage, eh?"

    "Yes, sir."

    Johan laughed, "Doc this here half-breed boy is an Emperor!" He winked at Jekyll. "Tell him your name, boy."

    "Bony, sir"

    "Tell him the whole thing, ya larrikan"

    Rolling his eyes, the Constable said, "Napoleon Bonaparte, sir" (3)

    Johan Mengel broke into hearty laughter. His laughter was interrupted by the moans of the patient. Jekyll followed Mengel inside. Bony stayed outside the house, looking in through the open window.

    The delirious patient muttered about dreaming. Dr. Jekyll remarked on it to the young police tracker. He described to Dr. Jekyll the Aborigine's believe about Dreams and the Dreamtime. Ending his statement with the remark that this man's land had a sacred site upon it.

    In the morning the patient was fully conscious if in a great deal of pain. Jekyll doused him with laudanum. The man introduced himself as Marvin Awickerman. He offered to pay Jekyll ten pounds of gold if he would take care of him until he was able to move around on his own.

    His funds nearly depleted and believing that the isolation without temptation would help keep Hyde in check, Jekyll agreed. Jekyll tied his horse to Awickerman's wagon and drove it deeper into the bush.

    Marvin's family holding was indeed near Darling, although it was an isolated and self-sufficient. There was a house and a farrier's shed next to it. There was also a large barn filled with various crates and supplies, looking like a warehouse stuck in the middle of nowhere.

    Awickerman told Jekyll that someone from his family was supposed to man the station at all times but his cousin had just taken off and left the place flat. The family's main estates were in Port Middlebay.

    Awickerman told Jekyll that if he help him fill the orders then there would be another five pounds or perhaps ten pounds of gold in it for him. Jekyll agreed. In the carpentry shop they made a crutch for Marvin Awickerman.

    Awickerman then lead him to a rocky hill near the house. Upon the face of the windswept reddish rock was an aboriginal design. It was a black circle comprised of a single line in a spiral etched into the stone and stained with pigment. Held fast in some rocks was a large wooden box filled with pieces of paper wrapped around rocks. Awickerman filled a burlap sack with the paper-covered rocks.

    Each paper had something scrawled on it in a clumsy and barely legible handwriting.  There were single items or multiple items. For example some of the items they filled were; three sticks of dynamite and four extra large rubber bands,  large steel bear trap, two springs, etc.

    Marvin Awickerman had Jekyll pull various items from the warehouse shelves. Those things that were not in stock, Marvin Awickerman either made in the carpentry or farrier shop or wrote "not in stock"

    They loaded up the cart and drove back to the hillside. Jekyll suspected that Awickerman was insane from the isolation and desolation but played along. He took cover when Awickerman tossed the rubber bands and unlit sticks of dynamite at the black spiral. The items hit the spiral, seemed to freeze in midair for an instant and then disappeared.

    A few moments later a large lump of gold came rolling out of the spiral. Awickerman picked it up and then threw the bear trap into the spiral. Another lump of gold followed. They did this until the wagon was empty except for the gold that had taken the place of the trade goods.

    Over the next three weeks, Jekyll learned something of Awickerman's family, although, he suspected that not all that he was told was the truth. Awickerman's Grandfather volunteered to emigrate to Australia, bringing with him his wife, four children and an orphan ward. He had been a ne'er-do-well businessman and accountant in England and had been thrown into debtor's prison a few times which accounted for the voluntary emigration. He felt certain that in Australia something would turn up.

    The family had squatted on this land at first, attempting to farm the dry, baked soil. Although his grandfather had been a kind, even-tempered man he had become totally frustrated with his failure as a farmer and flung a hoe at the spiral  design on the rocky bluff. Thinking it was a native curse on this land. It turned out to be the family's salvation. The hoe disappeared. Awickerman's son was hot to go after it but Awickerman stuck his head in the spiral and immediately felt nauseated, disoriented and in total darkness. He forbade anyone going in there.

    A day after the hoe had been thrown through the spiral, a piece of paper was found blowing across the ground. It asked for another device, telling him to name his price. Awickerman asked for gold and tied the note onto a rock and tossed it in the spiral. He received a nugget about the size of a fist. Another note came through asking for another device.

