CHAPTER THREE: WILLIAM CARPENTER
CHAPTER FOUR: FRANCIS DRAKE GRIFFIN
CHAPTER SEVEN: FRANCIS DRAKE GRIFFIN
CHAPTER EIGHT: A SLIGHT DUNDERING DETOUR
CHAPTER ELEVEN: SEBASTIAN CAINE
ACKNOWLEDEMENTS
I greatly appreciate the much needed
assistance from Matthew Baugh, Win Eckert and Chuck Loridans. Special thanks Dr.
Peter Coogan who brought The Invisible Murderer by
Philip Wylie to my attention. Information on William Carpenter gave me
the necessary clues to see where the other Invisibles fit.
Invisibles Timeline
1897 Invisible Man by H.G. Well (John Hawley Griffin. OIM 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 IM
1935 Invisible Man's Revenge (Robert Griffin) the IM
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
IM)
1949 Abbott
and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (Tommy Nelson IM)
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
In 1897 the
The Invisible Man
was John Hawley Griffin whose exploits were first portrayed in H.G. Wells The
Invisible Man. we do not know until the end of the book that he is
approximately six feet tall, broad chested, bearded
and has the condition known as albinism and so has white hair and beard and red
eyes. The albinism was however not a result of the invisibility serum although
it may have been a cause of it.
Mr. Wells does
not dwell too much on
John Hawley
Griffin was an arrogant sort but he came by this arrogance naturally. The
Griffins were the direct descendants of Gryffudd, one
of the last Kings of Wales. They were also related to the Irish Griffiths, also
an ancient Royal family. The Irish name oddly enough means ruddy one, something
that John Hawley Griffin obviously was not. The family had fallen in status;
one of their ancestors had been John Griffin, ancestor of Barons Griffin of Braybroke Castle of Northants.
Rebecca, the daughter of the aforesaid John Griffin married Finn O'Brien, the
Red Bull of Munster and brother-in-law to the 1st Baron Grebson.(1) The
later day Griffins were however far from being titled and were firmly esconsced in the upper middle class.
John Hawley
Griffin's father Robert, keenly felt the lost of his
family's position and wealth. Their family's lowered societal status was
especially driven home by the fact that Robert Griffin had married into wealth
and position. His wife was Phoebe Radcliffe b.1839
Phoebe was the daughter of Lord Michael Radcliffe,
owner of several industries and manufacturing endeavors, and of Polly Ffoulkes, daughter of Sir Andrew Ffoulkes.(2)
The Radcliffe's looked upon
They decided to
take up the invitation of
In the early part
of 1858, Phoebe gave birth to a beautiful daughter, Irene. Robert was however
tired of living as a guest and very tired of Henry. In 1859, Robert Griffin,
Phoebe and Irene returned to
The old saying
was certainly true in the
Robert Griffin
was called to his in-law's house. He was informed that he could keep his
position with the bank but Phoebe's allowance would stop. This was how he
learned that she was leaving him. She left him for Henry Raymond with whom she
had kept up a passionate correspondence. Phoebe took Irene with her to
Robert did his
duty and raised his son by himself. As John grew older, he could see that
Phoebe had not sneaked one in on him after all, for despite his pale features,
John resembled Robert. Robert instilled in John the need to acquire position in
society, to strive for success at all costs. Yet John, because of his condition
was constantly aware of stares and glares flashed at him. It did not help that
he was brilliant. His athletic build and willingness to fight stopped any
abuse, but it did not endear him to many of his peers. As he grew older he grew
ever more aware of being an object of disgust, pity or curiosity. At
John Hawley
Griffin took a position as a chemical demonstrator at a provincial college.
Professor Maxxon was
When Robert could
not reimburse the money he had taken he shot himself rather than face the
public humiliation of being an embezzler. It was shortly after Robert Griffin's
death, according to the Wells' portrayal, that John Hawley achieved complete
invisibility. He had however sort of rushed into the process. After first
successfully making a cat invisible, he then tested the formula on himself. The
effect was painful and apparently irreversible. Shortly after achieving
invisibility he burned down the flat where he was staying.
Before he burnt down
the flat however John Griffin first took care to place his three notebooks and chequebook in a safe place.
The real reason
that
This secret was
one that even his Father knew nothing about, since Robert Griffin would have
considered this secret a betrayal and might have cut off all ties with his son.
John Hawley
Griffin was married and had two sons. He had met a girl while in Chesilstowe; she was a relative of a member of the faculty.
Her name was Rebecca Gray. She listened in on several of the classes John
attended. Despite Rebecca being a young woman no one objected to her presence
because she was not enrolled in the school. There was also an element of pity
involved because of her condition. No, she was not another person with albinism
but rather was blind. John Griffin was amazed when she did not turn away in
disgust upon seeing him only to discover later that she could not see him.
Although Rebecca was treated much like a child, John Griffin found her to be
highly intelligent and capable as well as being a pretty girl with a very
pleasant personality. He courted her, at first because he knew that he would
never find another woman such as her, a beauty who would not look upon him with
disgust but also because he had truly fallen in love with her.
It was the
existence of his wife and his two boys that also drove
After taking the
serum and discovering that the effects were not temporary, he knew he had to
find a reagent prior to announcing his discovery to the world. The story that
In Iping despite four months of relatively undisturbed work,
he had been unable to find the reagent. His rages had growing in strength, as
had his paranoia. As his paranoia had grown so did an odd feeling of
omnipotence. John Hawley Griffin had been brought back to harsh reality when he
realized that the funds that his wife had been sending him were depleted. Desperate and feeling defiant of God, he
robbed a vicarage collection box. When the landlady of the room he rented
threatened him with eviction, he threw off his face bandage and revealed his
invisibility to her, shocking her. When a constable came to arrest him for the
burglary at the vicarage, he fought several of the townspeople of Iping while undressing. Once undressed he
was invisible. In his ensuing flight, the constable was knocked
unconscious.
While
Mr. Marvel bolted
from
As
As
The measures that
Dr. Kemp suggested were immediately put into place and
It is quite
probable that while in the throes of deep toxic psychosis,
Mr. Wells stated
the possibility that Griffin took a piece of iron rod from a broken fence to
use as a weapon and that Mr. Wicksteed struck at the
floating object and caused the Invisible Man to fly into a rage. It is also
possible that
My point is that
while it is possible that
Once again John
Griffin eluded capture but was chased by police, Dr. Kemp and his neighbors.
When he attacked Kemp in public,
The loss of blood
had also lowered the amount of toxins in his system, so John Griffin had a clarity of thought that he had not experienced for some
time. He realized that he would eventually go insane again, unless he lost
another dangerous amount of blood. Before that happened he
had to safeguard his family. He embarked on a series of robberies and
sent the money to his wife. He also desired that
John Hawley
Griffin used his middle name as his first name while he was with the League of
Extraordinary Gentlemen and gave them constantly false information about his
background. Freed of constraint,
NOTES
JOHN
HAWLEY
1. Farmer, Philip Jose Tarzan Alive, addendum Three. pg. 226
2.
Sir Andrew Ffoulkes was a member of the League of the
Scarlet Pimpernel.
3.
Irene Griffin later grew up to be a well known opera singer. She was involved
with the King of Bohemia for a while. She was one of the few people to cross
wits with Sherlock Holmes and best him. They began a long love affair that
produced twin boys, one who became a great detective like his father and the
other a master chef. Watson using his system of codified names gave Irene the
name Adler. A
4.
This may explain the Invisible Man or Men's seeming enhanced strength and their
ability to walk naked for hours and days in winter climes experiencing little
worse than a deep chill.
5.
As seen in the League of Extraordinary Gentleman by
Alan Moore Volume 1, No. 2 Wildstorm comics
JOHN (JACK) STUART
John Stuart Griffin was the eldest
child of John Hawley Griffin and Rebecca Grey. Like his father and mother Jack
was handsome and intelligent. He had only dim shadowy memories of his father
and fond memories of his mother. His family lived in genteel poverty, having a
home and servants but always struggling to make ends meet. He was driven to
succeed but really knew little of the
The newspaper
clippings cleared up the mystery behind the cryptic whispering. The money was
enough to continue Jack's education, keep his brothers in public school and
provide them with a university education. Jack specialized in chemistry
consciously following in his Father's chosen profession. He wished to prove
that his Father had not been a crank as was generally believed as was believed
by the general public by that time. Through his Uncle Walter Gray, who was also
on the faculty of University College, Jack Griffin obtained a position
immediately after graduation, working for Cranley
Preservatives Inc., a firm specializing in new scientific methods of food
preservation. The head of the firm and its main researcher, Dr. Cranley allowed Jack Griffin the use of the laboratory
equipment for his own experiments after hours.
Also working at Cranley Preservatives was a man who despised Jack Griffin
upon hearing his name. The man was in his early fifties and had also gotten his
position through his connection with
Another reason
for Dr. Kemp's antipathy for Jack Griffin was because of the immediate rapport
between
Among the items
that Jack Griffin inherited was one of his father's three missing notebooks.
The one he possessed was the middle one. A search for the other two proved
again fruitless. It is a testament to Jack Griffin's genius that in five years
of research he came up with a serum that while not identical to his Father's
worked in much the same manner. Unlike his father he tested it first on animals
and then created an antidote. With his antidote in hand,
Jack Griffin also
used monocaine as the catalytic ingredient of the
invisibility serum, yet his formula had a higher concentration of monocaine in its composition. His test animals showed
almost immediate signs of psychosis but this was alleviated upon administration
of the antidote.
Having achieved
total invisibility, he then tested the antidote on himself. It did not work on
human physiology. Desperate Jack Griffin traveled to Iping,
hoping to locate his father's missing books. He knew from newspaper clippings
that John Hawley Griffin had stayed in Iping. The
Coach and Horses Innwhere his father had stayed was now under new management and was now called The Lion's
Head Inn. Heavily swaddled against the cold he entered the inn and took a room.
Although the film, The Invisible Man, Universal 1933 is based on this portion
of Jack Griffin's life, the writers of the film filled gaps of known activity
with incidents borrowed from the original Invisible Man's adventure as
presented by H.G. Wells. This then is why the opening sequence of the Invisible
Man film seems similar to the novel. Jack Griffin took a room and stayed in
it pretty much without incident nor did he run out of money as portrayed in the
film.
He was racing
against an unknown deadline and failed to meet it. The original serum caused
psychosis as toxins built up over a period of time. The toxin levels increased
with intensified hormonal and immune system responses. However the second serum
created by Jack had a higher concentration of monocaine
and a greater reliance on hormonal stimuli. This caused his toxins to build up
at a faster rate especially when triggered by increased adrenal activity as
caused by fear and anger.
As Jack Griffin
worked desperately on a successful antidote to his invisibility and its
accompanying growing madness, Flora Cranley was at
her wit's end. Jack Griffin had disappeared and she was desperate to find him.
She implored her father to help find him and when Dr. Kemp tried to turn her
against
Dr. Kemp must
have suspected that
Dr. Cranley, assisted by Dr. Kemp, searched through
Kemp asked why
this drug was especially worrisome. Cranley explained
that a German experiment had injected monocaine into
a dog (1)
It had turned the dog marble white but it had also
driven it violently mad. Dr. Kemp revealed to Dr. Cranley
that
During the two
weeks that Jack Griffin spent at the Lion's Head, he paid his bill on time but
his aloofness from the patrons of the
As she served his
A constable was
sent for. He asked for a couple of men to accompany him up to take the man into
custody. Infuriated at another interruption,
The constable and
several men returned to the room and struggled with the half clothed invisible
man. However as stated the invisibility formula made
Jack Griffin made his way to
Dr. Kemp's home and let himself in. Dr. Kemp was listening to the radio a
report about a small town nearby suffering from a delusion of having an
invisible man among them. Kemp was startled but not entirely surprised when a
voice spoke up calling those people fools. The voice told Kemp to build up a
fire, he was chilled.
As
Kemp blurted out
that he had suspected that
First however he
had to retrieve his notebooks from the Lion's Head Inn. He had Kemp drive to
the village.
On his way out of
the inn Jack Griffin could not resist a bit of malicious mischief. This
resulted in him smashing in the head of the Chief Constable, killing him. Kemp
nearly drove off the road when
Returning to Kemp's house,
As
As
The police in
concert with Kemp set up an elaborate trap for
At the appointed
hour
In the end it was
fatigue and nature that did John Griffin in. During a
snowstorm he took shelter in farmer's barn. The farmer heard his snoring but
could find no one in the barn. He realized it was the Invisible Man. The police
surrounded the barn. They sought to drive him out the barn by setting it afire.
As
Going against Dr.
Cranley's wishes Kemp revealed that the Invisible Man
was
Flora Cranley went away to a sanitarium to get over her grief, at least that was the official reason. She bore John
Griffin's son, whom her father gave over to John Griffin's brother Francis to
raise. Flora did not want to give up the child. Flora remained in a state of
melancholia for years. Her father eventually took her to
NOTES
1.This German
experiment was probably conducted during the Great War as an attempt to
recreate the experiments of the original Invisible Man and make an invisible
army. It is possible that one of
2.
This was excised from the film version for legal reasons
3.
Naturally this was also excised from the film for code reasons as well as legal
ones.
WILLIAM CARPENTER 1897-1929 (no known photograph)
In this section of the Invisibles
family, we intend to demonstrate how the activities of the
In 1929
As stated in a
press release the purpose of this wave of terrorism was part of a plan to rule
the world. Although the person behind the plot never mentioned his name, he did
outline part of his plan. He wised the
The diabolical
mind behind this insidious plan and its accompanying terrorism was William
Carpenter, biochemist and financier. Unknown to the public at large he was also
an invisible man. William Carpenter is the main protagonist of the novel Invisible
Murderer by Philip Wylie.
We first meet him
in
William Carpenter
had been in Sinkak since the summer before which
would place him there about 1928. He had bought up a mansion and had imported a
lot of machinery, enough to fill a factory, as one resident claimed. Carpenter
had also hired his laborers from outside of town, which caused immediate
conflict with the townspeople of Sinkak who felt he
had taken money out of the town. Additionally Carpenter had bricked over the
windows of all of the lower floors so he could not be spied upon. This gave the
residents of Sinkak reason to believe he had
something to hide.
Another strike
against him so far as the good people of Sinkak were
concerned was Carpenter's appearance. It was also unusual to say the least.
William Carpenter was six and a half feet tall, with overly large feet and
hands. He had a bony, hairy chest but hunched shoulders. His features were also
distorted having a large jaw with a beaked nose but small mouth. His head
seemed oversized on a skinny neck. Although his large hands and feet and
reddish hair might seem make him a close relative of John Renwick,
the famed world renowned engineer associate of Dr. James Clarke Wildman, he was
in fact not a close relative of the Renwicks,
although he may have been distantly related. William Carpenter appeared to
suffer from the same condition that also appears to have affected John Renwick. John Renwick however had
a minor manifestation of the condition. This condition is acromegaly,
a pituitary disorder that causes growth distortions. Although some forms of acromegaly are genetic, most are not. (1)
William Carpenter
had gone to Sinkak to carry out his researches in
private. He had been forced from the public arena by devastating losses in the
Stock Market. William Carpenter was the second of two children of a prominent
New Jersey Banking family. There had been a bitter disagreement between the
father and the eldest son. The eldest son attended medical school and moved to
As a result of
the argument, William inherited the family fortune. Exceedingly brilliant
William barely attended college before attending medical school. He spent two
years at medical school and took his medical boards. He then specialized in
biochemical research. At the same time he dabbled in the stock market and
doubled his fortune. The ease in which he made his fortune without applying any
apparent effort made William Carpenter the enemy of several powerful men.
Together they colluded to break Carpenter. By 1927, William Carpenter had been
left with a tenth of his original inheritance. He used all that remained to buy
the Mortland house in Sinkak
and reshape it into his laboratory.
