by Dennis E. Power
PART NINE
KATRINA GRIFFIN 1946-?
For various legal reasons, Frank Raymond had to reassume the Griffin name but felt that time and his war record had expunged the taint that the name carried. Katrina Griffin, the daughter of Maria Goodrich and Frank Griffin was also involved with invisibility for most of her adult life[1].
After her parents had died in a fatal car crash[2], Katrina, nicknamed Kerry by her father, went to live with her great uncle, Frank's mother's brother. Despite promises made to Frank Griffin, Kerry was not guarded from harm by agents of the ISD since there was actually no threat against her.
Dr. Willard Morthley also intrigued by the Griffin family obsession and by the practical application of invisibility although he approached it from a different angle, through physics rather than pure biology. In 1955 Dr. Morthley became part of a project run by Dr. Peter Brady which used an approach using radiation to refract light. In 1956 A laboratory accident made Dr. Brady’s reactor leak radiation during a crucial experiment. Dr. Peter Brady was rendered invisible. Additionally all of his clothing which were made of animal products were also rendered invisible.[3] The invisibility did not wear off.
Over the next few years Dr. Peter Brady searched for a cure to his condition. In doing so he contacted several prominent international scientists who were working related fields or on similar projects. Among the scientists he contacted were Dr. Crompton, Dr. Tania Profiri Dr. Ulof, Dr. Erasmus.
Dr. Crompton learned what he could from Peter Brady about the invisibility process and then attempted to sell it to a country behind the Iron Curtin.
Peter Brady had an immediate rapport with Dr. Tania Profiri, unfortunately the Romanian scientist had to defect in order to pursue her scientific research. For her safety she relocated to the United States. Dr. Ulof had been part of the Nazi project on invisibility. Dr. Ulof had never encountered Frank Raymond but had worked on a project to replicate the process through mechanical means. Dr. Ulof had emigrated to America in the late 1940s. Peter Brady found that his knowledge on the subject was even less than his own. Dr. Erasmus was also a German and a quite brilliant one. He was Brady’s best hope for a cure to his condition.
Although Dr. Brady was focused on finding a cure for his condition, he also was recruited to work for British Intelligence. He did this mainly because he had been pressured to do so by the British government with the proviso that they would help him find a cure. Shortly after embarking on his double career however Peter Brady’s invisibility became public knowledge. When Dr. Brady went out in public he wrapped his head with bandages like many of the previous invisible men. A car accident knocked Brady and his driver unconscious. When people went to get them out of the car, Brady’s bandages became loose and his secret became exposed. The British government tried to keep a lid on the situation but the Prime Minister realized that too many people knew of the secret so it was best to make a clean breast of it. Without his knowledge or consent, Brady’s secret was leaked to the British press. He became an instant celebrity much to his dismay.
A television program was produced about the adventures of Dr. Peter Brady in 1958. This television was a blend of fact and fiction. It revealed some of the situations in which he helped people as a private citizen and fictionalized some of his exploits as an intelligence agent. Just how fictionalized these cases were had yet to be determined.
Fairly early in this research to reverse the invisibility process, Dr. Brady realized that either he was unique or there was some unknown factor in the accident that created his invisibility. He tried to replicate his accident under controlled circumstances to give Raphael Konstantine, a hideously scarred man peace of mind. During the course of the treatment, Brady learned that Konstantine planned to use the gift of invisibility to assassinate a political leader. Brady refused to go on with the treatments. Konstantine continued the treatments with one of his fellow conspirators. Although Konstantine did eventually become invisible he died as a consequence of the harsh radiation.
Brady thought that the conspirator had killed Konstantine by making a mistake in the procedure. However when he went over the experiment he discovered that the protocol had been followed. Konstantine would have died even if Brady had been running the procedure.
After his visit by Dr. Brady Dr. Oloff sought funding for his own invisibility project. This led to him becoming involved with Paul Krenner, a ex-solider who claimed to have the same goals as Dr. Ulof. Dr. Ulof soon learned that Krenner had been court-martialed from the army for insubordination. He gained power over Dr. Ulof by holding his daughter Marie as a hostage. Krenner devised a plan to get the necessary funding to perfect Dr. Ulof’s invisibility process by stealing the money from banks by using an invisible safe cracker. Krenner made arrangement to break Joey Faust one of the top safe crackers out of prison.
