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In the mid-1930s, the rescue of his adopted son, and murder of his kidnappers, by a mysterious stranger first led Baltimore police detective Richard Tracy to investigate rumors among the underworld of a faceless man known as The Blank. At first, it appeared that the Blank aspired to take upon the role of nocturnal, urban vigilante much like The Shadow in New York, but Tracy soon found that his true intentions were far less altruistic. The Blank’s victims had all been members of a gang which included Frank Redrüm, who’d supposedly died while escaping from prison ten years before. By this time, the only surviving member the police could find was a heavily bearded, jowly sea captain named ”Stud” Bronzen. Ultimately, the Blank was captured by Detective Pat Patton in the midst of attempting to murder Tracy and Bronzen with a decompression chamber aboard the latter’s salvage vessel. In custody, the Blank’s “face” (or rather its lack thereof) was quickly found to just be a patch of flesh-colored cheesecloth glued to his face, and easy to remove. He was revealed to be, as suspected, Frank Redrüm, his face heavily scarred by a prison guard’s gun blast, which caused his fellow criminals to abandon him years ago, a betrayal for which The Blank had taken revenge1.
At the beginning of this adventure, Junior Tracy’s kidnappers recognized The Blank, yet they were supposedly his first victims from his old gang. From this I propose that Frank Redrüm had already hunted down other criminals, perhaps those who had also rejected him, both to facilitate a reputation in gangland as a force to be reckoned with, and to test his tactics. He needed the practice – his mask was difficult to see through, so he depended upon surprise and trickery to conquer his enemies rather than direct confrontation. Redrüm’s run as the Blank was well-publicized, being the first (and only) of the mysterious vigilantes of the Thirties to be successfully caught by the police. And so began a series of events, inspiring one after another, about men without faces, as well as men with too many...
Not long after the Blank was captured, stories trickled in from France of a murderous nobleman defeated by a faceless derelict. This man with no face was Charles Maire, a young socialite whose sister Karel had been stalked by the Duc d’Orterre. The Duc was reportedly the leader of a gang of Apaches2 suspected in a sudden rash of prostitute disappearances, and a mad scientist to boot as Charles soon learned. Due to Charles’s interference regarding his sister, the Duc had him kidnapped and tortured, using him as a guinea pig for some of his inventions. This included a form of plastic which when solidified was porous and could even be breathed through, which the Duc hoped could be utilized as synthetic flesh3. Inspired by Redrüm’s ruse, the Duc used a powerful adhesive to glue a patch of this plastic over Charles’s face, all the while keeping him drugged so he’d believe a ray device that the Duc had been fiddling with – an experimental laser – had dissolved the tissues of his face. This caused a mental block which kept Charles convinced that his face had been remolded into a solid wall of flesh, even though he could still breathe, speak, and even see with some difficulty. He was then dumped on the streets of Paris, the Duc hoping that Charles would eventually either starve to death or accidentally kill himself by trying to cut his “face” back open.
The Duc soon afterwards approached Karel with a marriage proposal, and had her kidnapped when she refused. Thankfully, a strange American wearing a bat-motif cloak and mask helped Charles to rescue her from the Duc, who planned to feed her to a bizarre carnivorous plant which he’d found and been nurturing with victims brought to him by the Apaches, once he had access to her inheritance. During this rescue, the Batman would encounter this plant, which seemed to have mild telepathic powers and whose blossoms replicated the faces of the women it’d eaten4, but escaped unharmed. He was also able to free Charles of his mask, having deduced the reality of Charles’s apparent mutilation since his senses and speech were plainly unimpaired. The Duc d’Orterre, meanwhile, tried to escape in a panic and was apparently killed, driving his automobile off a cliff and into a ravine5.
The reality was that the Duc had survived and fled back to his homeland of Germany, where he continued his research into energy weapons and super-adhesives for the Nazi party under his real name, Baron Heinrich Zemo. He also became a faceless man, of a sort, using a loose velvet hood to cover his face while in public so as to protect the Third Reich from propaganda. This threat existed as he was in danger of being recognized as the Duc d’Orterre after Germany occupied France, as well as having discredited himself in his own country after an early experiment in lasers had devastated a village near his ancestral castle. This hood became permanently affixed to his head when a container of his experimental Adhesive X was accidentally shattered and poured onto him during a commando raid of his lab6, ironically visiting upon Zemo the same fate which he’d afflicted Charles Maire. Returning vengeance upon Captain America for this accident would define Baron Zemo for the rest of his life, which ended in the mid-1960s after the hero had returned to public eye7. Years later, Zemo’s son, Helmut, would also seek vengeance upon the Captain, only to be severely scarred when he fell into a vat of boiling Adhesive X8. Although he eventually recreated his father’s synthetic flesh experiments to give himself a normal face at times, Helmut inevitably returned to his father’s featureless hood in his schemes as the new Baron Zemo.
(Incidentally, it should be noted here that, despite a resemblance in costumes, there’s no known connection between the Zemos and terrorist Norman Saint-Sauvage. Briefly the leader of the subversive organization KAOS, Saint-Sauvage was actually a mad duplicate of Nino Salvatore Sebastiani, a scientist experimenting in instant cloning, done by reverse-engineering a food replicator from a salvaged alien spaceship. Creating the identity of an eccentric fashion designer, the duplicate’s futuristic garb included a hood, supposedly to filter out contaminants in the air, which disturbingly replicated Helmut Zemo’s appearance9.)