William Carpenter
believed that it was his misshapen appearance that caused his fellow financiers
to turn against him, that, and envy over his towering intellect. In Sinkak he devoted his vast intellect into his biochemical
studies with the burning desire to accomplish three goals; one to remove
himself from his body, to achieve world recognition for his merits and to wreak
vengeance upon those who had wronged him. The direction in which his
biochemical researches took was almost as if decreed by fate.
It was a pivotal
day when William Carpenter learned of his true origins.
Within a couple
moments of having met his niece, William Carpenter had declared to her that he
had no obligation to her since she was not any closer a relation to him than
the Royal family of
This was a theme
he would reiterate several times. It was his justification for having inherited
all of the family fortune and not sharing a cent of it with his brother. Yet it
was deeper than that, for he was in many ways trying to convince himself of the
veracity of the statement, for it was false. Daryl Carpenter's father had not
been adopted. It was in fact William Carpenter who had been adopted. He had
learned this fact upon his "father's" death.
The knowledge that he had been
adopted drove William Carpenter to discover who his biological parents had
been. He wondered not only where his great intellect was derived but he also
wished to discover the source of his malformation. Discovering the information had
not been cheap but William Carpenter eventually discovered that his birth
mother had been a seventeen-year old girl named Rebecca Randall. Miss Randall
had because of her willful nature sent to an English boarding school for
polishing. Her parents however did not investigate the school too deeply for it
was run by former Prostitute. The school was plagued by a poltergeist that
sexually attacked several of the girls. Three or more of them, Rebecca among
them became pregnant as a result of this sexual assault. She returned to the
United States gave birth and promptly gave the child up for adoption before
returning to her Sunnybrook farm. (2)
The poltergeist
was in fact a living man, an invisible living man. He was John Hawley Griffin;
the Invisible Man made famous by H. G. Wells.
The true facts of
his birth shattered William Carpenter and at the same time provided to him an
explanation for his intellect and his malformations. He believed that the
invisibility had factored into cause his acromegaly.
Knowledge of his parentage also gave him a sense of purpose and a sense of
destiny. Having learned that
William Carpenter
did not have access to
Despite his claim
that Daryl Carpenter was not related to him and indeed not a true Carpenter, he
offered her a job as a bottle washer in his laboratory. He most likely did this
because he did need someone and someone he could count on to be silent about
his work. William knew that she was in desperate straits so far as her finances
were concerned. He also knew that despite having told her that they were not
related she would still consider him a relative, having no one else in the
world. She was also very beautiful and Carpenter was immediately infatuated
with her.
Her affections
however gravitated towards William Carpenter's new laboratory assistant, Bromwell Baxter. Although this infuriated him, Carpenter
did not let this affect the course of their work.
Carpenter
achieved invisibility upon a fungus, then moved
quickly and successfully through the animal chain, until he resolved to test it
upon himself. Prior to doing so he locked his assistant and niece in
separate sections of the house. If the experiment was successful he planned
spirit away his niece and force her to love him. His assistant would be
disappearing permanently.
Carpenter took a
dose of the invisibility formula measured for a man of his height and weight.
It was only moderately successful. It first bleached him white as the
coloration left his body, then his flesh became
translucent and finally invisible. It made all but his skeleton invisible. He could
see with great detail the distorted bone structure of his skeleton. His bones
remained stubbornly visible. He believed that the formula was slower to be
absorbed into his skeletal structure yet after two hours it was still visible.
Carpenter had failed to account for the fact that because of his condition his
bones were denser than of most humans.
Carpenter was
reluctant to take more of the formula since he did not know the effects of too
much of the formula on the human body. He was concerned that too much would be
fatal.
His housekeeper
had seen his flesh turn white and had run from
the house believing Carpenter had contracted leprosy. A friend of the
housekeeper went to Carpenter's home to demand her things. He saw the walking
skeleton that Carpenter had become and also ran from the house.
Fearful that the
frightened man would alert the townspeople, who would then confront Carpenter
and possibly find Carpenter's prisoners, Carpenter gave chase. Carpenter in
turn found himself hunted by the townspeople. Carpenter was eventually
surrounded and kept covered with guns. Being enlightened men of the twentieth
century, they resolved to burn him as a devil. As the lynch mob built his pyre,
Carpenter desperately drank the last of his formula. The extra dose was enough
to make even his dense bones fade from site. As Carpenter shed his clothes,
many of the townspeople swore that Carpenter sank into the earth to return to
hell. Unfortunately this was not true and Carpenter escaped to cause death and
devastation on a vast scale.
William Carpenter returned to his house in a near panic, not certain if the
good people of Sinkak had followed his trail. He had
little doubt that if they somehow discovered him he would be killed without a
thought. William Carpenter discovered that his prisoners Daryl Carpenter and Bromwell Baxter had escaped from his grasp. They were
either long gone or hiding in the house. Either way he did not have time to
waste on them. William Carpenter put into motion the second phase of his plan.
He had previously planted enough of a high explosive of his own devising to
disintegrate the Mortland house and all its
furnishings. This included his laboratory, his equipment and all of his
paperwork. As he drove away in his car, he had reached Sinkak's
outskirts when the Mortland house blew up.
From a seemingly
abandoned house in
Carpenter visited
Daryl and threatened Baxter's safety. He boasted that she would eventually come
to love only William Carpenter.
William Carpenter
visited Simeon Page, a Wall Street financier, multi-million dollar wheat
operator and the brains behind the cabal that had stripped Carpenter of his
wealth. After Carpenter told Page who his attacker was, he plunged a knife into
Page's chest. A few hours later William Carpenter walked unseen into the
brokerage house of Bradley, Pine and Schlessinger. As
soon as Bradley was alone in his private office Carpenter announced himself and
told Bradley why he deserved execution. Bradley tried to escape his fate.
Carpenter stabbed him in the back. Bradley managed however to take a swing at
Carpenter and knocked him unconscious.
The police
gathered fingerprint evidence from the crime scenes and soon discovered Page
and Bradley had the same killer.
The next day
William Carpenter traveled to the home of Malcolm Gates, the third of the men
who had stripped him of his fortune. Gates and his wife were engaged in a
game of double dummy bridge. Carpenter waited patiently. When their housekeeper
called Gate's wife to the phone, Carpenter crept over to where Gates sat and
cut his throat.
The screaming
began as Carpenter exited the house. He had not originally planned to kill his
enemies but rather terrify, humiliate and ruin them but he had gotten so
carried away with the sense of power that invisibility gave him that he had
given into his darker impulses.
There was a
fourth victim to Carpenter's plan of revenge, which is unrecorded in the Murderer
Invisible. In the early twenties there was a well known stockbroker named
Robert Caine. He was sent to jail for embezzlement.
His son Robert Caine jr. who had graduated from
college and was poised to take over the family brokerage turned to crime to pay
off the family debts. He was eventually caught and sent to the same prison as
his father. It would eventually be discovered that Robert Caine
had taken the blame for the embezzlement out because he had believed that it
was his uncle had that committed the embezzlement. The true thief was one of
their clerks. The crime that had put Robert Caine jr.
into prison had been a frame job and he was eventually exonerated. (3)
The Caine brokerage house reopened but only did a modest amount
of business until William Carpenter became their client. Carpenter did not
truly blame Robert Caine jr. for the loss of his
fortune. He doubted that Caine would never have had
anything to do with anything remotely resembling fraud or sharp practice and he
would never have gulled a client. Yet Caine had
handled the transactions that ultimately led to Carpenter's financial downfall,
so some retribution was in order. Carpenter decided to be merciful planned
merely planned to frighten Caine and his wife.
Carpenter stole
into the Caine's bedroom late that night. He
chloroformed Caine, dragged him out of his bed and
lugged him downstairs to Caine's study. He tied Caine to a chair and gagged him. When Caine
awoke, Carpenter began to throw the contents of Caine's
filing cabinet into his fireplace and so destroy all of his financial records. When
this was done Carpenter began to toss Caine's
collection of rare books into the fire.
Robert Caine's was never certain if what he saw was a nightmare or
reality. To him it seemed as though papers magically flew out of self opening
drawers to land on the fire, as if books magically flew from their shelves to
add themselves to the pyre. Carpenter might have been satisfied with merely
destroying Caine's prized possessions and his
financial records had not Mrs. Caine walked into the
library to see what was causing the noise and to see where her husband had
gotten to. Seeing him gagged and bound to a chair, she began to scream.
Carpenter quickly shut her up by clapping a large hand over her mouth.
Mrs. Caine was quite beautiful; she was in fact a former
showgirl. The proximity of her nearly naked form, the overwhelming sense of
power that Carpenter felt because of his invisibility and his long denied
sexual passion, which had been inflamed by Daryl Carpenter gave him the idea to
truly humiliate Caine by "taking" his wife
before his eyes.
Robert Caine jr.'s nightmare deepened as
he saw his wife raped by an invisible assailant. When he was finished,
Carpenter chloroformed Caine and his wife and placed
them back in their beds. He straightened out the down stairs to the point of
removing the ashes from the fireplace. It pleased him to think that the Caines would never really know what happened to them that
night. (4)
Having finished
his vengeance, William Carpenter decided to embark upon his quest for power.
First Carpenter
stole three quarters of a million dollars from the Manhattan National Bank.
Part of it he kept for operating expenses, the majority he sent to an
investment firm to once again invest in wheat futures and also in banking.
The next ten days
were called the Crime Siege by the newspapers of the day.
On Sunday, a
prominent fundamentalist preacher whose savage attacks on science and modern
life had garnered him thousands of devoted followers toppled from the pulpit in
mid sermon with a knife planted between his shoulder blades.
Later that
afternoon the head of the greatest banking house in
William Carpenter
visited the homes of dozens of prominent business executives and terrorized
them with his invisibility. He told them not to go to their places of
employment ever again other wise they or their families would suffer. Many left
the country, went on extended vacations or became suddenly ill.
On Monday several
banks, jewelry stores and museums were robbed of stocks and bonds, of rare and
precious gems, of great masterpieces.
On Tuesday
William Carpenter spent the day as an arsonist. Fifty-two buildings in
On Wednesday
several explosions rocked Wall Street, the Hall of Fame was destroyed and three
blasts damaged the subway system.
Several subterranean
explosions shook
Also on this day
it became apparent that someone was making a huge profit from the tragedies on
the Stock Exchange and so the Stock Market was closed.
The city was
placed under martial law. People were panicked and on edge. It was not uncommon
for tempers to flare and for violence to occur. The police became so
overwhelmed that two of its top officials committed suicide out of stress.
On Friday another
preacher was killed as he tried to calm his flock. The congregation fled into
the streets in sheer blind panic. Shortly thereafter the Police Commissioner
was stabbed to death in his home, all the while surrounded by a legion of
police officers. (5) All
public buildings were closed. Soldiers filled the streets. The death toll was
purported to be in the thousands.
William Carpenter
sent a letter to the newspapers; called A Notice to the World that
stated his intent to set up an autocracy which would culminate in a world
state. The main goal of this world state was to forcibly leap mankind in one
generation the evolutionary processes of hundreds or thousand of years. He
would use terrorism to end bloodshed. He demanded that the
In the novel The
Murderer Invisible, the Capitol is destroyed. However this was a dramatic
flourish on Mr. Wylie's part. The explosive filled truck that
were intended to blast the Capitol to kingdom come were spotted hours
before their time of detonation. However the truck that was transporting the
explosions was destroyed as it drove away. One of the devices malfunctioned and
exploded prematurely. The steps to the Capitol were singed and a couple were cracked. This near miss however brought home
to the nation at large just how serious a threat this Unseen Hand was.
Due to his
family's connections to the business elite and to many
President Hoover
was one of those Presidents who never informed of the existence of Bureau 13
and other covert op organizations working for the
Carpenter's
failure to blow up the Capitol building was a error
that sent him spinning into depression, Carpenter kept his presence known by
randomly occurring explosions through out
William
Carpenter's failure to bring the nation to its knees was a crushing blow to his
ego. He realized that even if he did achieve the supreme power he wished he
would always remain a man. Having successfully divorced himself his hideous form
he thought he would transcend his humanity. Even though he was no longer able
to see his body, he still felt human. Carpenter still had all the needs and
desires and physical requirements of a human body. Yet he would not be able to
share his life or his achievement with anyone. He would remain a lone ghost.
His thoughts once
again turned to his niece. Carpenter conceived a burning desire to possess her
and to force her to love him.
While Bromwell Baxter was in Washington D.C. William Carpenter
tracked down his niece and told her that he had Bromwell
Baxter in his power, to save him she would have to come with him and become
Carpenter's companion. He took her to a house he had purchased on
Daryl went with
him and pretended to soften her affections towards Carpenter. She believed that
her presence would keep Baxter from harm and would mitigate Carpenter from
carrying out any more acts of terrorism.
However when it
appeared as though Daryl returned his affections, William Carpenter's desire to
dominate humanity also returned. Once again he sent a note to the
newspapers in which he stated his intention to rule the nations of the world.
Since a week had passed and the
The next day at
Although this was
not the case it did suffer a great deal of damage and hundreds of people were
killed or injured.
Emboldened by
this success Carpenter bragged to Daryl how he would use the military might of
the
Having realized
that instead of mollifying William Carpenter's violent impulses she actually
inflamed them, Daryl Carpenter escaped from her locked room the next time that
Carpenter went out. She managed to make her way to a phone and called for Bromwell Baxter to bring help and capture Carpenter. She
returned but could not get back into the house. Carpenter found her outside the
house and was incensed that she had left. She explained that she had been
forced to break out of her room because of a fire.
William Carpenter
accepted her story. He bragged out he had destroyed the
Bromwell Baxter convinced the newly appointed Police Commissioner
that he knew the whereabouts of the maniac who was blowing up
They eventually
surrounded Chrome Gables, Carpenter's
Yet it was
ultimately William Carpenter's ego that lead to his
downfall. See his rival for Daryl's affections there,
he realized that Daryl had betrayed him for Baxter. Carpenter boasted that he
would escape easily and remake the world to his liking. As a gesture of
magnanimity he told Baxter he would give Daryl to him. Carpenter pulled Daryl
to him for one last kiss. As he groped her she grabbed and broke a bottle of
ink over his head.
The ink marked
William Carpenter and made him an easy target for the bullets of Baxter and the
police.
William Carpenter
was not the first mad scientist to threaten the city of
Some believe that
along with the world wide depression it was this perceived weakness of
The devastation
of
Fringe groups and
maniacs of all stripes would perceive a malaise in the spirit of the nation,
weaknesses to be exploited in the local, state and federal governments ability to maintain order and peace during times of
crisis.
Carpenter was
followed by dozens of similarly minded madmen, all with dreams of power and
conquest, of riches and fame. After a time,
William
Carpenter's reign of terror accomplished one good thing; it gave
Carpenter's Crime
Siege in
Despite the fact
that many United States cities had one or more costumed vigilantes or
non-costumed vigilantes aiding the overworked and understaffed police
departments against crime and terrorism, New York accumulated more heroes and
more villains than most of these combined.
William
Carpenter's terrorist campaign demonstrated just how deadly one man could be,
how much chaos, destruction and financial ruin he could cause. So although it
might seem that New York would have Doc Savage, the Shadow, The Spider, the
Avenger, the Whisper, Bat-Man, Superman and various other minor vigilantes
tripping over one another, this was not the case each filled an essential niche
in keeping New York and thus the United States freed of villainy.
One can only
wonder how our nation and society would have fared without these heroes that
kept
NOTES
WILLIAM
CARPENTER 1897-1929
1.
One other famous sufferer from acromegaly was the man
known as the variously as the Creeper or Lothar.
Unlike most sufferers of this dreadful condition, Lothar
and Carpenter became mad killers. This was more likely the result of innate sociopathic tendencies than a result of their physical
condition, although hatred for their appearance may have been a contributing
factor. Lothar's career as the Creeper was related in
the films PEARL OF DEATH, THE HOUSE OF HORRORS and THE
BRUTE MAN, also in THE ROCKETEER: CLIFF'S NEW YORK ADVENTURE and Rocketeer; The Movie.
