This next guy is another character
many of you folks out there probably haven’t heard of. He’s Cyborg Superman, a
sort of clone of the original Kryptonian. Despite his relative obscurity, he
does have a rather interesting background and motivation that I think should be
explored by somebody. Also, his backstory has a very strange likeness to the
previous set of characters I’ve gone over, the Fantastic Four. But I’ll get to
that in a second, on with the show.
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| Yeah, there was no way he could claim to just be Superman. Metal face kind of makes it impossible. |
Hank Henshaw was introduced as the
lead member of a NASA shuttle called Excalibur.
The team is something of an imitation of the Fantastic Four, with the team
consisting of Hank’s friends and his fiancée, Terri. They’re hired by LexCorp
to perform a radiation experiment, which is bungled by an unusually powerful Solar
Flare. Their shuttle crashes, and the members of the crew start exhibiting…unusual
symptoms. The two members that weren’t Henshaw or his fiancée were vaporized. Their
minds, somehow, survived and were able to construct homunculi bodies. One out
of the vary radiation that destroyed him, and the other from the Earth and
wreckage of the shuttle. Sound like the Human Torch and the Thing to anyone
else? I thought so. Henshaw’s hair was turned white, but, considering the state
of the others this little cosmetic change was kind of ignored. They traveled to
Metropolis and break into a LexCorp lab in an attempt to cure their mutated
friends. This of course attracts the attention of Superman, who tries to stop
them. He’s able to overpower them, which causes the Not-Human Torch to lose it
and commit suicide by flying into the sun. At this time, Henshaw’s body begins
to rapidly decay and Terri starts to phase into a different dimension. Choosing
to sacrifice himself, Henshaw teams up with Superman and use his last few hours
to save Terri. Henshaw crumbles to dust, and the surviving crew men also
commits suicide. He uses an MRI machine to rip the metal components from his
body. Gruesome.
Henshaw’s mind survives this
physical death, and he’s able to transfer his mind into the mainframe of
LexCorp. He’s able to control technology in this new form, and tries to connect
with Terri in a new mechanized body. She, unfortunately, can’t really take
Henshaw’s…new look, and defenestrates herself. I’m using that word way more
often than I ever thought I would, people apparently like to jump out of
windows. Depressed at Terri’s death, and realizing that his new form was having
an effect on Earth’s communication networks, he opts to leave. He constructs a
vehicle for himself, and flies out into space, following the same interspace
trail that lead an infant Kal-El to Earth. He travels through space, bonding
with various lifeforms, but also comes to the conclusion that Superman is to
blame for his current predicament. Sup’s had thrown a rogue Kryptonian AI into
the sun, right around when Henshaw and his crew were flying near the sun. FYI,
Superman had that concern, shared it with Terri, who dismissed it because the
solar flares were triggered before he killed the AI. As time goes on, Henshaw
grows more paranoid and delusional. He starts to blame Superman for everything;
that he somehow plotted to destroy Henshaw and his crew and then drove him from
Earth. Henshaw eventually comes across a longtime foe of Superman, Mongul, and
his personal Deathstar, Warworld. He forcibly recruits Mongul as part of a plan
to get payback against Superman.
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| After some upgrades he becomes pretty dang scary. |
Around this time, Superman was
apparently killed by the monster, Doomsday. Henshaw seizes the opportunity and
portrays himself as Superman reborn. He uses information he gathered from
Superman’s “birthing matrix” to build a semi-organic body that looks like Superman,
which also gave him access to enough of Superman’s memories to help pull off
the charade. The new body was about 40% organic, 60% machine. It helped that
the parts that were cybernetic also corresponded to the places most severely
damaged on the real Superman during his fight with Doomsday. Superman’s close friend,
Professor Hamilton, even did a battery of tests on this new Cyborg Superman and
even he was fooled. The metal was Kryptonian, and the organic bits matched
Superman’s DNA. Using his fantastic powers he hurled Doomsday into space, kept
a nuclear power plant from melting down, and even stopped an assassination
attempt on the President. That last one above the rest got Cyborg Superman the
White House seal of approval, effectively making himself the “true” Superman.
Lois Lane eventually cornered him and started grilling him about his personal
life. He claimed that he couldn’t remember things too clearly, but had a “blurry”
memory of “a spaceship on a farm, and the name Kent.” It’s never elaborated on,
but this kind of implies he might have an idea of Superman’s personal identity.