Back in America, the Batman had returned home with notes from the Duc’s lab on his synthetic flesh experiments, which he hoped would help doctors in finding ways to treat scars and skin diseases. World War II began soon afterwards, however, and experimentation would not begin again until the Axis powers were defeated and reconstruction of Europe and Asia had begun. In the late Forties, the papers were copied and lent to gifted dermatologists and medical researchers around the world, a program organized by Bruce Wayne in the hopes that someone would perfect the formula and its application. Unfortunately, by the late Fifties, Wayne learned of incidents where this research had been misused for reasons that were selfish at best... the mark of a madman at worst.
In Japan, a psychiatrist with ties to those experimenting with Zemo’s notes asked for special help in treating a patient going through a horrific identity crisis. This patient was a businessman named Okuyama, whose face had been destroyed by a chemical explosion, and was arranged to be given a mask of experimental artificial flesh which could be worn in twelve-hour intervals. However, at the psychiatrist’s suggestion, the mask did not recreate Okuyama’s features, but instead gave him an entirely different face. This was done both to test the psychiatrist’s theories about personal identity, as well as for concern that Okuyama’s feelings of self-worth and identity had become too tied with the loss of his original face for him to wear an exact replica. Unfortunately, this had the result of Okuyama exhibiting a different personality while wearing the mask, which resulted in him seducing his wife while posing as a stranger, as well as murdering his psychiatrist, followed by a psychotic breakdown where he hallucinated that he was surrounded by faceless people10.
Worse still was the incident of Professor Genessier, a French scientist who had successfully found a use for synthetic skin in the then-experimental field of skin grafting. Unfortunately, his daughter Christianne was disfigured in a car crash, which Genessier had caused while drunk. Determined to restore Christianne’s beauty at any cost, Genessier found that it would require completely removing another woman’s face. Perhaps also inspired by the murders of mad Dr. Wells, Genessier faked his daughter’s death and then took to luring to his mansion young women, whom he used in his experiments to perfect his grafting techniques. While the police hunted for a serial killer who mutilated his victims’ faces, Christianne, made to wear a featureless mask, was forced to confront her own past obsession with beauty, as well as the loss of her fiancé. After Genessier’s first operation failed due to tissue rejection, Christianne became unbalanced and released a pack of dogs, maddened by their use as guinea pigs, upon her father11.
Shortly thereafter, tragedy also struck a local New York doctor whom Wayne had personally contracted for this program. After many years of research, Dr. Paul Dent had reached a point in his synthetic flesh experiments where he began accepting volunteers for treatment. Unfortunately, one volunteer who came to Dent to have a scar removed was actually a criminal, Bart Magan, who then kidnapped Dent. Magan devised an intricate plan by which his gang would replace valued objects with faces – masks, statues, clocks, etc. – with cheap copies which Magan would destroy before they could be found out. Magan did so while wearing a patch of Dent’s artificial skin over his face and calling himself Dr. No-Face, hoping to cultivate the illusion that No-Face was Dr. Dent, driven insane by a failed experiment which destroyed his face. From his previous experience with Charles Maire’s delusion, Batman easily saw through Magan’s scheme and eventually captured him and his gang, rescuing Dr. Dent12. Unfortunately, Dent’s artificial skin was flawed, as its prolonged use on wounds communicated an unforeseen toxicity, and so Magan later died, poisoned by the treatment upon his scar.
With time, Dent could have corrected this fault in his formula, but Magan’s inane scheme had been the last straw. Wayne used his government contacts to retrieve all artificial skin information, which he then turned over to the federal government. Professor Aristotle Rodor would update the process using a bonding gas to apply the synthetic flesh, which he named “Pseudoderm”, to real skin. Unfortunately, the toxicity problem remained, rendering it useless for medicine. Pseudoderm did make for convincing masks, however, and so Rodor then offered it to the government’s intelligence agencies, where it soon became part and parcel to the Impossible Missions Force13.
This would result in the
next faceless man, an investigative news reporter named Victor Szasz. Better known by his on-air name Vic Sage, he was
a right-wing but philosophically alert TV journalist whose early life is shrouded in mystery. What is known is that he
was raised in an orphanage, a potentially abusive environment where his ruminations on justice and fairness may have begun,
as well as identity issues which would push him towards a “faceless man” masquerade. Some Wold Newton
researchers believe him to be a son unknowingly fathered by “deceased” criminologist Denny Colt, alias The Spirit,
with his occasional foe, the Parisian libertine P’gell14.
In the mid-Sixties, Vic Sage was investigating the international black market, and happened to learn of a secret exchange where government equipment was going to be sold to third world powers. The exchange was masterminded by Rodor’s assistant, Arby Twain, and among the items he was smuggling was Pseudoderm. Learning what Twain was up to, Rodor tried to stop this sale himself and so bumped into Sage. Rodor gave Sage an unformed Pseudoderm mask to hide his identity when confronting Twain, and thus was born The Question, a name evocative of his eerie appearance, his investigative style of crime-fighting, and Sage’s own musings on right and wrong15. Sage operated as the Question for a few years, possibly fed information by Rodor’s superiors on criminal activities which did not warrant a standard IMF team.