There is some evidence to suggest that between the time of Cliff's New York
Adventure (1938) and the events of the Rocketeer
movie (circa 1942 <I am aware that the film ostensibly takes place in 1938
but evidence suggests that this was later adventure of Clifford Secord with filler material from his previous adventures to
cover gaps created by classified events) Lothar had spent some time in England where he had
met Neville Sinclair.
While Lothar was in
Lothar was also unique in his physiognomy in addition
to acromegaly he also had a mild form of Proteus
Syndrome that had the peculiar effect of toughening his skin and bones. The
Proteus syndrome is one of the conditions from which Joseph Merrick, the
so-called Elephant Man suffered. Despite his appearance, Lothar
was exceedingly hard to kill. He survived gunshots, fire and a dirigible
explosion. His appearance however suffered in each instance. Lothar survived the events of Rocketeer
the movie and once again went to
As Moloch Lothar became involved
with Dr. Stendahl. Dr. Stendahl
attempted to cure or control the unfortunate being known as the Paula Dupree
the Jungle Woman, a female gorilla who had been transformed into a human being
or a close semblance of one. Moloch kidnapped a female nurse in order to have a
female blood donor. In the film version of these events,
The Jungle Captive, the nurse was called Ann
Forrester, although her real name was Flora Cranley
Forrester. She had become involved with Paula Dupree through her acquaintance
with Dr. Sigmund Walters. Moloch disappeared after this incident.
2. Sunnybrook Farm being located in
The birth date of 1899 would make William Carpenter 30 years of age during the
events of 1929. There is some textual evidence that he was forty-five
years old in 1929. This was a mistake or bit of misinformation by Mr. Wylie.
While I do find it hard to believe that a researcher such as Mr. Wylie would be
mistaken, it is possible. The birth records for William Carpenter were
rather hard to find. His facial and physical irregularities made it hard for
many people to gauge his age correctly and indeed he looked much older than he
was. Wylie also may have increased William Carpenter's age so that the
difference between his age and that of Daryl Carpenter's was exaggerated. Not
only would it appear that William Carpenter was a man lusting after his niece
but that he was a dirty old man as well.
3.
The story of the Robert Caine jr. and by extension
that of his father was made into a motion picture named Johnny
Apollo. Johnny Apollo was Robert Caine jr.'s underworld moniker. Mabel "Lucky" Duberry was originally the girlfriend of powerful gangster
Mickey Dwyer.
4.
The result of this rape is in the Sebastian Caine
section of this article.
5. The question naturally arises who was the Police
Commissioner killed in 1929. It seems a simple enough question. Yet we
really only have sketchy information about some of the officials in the WNU. In
most cases they are near duplicates of the officials in our world. The
Presidents and Vice President uncannily follow the same pattern as our
universe. Often when we refer to
While I find other efforts to locate
The reason I stick with these cities comprising
There are three major cities of prominence in the
Possibly this
will also resolve the Police Commissioner conundrum. We know that James Gordon
was Commissioner of Gotham for quite a number of
years as was his son Tony Gordon. Yet at the same time Weston,
Kirkpatrick and a few others are supposed to have been Commissioner of the
6. For more on Bureau 13 and some of its sister
organizations and offshoots
7.
This was the famous misquote of Calvin Coolidge. For more a more accurate rendition
8. For more on the whereabouts of the Shadow, Doc Savage, The
Avenger and other costumed fighters during the Crime Siege please visit the
following locations.
A Chronology for The Avenger by Rick Lai.
The Avenger Chronology by Win Eckert.
The Complete Chronology of Bronze by Rick Lai
The Doc Savage Chronology additions by Win Eckert to
Philip José Farmer's Chronology in Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life.
Chronology of Shadows, Part 1 and Part 2 by Rick Lai
The Shadow Chronology by Win Eckert
FRANCIS DRAKE
Frank Griffin differed from
his brothers in many ways, he was the only of the three not to suffer from
driven ambition, the only not to become an invisible man and he was the only
one not to attend
Frank volunteered
to go to
At the time the Radcliffe family was led by Philip Radcliffe,
the nephew of Phoebe Radcliffe, who had been Frank's
grandmother. Philip was quite a bit more egalitarian than his grandfather had
been. He accepted Frank Griffin as a family member and attempted to reach out
to John and Robert Griffin. However, John wanted nothing to do with the Radcliffe family. He still rankled over the treatment his
father and grandfather had gotten. Robert followed his eldest brother's lead.
Frank's continued involvement with the Radcliffes
caused a rift between he and his brothers.
Upon graduating
from
Michael and
Geoffrey Radcliffe came up with an interesting
proposal. If Frank would take the position as physician on call at the Radcliffe Mines and would also use his chemical and
research knowledge to devise medical and other uses for coal and petroleum
products he could have a research lab at Radcliffe
Mines. Frank agreed. In 1923, Dr. Cranley approached
Frank Griffin with some startling news and a set of proposals. Flora Cranley had borne John's son but could not bear to raise
it; the scandal and the constant reminder of her grief were just too much for
her mental state. Cranley wished for Frank to adopt
the baby and claim that it was his own. This was not as difficult as would be
supposed since; Katherine had gone to
Geoffrey Radcliffe brokered the deal. Michael, Geoffrey, Frank
Griffin and Dr. and Flora Cranley became partners in
the newly formed Radcliffe Preservatives Inc. Michael
and Geoffrey sold their shares to their family business Radcliffe
Industries, so Radcliffe Preservatives became a
subsidiary of Radcliffe Industries.
Philip Radcliffe died in 1930 and his son Michael took over the
business. Philip's cousin and a shareholder in Radcliffe
Industries, Richard Cobb was made Chief Financial Officer. By this time
Geoffrey Radcliffe had met and fallen in love with
beautiful Helen Manson. Unfortunately, Richard Cobb also conceived of a passion
for Helen. In late 1930, Richard Cobb murdered Michael Radcliffe.
Michael and Geoffrey were inspecting a minor cave-in at one of the mine's
shafts. Richard Cobb arranged for Geoffrey to be momentarily called away.
Richard had been hiding in the mine; he hit Michael with a wrench and shoved
him down the shaft.
Geoffrey was
accused and then convicted of having killed his brother. Even though every
legal option was exhausted Geoffrey was sentenced to death. Although since they
heavily relied upon good old Richard for his influence and legal aid, it may be
that his defense was not all that it could have been. By 1931 two hours before
Geoffrey was to executed, Dr. Frank Griffin visited
him. Geoffrey went off to the side to use the urinal. Dr. Griffin left. The
guards found Geoffrey's clothes in a heap before the urinal.
The word was
released that Geoffrey had escaped. Geoffrey found a suitcase of clothes that
Frank had left for him hidden in the woods near the prison. Geoffrey and Helen
Manson went to a small cottage owned by the Radcliffe's.
The caretaker's believed that a patient of Dr. Griffin's was staying for
convalescence. Helen told him that the patient had been terribly hurt and so
would be wrapped up.
Frank had
injected Geoffrey with an invisibility serum derived from Jack Griffin's serum.
He had distilled the monocaine in an attempt to
reduce its production of toxins, the distillate was known as duocaine. The serum still increased production of certain
hormones, which resulted in an odd subtle scent which animals could sense. The
caretaker's dog would not stop barking at Geoffrey. The constant barking got on
Geoffrey's nerves. Geoffrey Radcliffe demonstrated a
quick temper, which was an early stage of the invisibility psychosis. The
barking dog eventually drew the attention of the police, which caused Geoffrey
to flee from the cottage. Helen returned to the Radcliffe
Manor
Upon hearing the
As Dr. Frank
Griffin was talking with Geoffrey, Willie Spears the newly appointed production
superintendent demanded to speak with Dr. Griffin. Spears was
quite intoxicated. He told Dr. Griffin to mind his own business and not to
interfere with the mine's operation. Mr. Cobb would soon be getting rid of the
safety regulations and the research laboratory. Geoffrey Radcliffe
was shocked that a drunken night watchman had been put in a position of such
responsibility. He decided to follow Spears and hitched a ride in his car.
Standing on the running board, he pulled open the hood and detached the
carburetor wires, which caused the car to stop. He did this twice, spooking
Spear. Jumping from the stalled car Spears dashed for the woods. Geoffrey Radcliffe told Spears that he was the ghost of Geoffrey Radcliffe. Willie Spears was frightened and confessed that
he saw Cobb kill Michael. He promised to go the police. Spears hurried to his
home and started packing. After watching this for a few moments Geoffrey Radcliffe angrily punched Spears and tied him up.
Geoffrey Radcliffe went to Radcliffe Manor
to get a confession out of Richard Cobb. Richard had been pressuring Helen to
tell where Geoffrey was at so that he could be helped. She had refused. When
Cobb was alone, Geoffrey attempted to get Richard to sign a confession. Richard
threw a paperweight at the chair where Geoffrey sat rocking. Cobb pulled out a
gun and began blasting away. Richard Cobb ran down the steps and was greeted by
Inspector Simpson and a group of police.
Something about
Cobb's manner made Simpson suspicious but his job was to capture Geoffrey Radcliffe. Police surrounded the estate. It was raining and
the rain pouring on Geoffrey would have made him ghostly visible. Geoffrey is
chased from the garden house back into the main house. The police are
conducting a through search using smoke machines and wearing gas masks.
Geoffrey manages to grab a policeman and over power him. He steals his clothes
and gas mask and ties him up. Helen pretends to have been overcome by the smoke
and Geoffrey disguised as a police officer carries her out of the house.
Geoffrey sneaked
over to Frank Griffin's house, where Frank and Helen were having dinner as the
watchful eyes of the police watched the house. During the meal Geoffrey began
exhibiting delusions of grandeur. Frank Griffin drugged him and handcuffed him
to a chair. Geoffrey feigned extreme dryness and asked for a glass of water. He
splashed it in Frank's face, over powered him and got the handcuff key. He
escaped. The commotion in the house brought in the police.
Geoffrey Radcliffe returned to Radcliffe
Manor. Richard Cobb slept with a gun next to his hand. Geoffrey picked up the
gun and made Richard leave the room. Geoffrey was forced to knock out the guard
to Richard's room and then trick the one downstairs. Geoffrey Radcliffe and Richard go to Willie Spears house. Willie was
standing on a chair, a noose around his neck.
At Geoffrey's
prompting Spears confessed that he saw Cobb kill Michael. Cobb kicked the chair
out from Spears. As Geoffrey tried to save Spears, Cobb jumped on Radcliffe. They fought and brought a crowd. Richard took
advantage of the crowd to escape. Geoffrey chased after him gripped by the
madness. He chased Cobb to the Radcliffe mines and up
an ore train. Although the police arrived on the scene and shot at Geoffrey,
Richard Cobb was still dumped out of a train to fall a great distance and land
among a pile of ore. Dying he confessed to killing Michael.
Geoffrey had fled
the scene. Shot and going into shock, he took the clothes off of a scarecrow
and stumbled back to the mine offices. Dying from excessive blood loss and
internal hemorrhaging Geoffrey needed immediate transfusions to stay alive. The
new blood brought him back to visibility, allowing Dr. Frank Griffin to operate
and save Geoffrey's life. However the transfusion was not a permanent solution
for as Geoffrey's own blood began to renew itself, he became invisible again.
Dr. Frank Griffin hit upon the idea of filtering Geoffrey's blood that proved
most effective. (3)
In early 1933 a
Dr. Peter Drury took a position as a researcher with Dr. Frank Griffin. He
worked at Radcliffe Mines only briefly, a little over
a year. Dr. Griffin would not have normally hired a man whom he had not been
familiar with his work or background but Dr. Drury had been hired with the
recommendation of Dr. Griffin's estranged brother, Robert. It was not
discovered until some time later that when Dr. Peter Drury had left
NOTES
1.
2.
3. Frank Griffin involvement with Geoffrey Radcliffe's episode of invisibility is recounted in The
Invisible Man Returns. Universal, 1940
ROBERT FREDERICK
Robert Griffin was not as
intellectually gifted as were his brothers John and Francis and this is
probably the reason that he did not attend a university after graduating from
Drury had been
educated at
Robert Griffin
was fished out of the water by the U.S.S. San Pablo.(2)He was set ashore and decided to leave
It was 1930 when
the Herricks and Robert Griffin went into the
interior of
The Herricks left the comatose
Drury showed
Robert some newspaper clippings that proved his brother Frank had access to
such a formula and had used it to clear the name of his good friend Geoffrey Radcliffe. It amused Robert to steal from his righteous
brother. When Drury went to
The second blow
to his head had restored some of the memories that had been lost. He was filled
with a burning need to get what was due to him and get revenge to those who had
betrayed him. He also needed to make Julie Herrick his woman and marry into the
aristocracy he despised. Since he was a hunted fugitive he could not leave
Robert Griffin
smuggled himself aboard a ship bound for
The clerk said me meant no
harm, only that he knew the Al Akama had just come
in. As the clerk went to get change,
The clerk returned with the
change.
The clerk bundled up the
clothing but felt something in a pocket. He pulled it out. It was a newspaper
clipping with no clear date. The headline read Homicidal
Maniac escapes from Capetown Asylum. Murders two internes and nurse in
psychopathic ward.
There was a picture with the caption, Robert Griffin. The legible section of
the article said, "Robert Griffin, a dock worker, committed to the Capetown asylum for the Insane. He killed two internes and a nurse. He escaped through an elevator shaft.
Police have laid down a dragnet and expect a swift capture."
As
The butler informed Sir and
Lady Herrick that an old friend of theirs had come to visit. They were
flabbergasted to discover that it is Robert Griffin.
The Herricks had truly thought he was dead or at least put on a
good pretense of it. None of this mattered to
Lady Herrick gave
As he wandered in a doped
stupor
Drury was not too
happy that Robert Griffin had found his way to
his doorstep. Drury had cultivated
During the
mid-twenties in
Drury had taken
up residence in a secluded house where he conducted experiment undisturbed.
Since his research was viewed a bit skeptically he was not given full support,
especially since he wished to remain in
Drury knew the
Herrick name from somewhere but did not know that they were the people
Drury explained
that he had experimented with invisibility on animals but needed to experiment
on humans. Drury was certain he had licked the psychosis problem by changing
the toxin's chemical make-up just enough so that the body would recognize them
as potential threats, therefore the toxins would be kept to a minimal level by
the immune response system. He also counteracted the higher hormonal levels
generated by the serum so that the rage and anger responses would be
neutralized by natural euphoric chemicals in the brain. One of his final
improvements to the serum was that the mucal
membranes and salivary glands would produce a secondary form of the serum which
would coat and bond with anything entering the body in that manner. Therefore
cold air, smoke and most importantly food would not be seen as if it were
floating around in mid air.
Robert Griffin
was reluctant to try it. Drury manipulated him into doing so. Accusing him of
cowardice, painting a picture how
Once the
serum was injected and was successful, Drury began making plans to contact the
leaders of the Reich, to use
While
Herbert, with
Herbert win his bet but was challenged by the loser, who took back
his money. Herbert pretended to punch the man but
Mark Foster stood
at the bar and watched these events with a piercing look. He was taking supper
at the
The next day at
the
Foster went to an
upstairs sitting room and made a phone call to his grandmother Lady Jane Ainsley to get some information on the Invisible Men. Lady Ainsley, although she had not formally joined the League of
Anti-Diabolists, had contacts with them, just as she had contacts with the
Intelligence Service. Foster did work for Intelligence but thought that the
news of an Invisible Man might be of interest to both organizations. After the
phone call he returned to his room at the
Unknown to
Foster, Sir Jasper, having heard the vase break, had run out of his study to
see what was the matter.
Drury started to
believe that his serum was a failure after all, at least in the human tests.
From
Drury decided to
arrange it so that
Drury protested
promising
Shortly after Drury had
called the police, Foster visited the police to see if they had a line on this
invisible man story. They told him about the prank call from Dr. Drury, that
old crank who did those weird experiments. Foster convinced a policeman to
accompany him to Drury's to investigate the call.
