Cornelius van Lunt is a large, powerfully-built man who paid top instructors to give him hand-to-hand combat training and maintain his fighting trim. He’s not Shang-Chi, but he’s a solid brawler, he’s very determined, and there’s two hundred and sixty pounds of him. He capitalises on his mass by rushing and body-blocking his opponents, and his Taurus costume includes a pair of hard horns and reinforcements to allow for bull-like charging and goring attacks.

Van Lunt is also quite the marskman - and has the discipline and experience to aim when shooting a powerful gun or cannon (in DC Heroes he spends HPs on the AV). In 1961 he was seen wielding a revolver in each hand - he wasn’t using them at the same time, but used his ambidexterity to have twelve shots rather than six before reloading.

Van Lunt once kept Moon Knight at bay in close combat, though the circumstances were unusual - they were fighting in cramped quarters, favouring the heavier man, and Taurus was fighting like a cornered animal.

Van Lunt wasn’t originally an astrologer (just a believer), but as the Zodiac developed he learned to perform the various calculations this hobby involves.

We have the technology

Taurus is a wealthy profiteer, and a crafty planner. The combination of the two results in cleverly planned traps using advanced technology — he’s the sort of man who owns an armoured warehouse, which can be sealed off with a powerful force field and rapidly rocketed into space, just in case he has to dispose of his enemies in this way. Early on, the technology employed by van Lunt can thwart even the Avengers, with some key values in the 16-to-20 APs range.

The most distinctive was the Star-Blazer technology, an energy projection weapon that may have been a fusion blaster since it was said to “channel the power of the stars”. The prototype was a strange-looking pistol with something very much like a golden, star-shaped Christmas ornament on the front. The original prototype could take down Thor with a surprise hit. Later replicas built by Aquarius (Darren Bentley), while still powerful, were nowhere near as potent - the original was apparently lost when van Lunt was arrested.

The Star-Blazer and other pieces of tech used by van Lunt are practically on par with Doctor Doom’s, and one wonders where he obtains such sci-fi gear. Aquarius (Darren Bentley) was said to have worked on the Star-Blazer pistol but from context it seems that it was the replicas, not the original.

Our No-Prize Hypothesis is that van Lunt had extensive contacts with the Intelligentsia, which was already active but existed undiscovered for decades. It is also possible that his amazing technological assets come from his past association with the Great Wheel, which was revealed in a 2011 story.

In any case, van Lunt apparently had access to super-tech from the early 1960s to the early 1970s. The technology he used during the 1980s was still advanced, but nowhere as good as before. It was a bit below the sort of things one can get from AIM — for instance he had an energy cannon that wasn’t powerful enough to damage the android Taurus.

Attack el robot, attack

In Avengers v1 #81, van Lunt sends a Mach-5-capable rocket aircraft after the Avengers. This large large jet-powered fighter had Flash Gordon-style aesthetics, and was crewed by two robots.

History

Cornelius van Lunt was a major American businessman - he apparently was a famous tycoon during the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s. The Van Lunt Trading Company was a major firm, and its CEO a very wealthy man. Beyond his business acumen, two of van Lunt’s notable qualities were a fascination toward astrology and — much less publicly — his wish to rule the world.

Many of the activities of Van Lunt Trading were, if not grossly illegal, downright unethical. It was not uncommon for Van Lunt Trading senior employees and van Lunt himself to employ strong-arming tactics, intimidation and the like to have their way with reluctant “business partners”. Van Lunt and his men would simply not take “no“ for an answer.

The best-known such case occurred in 1970 when van Lunt decided to buy some Cheyenne tribal lands. When the tribal leaders refused, he let his security men rampage through the village, indiscriminately firing into houses from speeding cars and killing several villagers. This was apparently typical of the shadier side of Van Lunt Trading back then.

Signs

The most important years of van Lunt’s career were only mentioned in a 2011 flashback, and remain mysterious. In 1961, Cornelius van Lunt was invited to join an incredible conspiracy called the Great Wheel, where each participant received a Zodiacal code name. The conspiracy was headed by Aries, secretly the immortal super-genius Leonardo da Vinci, who promised the participants of his strange game a powerful super-soldier technology.

Van Lunt participated to the Great Wheel as Taurus, his birth sign. Aries presented him as “an independent”, but did state that the participants to the Great Wheel where those who mathematically posed the greatest chance for world domination. Some of the twelve members remain mysteries, but participants included “Dum-Dum” Dugan and Nick Fury (future directors of S.H.I.E.L.D., and back then with the CIA), Baron von Strucker (head of Hydra), Vasili Dassiev and Viktor Ukarov (two directors of Leviathan) and Shoji Soma (back then leading most of the Hand).