This ended when the Question started investigating a series of Richard Speck-like murders, only for the Batman to catch the killer first, a nihilistic madman named Victor Zsasz16. Feeling upstaged by Batman and unnerved by what he could only consider a doppelganger, Sage began to massively reevaluate his life. As a result, Sage became an ardent Objectivist, believing that the answer to his questions was simply a matter of black and white, with the idea of moral grey areas a bleeding heart view of moral corruption. Breaking his ties with Rodor and the IMF, Sage moved to Chicago where he changed his name to Rex Graine17, a newspaper reporter, and more than occasionally an editorialist. To denote his new wisdom, and because the Pseudoderm mask was sometimes difficult to see through, he also abandoned the identity of the Question, assuming the armored visage of Mr. A18.
Supposedly, the government took over the use of the Question identity, giving it to a series of agents thereafter19. If the modern stories by DC Comics are to be believed, the current Question is former police detective Renee Montoya20. When considering the suggestion of a continuing lineage of faceless government agents, of interest are visionaries who have reported of a possible future where Rodor’s Pseudoderm and application techniques have been adopted by the Global Peace Agency21. An international, extra-governmental peace-keeping organization in an era of high-tech war lords, corrupt mega-corporations, and influential crime families, GPA agents make themselves faceless both to protect themselves from threats and blackmail, as well as to symbolize their autonomy from all nationalities and governments. However, there are some who suggest that this future is that of an alternative universe, created by a time traveler who assassinated Adolph Hitler before World War II fully developed22, so the possibility of the Global Peace Agency’s existence within the WNU is questionable.
The legacy of Redrüm and Zemo do not end with the Question, however. As it was soon learned, Twain had already sold the Pseudoderm process to foreign powers, which turned up as the effective “epiderm-masks” used by the terrorist organization HYDRA. Epiderm-masks were used often by HYDRA leader Baron Wolfgang von Strucker when operating under false identities23, as well as by the agents of Chameleon. Chameleon was HYDRA’s espionage and infiltration department24, and as such their members all had a talent for disguise and mimicry. To symbolize their ability to become anyone, the Chameleons traditionally wore featureless, pure white full-face masks through which their eyes and mouths were just barely visible, usually during ceremonies and special meetings, or when in the presence of hired underlings.
Even before HYDRA’s acquisition of Pseudoderm, the Chameleons were masters of disguise almost to a man, and had many publicized battles with legal authorities and other civic-minded types of various backgrounds, having crossed swords with costumed crimefighters such as Superman, Batman, and the Ant-Man25. Perhaps the greatest source of fame for the Chameleons has been their many encounters with Spider-Man. As publicized by the Marvel Comics Group, Chameleon agents have been portrayed as being a single individual26, the company going so far as to create a back story for their character, making the Chameleon the abused half-brother of another Spider-Man enemy, infamous big game hunter Sergie Kravenoff. That being said, Marvel Comics has not only portrayed the Chameleon as an occasional HYDRA agent, but has at least once made references to HYDRA’s animal-named departmental system27, thus hinting to the public as to the true nature of their character.
Thinking these encounters with costumed lawmen could be avoided if the heroes thought the Chameleons were their own, one talented Chameleon agent stationed in Australia made the brash decision to pass himself off as a costumed crimefighter, operating publicly as The Mask. Although by his actions criminal operations in Australia were maneuvered to HYDRA’s favor, and he was successful in passing off his assignments as the work of (rival) subversive elements which he then fought, a death warrant was nevertheless issued on the rogue agent by his superiors for having risked exposure of Chameleon and its parent organization; since he was originally a professional stuntman and a failed actor, it was cited that his true motivations had been nothing more than cheap publicity and acclaim28. More skilled than they had expected, the Mask managed to fake his death and flee to America, specifically Hollywood, where he applied his Chameleon training as a make-up artist under the name Quentin Beck. Over the years, Beck expanded his repertoire of disguise with knowledge of holographics and optical illusions, mechanical props, and hypnosis and prestidigitation. He could have gone onto be one of cinema’s top special effects designers, but instead made another attempt to become a super-hero in the public eye, while secretly manipulating the underworld, as the otherworldly Mysterio. His scheme included framing a pre-existing hero for a number of crimes, and so he selected the already controversial Spider-Man, who instead exposed Mysterio, forcing the rogue agent back onto the path of a career criminal for many years29. While HYDRA remained convinced that he had died in Australia, Beck could not escape death forever – after many years, continuous exposure to various chemical cocktails while creating epiderm-masks, along with other Mysterio paraphernalia, caused a brain tumor and lung cancer. Inevitably, he commited suicide rather than face a lingering death while in prison, having failed in a final plot to drive another masked vigilante, the Daredevil, to murder him, thus ending the career of Mysterio as it began – with a super-hero made to look like a criminal30.