As it turns out
Drury was not dead but had suffered from extreme blood loss. Not having any
medical training,
Sir Jasper was
shocked to find Robert Griffin visible. He told Sir Jasper that he has come to
take possession of his property. If Jasper knew what was good for him he would
cooperate. Oddly enough, although he had forced Sir Jasper to turn everything
over to Robert Griffin, he told Sir Jasper to call him Martin Fields, using his
new identity papers. He stayed as their guest.
Outside the house
was the constant barking of Drury's dog that hunted
Herbert showed up
at Shortlands and although he was surprised to find
Robert Griffin visible, Herbert attempted to blackmail
The next morning
at breakfast Foster discussed the Invisible Man. Griffin derided it as a fairy
tail but as the conversation progressed, he began to blab about what power an
Invisible Man might have, what deeds he could accomplish. This piqued Foster's
attention.
As Robert Griffin
took a biscuit from the serving table he noticed that his hand was fading. He
was becoming invisible again. He ran to his room claiming he had cut his hand.
He had Herbert deliver a message to Foster, asking him to meet him in the wine
cellar. The note stated that
Now totally
invisible,
As
Drury's dog attacked and
killed
The incident made
the papers. In Shanghai, a small Japanese man read the article and saw the accompanying
photograph of Robert Griffin found it interesting, very, very interesting. He
smiled revealing a set of gold-filled teeth. (6)
NOTES
ROBERT
FREDERICK
1.This was an early unrecorded adventure of Mr.
Moto. Mr. Moto's adventures
were recorded by John P. Marquand. His relationship
to the Wold Newton family is discussed in Asian Detectives in the Wold Newton Universe.
2. The U.S.S.
3.
Lady Jane Ainsley was a medical researcher who had
ties to British Intelligence. She was most renown for
her work on blood research. She was involved in the Armand Tesla
incidents of 1918 and 1944. She later joined the League
of Anti-Diabolists in 1944.
4.
Peter Drury was involved with many odd programs during WWII and after. He
used the resources of the United States fund his research with the intent of
giving the fruits to the Third Reich as a consequence he was often instrumental
in aiding United States research efforts in ways that kept Germany lagging
behind. For more on his background. He was instrumental in the
experiments of Dr. Cameron Sullivan, in the creation of the Super Solider
program, in the formation of the Creature Commandos and a few others.
5.
Robert Griffin's experience with transparency is told in Invisible Man's
Revenge, Universal 1944
6.
Mr. Moto would become further involved with the
KITTY CARROLL (The Invisible woman) 1915-1953
If you will pardon the
interruption we will take a slight detour from the history of the
Despite a
somewhat reclusive lifestyle, Dr. Peter Drury
was well known and well liked in the scientific community for his willingness
to share knowledge and his sustained correspondence with several of his
colleague. As it would later be discovered his correspondence was not so much
an extension of a gregarious personality but rather a means to several ends. In
his capacity as a double agent for the Allies and Nazis, Drury was able to
glean often sensitive material that would escape many censors. He was also able
to gain through a correspondence with scientists in various fields, aid and
knowledge in matters outside his field, and in many instances he was also able
to held direct colleagues carry out experiments he did not have the time,
material, wherewithal or intestinal fortitude to carry out. His correspondence with Dr. Lorenzo Cameron lead to Drury's
semi-successful super-soldier lycanthropic experiments. (1)
His
correspondence with Professor Gibbs allowed Drury to test his invisibility
formula with some modifications but in a direction that ultimately proved to
also be a theoretical dead end. Professor Gibbs was a theoretical
scientist/inventor much like Caractacus Potts (2), whose
ideas outstripped their practical application. In other words he invented a lot
of useless junk.
Through
correspondence with Drury and his Drury's researches into the original
Professor Gibbs
advertised for a test subject and his ad was answered by a recently discharged
clothing model named Kitty Carroll.
The combination of the machine and
drug proved to be most effective Kitty achieved invisibility and promptly
disappeared. That is to say instead of staying at the laboratory to conduct
necessary biological and psychological tests, she returned to her former place
of employment to play pranks on the dress company manager. She terrorized him
into treating the clothing models with respect and consideration.
Although Gibbs
frantically searched for Kitty, he could not find her and thought the worst,
until she returned. Shortly after she did return however before the
invisibility treatment wore off.
Gibbs had a hard
time convincing his patron, Richard Russell that he had in fact achieved
invisibility. Russell refused to stay and watch the second experiment and
instead went to his fishing cabin. Kitty underwent a longer dose of the
treatment. She and Gibbs then visited Russell's fishing cabin.
After a series of
comic mishaps, Russell was finally convinced that Kitty was an invisible woman.
Gibbs had not foreseen the effect of the introduction of other chemicals into
Kitty's system while she was in the invisible state. Although seemingly
innocuous, Kitty had a couple of alcoholic drinks and smoked a couple of
cigarettes while invisible. The introduction of nicotine and alcohol into her system proved to have serious consequences.
Kitty's invisibility did not wear off as in her previous treatment. Gibbs had
to concoct a formulation that would counteract the nicotine and alcohol in her
system. She was warned not to drink or smoke anymore because she would turn
invisible if she did.
Another
complication to the smooth process of experimentation with this new
invisibility protocol arose in the form of Blackie
Cole, a gangster living exiled in
His minions stole
the invisibility machine while Gibbs and Kitty Carroll were at Russell's
upstate fishing cabin attempting to persuade Russell of the reality of
invisibility. A scientist in Kohl's employ assembled it. It was tested on one
of Kohl's henchman. However without the serum the only apparent effect it had
on him was to make his deep voice into a falsetto. Kohl dispatched his minions
to kidnap the professor. They also grabbed Kitty much to Russell's dismay, a
romance had been blossoming between Russell and her hampered by the fact that
it was taking so long for her invisibility to wear off. It had just done so
when the gangsters invaded Russell's mansion. They knocked Russell unconscious,
the manservant had already fainted. One of the henchmen, the one with the
falsetto voice had been fired from the gang because of his falsetto voice. Kohl
apparently took this as sign of a loss of masculinity. He offered to show
Russell and the manservant George the whereabouts of Blackie Kohl's Mexican
hideout. (4)
Kitty and Professor
Gibbs had been taken to an adobe walled hacienda building in a remote area.
Kohl threatened to kill Kitty unless Gibbs successfully made him invisible.
Kitty and Gibbs had the feeling that once the experiment was a success, they
would not live long anyway. While the Professor diddled around with the machine
Kitty drank some pure grain alcohol. She became invisible once more. She
knocked out several of the gang and just about single handedly captured the
Kohl gang, just as Russell arrived there to rescue her. She actually pretended
that he rescued her from one or two of the gangsters.
Because of its
flaws, Gibb's invisibility machine was never marketed. However Frank Raymond
uses his research in late 1939 and by Dr. Peter Drury later on at Project M (5). Richard
Russell, despite not being able to invest in the invisibility machine, does not
go financially bust because he and Kitty receive rewards and bounties for the
capture of Blackie Kohl. Embittered by his capture and subsequent life term,
Kohl actively worked with Bundists from his cell. He
is able to steer the Bundists and their Nazi masters
towards an invisibility formula he thought belonged to Gibbs. It is actually
Frank Raymond's.
Kitty Carroll and
Richard Russell married and had a daughter, Susan born in 1939. (6)
She was shown to have inherited her mother's invisibility when rubbing alcohol
on her body made her fade from sight. However she faded back a few seconds
later. As the baby's body matured and the chemical similarities with her
mother's biochemistry changed the invisibility factor seemed to have vanished.
As for Kitty she discovered that after several years her body had readjusted
itself so that cigarettes and alcohol no longer affected her by making her
invisible. This had unfortunate circumstances.
Kitty and Richard
Russell's martial bliss was cut short when Russell went off to fight the war in
1941. He was killed in
While
working as a volunteer nurse, Kitty Russell met and eventually married a Long
Island Physician, Franklin Storm. Franklin Storm adopted little Susan. Kitty
and
NOTES
KITTY CARROLL (The
Invisible woman)
1.
Dr. Lorenzo Cameron's experiments were fictionalized and filmed as the Mad
Monster Part of his background is detailed in Hyde and Hair part one. Shown here
is his relationship to another famous family
2.
Caratacas Potts and his family's adventures were
recorded in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
by Ian Fleming. The filmed version of these events
demonstrated Potts inventive genius.
3.The
4.Kohls dismissal of his employee for perceived
effeminate behavior and his choice of
5.Project M was the secret war time secret soldier
project mentioned in the Frank Griffin jr entry which
coordinated in part the activities of the Invisible Man, the Unknown Soldier
and the Creature Commandos
6.
The child was a girl despite the depiction that it was a male in the filmed
version of these events
FRANCIS DRAKE GRIFFIN
JR.
(FRANK
RAYMOND) 1922-?
(Special thanks to
Matthew Baugh for providing the original synopsis
for Invisible Agent which provides much of the background for this
section of the article. Any variations from the film are as in the previous
sections speculations of my own.)
After the escapades of Robert Griffin, the
papers played up the angle of yet another
In late November,
1941 (2)
five men entered the Raymond printing shop late one evening. The men asked for
some personal stationary. Frank Raymond asked what name would be on it, a man
with a German accent stated Frank Griffin. The men revealed that they knew who
Frank Raymond was and they knew all about his family. The five men were Colonel
Conrad Stauffer, Baron Ikito and three goons who were
probably muscle from a local bundist organization.
Colonel Stauffer
knew about the Griffins from his acquaintanceship and sponsorship of Peter Drury.
There was also an odd familial connection, his cousin Richard Cobb had been
killed by an invisible man, although not one of the Griffins. (3)
Dr. Frank Griffin had signed Richard Cobb's death certificate however.
Baron Ikito was a short, dapper Japanese man wearing round rimmed
glasses. Baron Ikito had tangled with Robert Griffin
in
Stauffer related
that they knew Frank Griffin lived under the alias of Raymond to avoid being
bothered by governments which wanted the invisibility formula known to be in
the possession of his family. Having found him, Stauffer said that the Axis
powers were willing to give Frank a fortune for the formula. Stauffer then
proved that he did not know as much as he thought he did. When
"No, no, no. It was
his grandfather. John Griffin." Baron Ikito
chimed in with polite impatience.
Stauffer said: "Yes, of course!
John Griffin Sr. Shot by the police." Ikito
did not bother to correct him again. (4)
Baron Ikito did correct Stauffer later on when Stauffer stated
that it was German logic that had located Raymond, "Please tell Mr.
Raymond it was I who found him."
Frank feigned
ignorance of the formula, but it was no good. When Frank refused to
cooperate Stauffer commanded the thugs to beat the information out of him. Ikito called for a more subtle approach and had Frank's
hand clamped in an industrial paper slicer. Frank
relented before his hand was mutilated. Baron Ikito
proved that he was a very good judge of character. However, the thugs were lax
when Raymond was freed from the paper cutter and he fought his way to freedom.
The thugs began firing guns at the fleeing Raymond but Baron Ikito spoiled their aim by pretending to trip. Baron Ikito and Stauffer fled the country, knowing that Raymond
would spill all to the authorities.
Frank Raymond
headed to the
A few weeks later
however his feelings were changed by the bombing of
Prior to being
killed, Dr. Frank Griffin had combined the researches of his grandfather, his
brother, his own research and those of Dr. Peter Drury which he had acquired
when his own papers were returned from Drury's effects.
Dr. Frank Griffin
had derived a version of the formula that eliminated the psychosis. However it
did have two major side effects which he tried to eliminate but failed. It had
a tendency to make the recipient become giddy as if drunk when he exerted himself
and there was also a syndrome of random narcolepsy. It was not ready to be in
the field but since this was an emergency Frank Raymond thought the risks were
inconsequential. Dr. Frank Griffin however had created a viable counteragent so
that the invisible man could be brought back to visibility.
Frank told them
he would allow his formula to be used for a mission, on the condition that he
was the agent sent. The allied Generals worried that without training or
language skills he would be easily captured. (6) Frank
told them that his grandparents, the Morthleys, spoke
fluent German and he had picked up the language like a native. He also had
taken French in high school so was conversant at least in that tongue.
The generals
finally agreed that the pending crisis warranted Frank's participation. Frank
was parachuted into
Frank was nearly
shot by Nazi soldiers as he descended on the parachute but the soldiers were
very distracted by his apparent disintegration. As he peeled the clothes off of
his invisible body it appeared that the chutist was
falling to pieces. A search was mounted, but all that the soldiers found were
empty clothes.(7)
Frank was easily able to overpower a military driver and stole a car.
He proceeded to
the carpentry shop of an Allied agent named Schmidt who would serve as his
radio contact with headquarters. Schmidt directed him to the home of Maria
Sorenson who had been trained by the Nazis as a spy, but who was actually
working for the British.
Maria was
astonished and delighted by the invisible agent, but told Frank that he has
come at the wrong time. She was having dinner with Oberst
Karl Heiser of the SS. (8)
Heiser arrived and tried to seduce Maria. He urgee her to forget about Colonel
Stauffer. Stauffer was her former lover and Heiser's
superior. Stauffer was out of the country on a mission and as Heiser reminded her, many did not return from such
missions. Maria tried to wheedle information from Heiser
about the upcoming
After Heiser had stormed out of the house, Maria was furious with
Frank at having ruined what it took her a year of work to accomplish.
Maria became
tired of talking to an invisible man so he covered himself with a robe, a
turban, dark glasses and cold cream. After a few minutes of conversation he
fell into a deep sleep. He stated that this is one of the problems with the
serum. This version of the formula had two major side effects, giddiness and
random narcolepsy.
Heiser returned to his headquarters and found that Stauffer
had returned to
Stauffer and Heiser returned to Maria's. Maria had to wipe Frank clean
of the cold cream and strip him. She was however unable to wake him. To
demonstrate that he intended to brook no nonsense, Stauffer had Heiser arrested in front of her for scheming to steal his
position and his woman. Stauffer had a conversation with her in which he hinted
at his suspicions of her being a spy. Stauffer then pointedly mentions that the
secret invasion plans would shortly be delivered to his office. Despite his
prodding around in the room Stauffer failed to find the invisible man.
Frank fell for
the bait and broke into Stauffer's office. The door was locked behind him.
Stauffer confronted him and seemed to have the advantage. When Frank
admitted that he did not know the formula Stauffer ordered him seized. As
Stauffer went to call for more troops, Frank started a fire and held off the SS
men until a fire engine arrived. Frank scurried down the ladder to freedom. He
got away with a book containing the names of all the German and Japanese agents
in the
Having learned
through his sources of Frank's intrusion Ikito
arrived at Stauffer's office. Ikito asked Stauffer
about the book that contained Japanese agent's names that resided in the
After leaving
dropping the book off at Schmidt's Frank called Maria. Her SS guard overheard
the call. When the conversation between Maria and an American man was
reported to Stauffer he realized had been Frank. He had the call traced to
Schmidt's phone and had Schmidt arrested.
While After
Schmidt had been arrested Frank slipped into Heiser's
cell where Heiser awaited execution. Frank was able
to bully information about the invasion plan from a frightened Heiser. A squadron of suicide bombers was being sent at
In return for
this information aided Heiser in escaping execution.
Frank knocked out the two guards. He and Heiser
donned their uniforms and left the cell area. Before they left Heiser shot both of the unconscious guards.
Frank took Heiser to Schmidt's. The building was being watched by SS
men. Frank slipped inside. Schmidt had gone missing and Maria sat waiting for
Frank. Because Schmidt was arrested Frank believed that Maria was truly a
double agent working for both sides. Seen from this light, many of her actions
seemed quite suspicious and he did not trust her. He jumped to the conclusion
that she had sold him out and was raging at her when a net fells on him from
the rafters. Ikito's men had learned of this meeting
place. The fish net was lined with deep sea fishhooks and Frank passed out from
the pain. The SS men noticed the Japanese leaving the building carrying two
coffins and which they loaded into a mortuary truck. The S.S. men followed the
Japanese and became suspicious when they went to the Japanese Embassy.
