CARLYLE PALLIS

Real Name: Carlyle Pallis

Identity/Class: Normal human

Occupation: Head of SHIELD's Security Internal Department, double-agent working for the Sept

Group Membership: the Sept, SHIELD

Affiliations: See above

Enemies: Dum Dum Dugan, Nick Fury, Spence

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: Carl

Base of Operations: SHIELD Helicarrier

First Appearance: Hulk Comic#1 (March 7th, 1979)

Powers/Abilities: Trained spy.

History: (HC#1/3) - After a session in the Helicarrier's automated trainer nearly turned deadly, Nick Fury ordered Dum-Dum Dugan to get him Sidney Levine (a.k.a. the Gaffer, who invented the trainer), and Carl Pallis (who headed SHIELD's Security Internal Department). Fury wanted to know how and by whom the trainer was sabotaged to turn it into a weapon of assassination. Pallis assured him they would give it "the works". A little later he and the Gaffer came back to Fury to explain how the lenses on the stun beams had been replaced to transform them into deadly lasers. They also discovered a hologram projector hidden in the machinery, which caused an image of seven stars to appear at the same time as the attack. Just after they gave the SHIELD leader this explanation, the Helicarrier was subjected to a missile attack, which split into seven warheads. Gunnery skill and the Helicarrier's defense systems averted a disaster, but Fury was convinced this was only the start.

(HC#2/2) - As SHIELD attempted to ascertain the source of the missile attack, Pallis continued his investigations, too. The latest attack seemed to have come from North Africa, and Pallis offered to get a plane fuelled to take Fury to Cairo. But the SHIELD supremo insisted he was not gallivanting off in the middle of this investigation. A little later Fury was talking to the Gaffer about the hologram projector, when Spence (head of the records department) raced into the room, hotly pursued by Pallis. In spite of the fact that Spence was unarmed, Pallis was firing repeatedly at his quarry, declaring him to be the traitor. Fury found this difficult to believe, as Spence hadn't left the records department in five years, but Pallis still took Spence away for questioning. When Fury mentioned that Pallis better have something to go on with his allegations, Pallis stated that it was Spence's own record, full of unexplained absences, that tipped him off. He then stated that he assumed Fury would head to Africa now, since the traitor had been apprehended, but Fury responded negatively to this -- the Cairo office could handle things.

Fury went to find Dum-Dum and they discussed the situation. They agreed that Spence, as the head of records, would have had every opportunity to amend his own records to cover his tracks if he had been up to anything, and that this suggested that it was far more likely someone else altered his records to frame him. But only one other person, apart from Fury himself, had access to those records. A quick check with communications revealed that the Cairo office had not been told to start their investigation either, confirming Nick's suspicion of Pallis. He and Dum Dum confronted Pallis outside the interrogation room, and told him he was under arrest. Pallis reacted instantaneously, decking Dugan and making a run for it. Fury pursued and he and the traitorous security chief engaged in a running gun battle up to the upper deck of the Helicarrier. Fury fired upon the catapult control that controls the launching mechanism for the supersonic fighters SHIELD uses, and the catapult triggered, catching Pallis across the chest and sending him careening off the edge of the flight deck, to plummet to his death on the ground miles below.

Comments: Created by Moore and unidentified artist.

The artist on the first installment of the strip is uncredited; the second episode on the strip is credited to "Moore and Dillon" (probably Steve Moore rather than Alan), but the art in the first issue doesn't look like the same man's work -- this could be because of a different inker however.

Spence's mysterious bosses, the Sept, would be the main villains throughout the run of this British produced strip. They'll get their own profile eventually.

When Marvel launched the Hulk comic in 1979, it was the first attempt of Marvel UK to produce a title containing largely home-grown work. Its predecessor, Captain Britain Weekly, had only contained one non-reprint strip, and that was written and drawn by Americans. The Hulk Comic was much more ambitious, with four out of the five strips contained within being original tales with British creative teams. One was wholly new -- Night Raven. One used American created heroes as the leads but in a British setting -- The Black Knight (with Captain Britain, who no longer had a title of his own to appear in). And two masqueraded as if they were U.S. strips -- Hulk and Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD. As time passed the number of original strips vs. reprints dwindled, until only the Black Knight strip remained; then even it was gone. In spite of this, the Hulk Comic was a landmark for Marvel U.K. From this point until the cancellation of the American style titles like Warheads and Knights of Pendragon in the early 1990's, there would always be at least one British-originated strip being published by Marvel U.K.

Profile by Loki

CLARIFICATIONS:
Carlyle "Carl" Pallis should be distinguished from

• Carl, the police officer who investigated a break-in at an Oscorp warehouse, Amazing Spider-Man I#244
• Carl, a storeowner, Spider-Man Unlimited#7
• Cal Carlchok, Daily Globe reporter who reports about monsters, Venon#-1
• Carlo, a humanoid giraffe who works for Doctor Bong, Howard the Duck I#17
• Carlos, a Cascan terrorist, Amazing Spider-Man Annual#24
• Mr Carlson, a doctor, Avenger I#29
• Mr Carlyle, a park commisioner, Howard the Duck I#32
• Pallis Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom
• anyone else called Carl, Carlyle, or Pallis
• any other traitors within SHIELD