One interesting case concerning the Chameleons during this time period, involving no Cold War subterfuge or any related espionage at all, was a series of murders targeting an Italian modeling agency. These murders were committed by the agency’s co-owners, the recently widowed Countess Cristiana Como and her lover, Massimo Morlacchi, who was secretly a Chameleon agent. Morlacchi’s prior lover had been Isabella, a model who had been blackmailing her co-workers with knowledge of their many indiscretions, and aided her in these endeavors, planning to one day seize her information on the models in order to demand sexual favors from them. In their close proximity, Isabella inevitably learned that Morlacchi had helped Christiana to murder Count Como so they could be together. Although it was obvious to her that Morlacchi was only getting closer to the Countess for her money, Isabella nevertheless objected to being abandoned and so threatened to expose him if he didn’t return to her immediately. Unwilling to jeopardize his chance at the Countess’s fortune, but aware that he’d be executed by his superiors as a liability to HYDRA if Isabella kept her promise, Morlacchi instead conspired with Cristiana to kill Isabella, claiming that she planned to blackmail them both for the Count’s murder.
Isabella was easy enough to deal with, but Morlacchi and Christiana then proceeded to brutally murder several more of their own clients while searching for Isabella’s missing diary, which detailed her blackmail schemes. Naturally, they made use of Morlacchi’s disguise skills in approaching their victims and evading the police as they hastily sought out the diary. In reality, this was all unnecessary, as the diary had earlier been found and burned by one of Isabella’s victims, but Morlacchi prolonged the search, having seized the opportunity to tie up all the loose ends at the modeling agency – silencing those who knew of his collusion with Isabella, and setting Christiana up as a patsy for the murders. In the end, Morlacchi attempted to trick the Countess into getting herself killed, thus freeing himself from all suspicion as well as availing himself to her fortune. In this Morlacchi went too far with his manipulations, however, which ended in betrayal and death for him as well31. Only in keeping his superiors in Chameleon in the dark was Massimo Morlacchi successful in his double-dealings.
Like much of HYDRA, the structure of Chameleon changed dramatically after Baron von Strucker and much of HYDRA’s elite died during the Death Spore gambit, causing the organization and its many sub-sections to splinter32. In the aftermath, many Chameleon agents went off on their own, pursuing solo careers as spies and assassins for hire, even mere thieves and con artists. A few were able to abscond with Pseudoderm and other epiderm-mask equipment, while others returned to using traditional wigs, makeup, and facial prosthetics. Some retained the title of “Chameleon” to cash in on the name, while others abandoned it entirely. Regardless of their preferred alias or methods, since HYDRA’s collapse many of the various professional criminals who hold reputations as being master disguise artists have been former agents of Chameleon.
Of the former Chameleon agents, there are several worth noting – one in particular having taken advantage of HYDRA’s misfortune to seize control of operations in the south of France, consolidating them as a crime syndicate named Vulture. Now known as Mr. V (although he retained his ceremonial mask as a sign of respect), this ex-Chameleon was a major crimelord along the Riviera for a short time until his accidental death while battling a superhuman crimefighter, the so-called Manhunter from Mars33. By a double-coincidence, “J’onn J’onzz” was himself a master of disguise – a shape-shifter capable of completely changing his form at will – and had fought Vulture while posing as Marco Xavier, a supposedly deceased playboy who was actually an abandoned cover identity of Mr. V.
Unable to obtain epiderm-masks, another notable ex-agent by the name of Zartan tried to enhance his abilities by having himself injected with chameleon DNA and then carefully irradiated, having heard stories of superhumans whose powers derived from obtaining animalistic traits in this manner34. He did acquire an ability to adjust the pigmentation of his skin, but this was little consolation against a bizarre hypersensitivity to light he also developed, which forced him to almost constantly wear layers of latex and makeup in order to function properly in the open. Reportedly, Zartan was a schizophrenic, possibly a reaction to his affliction, which may have helped in his replication of others’ mannerisms but made him at times unstable and unreliable. Nevertheless, he found steady work as a mercenary, operating as a spy and sometimes an enforcer in the pay of the terrorist group Cobra35.
Over time, these masters of disguise have begun to apparently recruit new agents as they die, retire, or are imprisoned, with some adopting the title of Chameleon, others not. These successors have included the likes of the rogue Pretender known as Alex36, and have become notorious heirs to the Chameleon profession, with encounters against Michael Knight37 and the modern invisible agent, Darien Fawkes38. Others have not proven so reliable, however – one particular disaster was a disillusioned U.S. intelligence agent who could not be completely indoctrinated, and ultimately became a wandering trouble shooter known as “Ray”39. Another rogue would-be Chameleon, Mitch Leary, proved to be a homicidal maniac who turned what should have been a well-planned and successful presidential assassination into a bizarre cat-and-mouse game with a retiring Secret Service agent who’d been present at the original Kennedy assassination40. More on the continuation of the former Chameleon agency will be revealed as other criminals with a penchant for disguise appear.