Heiser soon realized that Frank was not coming back. He
telephoned Stauffer and made a deal to be reinstated in return for information
on Frank's location. The two met and proceeded to the
Embassy with a truckload of SS men.
As the Stauffer
and Heiser were gathering men for their raid, A surgeon at the Japanese Embassy removed all the hooks from
Frank's body and announced that, aside of some blood loss, there was no real
injury. Ikito wondered aloud what made the man
invisible. The surgeon said that their chemists should have the answer soon.
This would seem to indicate that the Doctor took a few blood samples as he
extracted the fishhooks. Frank awakened and Ikito
asked him for the secret of invisibility. Frank said he would only give it up
for Maria's safety and freedom. Unless Frank lied to Stauffer earlier, he did
not know the formula and so was either going to sacrifice himself or was
pulling an extraordinary bluff. Ikito agreed and had
Maria brought into the room.
At that moment
Stauffer, Heiser and their truck of SS stormed the
building.
As Nazis and Japanese fought each
other Frank took advantage of the confusion to grab Maria and flee.
Stauffer sent his men after them. When he tried to follow his men out of the
Embassy Ikito stopped him. Ikito
was convinced that Stauffer had lost the book and the invisible agent both.
This fitted right into Ikito's plans.
"I'll make
an honorable man," Ikito told Stauffer,
"even out of you." True to his word he stabbed the Nazi in the belly,
performing hara-kiri by proxy.
Heiser was delighted by his rival's death. He started
back to headquarters, where he would then be the top man. On his way he
passed some SS who had been searching for him since his escape. Ignorant of his
pardon they shot him dead.
Dressed in a ceremonial kimono and
holding a dagger, Ikito knelt before an image of
Buddha and plunged a knife into his belly and collapse. It is significant that
even in the filmed version of these events, his wound
appeared to be a simple stab and not the disemboweling slash that seppuku would
have called for. It is also significant that he did the deed just as the
Germans were leaving the Embassy and got only a passing glance at the event.
Frank and Maria
drove their stolen truck onto an airfield (coincidentally the one where the
bombers attacking
Frank awakened in
a British hospital. He was visible once again. He was informed that Maria
is actually a British citizen named Maria Goodrich. (9)
If you thought
that the character of Baron Ikito seemed familiar,
you would be correct, he was a short, dapper Japanese
man wearing round rimmed glasses. He was better known as Mr. Moto. His appearance and speech matched perfectly those of
Mr. Moto. Ikito seemed to
be highly proficient in jujitsu. Though he is unarmed he had little difficulty
in disarming and killing Stauffer, who had a pistol. This also fit with Moto's well established martial prowess. Ikito was menacing yet never deliberately cruel or sadistic
except when he threatened to cut off Frank Raymond's hand. He was very
convincing but then Mr. Moto could be. If you equate
Mr. Moto with the genial Private detective as he was
portrayed in pre-war films, you are only getting part of the picture.
Think of him as a sort of Japanese James Bond and you are probably closer the
truth.
The film version
of these events showed him committing seppuku. This was done for two reasons;
one is because due to the propagandistic nature of the war films of that era,
the Japanese villain would have had to die in some fashion. The other reason
was because as far as the Germans were concerned he actually did kill himself.
While it is true that the invisibility formula was important enough for Ikito to have traveled to
Ikito had set in motion an elaborate ploy that revolved
around the code book that he had given to Conrad Stauffer. Those
book purportedly contained the names of the Japanese and German spies in
Consider this,
even though the information was sent to allies by Schmidt there never a mass
round up of either Japanese or German spies in the
The good Baron's
name was also undoubtedly false. Despite John P. Marquand's
statement that Mr. Moto's full name was I.O. Moto (It wasn't but that will be dealt with elsewhere) the
Ikito/Moto found working with the Nazi's extremely
distasteful as could be seen by his manner towards the Nazi's which borders on
the contemptible. Japanese culture, at least at this time, put a primary
importance on being polite, even to your enemies. For Ikito
to be so dismissive demonstrated his loathing for these men. Yet another
telling sign was that after he killed Stauffer, he ripped off Stauffer's
swastika armband with a look of utter disgust and loathing, then wiped his
blade clean of blood on the swastika.
Ikito's statement that ritual suicide would be expected of
an agent who had committed such a harmful blunder as losing the book sounds
accurate and certainly would coincide with what Stauffer knew of
The Japanese
Embassy also had contacts with a mortuary, possibly as a front, for they were
able to get coffins and a hearse fairly quickly to smuggle
Since Stauffer's
blundering had precipitated a crisis, and the invisibility serum was of great
importance Ikito/Moto went ahead with his plans much
earlier than anticipated. His coffin also contained a test tube of invisible
blood for further analysis.
Japanese scientists
were able to synthesize a serum that would make humans invisible, however due
to political machinations in the Japanese Empire regarding research allocations
for secret weaponry and the complexity of creating such a serum, it was not
until August 7, 1945 that six men were successfully made invisible. The
research facility was destroyed the next day by the atomic bomb dropped on
With no way to
cure themselves of the invisibility and afraid of being captured and executed
by the Occupation forces, the invisible squad blended as well as they could in
Japanese society. Four of the soldiers become kobun
(soldiers) of a local Yakuza organization. They eventually took control of the
organization. The remaining two other invisible soldiers blended into normal
society by painting their faces in make-up. They took odd jobs such as carrying
advertising signs. However one of the two law abiding invisible men could not
bear his invisible existence coupled with the loss of his loved ones in
Nanjo recovered and destroyed the
invisible gang using a combination of single combats and traps what caused the
invisible gang to perish. Hopeful for a cure, he continued with this clown
disguise.(10)
Frank
Griffin and Maria Goodrich eventually married and had one daughter Katrina
Griffin, born in 1946. The mission related above was not the end of Frank's
involvement with the invisibility serum nor was this his only mission for the
Allied Intelligence Services. While now unclassified, they can still not be
released to the public without Frank's permission and he has yet to give it.
Frank was rumored to
work once or twice with Sgt. Rock and his company of grunts; he may have worked
with Captain
After the war
Frank Griffin returned to his career as a printer. Through his contacts with
the government and his security clearance he had a nice profitable business
printing government documents, manuals and handbooks. He resisted pressure from
various intelligence agencies to return full time to intelligence work. It was
with great reluctance that he undertook three assignments between 1946 and
1961. When the last of these, a covert mission to
However in late 1961 his printing house accidentally received a
document that had been earmarked for destruction rather than printing.
This actually happened more often might be believed. The protocol in such cases
was to inform the department that had sent the incorrect documents. A
government courier would then pick up the misrouted documents. Unfortunately in
this case the document had not had a destruction order stamped on it but rather
had a written note on the last page. The Printer only discovered this error
after he had printed a sample handbook.
Recognizing the
ISD department,
Frank discussed
his findings with Maria and they decided to contact other persons in the
Intelligence community and inform them of this possible rogue operation. Late
that night they received a call that their printing house was aflame. As they
rushed to the scene of the fire, their car went off the road and both Frank and
Maria Griffin were killed. This is what Katrina would be told and would always
believe.
Frank Griffin
awoke in a guarded room of a military hospital. He had no idea where he was. He
was informed that he had been involved in a traffic accident and that Maria was
killed. Additionally the Griffin Publishing House had been destroyed by fire.
Frank
Griffin was assigned to the European bureau located in
Griffin/Fawkes worked as an operative based in
As Frank Griffin
jr. grew older his metabolism changed and his body grew accustomed to the
"safe" invisibility formula. He had a harder and harder time
achieving invisibility. Each time he took the serum became more painful than
the last. Yet Grayl insisted that he continue as
their invisible agent. It was not until Frank nearly died and only succeeded in
turning semi-transparent for a few moments that Grayl
relented. Grayl was hopeful when some scientists told
him that Griffin/Fawkes might eventually rid his body
of the build up of the invisibility serum antibodies. Since
Because of their
frequent partnership and their shared lives of woe, Mason Fawkes
and Tiffany Case became good friends. She told him about her gang rape at
sixteen, about growing up as the daughter of a Madam, about her life as a jewel
thief, her involvement with the legendary James Bond. (16)
Tiffany stated
that her relationship with James Bond had been doomed from the start. Bond did
not want a wife or even a girlfriend; he wanted a sexual pet. That is someone
he could play with when he felt like it, buy trinkets for but not to have a
true emotional relationship. Tiffany had thought that she wanted a
domestic life but living with James Bond had changed her mind. She wanted and
needed adventure, she also wanted material possessions
and the wherewithal to buy them. James was rather stingy about an
allowance. She missed the easy wealth and thrills of her criminal career.
While James was
on assignment, Tiffany had been approached and recruited by the ISD or whatever
branch it called itself for overseas operations. The organization was aware of
her current situation. They offered her a good salary and the opportunity to
use her skills for the good of the free world. Tiffany told Bond that she had
been having an affair and that she was going to marry her boyfriend. He was a
Major at the American Embassy. This was actually her recruiter. Yet after
nearly seven years of doing the bidding of the ISD, despite the high salary and
thrills of the job, her excitement had palled. She truly wished to settle down.
(17)
In late 1964
Mason Fawkes and Tiffany Case married. Director Grayle was furious. He rewrote Mason Fawkes
background, transferred him back to the
In 1965 Tiffany Case
gave birth to Kevin Fawkes, in 1967 she gave birth to
Darien Fawkes. While in
Flora Cranley had married a man named Forrester. They had one
daughter named Celia. Celia married Paul Walters a biologist, a gland
specialist. (20)Although he hated doing so Griffin/Fawkes told his mother a pack of half truths. That
initially Frank Griffin and his wife had adopted him and had moved to the
Tiffany however
believed that Griffin/Fawkes should pursue the
relationship for their boys' sake. She thought that the boys needed some adult
figures in their lives who were not thought to be criminals. Also considering
the risk factors in their line of work, they needed someone who could look
after the boys should they suddenly die. Did Griffin/Fawkes
really want to leave the boys to the tender mercies of The Shop as surrogate
parents?
So the Fawkes family, Flora Cranley
Forrester and her daughter and husband who remained childless became a sort of
odd extended family. Celia and her husband mourned the fact that Kevin
and
In 1974 while
Griffin/Fawkes was on an extended assignment in
In 1975 Mason Fawkes disappeared, supposedly into the Federal Penal
system.
NOTES
FRANK
GRIFFIN JR./(FRANK RAYMOND) 1922-?
1.A subsequent autopsy on their exhumed
bodies made in 1947 determined that they died of wounds not typically
consistent with such a train collision and immolation. They had been
tortured to death and then placed in their car which was parked at railroad
crossing. Colonel Stauffer's methods failed in this instance as well.
2.
A paperboy announcing that
3.Actually Richard Cobb fell to his death while
being pursued by an invisible Geoffrey Radcliffe. Radcliffe was chasing Cobb to capture him and persuade him
to admit killing Geoffrey's brother Michael and of framing Geoffrey for the
murder.
4.
Conrad Stauffer perhaps should not be blamed too much for his confusion as to
Frank's relationship to the other Invisible Men. The similarity of his
biological father, Jack Stuart Griffin and his grandfather John Hawley Griffin
was confusing enough but because Frank's uncle Francis Griffin was also his
adopted father was a difficult one even for this researcher to puzzle out.
5.
Frank Griffin sr. had not been as slick at hiding as he had thought if so many
had been able to ferret out his identity. The reason why Frank
6.
Since they were not entirely convinced that Frank was being truthful about not
knowing the chemical make up of the formula, they feared he might fall into
enemy hands. This could be a disaster. However they soon became convinced that
he did not know the formula and could not make the formula. Tests also proved
that the formula would not work on anyone else. A crisis precipitated their use
of
7.
Captain Schultz who led the search was later demoted to Sergeant and stationed
at Stalag 17. His brother was also a
8.Despite the filmed version of these events which
stated the Stauffer and Heiser were members of the
Gestapo, they were really members of the S.S. In the film Hesier
even wears a "Death's Head" officers
uniform.
9.
Frank Raymond's for nobody's eyes mission to
10. Some of these events were
fictionalized in the film Tomei ningen Transparent
Human Toho 1954
11.For more about the mysterious Jack Pimpernel please read
the entries on the Original Wold Newton Crossover Chronology.
For an in-depth study of the career of the Unknown Soldier as related in the
comics. As with other comic book sources these accounts should not
be taken literally.
12. The Creature Commandos made their debut in Weird War
Tales #93 and went on to battle the Axis powers for several years after. The
initial line-up, Velcro--the Vampire, Warren Griffith--the Werewolf,
"Lucky" Taylor--the Frankenstein Monster, and Lt. Matthew Shrieve, was later altered to include a woman, Dr. Medusa
13.The ISD Internal Security Department was one of those
shadowy government bureaucracies created in the height of the cold war just after
the end of World War II. Its main objective was to identify possible security
threats leaks within the Federal, State and local governments of the Unitd States. However shortly after its creation, it soon
expanded its role far beyond its original mission moving into all sorts of
Black Ops and operating with hidden agendas. The people guiding the course of
the ISD such as Director Grayle were power hungry
fanatics. You can find bits and pieces of true information and disinformation
about the ISD at these locations. The Avenger Chronology by Win Eckert, Keeping Secrets by Brad Mengel, Marvelous Fantastic Tales of the WNU; Batman
by Dennis Power and Marvelous, Fantastic Tales of the
WNU-Spiderman by Dennis Power.
14.
Part of this document was however leaked. A film based on some of the concepts
outlined in the report was made, although the depiction of the assassination of
the President was entirely fictional. The film was entitled
Executive Action.
15.
The name Fawkes of course referred to Guy Fawkes of the Gunpowder plot of 1605. Fawkes
and other conspirators plotted to blow up Parliament and the King for
ideological reason. Grayle planned to use
16.
Tiffany's early life and her initial involvement with James Bond are recounted
in Diamonds Are Forever by Ian Fleming.
17.
Details of Tiffany's relationship with James Bond after the events of Diamonds
Are Forever are revealed in James Bond, the Authorized Biography by James
Pearson. Mr. Pearson unaware that she had only pretended to
leave James for another man.
18.
"The Shop" is mentioned in The Langoliers.
Presumably the same "Shop" as in Firestarter.
Also in the Tommyknockers After all the excitement
was over in The Tommyknockers, "The Shop"
came to Haven to investigate.
19. The psychiatrist was undoubtedly James Anthony Caliban or
to be more precise, James Anthony Grandrith, the half brother of John Cloamby,
Lord Grandrith. In the two Doc Caliban novels were given the information that
Doc Caliban was a psychiatrist who was the inspiration for the fictional Doc
Savage character. It must be remembered that PJF wrote A Feast Unknown and The
Mad Goblin prior to publishing the books Tarzan Alive and Doc Savage an
Apocalyptic Life. I believe that Farmer always suspected intended to write
biographies of Doc and Tarzan but that during his researches into their lives
he also discovered the existence of Doc Caliban and Lord Grandrith and the
existence of the Nine. Because of the many similarities between the lives of
Caliban and Savage and the lives of Grandrith and Greystoke, and because of the
more "earthy" nature of Grandrith and Caliban he was fooled into
believing that these were the true characters upon which Savage and Tarzan were
based. Somewhat disappointed that his heroes turned out to have feet of
clay and fearing reprisals from the Nine, Farmer published his researches on
Caliban and Grandrith as novels.
After the publication of A Feast Unknown, Philip Jose Farmer was contacted by
an agent of John Clayton, Lord Greystoke. Ina series of meetings that followed
portions of which were edited and published as an Interview with Lord
Greystoke, Farmer learned the truth about
Caliban and Grandrith and about Tarzans, future and past. Novels which
followed, Time's Last Gift, Hadon of Opar, Flight to Opar, Escape from Loki,
The Dark Heart of Time gave out portions of the information that Farmer had
gleaned from Lord Greystoke, who was actually the man who would later call
himself John Gribardson.