    Awickerman discovered that he had a knack for creating items that the notes asked for in a carpentry shop or forge. He also began to warehouse other things requested by the notes that were not otherwise available. As the family's fortunes grew, they moved to Port Middlebay where Awickerman became a prosperous merchant and eventually a magistrate.

    Yet he felt an obligation to the mysterious writer of notes and had one of his sons or and eventually sons in laws man the station for a four month period. This duty was passed onto the grandsons as well.

Marvin Awickerman had sent a note off to his family via a passing Bushranger; he explained what had happened and the fact that he was being help by a friend.

    There was a steady flow of gold and occasionally silver through the spiral on their end. The site of so much gold brought forth Jekyll's baser instincts, he felt Hyde begin to rise. He quelled the urges and dipped into his laudanum supplies.

    One morning about four weeks after Jekyll and Awickerman had arrived at the odd station in the Australian bush, two riders entered the stockade fence. They were dressed as typical bushmen with felt hats, moleskin pants, woolen shirts and thick boots. They also carried rifles and sidearms.

    As it turned out Marvin Awickerman's gratitude only went so far. Keeping the family's secret safe was paramount. He had hired these men to kill Jekyll. They were to take him out into the desert and make it fast and painless.

    Knocked unconscious, Jekyll was tied to the back of a horse. Hyde emerged and made short work of the killers and their horses. Hyde rode the remaining frightened horse back to Awickerman station house, following the trail by scent.

    Awickerman was no where to be found nor was the gold. He searched through the house and found none of the gold. He did however find some correspondence and saw Marvin Awickerman's real name. Jekyll remembered that name from somewhere but could not place it. (4)

    He thought about torching the station but decided that the fire would be too noticeable so took some food and other supplies. He rode past the spiral carving and noticed a chunk of gold there. Jekyll dismounted to retrieve it. His vision suddenly went red as a clap of thunder burst through his ears and chest. Jekyll was dimly aware of Marvin Awickerman standing some distance away with dynamite sticks in his hands.

    Edward Hyde sprang to his feet with a curse despite the torn and burnt flesh and broken bones of his body.

    Marvin Awickerman desperately lit and tossed another stick of dynamite at Edward Hyde. Hyde felt himself flung backwards by the midair explosion. He hit the spiral carving with a sickening thud, hung suspended for a second and then fell for a timeless time.

    Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were gone from the Wold Newton universe from 1909 to 1949, give or take a few decades. Jekyll's account of those years is recounted in The Realm of Madness.

    Dr. Jekyll returned to the Wold Newton universe in the company of Dr. Harold Shea and Miss Jessica Marvellous in 1949. Dr. Jekyll and Jessica Marvellous, although physically unharmed, had been made into mental  tablula rasas by a mischievous Genie. He had erased all their memories, skills and personalities. They were mental infants in adult bodies, they however learned faster than most infants did. Dr. Shea used his influence to get them admitted to the then Garaden Psychological Institute as patients.

Jessica Marvellous made a more rapid recovery than Dr. Jekyll did. She adopted a new name, Jennifer Marshall and embarked on a modeling career before marrying one of the Institute Doctors. She would have an influence on the extended Jekyll family in years to come however. Her recovery was faster because she had been more of a blank slate than Jekyll was. Her mind was an empty receptacle into which a new personality and new memories could take place. Admittedly there were some residuals of her old personality left, considering the name she chose and her choice of professions.

    Dr. Jekyll was a different however, in his case the blackboard had not been entirely erased and what remained was dim, dusty and garbled. It was theriomorphism which maintained his age, which regenerated his body from injury and which caused his cyclic mood changes which also began to revive his memories. Had Jekyll been left alone in a few years the original persona of Henry Jekyll with its memories and psychological malfunctions would have probably emerged as it had been prior to being wiped. As it were the attempts to cure Jekyll made matters worse.

