Mal Duncan
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Mal Duncan, currently known as Vox, is a fictional character from DC Comics. He made his first appearance in Teen Titans #26 (March-April 1970).
Contents |
[edit] Character History
[edit] Pre-Crisis
Malcolm "Mal" Duncan saved the Teen Titans from a street gang called the Hell Hawks. He beat the leader of the Hell Hawks in a boxing match and was later recruited by The Teen Titans.
Feeling unworthy, Mal decided to prove his worth by stowing away on an experimental rocket flight, thereby allowing the Teen Titans to return the lifesaving favor.
Some time later he found a strength-enhancing exoskeleton, and the costume of the Guardian. He used these to become the second Guardian.
Shortly after this, he fought a villain named Azrael - The Angel of Death. He wrote it off as a hallucination until he awoke with a mystical horn given to him by the angel Gabriel.
According to Azrael, by defeating him Mal won the right to life, but if he ever lost a fight — to anyone — he would die (nothing ever came of this). Gabriel's horn, when blown, gives him unspecified powers to use whenever the odds are against him in battle. Using this horn he took the name Hornblower.
Mal soon returned to the Guardian identity, claiming that too many people knew he was Hornblower. However the real reason was that the Gabriel Horn had been stolen. This plot point was not followed up.
He later married Karen Beecher (Bumblebee), before moving to California. He is an accomplished jazz musician and owns a nightclub named "Gabriel's Horn".
[edit] Post-Crisis
Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths Mal's uncostumed adventures are assumed to have happened much as they did in Earth-One. However, he never took the identity of Guardian, and the Gabriel's Horn has a very different origin. While the other Titans were on a mission, Mal inadvertently released an old villain, the Gargoyle (formerly Mr. Twister), from Limbo. He recaptured the villain, but found he had left the plans for a high-tech horn that would create spatial warps. With the help of Karen he built a horn to the plans, and took the identity of Herald.
He subsequently learned that the horn weakened the boundaries between the mortal world and Limbo, and destroyed it. As occurred pre-Crisis, he and Karen retired from superheroics, and moved to California.
During the JLA/Titans event, Mal acquired a new Gabriel's Horn, and briefly joined the short-lived Titans LA.
In the Titans Tomorrow storyline in Teen Titans vol.3, in the alternate future it was stated that Mal had become president of the Eastern United States.
When Doctor Light had captured Green Arrow and demanded to see the Titans and the Titans alone, he rejoined for the last time. He then joined Troia with other superheroes to find out what was going on in space during Infinite Crisis.
[edit] Post-Infinite Crisis
[edit] 52
Four weeks after disappearing in space, Mal is rescued from a Zeta Beam transport accident with the assistance of Halo. His lungs and vocal cords were damaged after the Gabriel's Horn blew up in his face. He was also dying after rejecting the cybernetic grafting of parts from the Red Tornado until Steel used his Pseudocyte' technology to permanently graft the parts into Mal's body.
[edit] "One Year Later"
In Teen Titans vol. 3, #35 Herald is revealed to be a member of the Doom Patrol alongside his wife Bumblebee. Now going by the codename Vox, (Latin for voice), Mal now speaks with a synthesized voicebox which can create sonic blasts and open dimensional portals similar to the Gabriel Horn.
[edit] Powers and abilities
- Formerly, his Gabriel Horn could open up multi-dimensional portals, and generate sonic blasts. He now relies on artificial lungs and voice box to achieve the same effects.
[edit] Other media
Herald appeared in Season 5 of Teen Titans "Calling All Titans" in which he meets Raven and becomes an honorary Titan, but soon has to fight off both See-More and Warp. He is victorious, only to discover his communicator is disabled. Blowing his horn allows him to open portals into other dimensions (or other places in whichever dimension he's in, as evidenced by his opening a portal that led to outer space). In the penultimate Teen Titans episode "Titans Together," he teamed up with Jericho, Pantha, Más, and Beast Boy in a rescue mission to save the remaining Titans. They were overpowered, but reinforcements arrived. The Herald used his horn to get rid of Punk Rocket and the dragon Malchior, and later saved every single Titan by teleporting the Brain's fusion bomb into outer space.
Unlike in the comic books, Herald wears a mask. He is voiced by Khary Payton.
Herald was also featured in an issue of Teen Titans Go! wherein he helped Raven find Pantha, Kole, Gnarrk, and Beast Boy.