More recent research has uncovered more information about the activities of the
Nine, of Caliban and of Grandrith. It appears that while the careers of Caliban
and Grandrith were similar to Savage and Greystoke, they were not duplications
nor were the exact re-enactments that the Nine wished. Mr. Farmer was did
not know the exact details of their careers and was unconsciously influenced by
the idea that they were Savage and Greystoke so he gave information about their
careers about which he was misinformed.
James Anthony Caliban was a practicing psychiatrist and he did have adventures
similar to Doc Savage. Wold Newtonian researcher Dennis Hager argues
that many of the latter were fictionalized as the adventures of Jim Anthony. Jim Anthony was a Doc Savage type character written about by
Robert Leslie Bellem who also edited the adventures
of Dan Turner, the Hollywood Detective. Unlike Doc Savage Jim Anthony was more
inclined to give into the advances of the beautiful women whose paths he
crossed. This would be more in tune with character of Caliban without the
preconception that he was Doc Savage.
20.
Paul Walters was the son of Sigmund Walters, also a gland specialist as seen in
the film, Captive Wild Woman
21.
Because it was based on the
The Dundering Duo's double
involvement with the Invisible Man.
After the war in La Miranda
Florida, a
These
two bumbling former shipping clerks a couple years later encountered another
Invisible Man while posing as private detectives. This is Tommy Nelson a boxer
accused of killing his manager. Having escaped from jail, Nelson talks, Bud and
Lou as their characters are called in the theatrical portrayal of these events,
into accompanying him to the home of fiancée, Helen Gray. Helen's Uncle Dr.
Phillip Grey is working on a serum for invisibility and a re-agent to
counteract it. Tommy wants Dr. Grey to inject him with the serum so Tommy can
prove his innocence. Dr. Gray is reluctant to inject Tommy with the serum so
Tommy does it himself. Dr. Philip Grey was using a serum based on the original monocaine derivation.
Tommy began to
become affected by the psychosis but was able to clear his name by staging a
fight with the fat chubby immortal called Lou as his boxer who was supposed to
take a dive but did not. When the gangsters try to kill Bud and Lou, Tommy
intervenes. Tommy is nearly killed by a knife thrust. They break up the gang
with enough evidence to clear Tommy. A transfusion by "Lou"
actually works a reagent and eradicates the invisibility serum from Tommy
Nelson's system. Any story however of Lou becoming affected by the
invisibility serum is however spurious.
Dr. Philip Grey
had begun his research on the invisibility serum when he discovered an old
notebook among his grandfather, Arthur Grey's effects. This notebook was the
missing third book of John Hawley Griffin.
KATRINA
Special
thanks to Win Eckert for providing necessary background information on the
Invisibility Affair
The last member of the
After her parents
had died in a fatal car crash, Katrina, nicknamed Kerry by her father, went to
live with her bachelor Uncle, Her great uncle, Frank's mother's brother.
Despite promised made to Frank Griffin, Kerry was not guarded from harm by
agents of the ISD since there was actually no threat against her.
Kerry also
intrigued by her family history and by the concept of invisibility although she
approached it from a different angle than her ancestors, rather than trying a
biological method she thought to use physics, specifically quantum
theory. Dr. Willard Morthley had made some
strides in this field and 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.
In creating the
invisibility field the OTSMID also warped the space-time continuum and created
a sort of null-space. Although there was no real practical
use for the latter discovery at that time. 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.
Word however got
out they had been successful in their experiments in invisibility and Dr. Morthley and his "assistant" Kerry Griffin were
captured by Thrush. When they were captured by Thrush Morthley
insisted for Kerry to 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 and 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 then 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,
Despite their
breeding, charm and intelligence the Uncle agents accepted without question
that Kerry Griffin was a mere girl friday to Dr. Morthley. (2)
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 invisibility project even after Dr. Morthley died in the early 70's. She received government
grants to continue her research; she was later to find out that it was the
military doing so. She hired an assistant who was a brilliant as her, Daniel
Westin, from
(It may look like Ilya Kuryakin but it is not).
Dr.
Kate and David Westin.
Westin and Kerry, whom he
insisted on calling Kate, became partners and then husband and wife. In late
1974, they received an ultimatum to finish their research or lose all funding
for this and future projects. The Westins realize that someone had been
studying their notes. Westin without Kate's knowledge used himself as a guinea
pig for the first human experiment in invisibility using their new method. This
consisted of injecting himself with what he termed liquid photons and having it
activated by a machine which activated the injected chemicals on a certain
electro-magnetic resonance. This was more than likely a bogus term, this
research sounds very similar to that conducted by Professor Gibbs in 1939. (3) His
initial experiments were successful. Westin was able to render objects and
living subjects invisible and reverse the process.
Discovering that
that Klae Corporation was funded exclusively by the
military, he wanted assurances that his research would not be used for military
purposes. (4)
When this was not forthcoming Westin destroyed the files at the lab 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. Westin was
however rushed a minor mathematical mistake resulted in too much power being
used by the device which activated the chemical in his body. The increased
power altered the electro-chemical make up of Dr. Westin's body. The overload
also destroyed the machine. Westin was permanently invisible. He and Kate
continued to work by themselves on a cure for his condition. They made a deal
with the Klae Corporation to carry out various tasks
for the multinational conglomerate, basically by being hired out as investigators and/or spies. This is how the couple pay for their lab time the 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. 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. (5)
How successful
the Westins were in finding a cure for his condition remains unknown at this
point. (6)
NOTES
KATRINA
1.
Although
2.
A reasonably accurate account of this incident was reported in The
Invisibility Affair, Man From Uncle 11
by Thomas Stratton.
3.
Please see the Kitty Carroll section of this
article for information on Professor Gibbs
4.
He was rather adamant about this because he started off his early career
designing nuclear bombs. At first he thought of it an intellectual exercise but
he eventually came to realize the devastation that some of his inventions could
achieve and swore off making military weapons. He was told that the Klae Corporation was pure research with no military
applications. When he discovered otherwise he felt betrayed.
5.
The OSI connections to the Westin's was in the novelization television series of the Invisible Man by
Michael Jahn. Thanks to John Small for pointing it
out.
6.
Although the pilot film of the television series was slightly more accurate
than the series itself, the Invisible Man television series Universal Studios,
NBC 1975 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 without consent. Westin and Kate sold some of their stories
to television. Because of the failure of the
television show based on some of Kate and Daniel's earlier
adventures, the network retooled the characters. Kate Westin became Dr. Abbey
Lawrence and Daniel Westin became Sam Casey, intrepid adventurer. The
show was entitled The Gemini
- 
After the death of their mother
Tiffany Case Fawkes and the imprisonment of their
father, Mason
Fawkes, Kevin and Darien Fawkes
were thereafter raised by Celia and Paul Walters. Kevin demonstrated the family
bent towards science, encouraged by Paul Walters he became an award winning
science student and a medical student and biochemist. The family's connection
to invisibility was known to Paul Walters who found it a fascinating theory.
Although Kevin was kept in the dark about the family history as per his father
and Grandmother's request, his Uncle's enthusiasm for the subject also fired
his imagination. (1)
They utilized
known invisibility research in order to come up with a totally new approach. (2)
His exploits garnered him two felony
convictions before he was thirty.
While
In 1998 Dr. Fawkes designed a biosynthetic gland which would produce invisibility
in animals. The first results were not promising as the chemical continued to
build up in the subject's system causing synaptic failure. A modified gland
produced a reagent which would neutralize quicksilver substance. Chemically
triggered by the adrenals, the fear, aggressive or anxiety responses in a
subject would trigger the quicksilver gland to produce a chemical agent which
reacts with the sweat glands to release the quicksilver compound. The compound was secreted through the skin pores and tear ducts
and quickly dried to become a flexible sheath that normally covered the
subject, their clothing and any small articles in their possession. However
with the secretion of a sufficient enough amount of Quicksilver it was possible
to render invisible another individual or even a
large object such as a heavy door or a motorcycle.
The first subject
for human testing of the synthetic organ was Simon Cole,
a CIA operative culled from records of the various intelligence agencies top
agents. Because of a genetic marker in Cole's DNA, he was unable to
trigger the inhibitor catalyst to terminate the Quicksilver process i.e. become
visible. After nine weeks he became irrational and violent. The Agency Official
was forced to use deadly force to defend himself. The quicksilver gland was
harvested from Cole's body. (6)
Another subject
had to be found. As fate would have it Kevin Fawkes
found a way to kill two birds with one stone.
Despite his
intensive mentoring from Liz, an older and wiser cat burglar,
Kevin Fawkes arranged for
Darien Fawkes was taken to a laboratory in the
The quicksilver
gland was implanted into
Once Arnaud had
created the counteragent and saw that it was successful, he demonstrated that
Arnaud is upset
when he discovered that
Taken to the
Agency's headquarters,
Darien Fawkes was informed that Arnaud de Thiel
was a terrorist known as Arnaud de Fehrn. Several
terrorist groups had begun gathering at Arnaud's hacienda in
Arnaud
experienced problems with his stolen data. He had smuggled the last bit of key
data out of the Quicksilver laboratory by swallowing it. The stomach acids from
his ulcer had corrupted the data. He needed the gland from
When Hobbes and Fawkes checked in with the Official, they were informed
that Casey O'Claire had gone missing.
Darien Fawkes succeeded in making himself invisible and enters
Arnaud de Thiel's hacienda. He was deep in the
Quicksilver madness by the time he entered the hacienda. De Thiel's
men saw him with thermal glasses.
Fawkes collapsed from the effects of the Quicksilver
poisoning and was nearly captured. He realized that de Thiel
needed the gland in his head and threatened to blow his head off with a
shotgun. He demanded to be taken to De Thiel. Afraid
that
The Agency's
resident biochemist and physician, Claire aka The
Keeper, recreated the counteragent.
Over the next two
years Darien Fawkes became the Agency's invisible
agent. Although many of the cases were mundane, routine cases that were only
slightly aided by
One the first
cases that Darien Fawkes became involved was to track
down another government experiment gone awry. A man had been created to be an
assassin with the power to kill by touch. Apparently someone in the government
tried to make Rappaccini's Daughter a reality. The man Fogerty nearly killed the Official with his touch, since
the Official was part of the project that had created the Cataveri.
Although Fogerty escaped,
In another early
case Fawkes and Hobbes are sent to investigate the
activities of a psychic who sometimes advised his clients to commit suicide in
order to save their families from evil spirits. It turned out to be a waste of
time for Fawkes to become invisible when they visited
the psychic, since Benjamin Scarborough was blind and sensed Fawkes anyway. He warned Fawkes
of the evil within him and told him he would one day kill his partner.
As Hobbes and Fawkes investigated the psychic's clients, they began to
see that the blind man actually did have some strange ability. However some of
the clients who had apparently committed suicide had actually been killed by
A few weeks later
Arnaud de Thiel lured
On one crucial case
In another case
Claire a.k.a. the Keeper, the medical doctor who regulated Fawkes
levels of quicksilver and counteragent, attempted to murder a person with no
personal connection to her. They discovered that the sleep clinic that she had
been visiting for help with her insomnia was mind control techniques to implant
programming in the clients so that they would kill someone of the programmer's chosing. After committing the crime the sleeper would
commit suicide. Once initiated the sleeper would keep attempting to kill the
target until successful or neutralized. Fawkes and
Hobbes used the same sleeper technology to program the Keeper with the belief
that she had fulfilled her mission, thus neutralizing her original programming.
(9)
A couple months
later shortly after another fruitless encounter with Arnaud;
Allianora invited
The files
revealed the Arnaud was deeply connected to the Organization and sent them
funds from his casino. The Official had a plan to cripple Arnaud and cut off
one source of funds for the Organization. Hobbes and Fawkes
would skim money from the Arnaud's Mexican casino using the quicksilver
process. The Official called a halt to the operation after they had skimmed
five million dollars.
Hobbes was sent
to bring Fawkes in. Fawkes
learned that Arnaud had recently been implanted with a new Quicksilver gland.
Hobbes was approached by Arnaud with a proposition. The gland that had been
implanted in Arnaud was not done so properly. Arnaud needed to refer to
Fawkes was captured and a surgeon used
Darien Fawkes received a surprise visit from Allianora.
She told
A simple scan
revealed that
Upon his arrival
at the Agency the next day, the Official requested his presence. The Official
pointed a gun at
Actually as the
Official was firing the gun Hobbes slipped a signal blocking helmet on
The Keeper
believed that Chrysalis would use the nano-bugs to
infect the children of
During the
mission to stop the flu vaccines from being injected at an elementary school,
The Keeper used a
new specimen of the nano-bug to develop a "nano-vaccine" that purged the bug from
As a consequence
of their hiding in the maze of government bureaucracy, the Agency often
received assignments from its temporary sponsors. Usually the Official ignored
these. However once case from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, intrigued him. He
sent Fawkes, Hobbes and the Keeper to investigate
several murders on an Indian reservation, which were said to have been done by
a monster called the Wendigo. Although Hobbes
complained that they were stepping into X-Files territory find evidence to
support the supposition.
After analyzing
the saliva, the Keeper discovered that it was laced with quicksilver.
In the course of
their investigation, Fawkes,
The Official was
pretty angry with the investigation team and insisted that they made it all up,
that there were not any invisible ten-foot-tall monsters. The Odd thing was
that Fawkes never said how tall the thing had been.
The true story of
this investigation bears a bit more scrutiny. The Official heard about another
living source of the quicksilver gland which Kevin Fawkes
had based his design on. This living source that could be
captured. Because the monster was the subject of a murder investigation
no one would be that upset if the thing disappeared. The Keeper discovered
evidence that the Wendigo had scavenged the remains
of the victims but had not killed the victims. All the evidence pointed to the
crazed mountain man as being the killer. It was just bad luck that the Wendigo had been blown up with the Mountain Man.
Fawkes and the Agency had another agent foisted upon them
by one of their "sponsor" agencies. Alex Monroe, a no-nonsense female
agent was investigating the abduction of more than 1,300 newborns from
hospitals during the past few years. Almost all the abducted kids were
conceived at fertility clinics owned by the same corporation.
Darien Fawkes did some invisible snooping and managed to stop another abduction. He followed the would-be kidnapper to a
youth camp. The kids were going through some sort of intensive boot camp
training. (11) There
was also a hangar full of newborns. The youth camp was owned by Chrysalis.
Since the Agency needed proof that the children had been abducted before they
could legally raid or shut it down,
The Keeper
matched several DNA samples to those of abducted children. She also discovered
the disturbing fact that they had all been genetically engineered not to grow
old.
The Agency and
several other government enforcement agencies raided the camp. However
Chrysalis had gotten wind of the raid and armed the kids. Fawkes
broke this stand off by turning invisible and taking the camp counselors as
hostages. Mr. Stark, the head of the Chrysalis Corporation, allowed the
children to be taken without violence although he continued to claim that
legally Chrysalis owned the children. They had supplied the zygotes and eggs,
the mother's were merely incubators.
Alex Monroe had
been one of these living incubators. Unfortunately her abducted child was not
among those found in this camp.
In the next few
months Fawkes and the Agency encountered Arnaud de Fehrn twice and sting the Chrysalis once.
The past of the
Official, of the Agency and of Kevin Fawkes caused
trouble for the current agents. A man who was deaf, dumb and blind and whose
only remaining sense was touch used a device of his own making to see and hear
and speak. Desperate for help he broke into
A SWRB swat team
surrounded Fawkes, Hobbes and Walker. Fawkes and Hobbes were released from the SWRB by the
Official's efforts. They were told to forget about Tommy Walker. They disobeyed
orders and went back to the hospital. They discovered Tommy being tortured and
rescued him. Hobbes took Tommy to his house.
The SWRB blew up
Hobbes house to destroy all the evidence of the existence of the project
including Tommy Walker but Fawkes managed to rescue
Hobbes and Walker in time.