Faust underwent the invisibility process and successfully robbed a bank. The invisibility wore off but before it did Faust had used his invisibility to terrify Krenner, who despite his claims of military superiority was a coward at heart, and get a more equitable deal. Faust underwent the process again and went to pull another bank job. During the course of this robbery he began to fluctuate between being visible and invisible. He managed to get away but he had been recognized.
Dr. Ulof admitted that the process was unstable but Krenner had insisted on going ahead with using it. Far from being the patriot he claimed Krenner wanted to create an invisible army which he would sell to the highest bidder. He revealed that both he and Joey were dying of radiation poisoning. He asked that Faust stop Krenner before dying or else his death would mean nothing. Thirsty for revenge Faust agreed and killed Krenner although he also died in the gunfight. [4]
Dr. Erasmus was able to take the research of Dr. Peter Brady even further. He had been given incentive to perfect invisibility because of his appearance. He had been a handsome successful scientist in post war Germany when an auto accidentally left him horribly disfigured. Dr. Erasmus created a portal devise that created a field of invisibility which when worn would conform to the wearer’s body and render them invisible. Dr. Erasmus used the devise to spy on Liane Martin, an actress for whom he had developed an obsessive love.
Rumors of a ghost at the theatre in addition to suspicions of criminal activity brought it to the attention of FBI agent Nick Prado. Prado was part of a joint German-U.S. project code named Enterprise X. Prado was found floating in a stage trunk in the river. FBI agent Joe Como came to investigate Prado’s death. He soon learned that Liane Martin was being watched and also stalked by a poltergeist. Como had previously worked on a case with Inspector Lohmanm that concerned Dr. Mabuse that had ended with Dr. Mabuse supposed death. He began to wonder if Dr. Mabuse was actually dead.
Agent Cuomo’s instincts were correct, Dr. Mabuse had once again faked his death so he could operate freely in secret. He learned about Enterprise X and became determined to use it for his own ends. His men kidnapped Liane Martin and threatened her life unless Dr. Erasmus built more portable units. Dr. Mabuse’s plotted to blow up a plane load of diplomats using hypnotized minions each equipped with an invisibility unit and a bomb. Once Joe Como and the West German intelligence agency knew what Dr. Mabuse had planned they were able to defeat this plot.
Dr. Mabuse was trapped inside Dr. Erasmus laboratory and is seemly driven insane when it became engulfed in flames and he barely escapes with his life.
It is interesting to note that once Dr. Mabuse had enough of the invisibility devices he killed Dr. Erasmus. Since the invisibility devices do not appear in subsequent films nor did they, so far as we know, become used by either the U.S. or West German Intelligence services it appears that either the method of creating them was lost with Dr. Erasmus or that they were not utilized because of some inherent flaw. Some of the functioning units were recovered from Dr. Mabuse’s men so it is likely they could and were reproduced. However the same inherent flaw that marred Dr. Uloff process also marred Dr. Erasmaus. The radioactive isotope that was used was deadly to anyone using the device. Dr. Erasmus was dying from using the device he built for himself was better shielded than the hastily built ones that Dr. Mabuse mass produced. The radiation had a deleterious effect on tissue although Dr. Erasmus may have been unaware of it since his skin and body had been so malformed the accident had so greatly scarred and malformed his body.
Dr. Mabuse may have been aware of the dangers of the device for he never used it, even to escape custody. Although the the most common English title of the film is The Invisible Dr. Mabuse a more accurate translation of the title is The Invisible Claws of Dr. Mabuse. The Invisible Claws no doubt refer to his invisible army.[5]
Dr. Willard Morthley began working on an approach to invisibility that while still based on physics did not depend on radiation but rather on manipulation of the electro-magnetic spectrum and light frequencies. In early 1965, Kerry Griffin began working with Willard Morthley upon a method of creating invisibility by allowing the entire electro-magnetic spectrum to pass unimpeded through matter. Although Kerry was just 19 and still a student at MIT, it was she who had the theoretical breakthrough that brought about the creation of the OTSMID (Omnidirectional Total Spectrum Molecular Interpenetration Device) which rendered objects invisible.
As it created the invisibility field the OTSMID also warped the space-time continuum and created a sort of null-space. The OTSMOD rendered objects invisible with a spherical field of radius, so one of the major flaws of the device was the visible demarcation of the its field which appears like a circular pit in the ground or a circular patch of clear air in a bank of fog.
