Pteradon

Context

The Hybrid is a semi-obscure team of DC Comics superhumans, who first appeared in 1986. They managed to be at once reminiscent of the Doom Patrol, the classic Teen Titans and some classic versions of the X-Men. They were reportedly slated for a series of their own, though that apparently fell afoul of an IP issue.

Since Pteradon is reportedly the sole survivor of the Hybrid, this profile is the main Hybrid entry, with the most detail. The profiles for the other Hybrid members point toward the Pteradon one for the complete data.

Background

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Powers and Abilities

Captain Harel is a talented, experienced commando from the IDF. He used to lead a military anti-terrorist unit, and likely is a former paratrooper. After his transformation he becomes a sort of living, humanoid pterodactyl.

He’s way stronger than any pterosaur though. His leathery wings allow him to fly at nearly supersonic speeds with excellent manoeuvrability. His claws are tough enough to shear away a wing from one of the Titans’s “T-jet” flying personnel carrier. The legs of the Bug (Blue Beetle’s aircraft) are stronger than he is, though.

Pteradon survived terminal velocity falls without any permanent damage, and clearly has superhuman strength. He once wrestled a rhinoceros (actually a shape-changed Changeling) and can demolish steel chains and manacles using raw muscle power.

Pteradon can also beat his wings to generate a powerful jet stream – even whilst flying.

History

The creation of the group called the Hybrid was the result of insanity.

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Steve Dayton, one of the richest men in the world and a former associate of the Doom Patrol, had been struggling with his mental issues for years. A large part of these troubles came from the psychotronical helmet he wore in his costumed identity of Mento. During the Crisis, he went completely insane after joining the psychic fight against the Brujeria.

Mento started obsessing over the apparent death of the Doom Patrol, years before. Irrationally blaming his stepson (also a former Doom Patrol associate as Beast-Boy) for this loss, he decided to create a new Patrol. The idea came in part since at that point Dayton had lost the use of his legs. He saw this as bringing him closer to Niles Caulder, a.k.a. the Chief of the Doom Patrol.

The Doom Patrol had been assembled by Caulder from people who had experienced terrible, freak “accidents”. Therefore, Mento had Dayton Industries resources keep watch for people experiencing strange, nearly fatal calamities. His plan was to use the exotic metal promethium to confer superhuman powers to those victims.

Eventually he would have a super-group running, which would be his own Doom Patrol – the Hybrid.

Now hiring victims (part 1)

The first two “recruits” were Angelika and Andonis Bal. These two freelance archaeologists had been investigating a previously unknown cave in Greece’s Mount Olympus, thanks to a Dayton Industries sponsorship. Their find was exceptional – after years, they had finally found the Temple of Medusa.

The greedier of the Bal spouses, Andonis, started prying a ten-pound ruby free from one of the sculpted medusa heads. This triggered a seemingly magical defence system. The serpentine hair of the statue started moving and shooting eyebeams, which turned one of the Greek workers to stone.

While shielding his wife, Bal managed to block a beam with the ruby he was holding ; the couple was knocked unconscious and started to glow.

As the cave collapsed, the local workers dragged them out and saved their lives. The Bals were swiftly evacuated by Dayton Industry mercenaries.

Now hiring victims (part 2)

The third recruit was Captain Harel, an Israeli commando. In a repeat of the Entebbe raid , Harel and his men stealthily invaded an hostile country to rescue a hijacked airliner, which had been originally flying from Israel to Italy. Harel and his men flew their helicopters right into Qurac, landing on the main airport and engaging both the Quraci military and the terrorists in a firefight.

Surviving hijackers forced the jet airliner to take off, but Harel had managed to board, and shot the two remaining terrorists.

However, one of the seemingly dead terrorists mustered the last of his strength and shot Harel in the back. The commando, who was standing next to the still-open door of the plane, fell into the Mediterranean. A nearby fishing ship brought the apparent corpse aboard. Within the hour, a Dayton Industries aircraft crew paid them a bounty and flew away with the body.

All three ’recruits’ were treated with promethium implants and infusion. Among other properties promethium is self-regenerating, which somehow allowed the Dayton scientists to bring back the subjects from clinical death and repair physiological damages. Promethium also generating energy, it charged the threesome with considerable power.

First blood

With three members, Dayton started operations with his Hybrid. He ordered a vicious strike at the New Teen Titans, the current team of his stepson (then known as Changeling). But the modus operandi of this early Hybrid was peculiar. None of them was a willing servant, or particularly interested in carrying out Mento’s violent agenda.

Unwilling, as ever, to let reality and free will stand in the way of his delusions, Mento used his power to force them to serve. He telepathically sent orders and compulsions right into their minds. When they rebelled, he tortured them using mental pain. The initial Hybrid members greatly resented their horrible mutations and miserable new life as war slaves.

The first attack on the New Titans was a solo attack by Harel, now mutated into the horrific Pteradon. He engaged a T-Jet over New York City. Pteradon methodically torn the aircraft apart. Though Teen Titan member Cyborg managed to crash-land their T-Jet into water, the Titans aboard nearly drowned.

One of the passengers, Changeling, managed to take Pteradon out (by turning into a mammoth in mid-air at high speed) and to capture him. Dayton then sent the transformed Bals (now called Gorgon and Harpi) to free Pteradon from the Titans Tower.

The Hybrid grows

In the meanwhile, Mento produced a new Hybrid member. Feared sumo champion Taro Raiden volunteered for promethium injection. A literal giant, Raiden was a mutant with enhanced strength and stature. One may assume that his mutation became too obvious as he grew up to be 9′ tall. Perhaps he was barred from competition, leading him to take up a life of crime.