Under the
pretense that the Agency was strapped for cash the Official had Hobbes and Fawkes investigate an agency with a very large budget which
no one else in the government bureaucracy seemed to know about, The Agency of
Sequestered Seclusion. Hobbes and Fawkes checked the
Ass' payroll and discovered that most of the agency's money was going to dead
agents. Among these was Hobbes former partner. Hobbes and
As it turned out the Agency of
Sequestered Seclusion was a retired community for spies, in reality a large
holding pen for intelligence agents with blown covers. They were supposed to be
dead but living in this vast community without any chance of ever leaving. (12)
According to Hobbes and Fawkes report they met a man
who was the basis for the Avengers John Steed (13) Despite the chance to live a rather cushy life in early
retirement Hobbes and Fawkes are forced to find a way
to escape before Fawkes is taken over by the
Quicksilver madness. The Official later told them that he made a deal
with the Agency for Sequestered Seclusion that for a part of their operating
budget, he and his organization would keep quiet about the work that the Agency
of Sequestered Seclusion was doing. So helping to keep all
the retired spies "safe."
Chrysalis had
stolen a laser which could create lightning. Hobbes and Fawkes
were dispatched to retrieve it. In doing so Fawkes
was accidentally struck by lightning. Hobbes however thought that Fawkes had turned invisible and went after the Chrysalis
bad guys. Computer records search showed that a person matching Fawkes description had been admitted to a nearby hospital
suffering from amnesia. Stark, the head of the Chrysalis Corporation had also
discovered that Fawkes was amnesiac. Having arrived
before Hobbes and Monroe, Stark convinced Fawkes that
he was his boss at the CIA. He was leaving with Fawkes
when Hobbes and Monroe arrived to stop him. In the ensuing gun battle Fawkes escaped. He went to the local police precinct only
to discover that he had a rap sheet. The police tried to arrest Fawkes and he turned invisible. Stark and his goons had
followed Fawkes and captured him once more. Another
invisible man showed and rescued him from Stark. The other invisible man told Fawkes he was Fawkes brother
Kevin and that they were both the result of a government experiment, test tube
babies grown to be super agents. Kevin was permanently invisible. They needed
to break their other brother Johnny out of prison because he was the only one
that could reverse Kevin's disability.
After a few routine cases Fawkes and the gang got word of another Chrysalis youth
camp. The raid was successful and the children were rescued.
In one of the
most important cases, so far as we are concerned, Fawkes
and Hobbes were assigned along with agents from various agencies to help locate
and neutralize a NSA sniper named Forrester Perdue. Forrester had been a sniper
who "neutralized" foreign assassins for the U.S government for nearly
30 years but no one knew what he looked like.
For reasons which they did not
bother to explain, The NSA figured Perdue would go after some foreign dignitary
at an embassy reception. (14)
Hobbes and Fawkes located the best sniper spot and
The next day Fawkes went to see his grandmother. Forrester was her
married name. He was certain that Forrester Perdue was his father, whom he
believed had walked out on his Mother, Kevin, and him. Forrester Perdue was a
small-time thief who'd disappeared without a trace.
Hobbes and Fawkes visited the NSA main office and managed to swipe
Perdue's file. It had been his handler who had reported that Perdue had gone
rogue. Perdue's list of assignments matched up with Mason Fawke's
rap sheet. Everything matched up until 1975 when his file became
classified (16)
Fawkes paid another visit to his Grandmother. While he
looked over the family album, Hobbes spotted a bunch of spooks surrounding the
house. Hobbes surprised them and Fawkes and Hobbes
gave chase. They were lead into a trap. They were as good as dead until Mason Fawkes used his sharp shooting skills to help them get
away. Mason Fawkes explained to
Mason Fawkes disappeared once more.
Darien Fawkes received a gift basket of wine from a local winery
from Arnaud de Fehrn. Enclosed was an invitation to
see him. Fawkes and Hobbes thought this was a joke
because last time they had encountered Arnaud he had been
invisible. Fawkes and Hobbes visited the
winery and found it to be a Chrysalis front. Fawkes
investigated while in the invisible mode and found a visible Arnaud in a
laboratory. Arnaud's quicksilver gland was in a jar. Chrysalis had been able to
remove Arnaud's gland without killing him and had successfully cloned other
glands from Arnaud's. However they needed Arnaud's adrenaline to activate their
glands. Arnaud was Chrysalis permanent guest and wanted Fawkes
to rescue him.
After Arnaud
killed his guard Chrysalis became alerted to a problem in the Winery. Arnaud
managed to break Fawkes out of the winery just as Fawkes became stricken with quicksilver madness. Over the
past few months Fawkes' body had grown increasingly
immune to the counteragent. He needed higher and more frequent doses of the
counteragent to function normally. Arnaud claimed that he could cure the
quicksilver madness. To ensure his cooperation, Fawkes
shot Arnaud in the leg and then took him to the Keeper.
Arnaud explained
Chrysalis' plan: They genetically engineered themselves to stay at age 25
forever. Their long-term goal is to take over the world — and, since
they're functionally immortal, they can take their time. (17) Arnaud
had no idea what their short-term use was for the Quicksilver farm.
Hobbes and Fawkes returned to the winery but found that the quicksliver that taken but the cloned quicksilver glands
had been planted in a bunch of cows. A booby that had been left behind by
Chrysalis triggered. The cows and the winery disappeared in an explosion.
After finishing
his work with Claire Arnaud escaped taking with him his knowledge of the cure
for quicksilver madness. Or so it appeared. The Keeper told
Although the
television show claimed that Darien Fawkes joined the
FBI after leaving the Agency and worked there for a short time before returning
to the fold of the Agency with a higher negotiated salary, this was merely
dramatic license. (18) Fawkes never left the Agency but did manage to negotiate
for more money by threatening to do so.
Fawkes and Hobbes discovered what Chrysalis did with the
supply of quicksilver it had created. An invisible force was devastating crops
of genetically engineered wheat and corn in the
This small
victory against Chrysalis is the last known case of Fawkes
and Hobbes
NOTES
1.Celia Forrester Walters was Mason Fawkes half sister, the daughter of Flora Cranley Forrester. Dr. Paul Walters was the son of Dr.
Sigmund Walters noted gland specialist and experimenter in cross species gland
implants. The result of one of Dr. Sigmund's experiments can be seen in the
following films Captive Wild Woman, Jungle
Woman, Jungle Captive. The Fawkes family connection to Invisibility is detailed in the
Frank Griffin jr.
section of this article. To recap,
2.The research encompassed the surviving records of John Hawley Griffin, Dr. Jack Griffin, Dr. Frank Griffin,Professor Drury,
Professor Gibbs, Professor Walter Grey, Dr. Willard Morthley, Dr. Kerry Griffin, Dr. Daniel Westin and the speculative notes of Bromwell Baxter on the experiments of William Carpenter.3.
Raffles was A. J. Raffles whose exploits were recorded by H. W. Hornug and later on by Barry Pernowe.
Robie was John Robie the
famed cat burglar depicted in To Catch a Thief,
Hewett was Thomas Edward Hewett
Cat, T.H.E. Cat. MacDougal was jewel thief extraordinaire Robert MacDougal
whose last known caper can be seen in Entrapment
4. OSI agent's Steve Austin and Jaimie
Sommers had two recorded encounters with the creature called Big Foot. These
encounters were among the cases written up and disseminated for public viewing
after changes had been name to protect national security, the lives of the
agents and of course for dramatic purposes. The episodes were shown in Season
Three, episodes 17 and 18 The Secret of Big Foot Part 1 and
2, and in Season 4 Episode 1 Big Foot Returns part 1 this was
continued in the Bionic Woman Season Two The Return of Bigfoot Part 2. Bigfoot
was a cyborg like Austin and Sommers although the
product of alien technology. The OSI had discovered a secret enclave of
alien scientists who were peacefully studying earth's cultures and societies
from a base in
The skin and tissue samples were collected from Steven Austin and Jaime Sommers
as a result of their contact with the Big Foot cyborg.
Although the Big Foot cyborg did not display the
ability to become invisible, it does not mean that he did not have that ability
or at least did not have that ability originally. The team of scientists had
repaired a dying and mutilated big Foot replacing his biosystems
with mechanical enhancements so that he could be their protector. It may
be that his quicksilver gland was injured or removed.
5. This may have been what actually occurred. Given Arnaud de
Thiel's rapid concoction of the manipulation of the
quicksilver gland, his creation of a counter agent for the quicksilver's
addictive agent Arnaud probably had access to a live specimen of the
Bigfoot. His connection with a nefarious society with knowledge of advanced
genetic research and cloning technology allowed
him to make a clone of the sasquatch. This gave him
an edge in understanding the quicksilver gland. The organization was
pragmatic enough to let someone else to the primary research for them and
Arnaud for all his genius was unable to come up with a protocol to adapt the
quicksilver organ for cross species transplantation on his own. He actually
needed Kevin Fawkes research.
6.
Oddly enough Simon Cole or at least his family had a previous encounter with invisibility.
Simon Cole's father was the noted businessman Henry "Blackie" Cole.
Although great very few people now know that Blackie Cole was born Heinreich Kohl and in the late thirties he was a bootlegger
and a bundist. Blackie Cole attempted to steal
the invisibility formula from Professor Gibbs. This episode cost him his freedom and
exposed him as an agent of the Third Reich. In 1943, Kohl struck a deal with
the justice department and in exchange for a pardon, gave them information on
various Nazi espionage rings operating in the
7.
Arnaud knew about the history of invisibility by his use of this
pseudonym. Whether or not he knew about
8.
Benjamin Scarborough seems to have been a member of one of the Blind Seer
families. The Blind Seers were an ongoing breeding program of the Nine which
bred men and women who could see future probabilities with a great degree of
depth, clarity and detail. Among the members of these families are Max Carrados, Matthew Murtagh the
Daredevil, Duncan McClain, Katherine Koluchy and even Peter Parker. For more details see
the Daredevil article.
9.
This sleeping clinic with its, uh sleeper agents, seems as if it used mind
control technology developed by Dr. Henry King during his brief stint as a CIA
"consultant" in the fifties. For more about Dr. King please see the Superman and Wonder Woman articles.
10. This business of
11. You may have noticed that a few bits of information that
had surfaced about the Organization otherwise known as Chrysalis Corporation.
They were heavily into genetic engineering and had been for some time. Long enough to have manipulated the DNA of Allianora
to create a mutation such as she possessed. They possessed cloning and
cryogenic technology. They kidnapped several scientists to use as slave labor.
They ran a series of fertility clinics and now we see that they train children
to be soldiers. These are also elements of other similar projects. The Centre for one with its Nu Genesis
fertility clinics. The study of genetics and the use of Eugenics formed
the Centre in the early twenties By James Clarke Wildman with the idea to
improve the lot of mankind. As part of its program it also provided information
and later fertility aid and adoption to
childless couples. After James Clarke Wildman jr disappeared in the forties, the Clinic lost its
funding and sought revenue otherwhere, It became
co-opted by the Nine and was used to further their aims of genetic research and
social control. At the Centre were created Pretenders who were to be the
ultimate infiltrators. See Brad Mengel's
Pretenders Among Us for further information. The Nine
were also involved in various military projects including the many Super
Solider projects.
An outgrowth of
the genetic engineering studies done at the Centre culminated in the Nine sponsored Chrysalis project created by Dr. Sarina Kaur which managed to
create a highly sophisticated scientific city in the middle of the Great Thar Desert in 1974. The project was infiltrated and
stopped by Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln. They rescued several of the children
before the project director Sarina Kaur destroyed the facility with a self destruct mechanism.
Among the children that were rescued was a clone of the child who would become
the ultimate Pretender, Jared. Many scientists also escaped. Some of them went
onto form the Chrysalis Corporation. Others such as Maggie Erikson
Walsh went to work for the
The Chrysalis
Corporations seems to be a synthesis of these various programs under a central
authority.
12.
This compound was based on the Village where special retired BSS agents are sent.
The ASS compound did not recreate the various mind games and psychological
tests and challenges which the BSS used to keep their retired agents mentally
and physically sharp should they ever be needed again. This compound was also
is very likely the same one that Jaime Sommers was sent to when she attempted
to retire from OSI as seen in the last show of the series, On the Run.
13.
Being a British Agent Jonathan Steed seems out of place in this retirement
community for
14.
The foreign dignitary was a Pakistani diplomat with ties to terrorist
organizations. This was actually an assignment given to Purdue prior to being
declared rogue.
15.
How did the assassin know where Fawkes was at? He saw
him. When quicksilvered
16. It was shortly after this that Mason Fawkes
once again began testing invisibility protocols. Yet these remained
unsuccessful. The name he used needs some explanation. Forrester came from his
biological mother's married name. Purdue was simple the University that Frank
Raymond had attended in happier times.
17. Although one of the goals of the Nine was to create an
alternate source of immortality rather than their elixir, the goal was to
create immortality for themselves and a few of their servants. Chrysalis was
probably not one of the organizations or institutes fostered or sponsored by
the Nine directly. Rather it seems to have been a private project by someone
with Nine ties, a servant of the Nine striking out on
his own. After XauXaz had died or appeared to have died. After
Grandrith and Caliban had succeeded in killing off most of the core members of
the Nine, a new Nine had formed although it was fragmented, decentralized and
often at cross purposes. This lack of control allowed for servants to gain
power that they had not previously had. One of these was the mysterious figure
known as Stark whose shocking story can be seen at
this location.
18.
For one thing given its rather strict hiring practices it is unlikely that Fawkes would have been hired as a special agent since he
did not have a degree of any sort. Also if he were hired as support personnel
it is unlikely that he would have been put on a case so rapidly, he would have
had to gone through intensive training and indoctrination.
SEBASTIAN CAINE 1958-1999
Concurrent with the
career of Darien Fawkes at the Agency there also occurred the mercifully brief experience of Dr. Sebastian Caine as an invisible man.
Dr. Caine headed a project funded by the military specifically
to make a viable, safe and reliable method of achieving invisibility. Dr. Caine's team used all of the available methods and
protocols of the previous forms of invisibility and blended them into a new
protocol that utilized chemical, genetic engineering and quantum physics. (1) The
chemical formulas were based on the original Griffin
formula using monocaine or duocaine
derivations. Dr. Caine labeled his new formulation as
SBcaine. The quantum mechanics utilized were advances
of the original techniques first used by Dr. Daniel Westin
who apparently never achieved reversal of his condition.
Dr. Caine was fascinated by the problem of invisibility because
it was something that had stumped many brilliant men and he knew that if he
achieved what they could not, it would not only forever make him renowned in
the annals of science it would prove the immensity of his brilliance.
Dr. Caine's team achieved invisibility with relative ease,
regression proved to be the main problem. The bodies of the subjects could not
withstand the strain of regression and their cellular structures ruptured.
Another problem with Caine's team's invisibility
protocol was that the chemical elements of SB-Caine
like the previous formulations of monocaine or duocaine,
brought about aggressive and violent behavior. Even a test subject gorilla,
normally the most placid of the great apes, became
violent and bloodthirsty. Dr. Caine thought this a
negligible problem that could be addressed once regression had been achieved.
Sebastian Caine had become involved in the invisibility project
through the efforts of his former professor and mentor Dr. Howard Kramer.
Kramer as well as being a top flight physicist in his own right was also an old
friend of the family as was Dr. Nathan Waldman, who was the mentor of
Sebastian's sister, Samantha. (2)
Sebastian or his parents probably
never knew about their connection to the
With the loss of
his financial records, the continued freeze out of his business by the other
brokers Robert Caine found that he was unable to
trade effectively on the stock market from late summer to early fall of 1929.