    When the nascent personalities of Dr. Jekyll and of course his alter ego of Mr. Hyde began to emerge in John Doe's therapy sessions. The personalities were at first encouraged to blossom as Dr. Shea thought that these were temporary states prior to the subject regaining his full memory. When it appeared that these "false" personalities were not going to disappear on their own they were encouraged to do so by Dr. Shea. He used all the current available treatments including insulin coma, shock therapy, hydrotherapy, hypnosis and a pharmaceutical regime.

    Fortunately for Dr. Shea and the staff at the Garaden Institute, the Hyde that emerged at this time was close to the original Hyde that is smaller and weaker than Jekyll. The larger Hyde was a manifestation of the Jekyll wracked with guilt and unable to control his dark desires. This particular amnesiac Jekyll did not have full access to those memories so the Hyde reflected his frustration and anger.

    The emergent personalities of Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde were kept off balance by the combinations of therapy and psycho-pharmaceuticals. When Dr. Shea began using a combination of drugs and hypnosis, Jekyll and Hyde did fuse into a single personality believed that the Dr. Jekyll memories were false. A new personality emerged who named himself Alvin Samuels. Dr. Shea was noted that Alvin Samuels appeared younger than John Doe had originally appeared to look. He attributed this to John's Doe's ability to mimic an older person, as many patients with false personalities often did.

    This was a manifestation of his theriomorphism. Alvin Samuels unconsciously shapeshifted himself into a younger body. It appears that Henry Jekyll remained a hidden personality within Alvin Samuels even to the point of writing the aforementioned secret memoir that was found stuffed in a wall baseboard. Alvin Samuels with Dr. Shea's encouragement quickly became an accredited medical researcher, he showing an incredible knack for the work.

    After Alvin Samuels left the Garaden Institute in 1955 he kept in touch with Dr. Shea until the disappearance of Dr. Shea and his entire family in 1960. Alvin Samuels dropped out of sight shortly thereafter.

    After Alvin Samuels stopped his outpatient therapy and treatment his original personality began to emerge, yet the emerging persona was a blend of Jekyll and Hyde. Samuels noticed only as a growing obsession with the legendary work of Dr. Henry Jekyll. He studied all he could on the subject  and began assembling supplies and equipment to recreate the experiment of Dr. Jekyll. Unlike Dr. Jekyll Alvin Samuels did not have a fortune upon which to draw so he created one by embezzling money from his employers in a variety of ways.

    Samuels would work as a medical researcher with purchasing authority but he would bilk his employers and then move on before the theft was discovered. He usually arranged to have evidence point to someone else should the thefts be discovered at a later date. However good he was at covering his tracks, his frequent job changes did not have the record of stability that many employers wanted.

    In early 1961, Alvin Samuels interviewed for a medical research position with Dr. Donald Blake. Blake however was more diligent about checking references than most Doctor's Samuels had encountered. This may have had to with Blake having some secrets of his own. Blake, who was also something of a sleuth discovered a disturbing pattern of monetary losses that often accompanied Samuels taking a position with a company. He mentioned to a few of Samuels' former employees that they ought to begin investigating and see if possibly there was a connection.

    Dr. Blake turned Samuels down flat and had the audacity to lecture him in a round about manner about honesty and making up for misdeeds.

    Alvin Samuels suddenly discovered that he could not get a good job with any reputable medical research firm, thanks to Dr. Blake's sub rosa blacklist and character assassination. He took a job testing cosmetics on animals. Left to his own devices he used the company facilities for his own research. He finally succeeded in creating a formula that he thought was a duplicate of Jekyll's. Since in reality he was remembering, it was Jekyll's formula except for missing the key ingredient of thyophite.

    Alvin Samuels drank the formula and became Mr. Hyde. In doing so he unlocked the Pandora's box of his hidden memories. (5)

    The formula he created was in effect a placebo, a psychosomatic trigger which undid much of the psychological conditioning and memory tampering wrought by Dr. Shea and other well meaning psychiatrists. Unfortunately their work had resulted in a partial fusion between the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personalities, making Dr. Jekyll less uprightly rigid and moral. The newer Hyde personality was primarily composed of Jekyll's desires for vengeance, violent rage and the part of his sexual libido that he still did not accept as part of his make up. This Hyde was however not as intelligent as the previous versions of Hyde and much more prone to enacting fatal violence. The modern Hyde was the personification of Jekyll's rage, a walled off section of the mind where the aloof Jekyll or Samuel's resentment, slights and grudges rested.