Apparently inspired by stories of adventurer-turned-vigilante Richard Henry Benson41, one Chameleon in later years would envision a revolutionary use of Pseudoderm which would make himself the undisputed master of disguise. Working with a brilliant but unscrupulous plastic surgeon named Will Carver, this Chameleon agent had his epidermis surgically and mutagenically altered, infusing it with a new and improved form of Pseudoderm developed by Carver. The operation was successful, enabling the Chameleon to take on the appearance of any person at will, done so with a special belt which could record images of people with a miniaturized holographic recorder, then electronically stimulate his flesh to appropriate their appearance – hair style, skin pigmentation, and all. Out of loyalty to his old company, he also “programmed” his features to a default setting which echoed the tradition Chameleon mask, rendering his flesh ash white and hairless, and his face undefined and featureless with a recessed nose. This all-new Chameleon returned to his criminal career deadlier than ever42, starting with a kidnapping spree wherein he replaced himself with a series of millionaires, including a lengthy stint as newspaper publisher J. Jonah Jameson, plus a bid to dominate New York City’s organized crime families.
This Chameleon agent would not be the only patient Carver would use his new Pseudoderm upon. Shortly after his business with the Chameleon was concluded, he used it for a burn victim, Angelica Jones, a.k.a. Angeltop, permanently restoring her face. Unfortunately, Carver was almost immediately murdered by her thereafter43 and, as is often the case with murdered geniuses in the WNU, he took the secret of perfected Pseudoderm with him to his grave. He left notes behind, however, which eventually made their way into the hands of the more ethical Dr. Peyton Westlake. Westlake also reworked the Pseudoderm formula, eliminating its toxicity, but his improvements caused the formula to become unstable, resulting in synthetic flesh which would begin to sag and disintegrate if exposed to light for over an hour. Westlake was on the verge of perfecting Pseudoderm when his fiancée, an assistant district attorney, ran afoul of a mob-affiliated realty developer, who retaliated by having Westlake attacked and his lab bombed. Miraculously, Westlake survived, but his face was virtually destroyed. Setting up an underground lab, Westlake allows the world to believe him dead as he continues his Pseudoderm experiments, hoping to one day restore his face permanently. In the meantime, he’s become an underworld legend, The Darkman, using his technology both to steal money from criminals to finance his experiments, as well as to take revenge on the people who ruined his life44.
The last known person to date to have “benefited” from Baron Zemo’s synthetic flesh experiments first appeared in the late Eighties, although his tale actually predates the Chameleon’s surgery. Harley Niav45 was the son of a great but unrecognized British stage actor, whose suicide prompted Niav to leave England for America to pursue the acclaim which had eluded his father. A brilliant actor on the rise, Niav became known for learning to simulate voices and mannerisms, and to heavily research lifestyles for the roles he played, gaining such skills as working medical knowledge and even gangland connections. His break-out role would have been co-starring with his uncle Vivian Flintheart in a production of Sleuth46, when his jealous understudy tampered with the brakes of his car, causing it to fly off an embankment and crash. Niav survived, but his face was scarred, and so he fell out of sight while he sought help. As a result, he was used by Carver to test his experimental Pseudoderm formula. Unfortunately, while non-toxic, this test batch was also somewhat unstable, as Niav’s restored face sagged and bulged into a formless mass after a few hours. Fearing the loss of his medical license, Carver secretly had Niav institutionalized, possibly with the help of the Chameleon.
Over the years, Niav found that his face was also malleable, although he did not have access to the same technology as the Chameleon and so had to learn to reform his face by hand. Finally, Niav was skilled enough that he escaped the sanitarium by murdering his doctor and assuming his likeness. Since then, Niav has shown, much like his father47, a macabre and melodramatic tendency towards crime, seeking both material gain as well as revenge on those he’s felt wronged him. For whatever reason, Niav, or Putty Puss as he’s become known48, took to bedeviling the family, friends, and associates of the now-retired detective Richard Tracy, even going so far as to trap him in a wax museum, recreating his most infamous close calls with death, while masquerading as his uncle49. Perhaps his obsession is simply inspired by the past association of Carver and Flintheart with Tracy; others fear Putty Puss may have truly gone insane while institutionalized, and that he now believes himself to be Anyface, a fictional face-changing criminal from Al Capp’s parody of the Dick Tracy comic strip50.
What further developments will occur from the legend of “Faceless” Frank Redrüm and the existence of Pseudoderm technology, only time can tell.
Depicted in the Dick Tracy comic strip by Chester Gould (October 1937). The aftermath of this story involving the further exploits of “Stud” Bronzen and an investigation into his past is covered in the sister essay, 15 Tales from a Dead Man’s Chest.
“Apaches” were members of a Parisian underworld subculture during the late 1800s and early 1900s. The Apaches were especially associated with the Montmartre district of Paris, which was also home to the famous Moulin Rouge dance hall and nightclub.
These synthetic flesh experiments were partially inspired by the work of a mad medical researcher named Wells (distantly related to the famed author and futurist), whose experiments in creating artificial flesh for treating scars and even replacing limbs involved salvaging tissue from the living. The murders he committed for his experiments, and his subsequent unmasking as the “Moon Killer”, were popularized by the movie Doctor X (1932). Out of both personal distaste for the pseudo-cannibalistic tactics Wells had used, and fear that using the body tissues of others would leave one open to communicable diseases, the Duc turned to the new field of plastics and polymer substances for his experiments.