It’s important to note that after
Superman’s death there were four people fighting to claim the title of
Superman. They were Henshaw, the Cyborg Superman; John Henry Irons aka Steel,
an African American man who built himself an Iron-Man style Superman themed
battle suit; the Eradicator, an alien device that had been tinkered with that
transformed it into a Kryptonian weapon designed to preserve Kryptonian culture
by destroying others; and Superboy, a teenage clone of Superman. The top
contenders were Cyborg Superman and the Eradicator, whom developed literal cult
followings. The two groups came to blows at one point, which pretty much
foreshadowed the fight between Cyborg Superman and the Eradicator. Later, an
alien warship, owned and operated by Mongul, attacked Coast City. The
Eradicator tried to stop it, but Cyborg S got in the way and severely injured
the other machine. He also personally murdered a vacationing family that tried
to escape the carnage. Cyborg S put the blame on the Eradicator, and he and
Mongul started phase two of their plan. They built an “Engine City” over the
ashes of Coast City, a precursor to transforming the planet into a new
Warworld. Cyborg S was able to defeat Superboy, and started setting up a
missile to destroy Metropolis to set up another Engine City. Thankfully
Superboy escaped, and warned Steel, Supergirl, and the resurrected but severely
weakened Superman. They came up with a plan, Superman, Supergirl, and Steel
fought Cyborg S and Mongul, while Superboy stopped the missile. Hal Jordan also
flies in, and attempts to avenge the death of his home city. Hal took care of
Mongul while Superman and the Eradicator tried to destroy the evil Cyborg.
Cyborg Superman led the other two Supers into the heart of Engine City and
attempted to kill Superman with the Kryptonite that powered the City. Superman
was weakened but not killed by the Kryptonite. Cyborg S attempted to finish him
off with a concentrated blast of Kryptonite radiation, but his attack is
blocked by the Eradicator. This destroyed the Kryptonian machine, but his body purified
the Kryptonite radiation which then reenergized Superman rather than weaken
him. Cyborg Superman is destroyed, but his mind escapes. Eventually Superman
learns that part of the reason Coast City was chosen was because Henshaw had
lived there with Terri before their accident. He was trying to destroy his past
by destroying his former home. So freaking messed up.
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| Later stories have him develop an obsession with the various Lantern Corps, stealing as many rings as possible. Like having all the power of Superman isn't enough. |
It’s revealed he had installed a
detector onto Doomsday, so he could find the monster if he ever needed it.
Henshaw transferred his mind into the detector. Doomsday found his way onto a
spaceship, and then crashed it onto the side of Apokolips. Doomsday attacks the
planet, which attracts the attention of Superman. Seeing his hated nemesis
return, Cyborg Superman builds himself a new body using the armored corpse of a
slain Apokoliptian trooper. The body greatly resembled his former body but with
nicer tech. He and Doomsday battle Superman and continue to lay siege to
Apokolips. Apparently the un-killable rampaging monster and a technology
manipulating Kryptonian proved too much for Darkseid’s soldiers. He’s finally
defeated by Darkseid’s Omega Beams. His reign of terror was ended, for a time.
He’d eventually return to menace Superman again.
Hank Henshaw gained a number of
powers after his body was irradiated and destroyed. He exists as a form of
energy. He can interface with and even possess various electronics. He can control
any number of machines and construct any sort of technology that he’s seen at
least once. After interacting with Superman’s “birth matrix,” he developed
extensive knowledge of Kryptonian tech and DNA. Said interaction is what later
allowed him to construct a partially organic, partially cybernetic body that
greatly resembled Superman. As Cyborg Superman, Henshaw possesses all the usual
strengths and weakness of a Kryptonian; Super strength, flight, heat vision,
etc. But, while weakened by Kryptonite, his metallic components give him a
greater resistance to the radiation that any other Kryptonian.
Cyborg Superman hasn’t had a major
presence in DC media. Not sure why, other than the story he’s so connected to
is rather complicated, and that a lot of the things that make him a threat to
Superman already exist in better known characters, like Metallo or Lex Luthor.
He doesn’t appear in Superman: Doomsday, the direct
adaptation of “The Death of Superman” storyline of which he’s connected.
Instead, after Superman is supposedly killed by Doomsday, we’re treated to a
hodgepodge of three of the men that attempted to claim Superman’s legacy.
Elements of Henshaw, mostly his unstable personality and lack of morality, are
blended together with some bits of the Eradicator, and finally fused together
with Superboy. The end result is a reasonable facsimile of Superman without any
of those pesky morals getting in the way.
It’s my understanding that his
civilian identity of Hank Hensaw will be appearing in the Supergirl TV show. This version is a CIA Agent in charge of the
Department of Extra-Normal Operations. He’s very suspicious of the young
Kryptonian and sets his team on High Alert in case she’s a threat. I’m not sure
how much they’ll delve into the Cyborg Superman portion of his character. I
guess we’ll wait and see.
Cyborg Superman is an interesting twist
on the evil clone story. Obviously with his metal bits sticking out he can’t be
a true clone of Superman, but he’s close enough to be a major threat to the Big
Blue Boy Scout. The fact that he’s a former scientist that was driven insane
after an experience that usually creates great heroes is also a little twist on
the original formula. His design is the definition of the “uncanny,” something
that seems familiar but is distinctly alien and unsettling. Given the trauma that
he suffered while developing his powers, I can kind of understand how he’d
transfer his anger and sorrow to the easiest target. It kind of makes you feel
bad for the man that became a monster. He’s the metallic menace to the mighty
Superman, Cyborg Superman. Next time, I’ll keep the ball rolling and talk about
the other robotic Superman, the Eradicator.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d3/Superman79.png
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Henshaw#/media/File:Slimedborg.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg_Superman#/media/File:Hank_Henshaw,_as_he_appears_in_the_panel_of_a_comic_book.jpg
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