| Ultra-Humanite | |
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The Ultra-Humanite on the cover of Justice League of America #196 (Nov. 1981), in albino ape's body. Art by George Pérez |
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| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | Action Comics #13 (June 1939) |
| Created by | Jerry Siegel Joe Shuster |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Gerard Shugel |
| Team affiliations | Secret Society of Super Villains Time Stealers |
| Notable aliases | Delores Winters, Johnny Thunder |
| Abilities | Superhuman intelligence Mind transference Mental powers Superhuman physical attributes in ape body |
The Ultra-Humanite is a fictional character that appears in comic books published by DC Comics. The character first appeared in Action Comics #13 (June 1939), and was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Debuting as an enemy of Superman, he is the first recurring comic book supervillain.[1]
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The Ultra-Humanite is the first supervillain faced by Superman, and among the first supervillains of the Golden Age of Comics. He was designed to be the polar opposite of Superman; while Superman is a hero with superhuman strength, Ultra-Humanite is a criminal mastermind who has a crippled body but a highly advanced intellect.
The Ultra-Humanite represents one of the most significant threats to 20th century incarnations of the Justice Society. The origins of the super-criminal known as the Ultra-Humanite are shrouded in mystery. Even he claims not to remember his true name or appearance and attributes his vast intellect and mental prowess to scientific experiments of an unknown nature.
A fiendish "mad scientist" (Act No. 17, Oct 1939), hopelessly paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair, whose "great goal" is the "domination of the Earth" (Act No. 14, Jul 1939; and others). Portrayed as nearly bald in two texts (Act No. 13, Jun 1939; Act No. 19, Dec 1939), and as completely bald in two others (Act No. 14, Jul 1939; Act No. 17, Oct 1939), he is a "mental giant" -- the "head of a vast ring of evil enterprises" -- whose "fiery eyes burn with terrible hatred and sinister intelligence."
His real name is never stated in the chronicles, but he has been known as the Ultra-Humanite -- Ultra, for short -- ever since "a scientific experiment resulted in [his] possessing the most agile and learned brain on Earth!"
"--Unfortunately for mankind," proclaims the villain in June 1939, "I prefer to use this great intellect for crime. My goal? DOMINATION OF THE WORLD!!" (Act No. 13)
In June 1939 Superman sets out to smash the so-called Cab Protective League, an underworld organization, headed by a racketeer named Jackie Reynolds, which is attempting to seize control of the city's lucrative taxi trade by launching a reign of terror against the independent cab companies, murdering their drivers and demolishing their taxicabs in an effort to coerce the independents into joining the League. Reynolds organized unscrupulous cab drivers into a union, the Cab Protective League. Reynolds' union, financed by the Ultra-Humanite, intimidated other cab drivers through violence and threats against passengers. In the summer of 1939, a cab carrying Clark Kent was assaulted by a CPL driver.
Finally defeated and apprehended by Superman, Reynolds is convicted of his crimes and sentenced to a term in the Sing Sing penitentiary. However, while en route to the prison by automobile, under police guard, Reynolds asks for, and receives, permission to smoke a cigarette, and within moments, he has knocked his police escort unconscious by exhaling smoke from a specially prepared cigarette containing "a mysterious gas," hurled from the unconscious policemen from the speeding car, and made good his escape.
Superman thinks this was too advanced for Reynolds and searches the area, finally finding the stolen vehicle outside a house. He corners Reynolds at his secluded cabin hideout and is about to take him into custody when his attention is called to a second figure in the cabin, a "paralysed cripple" whose "fiery eyes...burn with a terrible hatred and sinister intelligence."
"So we meet at last, eh?" smiles the sinister paralytic. "It was inevitable that we should clash!"
"Who are you?" asks Superman.
"The head of a vast ring of evil enterprises," replies the paralytic, "--men like Reynolds are but my henchmen. You have interfered frequently with my plans, and it is time for you to be removed!" "If what you say is true," retorts Superman, "the thanks for giving me the opportunity to capture you!"
"You may not find that task as simple as it appears on the surface," remarks the paralytic confidently. "You may possess unbelievable strength--but you are pitting yourself against a mental giant! I am known as 'the Ultra-Humanite.'"