In his article on the extended Jekyll/Hyde family, Dennis E. Power expounds on the formative years of Seymour Krelboin, and his eventual arrest and imprisonment for murders supposedly committed under Audrey, Jr.’s orders. Surprisingly, the once-timid botanist managed to escape prison and began a career as a costumed criminal, known variously as the Plantman or the Plant-master. Seymour claimed that spores he’d breathed in from Audrey, Jr. had contaminated him with the plant’s mind, which was given some credibility several years later when Seymour apparently mutated into an animal/plant hybrid with bark-like skin and leaf-like hair. This transformation did Seymour little good, however, as after studying the similarly plant-like Swamp Thing, he attempted to link his mind with “The Green”, the sum total of Earth’s biosphere, by which he could have all plantlife revolt against mankind. Whether because of the Swamp Thing’s own link to the Green, or because his process simply telepathically connected him to all life on Earth without a proper filter in place, the experience drove the so-called Floronic Man hopelessly insane, leaving him in a vegetative state (*ba-dum-bump*). Interestingly, after his mutation, Seymour also used artificial flesh, presumably acquired at some point from his criminal peers, to give him a human appearance when necessary.
Depicted in Detective Comics #34 (December 1939). Oddly, this version of events did not show Charles being freed from his mask, insinuating that his face had actually, and irreversibly, been altered by the Duc.
First revealed in The Avengers #6 – “The Masters of Evil” (July 1964).
Depicted in The Avengers #15 – “Now, By My Hand, Shall Die a Villain” (April 1965).
Depicted in Captain America #168 – “And a Phoenix Shall Arise” (December 1973).
Depicted in The Nude Bomb (or The Return of Maxwell Smart) motion picture (1980).
Depicted in Tanin no kao (The Face of Another) by Kob Abe in 1959; adapted into a motion picture in 1966.
Depicted in Les Yeux Sans Visage (Eyes Without a Face) by Jean Redon; adapted into a motion picture in 1960.
Depicted in Detective Comics #319 – “The Fantastic Dr. No-Face” (September 1963). While the story does not directly refer to Batman’s earlier adventure in France, events were changed so that again an experimental ray, not a patch of plastic, were responsible for the faceless man’s altered appearance.
Depicted in Mission: Impossible TV series, CBS (1966 - 1973).
Mentioned in The Luck of the Parkers essay by Al Schroeder. It is similarly rumored that the Spirit is the father of Marc Spector by World War II resistance agent Destiny Blake. Following in his mother’s footsteps to become a professional soldier-of-fortune, Spector would suffer a near-death experience like his father while in Egypt, prompting him to reform and become the vigilante Moon Knight, an identity under which he too wore a featureless mask.
First appeared in The Blue Beetle #1 – “Who is the Question?” (June 1967)
First appeared in Batman: Shadow of the Bat #1 – “The Last Arkham” (June 1992).
It’s quite possible the choices for his new name denoted Sage’s personal feelings – “Rex” to reflect his feelings of control over his life and newfound wisdom, and “Graine” as it sounded similar to Wayne, a subtle jibe at the Batman, whose secret identity he’d learned at some point. His new name may also be viewed as a variation of Rick Blaine, a famed wartime freedom fighter and ex-nightclub owner (Casablanca motion picture, 1942). Stories of his anti-hero persona had made Blaine a symbol for the belief in moral grey areas which Sage now despised.
First appeared in Witzend #3 – “Mr. A” (1967).
Revealed in Secret History of the WNU: Superman essay by Dennis E. Power, which refers to the use of The Question identity by government agents. This may have served as the inspiration for the character of faceless federal agent Yankee Doodle during Grant Morrison’s run as writer for the surrealistic super-team comic book, Doom Patrol.
Depicted in 52 comic book series (May 2006 - May 2007).
Depicted in Omac comic book series (1974 - 1975) by Jack Kirby.
Depicted in Omac comic book mini-series (1991) by John Byrne.
Revealed in Strange Tales #153 – “The Hiding Place” (February 1967).
Revealed in Lethal Luthors: A Deceptive Brilliance – William Luthor essay by Dennis E. Power, which designates the division of responsibilities within HYDRA and its animal totem system, as well as its history and affiliated organizations, including Cobra and KAOS.
Depicted in Action Comics #126 – “Superman on Television” (November 1948), Batman #113 – “The Menace of False Face” (February 1958), Tales to Astonish #36 – “The Challenge of Comrade X” (October 1962), and the Batman TV series – “True or False Face” and “Holy Rat Race” (March 1966). As one can tell from the titles, the Chameleon agents were often renamed and their histories changed, becoming the Soviet agent Comrade X or the professional thief False Face. These changes were made for reasons of either national security, as the government had not yet publicly recognized HYDRA’s existence, or copyright issues, Marvel Comics having trademarked the name “Chameleon” for its fictional figure.
An exception to these rules was a Chameleon agent who’d been captured by Superman. This Chameleon had framed a number of innocent people for robberies and murders he’d committed while in disguise, requiring Superman to not only capture him, but to do so while he was switching identities and in front of a number of witnesses. He succeeded in this by broadcasting the Chameleon live on TV, naming him as the Chameleon while in the process. As a result, the fictionalized account of this adventure was allowed to retain the Chameleon title, although without any indication that the Chameleon was part of a larger organization.
First appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #1 – “Spider-Man vs. The Chameleon” (March 1963).
Revealed in Strange Tales #135 – “The Man for the Job” (August 1965).