    When the Hyde personality emerged, the first thing he wished to do was to avenge himself on the last person who had crossed him, Dr. Donald Blake. Hyde went to Dr. Blake's office but found that the Doctor was on a call. He amused himself by humiliating Dr. Blake's receptionist/nurse, stripping her and slapping her about. He was working himself up to raping her when Dr. Blake returned to the office.

    Hyde battled with Donald Blake, finding the Doctor much stronger than he expected. Hyde managed to flip Blake out of a window where was certain to slam against the sidewalk three floors below. Hyde hurried down to make certain Blake was dead
and if not, to finish him off. The body was gone! Returning to the office he also found the nurse/receptionist gone.

    Alvin Samuels was aware of Mr. Hyde's activities and how Dr. Blake had apparently escaped justice. Discovering that Dr. Blake was not only alive but hale and hearty, Samuels began a smear campaign, starting false rumors that Blake was a junkie, an abortionist, a bigamist and a fraud. Although for the most part no one believed the rumors enough people did that Blake's practice suffered for it. Yet not enough to suit Samuel's. Samuels wanted Blake's reputation tattered like Samuel's own reputation had been or failing that, Hyde wants him dead. Dr. Blake managed to turn public opinion back to his favor by saving a child from a burning building, although admittedly with the help of a mysteryman called variously Thor or the Thunderer by the press.

    Samuels begins to believe that this Thor had saved Foster and Blake from him the first time round. Samuels discovered that a dinner was being held in Blake's honor for some medical research he had made some stride in. Samuels decided to get revenge on Blake and Foster and also to draw out this mystery man so Hyde could give him his just desserts.

    Drinking his new potion Samuels once again transformed into Hyde. As Hyde he entered the restaurant where Blake's dinner was being held and kidnapped Blake and Foster at gunpoint. Forcing them into Blake's car he forced Blake to drive them to a large abandoned warehouse on the river. Hyde had previously ascertained that there was not anyone aroudn and that there had not been any activity at the warehouse for some time.

    Once inside the warehouse, Hyde discovered that the place had once been used to store many vehicles, or so the tire tracks and grease spots seemed to indicate. He tied Blake and Foster up and waited for Thor to appear. When Thor did not arrive after some time, Hyde explored the warehouse a bit further. It was very bare but for empty storage crates, dust and rats. However he found a trapdoor that lead down to a sub basement, the subbasement was very interesting because it lead into a small submarine pen. There was a small two or three person submarine suspended over the water by a hoist. The electricity did not work so Hyde smashed the hoist chain and dropped the submarine into the small watery holding area. (6)

    This submarine was probably left over from one of the many crime fighters that plagued New York in the  thirties and forties, which Hyde had only heard about by word of mouth. Had he been around of course they would have fallen to his mighty intellect and fists or so he reasoned. This Thor character was one of a new resurgence of such interfering do-gooders.

    Hyde had a dim idea of using the submarine as a means of achieving vengeance on the medical firms that had wronged him. He could sabotage them and then disappear, using the sewer system to wend his way through the city. The slight flaw in his plan was that the submarine turned out to be inoperable. Its control panel had been gutted. In a momentary rage, he completely demolished the submarine's control panel. Hyde found the destruction intoxicating and arousing.

    Eyeing the  cushioned leather chairs, Hyde tore the leather cushions off and threw them on the submarine's floor. He reasoned that the submarine should protect him from the blast. He returned upstairs and informed Doctor Blake that if he had a means of contacting Thor, he should do so. He placed a time bomb next to Blake's chair and told him that if Thor did not rescue him by allotted time he would be so much confetti.

    Hyde told Blake that if Thor wished to see him, he would be downstairs, entertaining Miss Foster. Hyde grabbed the screaming woman and carried her down to the submarine. He sustained several cuts and bruises from her, which infuriated and excited him. Hyde stripped her of her clothes and bound her with the torn pieces. She fainted but he slapped her awake. A loud banging cacophony resounded through the submarine. Hyde felt like a serial villain always being interrupted at just the right moment.