Though the twelve secret warriors often were enemies and did not quite wish to do Aries’ bidding, the promised rewards were impossible to pass up. Van Lunt and the others conducted various field missions and intrigues to recover a lost super-soldier technology, but the two Leviathan directors turned against the Great Wheel and stole their findings. This gambit, and a later attack against Leviathan by the Hand and Baron Strucker, might be what was later referred to as the “Zodiac event” that put an end to the Great Wheel machination.

The repercussions of the Zodiac Event would be felt for fifty years, as they shaped the relationship between Leviathan, Hydra, the Hand and what would become S.H.I.E.L.D.. Van Lunt’s role in this is unknown, though he was presumably overshadowed and fell on the wayside. He may have kept resources from his association with Aries (particularly technological) and he kept in touch with Scorpio (Jake Fury), another Great Wheel principal.

Unbeknownst to van Lunt, “Jake Fury” was actually the very first LMD, accidentally built during a Great Wheel mission. As the first of its kind it was psychologically damaged, and essentially schizophrenic.

Wheels within wheels

Over the following years Taurus built his own Zodiac-themed conspiracy, presumably using what he had learned from the Great Wheel and its various spymasters. His Zodiac sought global rule and claimed to operate from twelve world capitals, but it was actually a powerful domestic crime cartel scheming to make to the next level. The twelve bosses of the Zodiac each ran criminal operations in a different American city, had all been born under a different zodiacal sign, and used themed costumes and equipment.

The crafty van Lunt was one of the twelve as Taurus, but hid from the others the fact that he was the financial backer and real boss of the cartel. Anonymous under his bull mask, van Lunt pretended that he was just one more mob boss.

The Zodiac cartel had a policy of letting each boss take the leadership of the organisation during the zodiacal month matching their birth sign, and van Lunt let other members (particularly Scorpio (Jake Fury) and Aries (Marcus Lassiter)) be the ones proposing and running the more aggressive plans, so they would be the exposed ones.

Most Zodiac members were ordinary crime bosses, and the gadgets and skills they used while masked were good but not exceptional. There were some exceptions, though. Aquarius (Darren Bentley) was a technologist of unclear skill, and later briefly became a superhuman. Gemini (Joshua Link) had a psychic power allowing him to exchange consciousnesses with his brother. And Libra (Gustav Brandt) is a superior martial artist who would later discover mystical secrets called the Balance.

These assets and the super-tech available to van Lunt were overshadowed by Scorpio (“Jake Fury”) when he acquired the Zodiac Key, a potent extradimensional artefact. The Zodiac saw it as its key to the big time, as it seemed capable of defeating anyone.

Brave new world

However, the world was changing — and like many organisations, the Zodiac took too long to adjust. The occasional masked vigilante or two-fisted detective of yore had given way to the super-hero or agencies such as S.H.I.E.L.D. during the 1960s, but most agencies gravely underestimated the power of these newcomers. In 1970, the Avengers had been around for six years, yet the Zodiac thought that they could take them on with some training, some minor gadgets and the Zodiac Key.

Even though the most powerful Avengers were not present, the assault led by Aries on Avengers’ Mansion quickly went sour. Furthermore, the Zodiac discovered in the middle of the brawl that they had been infiltrated by S.H.I.E.L.D. - Nick Fury having taken Scorpio’s place. The Zodiac only managed to flee thanks to the Zodiac Key.

Undaunted, Aries then launched his own plan to capture the entire island of Manhattan, but was killed when it failed. The potent Zodiac Key was lost, eventually returning to its home dimension.

Cornelius van Lunt wanted a revenge against the Avengers, but did not involve the Zodiac in it. Instead, he launched various financial and legal assaults against Stark Industries. Though he did not have a real chance to bankrupt Stark, he forced him to concentrate his financial resources to fight off Van Lunt Trading. This resulted in Stark having to request the rent that the Avengers technically owned him as he was rounding up all the liquid assets he had. That was van Lunt’s actual goal - to have the mighty Avengers work for him so they could raise the money to pay Stark.

The Avengers did a few jobs for van Lunt ; though they did not know that he was a criminal and a Zodiac member, they came to detest him and eventually walked out of their contract, refusing their pay. During one of the jobs, it seemed that van Lunt had come to kill them as the super-villain Kronus, but Kronus was actually a disgruntled Van Lunt Trading employee trying to frame his boss.

Soon after that, the Vision encountered the Red Wolf (William Talltrees), who told the Avengers about the depredations of Van Lunt Trading to acquire Cheyenne lands. The heroes came to investigate, in part to see if that could use this to gain revenge against van Lunt.