In retrospect this turned out to be a good thing for he was not hit too badly
when the great crash came in October. Robert had been forced to find other
avenues of income. Although he had tried to walk the straight and narrow since
leaving prison, society would not let him forget his youthful indiscretions and
so Robert Caine jr. began to once again associate
with the criminal element. (3) He did
not become a full fledged criminal in the sense of actively stealing or
embezzling. Instead he used his contacts with the criminal element to become a
bank roller of heist jobs, of various criminal activities, he invested in book
operations, hook operations and hooch operations. He laundered money for his
criminal associates by investing it in various front businesses. Caine and Son Brokerage house appeared to be a middling
prosperous investment house.
Nathaniel Caine seemed to inherit Robert's mathematical skills and understood
financial matters at an early age. This seemed to allay Robert's suspicion that
Nathaniel was William Carpenter's child until he remembered William Carpenter
had been a financial as well as a scientific genius. Nathaniel was genius in
mathematics and specialized in economics. He was aware of his father business
associates from an early age, especially after 1948 when his father began
helping associates set up businesses in
Nathaniel Caine decided to do his thesis on the socio-economics of
gambling and so visited
Without
discussing the matter with anyone Nathaniel Caine
pieced together what Noel Peterson was doing through various conversations with
people in the casinos and by observation of her play techniques and patterns of
wins and losses. She worked for three different parties; one was the
Furthermore Noel
Peterson used her card play to send coded messages to certain croupiers and
players. Nathaniel found himself drawn to this beautiful and very intelligent
young woman.
As a lark he
played against her and sent her messages via the same code. He thwarted her
play that evening despite her best efforts to play around him. She signaled him
to stop playing a dangerous game and left the card game to play craps and make
up her losses .
Later that night
Nathaniel Caine was visited by a couple of goons who
beat him senseless and dragged him out of his room. He was taken blindfolded to
a location in the hills to an office in a tobacco warehouse. He was tied to a
chair and interrogated by a member of the Cuban Secret police while a
distinguished, middle-aged man of European descent watched with detached
interest.
After Caine was tortured for a few hours, the distinguished man
signaled for the interrogation to stop. The man was certain that Nathaniel knew
nothing of their activities. Since Nathaniel had broken the code by mere
observation, the distinguished man offered him a job that he could take or he
could die.
Nathaniel Caine began working with the Krafthaus
at that moment. His new employer introduced himself as Carl Peterson jr. He was Noel's father.
As Nathaniel Caine recuperated in the hospital, Noel Peterson visited
him. She was very upset that he had been tortured for his interest in her. They
began dating while Caine finished his research in
Upon finishing
his thesis, Nathaniel Caine became a Professor of
Economics at a small university in
To sweeten the
pot, Noel mentioned that she too was moving to
Nathaniel Caine made friends with the other members of the think
tank. A couple of them had ties to the Intelligence community. Nathaniel's task
for the Krafthaus was to pass along information the Krafthaus determined was pertinent to their needs. Since
this was mainly financial in nature, Caine did not
feel as though he was being disloyal to his nation.
Despite her
checkered past and the shadiness of her family tree, (6) Noel
Peterson was basically an honest woman who reluctantly worked for the Krafthaus. She was braver in withholding information than
was Nathaniel, possibly because having grown up around the organization she
knew how it worked and how to work around the system.
Noel Peterson Caine bore two children. The first of these was a girl
named Samantha Caine born in 1954. The second was
Sebastian Caine born in 1958. Neither Nathaniel nor
Noel hid their families' past from their children. They encouraged them to
follow their dreams. They were also rather indulgent and both children grew up
head strong and arrogant. Samantha idolized her adventuress grandmother and was
intrigued by the espionage game. One of Nathaniel's fellow think tank members
saw her potential and exploited it. Samantha Caine
became a government counter intelligence, anti-terrorist agent and assassin (7) She
disappeared while on a mission to eliminate a terrorist named Daedalus in late 1988 (8) Part
of her life is chronicled in the film Long
Kiss Goodnight. The names of her false identity and her real name are
transposed in the film either for deliberate misinformation or because the
writers became confused as to which was which.
While growing up
Sebastian Caine was fully aware that his ancestry
included some of the most brilliant if nefarious men in the recent history of
world. This was even without knowing of his descent from John Hawley Griffin or
William Carpenter. He became a brilliant biochemist with an interest in quantum
physics and laser technology. Sebastian was also a border line socio-path who
believed that the world and all the people in it had been put there to serve
his needs and feed his ego.
Although he had
been brought onto the invisibility project to iron out the wrinkles and create
a safe, reliable protocol to create an invisible soldier, he rapidly began to
think of the project as his own. Although Sebastian Caine
built on the work of others, he felt that his improvements allowed him to claim
responsibility for the entire protocol. Although he had other scientists
working under him, he consider them to be his
underlings in intellect and status therefore he deserved all of the credit.
To achieve his
goals Sebastian Caine had no qualms about crossing
ethical boundaries or cutting corners in his research. The primary goal so far
as Sebastian was concerned was to make the project a success at any cost and
the success of the project would allow Sebastian to achieve the renown he
deserved, including the Nobel prize.
Sebastian had
been romantically involved with Dr. Linda McKay, a fellow scientist on the
project. It rankled him that she had ended their
relationship. This was not because he had a deep, abiding love for her but
rather because he considered her his possession. It should have been his
decision when to end the relationship. We can see one aspect of his borderline
socio-pathic personality manifested in his
relationship with her.
Sebastian had
wanted a sex partner to be available whenever he had the urge. Romance had not
really entered the picture. Even though they were no longer dating, when
Sebastian suspected that she was dating someone else it angered him. This was
not because he was jealous as much as he felt someone used one of his
possessions without permission.
In addition to
his desire for recognition Sebastian was obsessed with controlling those around
him. He was also obsessed with sex and saw all women as his possible sexual
conquests. Despite his charm and good looks, Sebastian Caine
had trouble connecting with women. It might have been his arrogance or because
he viewed every woman as a possible conquest that made women avoid him. It may
have been that they sensed his deeper problems. His need to
control and manipulate people and his propensity for violence.
In the early stages
of the invisibility project, a gorilla had successfully been made invisible. On
occasion she escaped from her cage. Instead of conducting a methodical search
which would have returned the ape to her cage without too much disturbance or
distress. Sebastian made these occasions into a hunting game. Armed with dart
guns and thermal visors Caine and his fellow
scientists would chase the already confused and frightened ape thorough the
labyrinth of the lab. It was cruel and unnecessary, something that the project
veterinarian protested on every occasion. Yet Sebastian saw it as a contest in
which he could once more prove his superiority over his fellow team members. He
did not need the thermal visors, most of the time he could sense or almost see
the invisible ape and shoot it. It was in this manner that he acted out his
violent impulses.
One night with a
sudden insight Sebastian Caine broke the chemical
code that would enable the team to bring about regression. The trial went very
well with the ape, although the strain nearly killed her.
Sebastian Caine lied to his team mates and told them that they had
been given the go-ahead to begin human testing. As project leader he insisted
that he be the first to undergo the process just in case there were any flaws
in the process. He claimed he did not want to risk anyone else life. Sebastian
lied. Sebastian had been absolutely certain that the process was infallible. He
had designed it after all. He just wanted the glory of being the first
invisible man (9).
Despite
Sebastian's great genius, the process was flawed. Although they were able to
make the gorilla invisible and regress her, the
process did not work on human beings. Sebastian was stuck in his invisible
form. The monocaine and duocaine
derivations in the new protocol acted on his brain very rapidly because of
Sebastian Caine's barely restrained psychopathology.
Within hours of
becoming invisible, Sebastian Caine sexually molested
a fellow team worker while she slept. Even though this
was confined to exposing, kissing and fondling her breasts, it demonstrates his
lack of inhibition and reinforces the fact that he viewed other people as mere
objects to be manipulated by him.
The team members
tracked him by infra camera and an infra red camera was pointed at his bed to
make certain that they knew when he was sleeping. Because his invisibility was
unnerving, a latex costume and mask were devised. As the days passed Sebastian's
behavior became increasingly agitated and violent. When the laboratory animals'
noises irritated him, he killed them. Sebastian liked being invisible, it made
him feel powerful (10). He
started thinking of his fellow team members as his enemies because they wished
to bring an end to his power.
The project was
centered in an government sponsored laboratory. It
appeared as though it were an abandoned warehouse. Once you passed through
several doorways and entered a voice print activated elevator and traveled
several stories underground you were in a highly modern laboratory.
Sebastian rigged
the camera to show a looping image of his infra red sleeping form. He sneaked
out of the laboratory vault to the outside world. He first took the opportunity
to spy on Linda McKay to see whom the guy she had chosen over him. Linda's new
beau was Matthew Kensington, another member of Caine's
team. Caine saw this as an absolute betrayal. He
resolved to remain invisible and to take whatever measures were needed to
secure that condition.
Before returning
to the vault he took care of some unfinished business. The woman who lived
across the street from him was a sexual tease. She often undressed before the
open window, clearly her intent was to tempt anyone
with powerful binoculars such as Sebastian Caine
possessed.
Sebastian
followed her into her apartment, watched her take a shower and then when he
could no longer control himself sexually assaulted her. Although
the after effects of the rape were not recorded in the filmed version of these
incidents. The woman became certain that she had been assaulted by a
poltergeist. Her recurrent nightmares lead to her being treating for clinical
depression.
Sebastian
returned as to the vault as if nothing had happened.
The other team
members were frightened and angry that he had gone out. They changed the
security protocols so that he would be unable to get out of the vault unless
accompanied by another member of the team.
Sebastian merely
rewrote the security programming to suit his needs. He had decided to clean
house, remove all the people who knew about the project, to destroy all records
of the project and then do as he wished among the inferior masses.
Sebastian Caine left the vault again. He visited the home of his
friend and mentor Dr. Howard Kramer and made it appear
as though Dr. Kramer drowned his pool. He erased all records off of Kramer's
computers about the existence of the project. He then visited General Caster
and made it appear as though he suffered an accidental death. Sebastian
returned to the project. He made certain that everyone was in the vault and had
them sealed it by programming the security system on
the elevator so that it would only respond to his voice and finger prints.
Sebastian played
his hunting game for the last time as he picked off his team members one by
one. Sebastian took great pleasure in killing them even while he was being hunted.
Linda McKay and
Matthew Kensington managed to elude Sebastian, although both were nearly killed
by him. They climbed up the elevator shaft to freedom as the laboratory was
destroyed by Sebastian's home made bombs. Sebastian Caine
died either a result of his wounds sustained in his hunting game or from the
explosion that destroyed his laboratory.
The filmed
version of the story of Sebastian Caine was called Hollow Man, although this was perhaps inspired by the of the
latex suit that Caine wore, which appeared as he were
a humanoid skin without an interior, it was also rather appropriate title in
terms of his character. Caine was outwardly handsome,
charming and to a certain extent sociable but this was only a facade. He was an
emotionless, opportunist whose ambition and desires were his only real
substance. Sebastian Caine was a hollow man because
he was essentially a man without a soul.
NOTES
1. Apparently the progenitors of this project were unaware of
the quicksilver program. This was probably another case of one hand not knowing
what the other is doing.
2.It is uncertain as to whether Dr. Howard
Kramer was actually named Howard Kramer. His actual name may have actually been
Thomas Janeway. Janeway was
a intelligent, savvy and dedicated intelligence
officer who was willing to sacrifice his own men and work with despicable
people for the good of his nation. He was originally a naval intelligence
officer with training in physics. Janeway
joined a think tank along with some other young academics who wished to take a
more proactive role in their nation's security. The think tank became the
Division and among its members were "Doc" Levy, Nathan Waldman,
Thomas Janeway, Nathaniel Caine,
Noel Peterson Caine and a few others whose names have
not been released.
In one of their intelligence operations Levy was killed and Thomas
Janeway was seriously injured. He retired
from field work after this incident. He retained his seat in Division but also
became more active in physics and taught at the University level.
3. When Robert Caine jr. father had been
convicted of embezzlement, Robert Caine jr. had
turned to crime to pay for his father's legal fees. During his criminal career
Robert Caine jr. used the pseudonym
Johnny Apollo. By an odd coincidence, Robert Caine
sr. and Robert Caine jr. ended up in the same prison
4.
Among the clients that brought properties through Caine
and Son was Hagen & Associates. This prominent law firm's most famous and
largest clients were the Corleone
and Sabatini crime families.
5. For more on Krafthaus please see
Win Eckert's The Original Wold Newton Universe Crossover
Chronology Part III , The Man from Uncle Chronology, Win Eckert's Malevolent Moriartys
article and my Lethal Luthors
article.
6.
Noel Peterson was the daughter of Carl Peterson jr. Carl Peterson Jr. was the
son of Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond's greatest foe. Carl Peterson fought
Hugh Drummond jr twice in
the mid-sixties. There is some speculation that this was the original Bull Dog
Drummond. See Win Eckert's Malevolent Moriartys and
Brad Mengels The Daring
Drummonds for fuller details. Carl Peterson was the grandson of Professor
Moriarty through the casual marriage of John Clay and Urania
Moriarty. He was the brother of Dr. Caber. He was the half brother of Lawrence Luthor the Ultra-Humanite, Lex Luthor, Scott Luthor a.k.a. Dr. Evil and David Luthor
a.k.a. D.D. Warburton a.k.a. Daddy Warbucks. Carl
Peterson had become romantically involved with criminal genius named Fidelity
Dove. Fidelity Dove was an extremely beautiful woman with a regrettable
tendency towards law-breaking. She used her gang and her own not-inconsiderable
talents to help others who've been wronged by criminals and the authorities;
she also made sure that by the end of the caper she was financially ahead, usually
substantially so. Part of her biography is in The Exploits of Fidelity Dove
(1924) by Roy Vickers.
Fidelity Dove became involved with Carl Peterson jr. in late 1928. They were
married in 1929. He managed to conceal from her what his true profession was
until mid 1930, she believed that he was an insurance
broker. By the time she discovered his deception she was pregnant with their
child. After Noel was born Fidelity tried to reform Carl, motherhood apparently
having reformed her. He tired of her attempts. When she tried to take Noel and
leave, Carl arranged for evidence from her previous criminal career to find its
way into Inspector Rason, Fidelity's old nemesis.
Fidelity was sent away for her previous crimes. Carl Peterson jr. took full
possession of their child.
Noel Peterson became an agent of the Krafthaus at an
early age, her size and age making her able to accomplish many tasks which an
adult could not do such as listen to conversations without arousing suspicion
or gaining entrance to small rooms or windows.
7. We are not certain which agency trained and employed
Samantha Caine as an assassin and anti-terrorist
agent; it may have been The Shop or possibly the agency which also employed
Jonathan Hemlock.
8.
Samantha Caine created a cover identity to get close
to Daedalus. The cover identity was Charlene
Elizabeth Balitmore. Daedalus
was successful in turning a fellow agent against Samantha. He drugged her,
sexually assaulted her and threw her off a sea side cliff.
Samantha did not die but she had a severe head trauma and had amnesia. A few
weeks later she would discover she was pregnant. Over the next eight years she
would live as Charley Baltimore and become a school teacher and single mother.
A private detective she had hired to investigate her background had a
breakthrough, which lead to her remembering the identity as Samantha Caine, government agent. The film version of these events
transposed her identities so that Samantha Caine was
the happy homemaker and Charley Baltimore was the assassin. Whether this was
done deliberately or by mistake is unknown.
9.
The fact that many others had previously been documented to have become
invisible was beside the point. Sebastian Caine would
have become the first acknowledged invisible man, and so in his eyes the first
legitimate one.
10.
There was good reason for his powerful feelings. As in the previous Invisible
men, Sebastian Caine displayed strength and stamina
beyond those of ordinary men. John Hawley Griffin and Jack Griffin had walked naked
through winters in temperatures that should have killed them by exposure with
little more than a feeling of deep chill. Sebastian was able to lift a man off
of the floor while hanging upside down; he was able to walk naked through a
cold night after diving into a heated pool. This version of the formula may
have had even regenerative capabilities for Sebastian was able to overcome
being severely burned, electrocuted, being hit over the head with a crowbar and
a minor explosion that should have killed him.