    Enraged he squeezed out from the Submarine's hatch and turned around. A bolt of electrical force accompanied by a sledgehammer slammed into his chest .The blow seemed to have the concussive force of a locomotive . While still electrified he fell into the water. The shock greatly drained his strength. He clambered out of he water and rolled over on the dock. He saw a large blonde haired man with a  yellow beard and a large nose. He wore leather jerkin, trousers and boots. In his hand was a metal war hammer. (7)

    As Hyde pushed himself to his feet, the man swung the hammer around in a circle on a strap. The hammer began to crackle and spark. When thrown the sledgehammer looked like a streak of lightning flying directly at Hyde's chest. It hit him with another electrical concussive blow. This sapped even more of Hyde's strength. Since the time bomb was going to go off in a few moments, so Hyde decided discretion was the better part of valor and dove into the submarine pen. Hyde swam down to its exit and out into the river.

    Weakened by the ordeal, Hyde let Samuels take all of the pain and fatigue and faded back into Samuels' form.

    Returning to his apartment and laboratory, Alvin Samuels spent a few days recovering from the electrical shocks that he had received. Even his theriomorphic tissues were adversely affected by electricity, although they recovered at a rate much faster than a normal human being. His hatred for Blake and Thor filled his thoughts. He received a, visitor, a tall man with a shaven skull and a goatee.

    Without preamble the bald headed man told him that he knew Samuels was the mysterious man who had abducted Dr. Blake and Miss Foster from the awards banquet. Before Samuels could offer a denial, the man told him that his price for silence was cooperation in destroying Blake and Thor. Samuels listened. The man did not give his name but rather a cover name of Cobra. He claimed to be a member of an organization to which Blake and Thor had some enmity towards. (8)

    Cobra said they would invade Blake's office and make him summon Thor. Cobra and Hyde would take Thor's hammer away from him and kill Thor and Blake. Cobra waited on the street for Hyde to join him. Samuels drank his potion and became Hyde.

    Donald Blake once again proved to be stronger than he seemed. He was able to hold off both Hyde and Cobra and make an escape out of his office, locking a reinforced door office door behind him.

    By the time Hyde and Cobra had broken down the door and exited into the main hallway of Blake's building, Blake was long gone. Standing in the hallway was the casually dressed and flamboyantly bearded personage of Thor. They barely had time to register the fact before the sparkling hammer knocked them down like bowling pins. Bowling pins however did not usually contort from an electrical discharge.

    Cobra was shocked to insensibility. Hyde shook off the effects of the hammer's blow and charged Thor just as he was catching the hammer. He caught the mystery man off balance and managed to knock the hammer from his grasp.

    With his rage enhanced strength, Hyde managed to get some good blows in against Thor, whose strength seemed to be waning. However strong as Hyde was he was not a scientific fighter with centuries of martial experience. Despite Hyde's advantages in weight and strength, Thor defeated Hyde with unarmed combat techniques, flipping him far enough away and hard enough into a wall so that Thor had a momentary respite which he used to retrieve his hammer. Hyde fell with a hammer blow to the head.

    Alvin Samuels' hatred of Blake and Thor had blindly led him into a fate he had previously avoided. He was branded a criminal. Both he and Cobra were arrested and held over to stand trial. Alvin Samuels had all the more reason to hate Donald Blake and Thor. Although he had come to know his old identity Jekyll could not use his real name because of all the negative associations with it, besides which it would probably get him locked up in a madhouse again. Now even the assumed name of Samuels was tainted, he was branded a criminal. Although this was actually appealing to Jekyll, who found the prospect of being a career criminal oddly exhilarating.

    When a man named Loki, obviously using another code name, paid for Cobra and Hyde's bail, he instructed them to kidnap Jane Foster once again. This Loki was certain would draw Blake and Thor to save her. Both Cobra and Hyde believed that this plan was overly used and prone to failure but Loki insisted. Hyde once more captured Jane Foster in front of Dr. Blake, threatening to snap her neck like a chicken bone if Blake did not send Thor to a certain address.