As Superman lunges forward to grab him, the villain unleashes a barrage of electricity sufficient "to kill five-hundred men," and Superman, trapped "amidst a sheet of flame" produced by the high-voltage current running through the electrified floor, lapses into unconsciousness. With Superman now helpless, Reynolds and the Ultra-Humanite attempt to annihilate him with a buzz saw, but as "the mighty saw" makes contact with Superman's invulnerable skin, there is "a great rasping--the sound of cracking metal--and the saw explodes into a thousand fragments-!"
"Reynolds dies a horrible death," notes the text, "as one of the steely fragments pierces his throat---!" Leaving Superman behind to perish in the cabin which the Ultra-Humanite has ordered them to set on fire, the villain's henchmen carry their crippled leader outside to a waiting aircraft, but Superman regains consciousness in the nick of time and leaps upward into the sky "out of reach of the hungry blaze."
"I'll bet that strange ship belongs to 'the Ultra-Humanite'!" cries Superman as he spies the weird aircraft carrying the villain and his henchmen. "--His fiendish deviltry is going to end RIGHT NOW!"
"Deliberately," observes the textual narrative, "Superman crashes into the planes propellor---down toward the distant Earth hurtle both doomed plane and Man of Steel---'the Ultra-Humanite's' vessel crumples sickeningly as it strikes the ground with a thunderous crash---" but Superman remains unharmed.
"Strange," muses Superman grimly, as he searches painstakingly through the wreckage of the aircraft, "I can't find any trace of 'the Ultra-Humanite'! Well that finishes his plan to control the Earth---or does it?" (Act No. 13, Jun 1939).
In July 1939, after scores of subway riders have been injured in the collapse of a subway tunnel and an inspector is nearly killed by a train when he is knocked out on train tracks, Superman discovers that Star, Inc., the firm that built the tunnel, defrauded the city by charging the city for expensive materials and then using substandard materials on the actual project. Before long, Superman has cornered Mr. Lyons, the head of Star, Inc., and forced him to sign a full confession of his crimes, but as he races after the speeding automobile in which Lyons's two henchmen are attempting to escape, one of the henchmen presses a button inside the car and the vehicle instantly becomes invisible.
"Those men wouldn't have the ingenuity to make that car invisible," muses Superman, "... there's something sinister behind this!"
Although the automobile has become invisible, however, it still leaves tire tracks, and Superman's pursuit of the vehicle soon leads him to a boarded-up shed in the countryside where the Ultra-Humanite is lying in wait for him.
As Superman barges headlong into the shed, the villain freezes him inside a block of crystal. "BEHOLD!" gloats the Ultra-Humanite. "My mortal foe imprisoned in crystal....so that I can look upon him and laugh until eternity!
"When he destroyed my plane, he thought that I, too, had been eliminated! But unknown to SUPERMAN, I escaped with a parachute!
"He alone stood between me and my great goal!...DOMINATION OF THE EARTH! Now I can hasten my plans, unhampered!"
However, the villain has not reckoned on the Man of Steel's amazing recuperative powers. "As SUPERMAN revives, he flexes his great muscles and the crystal block explodes!"
Now realizing that capture is imminent unless he somehow escapes, the Ultra-Humanite presses a hidden button and vanishes mysteriously through the center of the floor. A search beneath the floorboards reveals nothing, and when Superman finally races outside, he finds that "the invisible car's gone! He's made good his escape!" Lyons's two henchmen, however, are still inside the shed, and Superman swiftly apprehends them and turns them over to the authorities.
"The 'Ultra-Humanite' has got to be stopped before he succeeds in his mad plan to dominate the Earth," muses Clark Kent afterward. "if not, the world will succumb to evil forces!"
"Only one obstacle confronts me-Superman!" thinks the villain aloud to himself in the safety and seclusion of some hidden laboratory. "He must be wiped out! It's a terrific task... but my tremendous brain can devise some way to trick him!" (Act No. 14, Jul 1939).
In October 1939, after quelling a raging fire aboard the steamship Clarion, Superman learns that the Clarion is the fourth Deering Lines ship to have recently been "deliberately destroyed" and that a mysterious extortionist has been demanding a payment of $5,000,000 in return for bringing the sabotage to a halt.
