Just in time for the Supergirl premiere, President-level Patron Brian selected HANK HENSHAW! Learn how this pastiche of Reed Richards became a fully fleshed out character AFTER he lost all his flesh!
SHOW NOTES:
- Introduction
- Background
- Created by Dan Jurgens in Adventures of Superman #465 (May 1990)
- Originally a parody of the Fantastic Four, he, his wife, and two other members of a space shuttle encounter cosmic radiation – Hank suffers no effects initially other than white hair, but his body eventually decays – he transfers his consciousness to a computer
- He appears to his wife in a robot body, and she jumps out a window
- He then transfers his body to Superman’s birthing matrix to journey into space
- Comes to believe that Superman was responsible for the shuttle accident, and vows vengeance
- After Superman’s death, Hank creates a cyborg body and claims to be Superman reborn, in order to destroy his reputation – manages to convince Lois he really is Clark due to vague memories from the birthing matrix
- Defeats the Eradicator, another Superman claimant, and Coast City is destroyed in the aftermath – Cyborg claims Eradicator was responsible
- Plans to destroy Metropolis with a warhead, but is stopped by Steel, Supergirl, and the resurrected Superman – attacks Eradicator with a blast of kryptonite radiation, which passes through Eradicator to Superman, and restores his powers
- Superman punches a hole through Cyborg’s body and kills him
- Later on, we discover Hank had transferred his consciousness to a device on Doomsday, who is floating in space – Hank’s mind takes over an Apokolips fighter and creates a new body to take over the planet – is defeated by Darkseid’s Omega Beams
- He gets captured into a small orb, which Darkseid releases him from if he promises to never return to Apokolips
- Helps a Tribunal capture several Kryptonians, including Superman – he turns on the Tribunal, and is punished by being sent to an event horizon
- Later is revealed to be in charge of Manhunters, which he has upgraded with Kryptonian technology
- His head is taken to Sinestro, and serves the Anti-Monitor so he can later die and rest in peace
- Most of his body is destroyed by the Green Lanterns, but he is resurrected by the Manhunters and is not happy about it
- Helps Ganthet save the Green Lanterns, because he wants to use the information to make himself mortal again
- His consciousness ends up merged with Boodikka until she fights a resurrected Doomsday, and he creates another body – his nanotech merges with the damaged Doomsday to become Cyborg Doomsday – Doomsday removes Henshaw from his body, and his consciousness is captured by STAR Labs
- New 52 – soft reboot of character – Hank is only survivor of a 10 year journey on board a space shuttle, but has no memory of the trip – thanks to Mxyzptlk, he remembers the pre-New 52 mindset of Cyborg Superman, and begins recruiting Superman villains to battle the Man of Steel
- Issues (18:44)
- Brian – “Why does Hank hate Superman so much?”
- Has a death wish that cannot be fulfilled because he’s an inorganic consciousness (25:05)
- Treatment (30:33)
- In-universe
- Out-of-universe
- Skit
- Ending
References:
- Max Landis’ “Death and Return of Superman” video – Anthony – 9:00
- Steel – Anthony – 11:23
- Justice League – Superman’s “World of Cardboard” speech – Dr. Issues – 24:09
- Office Space – “Today is the worst part of my life” – Anthony – 27:28
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