    The location where Jane Foster was held was a secluded house in Westchester County that Loki had booby-trapped. Thor arrived and was trapped in a room that was flooded with tear gas. While Thor choked and coughed, Hyde who wore a gas mask attacked him. The hammer's electrical field ignited the gas causing an explosion that knocked Hyde into another room. Cobra was knocked back against an electrical grid in another part of the house and was knocked unconscious. Jane Foster was in the room adjacent to the explosion and was seriously wounded.

    Thor used his vast medical knowledge to stabilize Jane Foster and then called for an ambulance and the police. Thor disappeared and Dr. Blake appeared on the scene. The police captured Cobra and Hyde. Jane Foster was rushed to a hospital.

    Calvin Samuels is irrevocably embarked on a life of crime when he and the Cobra escape from the police vehicle injuring the officers inside.

   Over the next few years Calvin Samuels worked with the Cobra, although not necessarily the same one. The Cobra were members of a Thuggee type sect from India who worship the sacred Naga. A member of Cobra was assigned to aid Hyde commit crimes in return for which, Hyde would aid the Cobra in carrying out various missions. The Cobra's assigned to Hyde were in his opinion, rather incompetent. Despite Hyde's great strength and the Cobra's purportedly being trained to the peak of physical conditioning , Hyde and Cobra were met and defeated by men without innate superpowers such as the Daredevil and Captain America. Eventually Cobra ended their association with Hyde by leaving Hyde in prison while Cobra escaped.

    Hyde spent quite a few years taking vengeance on the members of Cobra. He was thwarted in his vengeance on several occasions by Captain America and the Daredevil and a few times by the Spider. He also clashed with his great-grandson a few times in his transformed state. As his frustration and anger grew, as stifled rage blossoms, as before the Hyde persona grew larger and stronger, the Hyde persona also diminished in intellect as the anger and rage pushed out all cognitive thought. The Batman fought a raging, nearly mindless Hyde a few times.(9) The Jekyll/Samuels persona became either unable or unwilling to emerge.

    In the mid-eighties, Lexcorp, a corporation owned by Wilson Fisk (10) captured Mr. Hyde. Wilson Fisk was a regarded as a bit a shark in the business community but was thought to be aboveboard. This was not the case, he was into all sorts of illegal activities and had been constantly fighting against the likes of Daredevil, Batman, The Spider and even Superman. Fisk had the brutal; nearly mindless Hyde altered using a combination of surgery and other biotech such as recombinant DNA. He wanted to create a true killing machine, one that could in no way be traced to him.

    Hyde was transformed into a true monster with cybernetic implants that increased his strength and with biotech that altered the skeletal structure of his body. Fisk arranged for him to be dropped by helicopter, sans parachute on the outskirts of New York City. Through deep hypnotic therapy he had been programmed to do one task,  go to New York and kill every costumed vigilantes he saw.

    Fisk and his associates probably did not foresee the single-minded manner in which the modified Hyde would enact his conditioned command. Upon recovering from his fall from the helicopter he made as straight a line as possible for New York City, heading directly for the Borough of Metropolis. His path deviated only when he encountered something beyond his strength to move or smash. He left a trail of destruction and death leading into Metropolis. At least six people had objected to the creature smashing through their homes or tossing their cars out of the way. He had swatted these people out of his way like insects.

    The first of the costumed heroes to attempt to stop the rampage was Power Girl. Hyde's already enhanced theriomorphic strength had been augmented through cybernetics and crude gene therapies until it was believed to be at least comparable to that of Superman's. Powergirl was already at a slight blow for blow disadvantage from the outset. Fisk and associates had realized that interference from Superman, Powergirl or the rumored Super Girl were to be expected. They had thus engineered their killing machine for this eventuality. Hyde's enhanced bone structure, including the bone spurs that grew out of his hands, arms, shoulder, face and legs were threaded through with lattice works of artificially grown kryptonite.

    Every blow from Hyde cut, bruised, battered and broke Power Girl's skin and bones, furthermore it poisoned and weakened her. The augmented Hyde defeated Power Girl and tossed her body away like a bloody rag. He continued on towards Metropolis.