Depicted in The Mask: The Man of Many Faces comic book series (1954). The series was canceled after the supposed death of the titular “hero”, although the reason publicly cited was backlash from censors in Queensland objecting to the Mask’s full-face mask.
First appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #13 – “The Menace of... Mysterio” (June 1964). His brief partnership with the criminal identified by Marvel Comics as “The Tinkerer” prior to his first outing as Mysterio will be explored in another article.
Depicted in Daredevil v. 2 #7 – “The Devil’s Demon” (May 1999).
Depicted in Sei donne per l’assassino (Blood and Black Lace) motion picture (1964). It should be noted that much of this movie was based purely on what could be reconstructed from the evidence at hand, which wasn’t much without Isabella’s diary, as well as rumors flitting about the surviving members of the modeling agency, and pure speculation by the police and the movie producers. As a result, Morlacchi’s claim of being blackmailed by Isabella for murder was accepted as fact, and used as his and the Countess’s motivation in the movie. Furthermore, their use of disguises was not uncovered by the police, neither was Morlacchi’s connections to HYDRA, so that was excluded from the movie out of ignorance. Instead, Morlacchi and the Countess were depicted committing murders while wearing a ceremonial Chameleon mask found among their possessions, along with a black trench coat and slouch hat, unintentionally recreating much of the appearance of the original faceless killer, The Blank.
Strange Tales #158 – “Final Encounter” (July 1967).
Depicted in House of Mystery #160 – “Manhunter’s New Secret Identity” (July 1966), through House of Mystery #173 – “So You’re Faceless” (March-April 1968). As one can tell from the dates here and in the footnote above, Mr. V first appeared in the comics nearly a year before the death of von Strucker in Strange Tales. This was the result of inter-company rivalry, as while DC Comics could not report on any SHIELD or HYDRA-related events directly, it could show the resulting fallout and was quick to do so. Marvel Comics, meanwhile, was not willing to let a good yarn end so quickly, and spread out the finale of Nick Fury’s war on HYDRA until long after the actual events had occurred.
It cannot be said for certain if Zartan came up this idea on his own, or if he had heard the story of Lucy Todd, the Chameleon Girl. Lucy was a biochemistry student who, unsatisfied with her appearance, subjected herself to a chemical cocktail derived from chameleon hormones, hoping to make herself beautiful. She gained an uncontrollable power to change her appearance instead, causing her to lose her apartment and be arrested in suspicion for her own disappearance, before being cured of her power by Mary Marvel. The story of “The Chameleon Girl” was publicized in Marvel Family #47 (May 1950), although it’s hard to say if this was an entirely true story, or one of the Marvels’ more fanciful, fictional stories. Given the passing similarity of their origins, it may very well be that “Lucy Todd” is an analogy for Kyra Zelas, and the story is just a cover-up for Mary’s true encounter with the Ultimate Adaptive.
Represented by the G.I. Joe action figure series by Hasbro (1984). That Zartan is an anagram for “Tarzan,” along with a shared affection for jungles and swamp environs, has been noted, although whatever connection the mercenary has to the famed jungle lord and his extended family, if any, has yet to be uncovered.
Depicted in The Pretender TV movie, TNT (January 2001). Also, please refer to There Are Pretenders Among Us by Brad Mengel for more information on Alex and Pretenders in general.
Depicted in Knight Rider TV Series, NBC – “Knight of the Chameleon” (December 1984).
Depicted in The Invisible Man TV Series, Sci-fi Channel – “Beholder” (September 2000).
Depicted in the Stingray TV series, NBC (1985 - 1987).
Depicted in the In the Line of Fire motion picture (1993).
Depicted in the The Avenger magazine #1 – “Justice, Inc.” (September 1939). It would appear that the malleable state of Benson’s face, reportedly caused by an experimental operation arranged by a rogue government agent named Thomas Grayl, is unrelated to the synthetic flesh research of either Wells or Zemo. It cannot be denied, however, the likelihood that information on this experiment was stolen from the files of the Internal Security Department by the Chameleon or his associates, and contributed to Carver’s own Pseudoderm research. Please read The Avenger Chronology: A Whiter Shade of Pale essay by Win Scott Eckert for more information.
Depicted in the The Amazing Spider-Man #307 – “The Thief Who Stole Himself” (October 1988).
Depicted in the Dick Tracy comic strip by Max Allan Collins and Rick Fletcher (January 1982).
Depicted in the Darkman motion picture (1990), and its sequels.
Born Harley Edward Flintheart, Jr. While I use it here, it should be noted that “Niav” (which is plainly the word vain spelled backwards) was not part of Harley’s actual stage name, but a fictitious surname invented to signify the key character flaw which transformed the would-be star into the mad Putty Puss.
An ironic choice, since the 1970 play recreates the test of wills and battle of wits between mystery novelist Andrew Wyke and salon owner Milo Tindle, including a sequence where Tindle effectively disguised himself as a police inspector to confront Wyke and accuse him of committing murder.