To compound the mystery, the Deering Lines' general manager has been receiving telephone calls from the extortionist that do not travel over the telephone company's wires, even though he does receive them on his regular office telephone. "only one person could have accomplished the miraculous scientific feat of telephoning without using the telephone company's lines," thinks Clark Kent to himself, "Ultra,' the mad scientist who seeks domination of the Earth."
After trailing the Ultra-Humanite's henchmen to his secret laboratory hideout, Superman finally confronts the villain, who has been attempting to extort money from Derring Lines in order to acquire the funds he needs "to continue my costly subversive activities."
Superman hurls himself at the Ultra-Humanite, but his hands only "pass thru [sic] 'Ultra's' figure" as "the scientist's body wavers" and then abruptly vanishes into thin air.
"Wh... What?" exclaims Superman, completely bewildered. "... Then it wasn't 'Ultra' who was here, after all--just a projected image of him!" Indeed, the Ultra-Humanite is still at large, but his plot to extort $5,000,000 from the Deering Lines has been thwarted, and his henchmen, apprehended by Superman, will be turned over to the authorities (Act No. 17).
In December 1939 a strange epidemic plagues the population, with strange purple blotches killing the affected. Soon, "the streets are clogged with death [...] Horror grips the city!!" A young scientist, Professor Henry Travers, after reading on old history books of a similar "Purple Plague" that blighted the middle ages, recognizes that the symptoms are identical, and concocts an antidote. The first test fails, but he is able to save the son of another scientist. Ultra sees Travers interest in the old book, and after intercepting Traver's call to Clark, kidnaps him. Superman rescues the scientist. After receiving news of Superman's interference, swears that "No freak of nature will stop me from achieving my goal!" and then assures that "The human race shall be blotted out so that I can launch a race of my own".
Later, Ultra's henchmen fire an unknown ray and knock out Superman. Ultra tries hypnotizing him by placing a helmet on hi head, but Superman fakes being controlled, and when he is taken to spread the plague with a henchman, he destroys the "fantastic airship of Ultra's creation" that was spreading its "cargo of Purple Death".
Superman then returns to Ultra's stongholds where the villain tries to blast him, but Superman places the Ultra-Humanite in front of the gun, killing him (Act 19, Dec 1939).
In January 1940 Superman learns that Ultra's assistant revived him "via adrenalin", but as this recovery was only temporary, he orders his henchmen to kidnap Dolores Winters, a movie actress, and then "places his mighty brain in her young vital body." As Dolores, the Ultra-Humanite announces her retirement from acting, and plans a retirement party on her yacht, the Sea-Serpent, where she invites "a gay crowd of leading movie actors, writers, directors, and producers", some of the world's wealthiest men. When the party is in full-swing, she slips away unnoticed and moves the yacht to sea. She then corrals her guests with guns, having replaced the crew with her henchmen, and shoots one in cold blood when he thinks it is a joke. Ultra then announces via the ship's radio that she's holding the celebrities captive and that a sum of five million dollars must be paid to see them again.
The ransom note is delivered to a radio studio manager, and while Superman secretly stands by, the note materializes in front of the studio-head. Seeing that the ransom should be delivered within a buoy near the Centel Lighthouse, Superman follows it into a submerged submarine after magnetic force is used to drag it down, and then, to an air-filled cavern. Here Dolores has helmets on the heads of the captives, wired to a control board where she can electrocute them. Even though she has got the money, she still decides to kill the captives. The Man of Steel throws a huge stalagmite into the switchboard, breaking the electrical connection, and then tries to capture Dolores. She waves a lighted torch in front of the captives, and Superman, seeing the mad look in her eyes, realises she is Ultra, at which point the villain tells him what happened. But after seeing Superman blowing the torch out, she dives into the water and escapes (Act No. 20, Jan 1940).