In other words if it were applied to a building, all you see is a giant circular pit in the ground, which would denote the edge of the field. Therefore it is not really useful for personal use, as the person walking around could be identified by small circular pit moving around on the ground.
Information leaked to a Thrush satrap that Dr. Morthley and his "assistant" Kerry Griffin had been successful in their experiments in invisibility. A Thrush shock troop was sent to capture them. When they were captured Morthley insisted that Kerry let Thrush think he was the brain of the outfit. In that way all attention would be centered on him and she could possibly escape and get help. Dr. Morthley did not tell her however that if Thrush thought he was the sole inventor, he hoped any mistreatment would be directed at him. If he should happen to perish in their hands then they might let the "useless" girl go free.
Thrush was not so quick to let a useful ploy slip through their hands.
They had to come up with a practical use for the OTSMOD or Kerry would face a fate worse than death.
Kerry came up with the idea of an aircraft and Willard Morthley thought of the dirigible. Thrush equipped a dirigible with an OTSMOD Soon they discovered the second major flaw of the invisible invention. The null space inside the field was also an electromagnetic dead zone. You could not see out of the invisibility field nor could any form of electromagnetic energy such as light, heat, radio etc be transmitted or received. Therefore to fly on course, the field had to be dropped intermittently to take bearings and set the engines.
Despite its flaws Thrush used the dirigible to help Thrush's side win a revolution in a small Central American country, San Sebastian. However, the intrepid UNCLE agents triumphed and re-captured the dirigible and the technology, rescuing Dr. Morthley and Kerry Griffin. Napoleon recommended to Mr. Waverley that the technology be used to help *their* side win the revolution. However the flaws of the OTSMOD were considered to outweigh its practical uses and the idea is shelved.[6]
In this pre-feminism, patronymic era the Uncle agents accepted without question that Kerry Griffin was a mere girl friday to Dr. Morthley.[7]
Devices oddly similar to the OTSMOD would later show up in two of the variant futures of the Wold Newton Universe. In the future which Future lived, Captain Future that is, and the Star Trek timelines and of course the combination of the two. Curtis Newton had an invisibility device built into a belt, which created an invisibility field about his body for a period of fifteen minutes. Since he could not see out of this field however he had to rely on his other senses to guide him when he was inside the field.
In the Star Trek timelines The OTSMOD sounds very similar to the Star Trek cloaking device, with the difference that on Star Trek, one can see outside of the cloak.
Kerry continued to work on the principles behind the OTSMOD device even after Dr. Morthley died in the early 1970. Rather than working on invisibility she worked on a method to convert matter to energy and vice versa. She joined the Klae Group, a think tank devoted to pure scientific research. She was partnered with a man who was as brilliant as her, Daniel Westin, from Britain. Even though he bore an uncanny resemblance to one of the two UNCLE agents that had rescued her, Westin insisted that there was no connection, and as far as he knew, no familial relationship between the Westins and Kuraykin's.
(It may look like Ilya Kuryakin but it is not).
Dr. Kate and Daniel Westin.
Westin and Kerry, whom he insisted on calling Kate had a harmonious working relationship that blossomed into romance. They married with a year of their meeting. In late 1974, they received an ultimatum to finish their research or lose all funding for this and future projects. As a consequence Daniel showed Walter Karlson, a side effect of the process of rendering the object into energy, it became invisible. Westin was able to render objects invisible and they would eventually become visible again in a few hours time. Living objects however were a bit different. In most cases the invisibility wore off, in other cases Daniel injected the subjects with what he termed liquid photons and having it activated by a machine which activated the injected chemicals on a certain electro-magnetic resonance.[8] This was more than likely a bogus term, this research sounds very similar to that conducted by Professor Gibbs in 1939.[9] His initial experiments with living subjects were successful.
Without Kate's knowledge Westin used himself as a guinea pig for the first human experiment in invisibility using their new method. Walter Karlson was ecstatic and had Westin meet with an interested party. He was let into a room filled with military brass and was told that his funding had come from the Pentagon.
Daniel Westin protested and refused to work on the project any longer. [10] Karlson told him that if that was his decision he would be locked out of the building. The research of course belonged to the Klae Corporation.
Daniel Westin broke into his laboratory and destroyed the files so that the military could not get their hands on the use of his device. Guards were alerted to his vandalism and he thought that the only way to get out of the incident without being arrested was to leave the lab invisible. He then overloaded the machine so that the machine was destroyed.