As they did not want to actually fight anybody Harpi, Gorgon and Pteradon were captured by the Titans. But Mento forced them to burst free and fight back. When they arrived, Raiden-san had been fully enhanced and, as Behemoth, disciplined Pteradon and Gorgon. The three reluctant Hybrid members nevertheless managed to talk Mento out of torturing and killing their captive, Aqualad.

Due to unrelated circumstances the Titans were unable to pursue right away. Mento fumed that they were not falling into his trap by coming to Aqualad’s rescue. Infuriated, he recruited three more Hybrid members in quick succession.

The first was geologist Cassandra Sharp, smothered by a sandstorm in the Death Valley. She was turned into Scirocco, named after the Sahara winds that blow over the Mediterranean.

Pteradon’s first mutated appearance.

Chicago juvenile street thief Amelinda Lopez was hit by a truck whilst snatching the purse of Melody Case, of Kord Industries. Dayton Industries men kidnapped her from her ICU bed, and Lopez was promethium-infused to become Touch-N-Go. Finally, the last subject appeared by himself the day after Lopez was kidnapped.

The foreman at the Kord Industries metallurgy lab, Curt Calhoun, was directing a rushed attempt to get a promethium alloy working right before a visit from a STAR Labs founder. The cauldron suddenly slipped and when Calhoun body-blocked Ted Kord out of the way of the molten metal, he was himself hit by the liquid promethium.

Inexplicably, Calhoun stayed alive despite being covered in molten metal, and Kord got an ambulance to rush Calhoun to the hospital. The ambulance was hijacked by masked Dayton Industries soldiers despite Kord’s attempt to resist.

Clashes with the Titans

As the men who had hijacked Calhoun’s ambulance sped back to base, Scirocco and Touch-N-Go joined the Hybrid. They rebelled but were surprised by their new powers and immediately felled by Mento’s telepathy. Minutes later, the Blue Beetle (Kord in his heroic identity) stole back the ambulance Calhoun was riding in, and the Hybrid was dispatched against him.

The Hybrid quickly wrecked Blue Bettle’s aircraft and reclaimed the ambulance. But due to Mento’s manipulation, they found themselves confronted by the Teen Titans before they could leave.

Thanks to the Hybrid’s lack of teamwork and to Blue Beetle’s considerable help, the Titans prevailed. However, in the meanwhile, Mento remotely ’activated‘ Calhoun in the ambulance, turning him into the last Hybrid member – Prometheus.

Controlled by Mento, Prometheus surprised his opponents and freed the rest of the Hybrid. They all managed to flee, capturing Changeling in the process.

The Titans and the Blue Beetle tracked down the Hybrid to the Dayton Industries building in Manhattan. They defeated the Hybrid, and the incoherent Mento decided to leave Changeling alone for the time being. He teleported away with his servants.

Within days, the Hybrid attacked Titan’s Tower. This time, the combat went their way despite the Titans’s efforts. However, Raven intervened and broke Mento’s hold over Hybrid members, who allied with the Titans. The new allies then lent their strength to help Raven cure Dayton of much of his insanity.

The Hybrid decided to stick with Dayton for a while, since they thought they owed him their lives. Beside, they couldn’t go back to their previous lives given their monstrous forms.

Dayton… cured ?

Steve Dayton, his mental condition apparently stabilised, kept an unclear relationship with the Hybrid members. Apparently they retained a tight connection with Dayton Industries, of an unclear nature. Whether all members remained a part of the team is unknown. But it is unlikely that Behemoth, for instance, stuck around.

Further confusing the matter, Dayton was not actually as sane and benign as he tried to look. He was still covertly fascinated by promethium and experimentation to create superhumans. Thus, he may have manipulated the Hybrid into sticking around just so he could observe them. The promethium technology was later used by the Wildebeest Society, and then in turn to create Pantha.

In 1992 Harpi of the Hybrid was briefly seen bitterly complaining to Dayton. She considered that his efforts to heal the Hybrid were insufficient. This enigmatic episode was likely intended to launch a series about the Hybrid, which did not materialise.

A decade later, the female members of the Hybrid were seen as a part of Circe’s army of super-villainesses. That implies that whatever the Hybrid’s activities may have been during those years, they were at best amoral.

House of the rising pain

Some months after that, a scene in the House brought some information about the Hybrid. The House is a gladiatorial arena run by Roulette, where part of the business is pitting unwilling superhuman fighters in duels to the death. A plaque there read “Fallen players of the House” and including the portraits of Harpi, Scirocco, Gorgon, Touch-N-Go and Prometheus.

Whether they are indeed deceased, and whether Pteradon is still alive, is unrevealed. But the Hybrid have been back from death before. And the self-regenerating promethium within their body likely could bring them back anew.

Description

The four initial Hybrid members had a first, Kirbyan look (illustrated at the bottom of the column), but later changed to a more modern look. Pteradon even seemingly mutated again, since it was not just his costume that was different.

Personality

During his first appearance Harel did not speak. With his horrific appearance the Titans even briefly assumed that he was some kind of beast. Interestingly he did not shred Changeling to bits but chose to punch him instead. Perhaps he only believes in killing when it comes to terrorists and enemy soldiers.

Harel does not want to work for Mento and has no quarrel with the Titans. Yet he is forced to serve by Mento’s powers. Like the Bals, he is horrified by the madman’s cruelty and insanity.

Pteradon does what he can to mitigate the damage from Mento’s plans. This includes weak attempts at fast-talking Mento. These are sometimes successful, given Mento’s unpredictable insanity.

Quotes

“They call me Pteradon now — a cursed name. But it suits me.”

“I will cooperate. I did not want to attack you — none of us do. But Mento’s power is too great.”

By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: DC Universe.

Helper(s): Darci.