    Superman had bounded into the area moments too late. There is of course the famous Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of Superman screaming in anguish as he cradles the bloody, battered and apparently lifeless body of Power Girl in his arms.(11)

    Had Superman been in his prime or had he not been distracted by grief, the outcome of the battle between the augmented Hyde and Superman might have been different.  Superman did manage to stop the rampage of destruction and stopped the augmented Mr. Hyde creature in its tracks. Their epic battle, which destroyed much of a six-block area in downtown metropolis, is too well known to go into detail here. (12) Suffice it to say everyone knows the painful and tragic outcome.

    As Superman lay unmoving, Hyde began to stir. Fortunately for Metropolis, more of the costumed heroes arrived. It took a combination of the Spider's electro-webbing, the indestructible rope of Wonder Woman and the unbreakable shield of Captain America to finally stop Hyde. The shield edge, aimed for his chest hit his throat when Hyde ducked. It cut his throat and broke his neck.

    Two men in dark suits and sunglasses immediately claimed the body for Section 31 of the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency. Suspicious, Daredevil and the Spider followed them. They ended up in a facility in upstate New York. Determined not to let the U.S. Government get their hands on the body. Daredevil and the Spider confronted the two men. They pointed an object similar to a pencil at them and told them to forget all about the body and go back to where Superman had died. (13)

    The object affected the Spider but did not affect the Daredevil. The Daredevil used his baton and smacked it out of  the older man's hand. The Daredevil  turned their device on them and told them to forget about the body and about the Spider and himself.

    Rather than let anyone copy or vivisect the body, Daredevil and The Spider buried it in some New Jersey woods. The flesh decayed and the unnatural enhancements fell from the body. Eventually over the course of the next few years, portions of the body were exposed to the air. Every month when the moon was in its brightest phases moonlight would strike the bones of Jekyll and a bit would be regenerated. Each month more and more was regenerated until eventually all of the tinkering by Fisk and his associates and all of the mental tinkering by Dr. Shea and his well-meaning associates had been erased. A nude Dr. Jekyll climbed out of the grave one evening, looking and feeling as he had prior to imbibing his solution for the first time. He had given himself a fresh start and vowed never again to seek his Hydden Self.

    How well he did this has yet to be determined. (14)

    As for the tragic consequences of the battle with the augmented Hyde, Power Girl died. And Superman died; at least that is how the newspapers reported it the next day. His body was placed in a crypt. It disappeared shortly thereafter despite being well guarded. A year later almost to the day, a later a younger, albeit less powerful Superman began thwarting some of the crime of Metropolis. Despite being derisively labeled Superboy by some of the Press, the younger Superman persevered until he was a well regarded as the previous incarnation. One of the stories that the second Superman was that Superman I had not really died but had gone into a death like coma and emerged from the healing trance as a younger man.

    Those less likely to accept the fantastic story believed that Superman's rumored family had removed the body to be placed in a family plot. The prevailing wisdom was that Superman II was the son of the first Superman. (15)

NOTES

1. According to land records in 1909 the owner of Magwitch's name was Carbis not Magwitch; he had been barkeep under Abel Magwitch and when old Magwitch had never returned from England, he had sort of squatted the pub.

2. Dr. Henry Jekyll was acquainted with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson having crossed paths with them during his original episodes as Mr. Hyde. (See Estleman, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holme)

3. This young Police tracker would become the hero of Arthur Upfield's interesting series of mystery novels set in Australia. Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte's connection to the Wold Newton family was established by genealogist extraordinaire Philip Jose Farmer. His father was none other than A.J. Raffles. See The Incredible Raffles Clan  by Brad Mengel for more details

4. Through contacts with the Wold Newton Research Institute's branches in Emerald, Queensland and Sydney, Australia we were able to discover the provenance of the property Jekyll describes in his memoirs. The owner's name had not been Awickerman, Ackerman or even Acme. The name is however quite well known. The land is held by the Micawber family that was until recently the richest family in the world, eclipsed by Mr. William Gates. The Micawber's main corporate holdings used the name Acme and the corporate symbol was the Roadrunner. Marvin Awickerman a.k.a. Marvin Acme was in reality Marvin Micawber. See The Micawber Family

5. The astute reader may have noted that the tale of Alvin Samuels parallels that with the character from the Marvel Comics of Calvin Zabo. This is not a mistake; part of Marvel's contract with "Thor" was to alter the names and situations of the material that he released to them. Similar contracts of course existed with the Four, the Daredevil, The Spider and illegally with David Bruce Banner.