Soon after, the Ultra-Humanite read of the discover of an atomic weapon created by physicist Terry Curtis after Clark puts it into the Daily Planet. Using the comely form of the young actress, the villain seduced and kidnapped the scientist with the help of two thugs. Atop the building Ultra forces Terry into an autogyro. After extended torture under the torture ray, Curtis agreed to help the Ultra-Humanite build an atomic arsenal of his own. The Ultra-Humanite tells the city he wants $2,0000,000 or he will destroy every building and life in the city. As a demonstration of their power they will destroy the Wentworth Tower at 2:00 P.M that afternoon. When an airship attacks the Tower, Superman holds the Tower up long enough to let the spectators escape. Superman destroys the disintegrator by throwing a boulder and follows the plane to the criminal lair, which is a city inside a volcano, and defeats the robot guards. In the lab of Ultra, the villain threatens to destroy Metropolis if Superman moves closer. In exchange for the release of Curtis, the Ultra-Humanite sends Supermen to steal crown jewels, expecting him to be destroyed by the guards as she alerts them. Superman is able to battle past the guards and get the jewels however. When Superman returns unharmed with the jewels, the Ultra-Humanite first sends diamond drills at Superman, but Superman breaks past them. A thug fires the disintegrator at Superman, but Superman knocks him out and takes the weapon. Curtis seizes Ultra to stop her pulling the lever that will destroy the city. Superman then disintegrates the photo-electric-cell connections. Confronted again with his ultimate foe, the Ultra-Humanite dives through an opening in the side of his lair to his apparent doom in the volcano's crater. Superman throws boulders in that set of the volcano and leaves with Curtis, though it is unknown whether he takes the Jewels with him. (Action Comics #21)
[Editorial Note: Most early records Siegel and Shuster replaced the Ultra-Humanite as Superman's arch foe when Lex Luthor was introduced into the Superman comic. Originally, Luthor was depicted as a mad scientist with a full head of red hair. An artist later mistakenly drew Luthor with a bald head and Siegel approved of Luthor's new look.[2] Because Siegel and Shuster didn't need two bald mad scientists battling Superman, they dropped the Ultra-Humanite from Superman comics in favor of Luthor. The Ultra-Humanite made his last Superman appearance in Action Comics #21 (1940), where he apparently dies, and made no further comic book appearances for several decades.
With the introduction of DC's multiverse system, the continuity of Golden Age Superman stories and the Ultra-Humanite were retroactively placed on Earth-Two, the Earth of DC's Golden Age characters. The Ultra-Humanite was reintroduced during the Silver Age as a recurring villain in the Mr. and Mrs. Superman feature in the Superman Family anthology comic. Mr. and Mrs. Superman consists of stories about the early years of the marriage between the Earth-Two Superman and Lois Lane, and features a number of Golden Age Superman villains of which the Ultra-Humanite is the most prominent. In the annual JLA/JSA teamup in Justice League of America #195-197, the Ultra-Humanite transfers his consciousness to an albino ape body and becomes a major super-villain of Earth-Two. Afterwards, he regularly appears in DC Comics titles, opposing the All-Star Squadron in the 1940s, and the Justice Society of America and Infinity, Inc. in the decades since World War II.
After the 1985-1986 limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths, Superman's history was rewritten in The Man of Steel miniseries, and the Earth-Two Superman was removed from continuity. However, the Ultra-Humanite was excluded from Superman's reboot, and his post-Crisis history remained tied to the 1940s and to the Justice Society of America and All-Star Squadron. Previous appearances of the Ultra-Humanite fighting Golden Age Superman in the 1940s in Action Comics #13-21 and in All-Star Squadron were re-told for the sake of continuity (a technique known as retconning) to show him having fought other 1940s heroes.
The Ultra-Humanite's most ambitious scheme occurs in the 2002 "Stealing Thunder" story arc from JSA #32-37, where, in the aged body of Johnny Thunder, he deceives Jakeem Thunder into handing over his magical pen. With the power of the omnipotent Thunderbolt, the Ultra-Humanite first restores his body's youth, and then proceeds to take over the world. Under his rule, Earth is transformed into essentially a single mind, with nearly every metahuman becoming an extension of the Ultra-Humanite.