Cornelius van Lunt sent a robots-crewed fighter jet to intercept their Quinjet, and had his men check on the crashed aircraft for survivors. They took the Scarlet Witch hostage, to force the Avengers to cooperate. However, the plan fell apart when Red Wolf intervened. Van Lunt was thought killed by the destruction of the huge dam his company had been building on Cheyenne land.

Ruled by the stars

Cornelius van Lunt survived, and continued to operate with the Zodiac. When his turn at leadership came, he launched an ambitious plan based on the Star-Blazer technology. Taurus led the Zodiac in a new assault on Avenger’s Mansion and, using the Star-Blazer energy gun, felled the Avengers. This was a show of strength rather than a killing mission, and Taurus left a message - the Zodiac would kill every person born a Gemini in Manhattan, then make demands.

The Avengers determined that Taurus would use some sort of giant Star-Blazer cannon to do that, and located it and the Zodiac atop the World Trade Centre. Taurus briefly had the upper hand when he tried to use a stunned Mantis as a bargaining chip, but it didn’t work out. Taurus and the Zodiac managed to flee, though.

Meanwhile, rebellion was brewing within the Zodiac as the new Aries (Grover Raymond) wanted to take over. After literally butting heads with Taurus and losing, the angry Aries called for a coup and rounded up his supporters. Aries then called van Lunt - knowing that he was the financier behind the Zodiac, but not that he was Taurus. Van Lunt set a trap for the rebellious Zodiac members by setting up a meting - and lucked out as the Avengers, having followed the Zodiac aircraft, also entered the warehouse where the meeting was supposed to take place. After van Lunt gleefully revealed through a closed TV circuit that he was Taurus, the building was sealed by an impenetrable force field and rocketed off into space.

As it turned out, there was a third faction within Zodiac - Libra was secretly the father of Avengers associate Mantis, and had his own agenda. He saved those marooned in the warehouse, bringing them back to Earth to confront Taurus and the few remaining loyalists.

The charismatic van Lunt convinced the renegades that even if they beat him the Avengers would imprison them, and the Zodiac was briefly reunited to fight against the Avengers. They were outmatched, though, and van Lunt nearly drowned when the Vision knocked him into a pool.

The 1970s

The courts were swift in issuing life sentences to the Zodiac bosses, even the influential Cornelius van Lunt. While in prison and preparing for an appeal, van Lunt was contacted by the Black Panther, as the Avengers needed to use the Zodiac’s powerful Star-Blazer cannon. After some hesitation, Taurus agreed to help - presumably to help with his case before the appellate court. The Star-Blazer cannon was destroyed but the Avengers saved the world.

One of the Zodiac members who had rebelled against Taurus, Aquarius, was still determined to harm van Lunt - especially after van Lunt made an appeal for himself with his high-priced legal team, but left other Zodiac members to rot. Dying of a lung condition, Aquarius dealt with a servant of Mephisto to be given the power of the entire Zodiac roster for a year. One of his first actions was to use this infernal magic to impersonate Taurus and very publicly steal documents from a major bank.

Aquarius, calling himself the One-Man Zodiac, was defeated by the Ghost Rider and the Stunt-Master. Whether his plan actually hurt van Lunt’s interests is unclear, and in any case Aquarius lost his soul to Mephisto. As to van Lunt, it would seem that he spent almost ten years in prison.

A Zodiac for the 1980s ?

Nevertheless, by 1984 Cornelius van Lunt was rebuilding a Zodiac mob. Some members were veterans of the previous version - perhaps van Lunt financed their appeals after all - and some were newcomers. Van Lunt also hired scientists to build high-tech weapons.

The nascent Zodiac intercepted Maggia communications in New York City, looking to trigger a gang war then swoop in and build a power base. However, one of van Lunt’s scientists betrayed him to the mob. Learning of another zodiac-theme organisation, the Maggia hired the Taurus of this second Zodiac to kill van Lunt. The Taurus hitman cut van Lunt’s communications, but his prey nevertheless reached business contacts who hired Iron Man (James Rhodes) to come to the rescue.

Cornelius van Lunt did what he could to hold off the Taurus hitman, though his artillery couldn’t hurt the assassin. Iron Man intervened in time and took the assailant down, revealing that it was a robot.

Van Lunt had slipped away during the fracas, but thought that the Zodiac’s security was compromised and he had to strike first lest Iron Man come dismantle his operation. He did not realise that it was unnecessary - Rhodes was new to super-heroing and, having never heard of the previous Zodiac, did not suspect van Lunt of major wrongdoings.

