HEMLOCK

Real Name: Jonathon Hemlock

Identity/Class: Human technology user

Occupation: Mercenary/Assassin

Group Membership: Former agent of the Corporation

Affiliations: Employed several other mercenaries ("Mustache," "Red")

Enemies: Jack of Hearts (Jack Hart)

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: a mansion in Ithaca, New York.

First Appearance: Marvel Premiere#44 (October, 1978)

Powers: Hemlock wore a light body armor which gave him some degree of protection from injury. He specialized in poisons, including gases, darts, etc. His mask was filtered, allowing him to breathe despite being surrounded by poison gas. He had a large sickle, and his glove could fire either stun blasts, or a fine laser. In addition, he had a... (are you ready for this?) ...a rocket-powered trowel, equipped with heat-sinking technology, as well as an explosive warhead.
He also used several other agents to assist him.
He was quite pathologically attached to his plants.

Height: 6' (by approximation)
Weight: 180 lbs. (by estimation)
Eyes: Green
Hair: Unrevealed

History:
(Marvel Premiere#44 (fb) - BTS) - Not a whole heckuva lot is known about the origins of Hemlock, other than that he was an assassin of some renown. He had a trophy wall that, among other things, held the headpieces of an AIM and a HYDRA agent. He was hired by the Corporation to try to force the secret of the Zero Fluid from the Jack of Hearts.

(Marvel Premiere#44) - Hemlock sent a message to Jack Hart's mansion, taunting him with knowledge of the men behind his father's death, and challenging him to meet him at Hemlock's mansion. Jack arrived soon after, and refused Hemlock's offer to have a glass of wine. Hemlock then released some poison gas to subdue Jack, which had little direct effect on Jack's mutated form, but did blind him enough for Hemlock to get in a few punches. During the scuffle, some of Hemlock's plants were damaged, making him forget the Corporation's wishes to merely subdue Jack. He sent out his rocket-powered-heat-seeking-exploding trowel, but Jack overheated its tracking mechanism, causing it to explode prematurely and take out Hemlock's azaleas. Hemlock was furious over the destruction of his prize orchids, and he pulled out his scythe to take his revenge. Jack had had about enough, and he disintegrated Hemlock's scythe, leaving him seemingly helpless. Jack knocked Hemlock around until he surrendered, but fell victim to a sucker-blast from Hemlock's glove. Hemlock then tried to cut Jack out of his armor with his laser, which caused a sudden explosive release of Jack's energies. Jack revived and left Hemlock for dead.

Comments: Created by Bill Mantlo, Keith Giffen and Rudy Nebres.

   Slim pickins in the images department. Everything's in shadow.

   We do see a couple of extreme close-ups of his mask that allow us to see that he has green eyes. We don't get a good shot of him standing near Jack in any sort of pose that would allow proper height calculations, but he's not massively off Jack's 5'11", so I've guesstimated 6', and extrapolated weight from that.

   It's not confirmed that the explosion killed Hemlock (we only see his head, not his body, and Jack only notes that he is "out of commission"), and Jack certainly didn't seem to examine the body too closely. However, Jack was desperate for answers about the Corporation at this juncture and seemed fairly certain he wouldn't be able to get any from Hemlock, which suggests the damage to Hemlock had been sufficient for Jack to be able to rule him as dead at a glance. If he'd just looked unconscious Jack would have waited for him to revive, and if he seemed injured but possible to save then Jack would have presumably called for medical assistance, if not for altruistic reasons then out of hope of eventually being able to question him. - Loki

Profile by Snood; sub-profiles by Loki.

Clarifications: No connection to:

• Hemlock Shoals - extradimensional detective--Howard the Duck II#4
• or anyone else with a similar name or named after a poisonous plant