Harley Edward Flintheart, alias Edward Lionheart, was a talented but egotistical thespian whose career was brought short by his obsession with William Shakespeare, as he refused to perform any play but those written by him. After a renowned critics’ award committee snubbed his magnum opus – a season of Shakespearean revivals – Lionheart attempted suicide by jumping from the committee’s board room into the Thames. However, he turned up alive a year later, having survived his fall but now more deranged than ever, his mind affected by the cheap but toxic methylated spirits fed to him by a band of tramps who’d fished him from the river. Aided by them and his daughter Miranda, Lionheart stalked and killed his critics one by one using methods reminiscent of a death from Shakespeare’s works, beginning on the 15th of March, naturally. This resulted in murders both mundane and sensational, with one critic being electrocuted by sabotaged hair-styling equipment, another sealed within and left to drown in a large barrel of wine. Using Miranda’s skill as a makeup artist, Lionheart was able to approach his victims unrecognized until it was too late, often and easily circumventing police protection. While in the midst of torturing his final critic in an abandoned theater, Lionheart snapped when he heard police sirens approaching, and set the building on fire. In the chaos, his daughter was killed by the panicking tramps, and Lionheart fled with her body to the roof of the theater, where he recited King Lear’s final soliloquy before it collapsed. His rampage through London was portrayed in the motion picture Theatre of Blood (1973), and later as a stage play in 2005, where his daughter’s actual name – not Edwina – was given.
Incidentally, Lionheart’s actions were not entirely out of character given his family history, which is awash in a predisposition for the arts and sciences, as well as a tendency towards obsession, a combination which regularly led to homicide and mayhem. His brother Vivian, who emigrated to America shortly before the war began to pursue fame on film, was one of the few who escaped this propensity, possibly due to his friendship with Richard Tracy, and his own encounters with murderers and professional criminals such as “Flattop” Jones and “Shakey” Trembly. The premature graying of Vivian’s hair and lining of his face did cause an obsession over his health, however, resulting in his nickname of “Vitamin” due to his constant ingestion of various pills and tablets. The Flinthearts’ relation to the likes of Robert Morgan, Elihas Starr, Anton Phibes, Professor Whitehead, Cyrus Carstairs, “Dr. Goldfoot,” among many others, and their possible descent from the likes of Cardinal Richelieu and the witch hunter Matthew Hopkins is a matter deserving of its own article.
Depicted in the Dick Tracy comic strip by Max Allan Collins and Dick Locher (October 1987). This sequence does not mention Niav’s relation to Vitamin Flintheart, although Vitamin does make appearances, such as consulting the police when Putty Puss initially engages in a series of bank robberies while impersonating celebrities, and when Niav murders and assumes the identity of his former understudy to finally perform Sleuth alongside his uncle.
Depicted in the Dick Tracy comic strip by Max Allan Collins and Dick Locher (June 1989). Putty Puss’s overall scheme to murder Tracy in a wax museum, particularly his final attempt to turn him into a living display by keeping him drugged and coated with wax, may have been inspired by one of his relatives, Professor Henry Jarrod, as portrayed in the movie House of Wax (1953).
Incidentally, while the comic strip and its main character were both still named Dick Tracy, by now it was actually the case files of Richard’s son Joseph Flintheart Tracy, a.k.a. J.F. or Jeff Tracy, which were being adapted into stories. The original detective had long since retired and only made occasional contributions to police work. As such, while the comic strip shows young Joe Tracy discovering his father coated in wax and on display, the reality was the other way around.
Al Capp parodied both Chester Gould and his biographical comic strip Dick Tracy within the reality of his own comic strip, Li’l Abner, creating the maniacal cartoonist Lester Gooch and his dim-witted, violent creation, Fearless Fosdick. Despite what his biographers may say, Capp created his comic strip by ripping off the real-life misadventures of Abner Yokum and the citizens of Dogpatch, a remote hillbilly community Capp had once visited while attempting to work through writer’s block. Realizing the stories he could garner from observing the locals, he took to spying on Abner and adapting his misadventures into fiction, possibly even using the royalties he received to finance events and incidents that would provoke further escapades from the hayseed and his family. Al Capp had been doing so for years when his secret was discovered by Superman while in the midst of, once again, sabotaging the wedding of Abner and Daisy Mae Scraggs. While he could have arrested Capp for malicious mischief, Superman chose to spare Abner and his family further embarrassment, as well as undue attention and public curiosity, by simply banning Capp from ever returning to Dogpatch.
Fortunately for his career, Capp’s writer’s block had long since ended; this plus the material he’d compiled on Abner and his family enabled Capp to continue his Li’l Abner strip for decades afterwards, steadily mixing in social satire to further distinguish his “creation” from its original inspiration. He did not totally escape justice though – fighting fire with fire, Superman had an account of his encounter with Al Capp published in Action Comics #55 (December 1942) with names changed to prevent lawsuits for slander or trademark infringement. Also, a Yokum family member would eventually learn of the comic strip and, tracking him down, punched out Capp for portraying hillbillies as fools, not realizing that the strip specifically made fun of his cousin Abner (The Spirit comic strip by Will Eisner – “Li’l Adam, the Stupid Mountain Boy”, July 1947).
Special thanks to the works of Win Scott Eckert, Brad Mengel, Dennis E. Power, and Al Schroeder for inspiration. Also to Henry Covert and Sean Levin for contributions to this article and suggestions for additional content.