The Taurus robot had destroyed all of van Lunt’s weapons, forcing him to use more mundane means to eliminate Rhodes - a bomb hidden in their truck. Bad luck made that plot fail, and van Lunt had various Zodiac members attack Rhodes. It didn’t work, as they were at that point but mobsters with costumes. The new Aries (Oscar Gordon) and the new Aquarius (Zachary Drebb) were captured, and Tony Stark warned S.H.I.E.L.D. that a new version of the Zodiac was in the early stages of reconstruction.

What happened next is unclear. From a remark Pisces made years later, it is possible that S.H.I.E.L.D. swiftly took out van Lunt’s emerging Zodiac, but didn’t have much to pin on them yet. If so, they were soon free with some help from highly-placed business and political contacts.

Taurus and the Zodiac successfully rebuilt their business over the next few years, becoming a wealthy criminal cartel controlling the cream of the criminal activities in “the twelve major markets”, presumably meaning twelve American areas generating major criminal profit. They avoided tangling with the likes of super-heroes or S.H.I.E.L.D., flying under their radar.

Paranoid androids

The robotic Taurus that had been hired to kill van Lunt belonged to another Zodiac that had been created while the originals were in prison. It had been created by the “Jake Fury” LMD using the Zodiac Key and LMD technology, and all members were thus androids.

The existence of another Zodiac worried van Lunt and his associates - after his experience with the android Taurus, van Lunt knew his Zodiac couldn’t fight the android Zodiac. The fears of the human Zodiac were founded - “Jake Fury” killed and replaced their Scorpio (Jacques Lapoint), and once the human Zodiac was assembled had his android Zodiac attack. Only van Lunt escaped, though Libra (Gustav Brandt) would later be revealed to have simulated his death.

Hunted by twelve powerful robots, van Lunt contacted the West Coast Avengers for help. The heroes were dubious, but agreed to help. Van Lunt was at that point a skilled astrologer, and since the androids were programmed to behave like zodiacal archetypes and strictly follow astrological rules he could second-guess them. He kept correctly predicting what they would do, allowing the West Coast Avengers to counter the androids at every turn.

During a confrontation in the Death Valley, the Zodiac Key hurled all combatants into its home dimension. Van Lunt was not taken along, and jump at the chance to renege on his promise to surrender once the crisis was over. However, while convincing the Avengers that he would play fair van Lunt had made an astrological oath invoking the Moon. That he had broke this oath had religious implications for one of the Avengers — Moon Knight.

Van Lunt was trying to recruit the Shroud as the new Pisces when the mentally unstable Moon Knight found him. Having nothing to gain from fighting him, van Lunt did his best to lose him, but the white-clad Avenger kept chasing him. They ended up fighting aboard a small plane van Lunt had commandeered, which eventually crashed. Moon Knight was the only one to walk away.

Cornelius van Lunt is assumed to have died in the crash, since he hasn’t been seen since. Several organisations called Zodiac, sporting twelve theme members, have arisen since his death.

Description

See illustrations.

Personality

Van Lunt was a moustache-twirling villain with simple drives - profit, power and ego - and absolutely no regard for the consequences. He was an overbearing megalomaniac who acted like he owned the world and everyone in it. Van Lunt saw himself as a hard edged realist who knows what it’s like out there, and that power has to be seized without hesitation or morals.

He enjoyed making shows of power, being feared, and treating everybody like dung. This latter aspect was particularly evident when it comes to women, whom he tended to see as tools and to use as hostages. His misogyny led him to underestimate his female opponents, resulting in several defeats.

Van Lunt dealt very poorly with frustration, to the point of throwing violent tantrums when things did not go his way. This impatience didn’t affect the intricacy of his plans, though. His plots often were redoubtable and subtle affairs where few things were as they seemed. Double- and triple-crosses abounded !

DC Universe History

Well, the villainous Libra once formed the Injustice Gang of the World in an astrologically themed plan (was it the IGW, or was that the JSA rogues gallery ?) to steal half the energy of the universe. There’s also the demonic Aquarius used to be semi-responsible for the transition between the Golden Age Black Canary and the Silver Age.

Of course, Taurus would be pretty overshadowed in such a group, so he’d have to be amped a bit (maybe by Intergang). Then he could be spliced in as a Silver Age JLA foe, and come back in a major crossover with Libra, Aquarius, and some others who I’m undoubtedly forgetting.

Or, maybe he beat up on the Detroit League, and they had to be bailed out by Dale Gunn… again.

Writeup revised on the 26th of April, 2012.