However, a select few heroes manage to escape the control of the Ultra-Humanite: Jakeem Thunder, Captain Marvel, Hourman (Rick Tyler), the third Crimson Avenger, Power Girl, Sand, and the second Icicle. Wildcat and Hector Hall are also free- Wildcat as an apparent side effect of his 'nine lives', and Hall so that he could summon the garb of Doctor Fate and thus provide the Ultra-Humanite with access to Nabu's power-, but both are held captive by the Ultra-Humanite. After the reserve JSA are able to temporarily short out the Thunderbolt to deprive their enemy of access to the Thunderbolt's power, the Ultra-Humanite is seemingly killed by the Crimson Avenger (although the Icicle nearly beats her to it) as revenge for the death of the first Crimson Avenger, who dies earlier in an explosion triggered by the Ultra-Humanite.
After the events of Infinite Crisis, history was altered to bring Dolores Winters (now called Delores Winters) back to life via the reveal that her brain was placed in a new body after Ultra-Humanite stole her body for his own use in the pages of JSA Classified #19-20 (2007). In Power Girl (vol. 2) #2 (2009), the Ultra-Humanite's secret origin is revised, shedding more light on his past life as a genius youth, Gerard Shugel (a name derived from Superman creators Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel). He was born with both an intellect that surpassed the world's greatest minds and a degenerative disease that was slowly eating away at him. He used his intellect to find ways to keep the disease at bay, while trying to find a way to transplant his brain into a healthy body.
Working with a reckless and young Satanna, a fellow college researcher, they worked together at their brain/transplant and animal hybridization technologies. Forced to relocate in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and beset by rebel forces and the military, Satanna was forced, as a stop-gap measure, to transplant the healthy brain of Gerarld into the altered body of an albino gorilla. They shared an intimate relationship for a while, then they parted way for a long time, paving the way for their separate adventures as chronicled pre-OYL.
In the 2006-2007 "Lightning Saga" crossover between Justice Society of America and Justice League of America, the untold story of how Ultra-Humanite transitioned from Delores Winter's body to his albino-ape form was revealed: Per Degaton, the villainous time traveler, and a young version of Despero rescued the Delores Winters-version of Ultra-Humanite from a hospital in the year 1948. It is revealed that the Ultra-Humanite was stricken with terminal cancer and in exchange for his loyalty, Per Degaton agreed to provide a new body for the villain, in the form of a rare albino ape from the secret civilization known as Gorilla City. Christening themselves the "Time Stealers", they align themselves with Mr. Mind, Rex Hunter, the mysterious "Black Beetle", and the villainous father of Booster Gold in an attempt to manipulate time for their own selfish goals. However, their conspiracy ultimately unravels at the hands of Booster Gold and Blue Beetle Ted Kord. In the end, Ultra-Humanite and Despero were sent back into the past after their group were defeated, while other members were returned to their previous places in time.
In Justice League of America (vol. 2) #1 (2006), Ultra-Humanite is said to still be alive and well, having stolen a copy of Steve Dayton's "Mento" helmet.
Later on Ultra-Humanite is seen aiding the Reach in their plans to conquer Earth; he is defeated by Blue Beetle and Guy Gardner. Most recently he appears in the first arc of Power Girl (vol. 2), using an anti-gravity mechanism to raise New York City into the air, holding the city hostage in exchange to transfer his mind into Power Girl's body. The attempt fails, and Power Girl accidentally scars his whole body with acid burns, maiming his form for good.
Satanna returns to New York, attempting to aid her former lover, stealing the body of the current Terra, Atlee, for Gerard's use. After a lengthy fight, however, Power Girl is able to retrieve Terra's brain (now in the crippled simian form of the Ultra-Humanite) and bring both of them to Strata, Atlee's advanced underground birth society, to get her friend restored to her proper body. Strata's scientist agree to clone a new, fully human body for Gerard Shugel, resembling a healthy version of his twenty year old human self, cured from his degenerative disease. Power Girl attempts to hire him as a scientist for her Starr Labs, and Gerard plays along showing a fake desire of reformation.[3]
The Ultra-Humanite is a scientific genius, and possesses one of the most advanced human minds in the DC Universe. He has the power to transfer his brain into another body. Various bodies occupied over the years include actress Delores Winters, a giant insect, a Tyrannosaurus rex, Justice Society member Johnny Thunder, and a glass dome. His best-known and most frequently revisited form is that of a mutated albino gorilla. He has also invented numerous other devices including an invisible car, a mind-control helmet (though it did not work on Superman), and robots.
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