6. Which one of the action heroes of the thirties had owned this warehouse is unknown. Prime candidates are the Spider, The Avenger, The Shadow, The Whisperer, The Batman or Doc Savage. Most scholars tend to believe that it was the latter since he had disappeared in late 1949 and his fortune and holdings had been sold off piecemeal.

7. For more information about Thor and other "comic book" heroes please visit Marvelous, Fantastic Tales of the WNU

8. Cobra was not, as the Marvel comics depict a supervillain who had been bitten by a radioactive cobra but rather it was an offshoot of the Deadly Thuggee Sect who worshiped the Naga aspect of Shiva. The cult does have some resemblance to the one speculated by DC comics. The Nine used cobra as a strong arm and terrorism tool. The Nine would handpick and train the leaders of the Cobra so the cult would do and say as they wished.

9. DC Comic's Batman's contractual partner, changed the name of the criminal involved and also the criminal's nome de crime for legal reasons. They did not want to get into another legal wrangle with Marvel. The name that DC comic used for the Hyde character was Blockbuster.

10. Wilson Fisk has a rather peculiar background  but one which does not hold up under close scrutiny, the documents pertaining to his birth and schooling proven to be clever forgeries.  It does appear as though he was adopted but the records of this adoption were also proven to be forgeries.  Recent DNA evidence has given the rumor that Wilson Fisk was the illegitimate son of Lex Luthor some validity. There is also the fantastic story that Fisk is the son of the Ultra-Humanite using the name of Luthor or that Fisk was both the son of Ultra-Humanite and was also the Ultra-Humanite. The story goes that the U-H cloned himself and had that clone force grown. The U-H then used a version of the Braniac's mind transfer technology. One instead of transferring U-H's consciousness, it duplicated the U-H mind. Making two people with identical minds and ambitions. Although the two duplicates vied for control at first they came to a mutual understanding, one would pursue the scientific arena of achieving world conquest, and the other would go the economic route.  Fisk eventually became one of the nations top industrial leaders, philanthropist and the secret head of many criminal activities on the East Coast. When DC comics made over their comic continuity, they used the alleged connection Fisk had with the Luthors to recreate their Lex Luthor character into a powerful businessman who was also a crook. The DC comics version of the Fisk character and his financial empire is seen as the modern incarnation of Lex Luthor.

11. The photo was not taken by James Olsen or Peter Parker as might be assumed from the presence of Superman and the Spider but rather by retired crime photographer Jack "Flashgun" Casey, whose exploits as a amateur detective were recorded by George Harmon Coxe.

12. Among those seriously injured in the collateral damage from this fight were veteran and prize winning journalist for the Daily Star Clark Kent and his cousin Linda Danvers. Kent was suffered some hearing loss, was lamed and lost the use of one eye. His younger cousin however was left a paraplegic.

13. This would possibly be Agents D and K of the MIB.

14. So far as I can determine there is no substantiation to the rumor that the United States Military collected skin and blood samples from "Doomsday"'s battle with Superman. Nor did they use the collected tissue samples to create one to two viable clones which had their skeletal structure replaced by super strong alloy and given metal claws and fangs. They were not part of the Supersoldier Project that also created the Universal Soldier and they were not called the Wolf-Marines, and an amnesiac named Logan was not part of this group.

15. Superman II was actually the grandson of Superman I as is explained in the Marvelous, Fantastic Tales of the WNU.

Created 7-7-01

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HYDDEN TIME
A TIMELINE OF EVENTS IN THE HYDE AND HAIR ARTICLES

PART ONE: THE HYDDEN LINEAGE

PART TWO: HYDDEN HERITAGE

PART THREE: HYDDEN SELF

PART FOUR: HYDE AND HEIRS

PART FIVE: LOST IN THE REALMS OF MADNESS

PART  SIX: HYDDEN PAIR

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