Once he was clear and in hiding Daniel Westin gave himself an injection of the liquid photons. He had a painful reaction of the injection and only briefly returned to visibility. Daniel Westin had become permanently invisible. A co-worker and friend tried to sell him to the Soviets.
When Karlson learned that the invisibility process flawed and unstable the Klae Corporation made a deal with the Westins. If they would carry out various tasks for the multinational conglomerate they would be given time and money to pursue a cure. Daniel Westin was dubbed the Klae Resource and was hired out as an investigator and/or spies. Klae Corporation's ties to the US Military and various intelligence corps, allowed it to put in a special order to the OSI/IMF. Not only did Westin need one of their special masks but also he needed a realistic full body suit[11]. Fortunately his resemblance to Ilya Kuryakin whose facial and body measurements were already computerized made the task easier to do. An old friend of Westin's Dr. Nick Maggio developed Westin's artificial skin body suit. He had earlier designed smaller realistic pieces to cover the cybernetic mechanisms on Colonel Steven Austin's legs and arm.[12]
How successful the Westins were in finding a cure for his condition remains unknown at this point. Two years after his accident Although the pilot film of the television series based on the Westins’ exploits [13] was slightly more accurate than the series itself, should not be construed as a real depiction of events in the lives of Kate Griffin Westin or David Westin. The use of their names and situations was sold to the network by the Klae Corporation without their consent. Because of the failure of the television show, which was deemed immoral because when Daniel used his invisibility he stripped naked, The Klae Corporation convinced the network to retool the characters. Kate Westin became Dr. Abbey Lawrence and Daniel Westin became Sam Casey, intrepid adventurer. The show was entitled The Gemini Man. [14] After watching a few of the shows Kate Westin became suspicious. She knew at least two of the incidents portrayed in the television show had really happened and knew that the Westins had not been involved.
According to the story in the television series Intersect agent Sam Casey had been part of a crew retrieving a soviet satellite from the ocean floor. The satellite used sophisticated laser imaging technology but was powered by radiation. The satellite needed to be retrieved before the radiation leaked. As Sam was attaching the last line a mine attached by a double agent destroyed the satellite. Sam Casey was bathed in radiation however instead of killing him the radiation altered his DNA and made him invisible. However his invisible state was toxic to his body and so Dr. Abbey Lawrence devised a DNA stabilizer which allowed him to become visible. Casey was able to turn off the stabilizer and become invisible but not for more than 15 minutes per day. If he went over that time limit he would fall unconscious, remain invisible and die.
On the face of it the story was ludicrous however Westin suspected that Sam Casey had actually undergone an experimental process that combined the Westins’ research with that of Dr. Peter Brady. The process had left Casey in a state of constant visual fluxation. The so called DNA stabilizer actually stabilized him into a visual state however he had to turn the device off occasionally otherwise it would overload. Using his invisibility Westin investigated the truth behind Project Minus One. As he feared the radiation that the process used was fatal for Casey as it had been for Dr. Ulof, although might take years for the radiation related diseases to manifest [15].
When Daniel Westin learned the truth about Sam Casey he realized that once again Karlson had played them for fools. After contacting leaving Casey some information the Westins disappeared in 1976.
The Griffin family tree graphic
Invisibles Timeline
1897 Invisible Man by H.G. Well (John Hawley Griffin, The Original Invisible Man)
1898 League of Extraordinary Men (John Hawley Griffin)
1922 Invisible Man (John (Jack) Griffin)
1929 Invisible Murderer with William Carpenter as the Invisible Man
1931 Invisible Man's Return (Frank Griffin----- with Geoffrey Radcliffe as the Invisible Man)
1935 Invisible Man's Revenge(Robert Griffin)
1938 Invisible Woman (Kitty Caroll)
1942 (twenty years after Invisible Man) Invisible Agent (Frank Griffin a.k.a. Frank Raymond)
1948 Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (Geoffrey Radcliffe)
1949 Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (Tommy Nelson)
1966 Invisibility Affair Willard Morthley and Kerry Griffin inventors of the OTSMID (Omnidirectional Total Spectrum Molecular Interpenetration Device) which can render objects invisible
1974 Daniel Westin becomes an Invisible Man
1998 Darien Fawkes surgically implanted with quicksilver gland to become an Invisible Man
1999 Sebastian Caine has a brief and deadly career as an Invisible Man as seen in The Hollow Man
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