Membership: Barnaby "Bull" Brogin, Yogi Dakor (Agniprava Dakor), "Handsome" Harry Phillips
Purpose: To put a hurting on the Fantastic Four, or any of its members
Affiliations: Former agents of Dr. Doom (Victor von Doom)
Enemies: Fantastic Four (Human Torch/Johnny Storm, Invisible Girl/Sue Storm, Mr. Fantastic/Reed Richards, Thing/Ben Grimm), Impossible Man, Alicia Masters; Penance (Robert Baldwin)
Base of Operations: Manhattan, New York
First Appearance: Fantastic Four I#23 (February, 1964)
History:
(Fantastic Four I#23) - A robot agent of
Dr. Doom paid the bail of three criminals and took them to Doom, who
recruited them to help him destroy the Fantastic Four. Dr. Doom
empowered the trio with his XZ-12 machine, enhancing their certain
physical abilities a dozen-fold.
The Fantastic Four were quarreling over leadership at the time, and Doom captured Reed Richards himself after the other three members fell prey to his three henchmen--as a way of saying thanks, Doom banished the trio to another dimension, until he would have further need for them (The Fantastic Four, of course, escaped Doom's death-trap, which involved some crazy Solar Wave, a natural phenomenon which could transport objects or people into space--Doom attracted the wave with ionic dust particles and ...ahh, go read it).
(Strange Tales I#122/1 (fb) - BTS) - After Doom was sent into space by the Solar Wave, he lost his power to keep his henchmen in their dimensional prison, and they were returned to Earth.
(Strange Tales I#122/1) - Rather than hold a grudge, the
trio decided to prove their worth to Doom by capturing the Fantastic
Four the smart way--by tackling them one at a time. Harry posed as a
writer from "Auto Age" magazine and held Johnny Storm's attention
until the other two showed up. Yogi and Bull captured Johnny with an
asbestos rope and blanket, and they took him to an asbestos-lined
trailer to imprison him while they went to capture their next target.
But Johnny was sharp enough to generate large amounts of smoke, which attracted the attention of firemen, who freed him. Johnny tracked the three down and then took them out--he snagged Dakor's rope with a fireball and used it to wrap up the felonious fakir; Johnny next imprisoned Bull in a fiery cage, and then melted the road under Harry when he tried to escape in Johnny's hot rod, and off to the big house they went.
(Strange Tales I#129/1) - The Terrible Trio busted out of the pokey (that's what the Thing said). The Torch went out to look for them, but they waited until he had run out of flame and ambushed him. After some chase, they defeated him, but allowed him to send up a flare to attract the Thing. They knocked out Johnny and left him trapped on a set of train tracks. The Thing arrived, and despite attacks by the Trio (and having to stop a train from running over him and Johnny), he freed the Torch, and clobbered the Trio, and it was back to the pokey for them.
(Marvel Two-In-One I#60) - The Trio infiltrated an
exhibit of Alicia Masters' statues by posing as catering chefs. Dakor
then used his powers to transfer the life-forces of the three of them
into three of Alicia's statues: Harry into Dr. Doom, Bull into
Blastaar, and himself into Diablo.
In their powerful stone-forms, the Trio attacked the Thing, who held back, not wanting to destroy Alicia's works--when Alicia realized this, she told Ben that the statues meant nothing to her compared to him. With that, the Thing smashed the Blastaar and Doom statues together, shattering them, and knocking out Bull and Harry from the shock. Dakor/Diablo grabbed Alicia and held her hostage, threatening to kill her. However, the Impossible Man (who had accompanied the Thing to the exhibit) found Dakor's true form, in a trance, hidden behind the exhibit. Impy turned into a water balloon and dropped on Dakor's head, shocking him out of his trance, and sending his mind back into his body. The Thing knocked out Dakor with a flick of his finger.
(Penance: Relentless#1 (fb) - BTS) - Allied with a Latverian terrorist cell, the Terrible Trio stole nuclear launch codes pertaining to missiles launched at Latveria, which would prove that the US government had not demolished all of the Latverian warheads as part of its unilateral disarmament treaty. The Trio and the terrorist cell met afterwards in an abandoned tanker three miles down the coast from a downtown Baltimore harbor.
(Penance: Relentless#1) - Brogin was looking forward to giving the information to Dr. Doom. The Thunderbolts were sent to prevent the information from leaving the country, but Penance assaulted the Trio and the terrorists prematurely. Brogin struck Penance from behind, but Penance easily incapacitated everyone present and took the codes.
COMMENTS: Created by Stan "The Man" Lee and Jack "King" Kirby.
Initially, the group
was only referred to by such descriptive phrases as "Dr. Doom's
henchmen," "unholy threesome," "three evil foes," etc.--they weren't
officially dubbed "The Terrible Trio" until they appeared on the
cover of Strange Tales I#129.--Ron Fredricks
If the Terrible Trio aren't dead from their handling of asbestos, I'd love to see them come back for one more attempt to take down any of the FF. Who knows what further power Dakor has developed by now--he's actually blossomed into a reasonably powerful character.
After seeing the love between Ben and Alicia, the Impossible Man used his abilities to create the Impossible Woman to keep him company.
The Terrible Trio has an entry in Marvel Legacy: The 1960s Handbook. Bull and Dakor received their first names in the Terrible Trio entry in OHOTMU A-Z HC#11.
Additional images and new scans by Ron Fredricks.
Profile by Snood.
CLARIFICATIONS:
The Terrible Trio have no known connection to:
Barnaby "Bull" Brogin has no known connection to:
Yogi Dakor has no known connection to:
"Handsome" Harry Phillips has no known connection to:
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He initially had close to peak human strength, and he
received at least enhanced human to Class 5 strength and durability from
Dr. Doom. Bull's the muscle guy, pure and simple, and never has a whole
lot to add in the conversation department. He was always willing to
attack his own teammates if he felt they were getting too bossy. In his first adventure under Doom, Brogin drew the Thing
to Yancy Street, where he used Doom's Cosmic Beam Gun to temporarily
turn the Thing back to Ben Grimm (Why doesn't Doom incorporate that
gun into his armor?). Grimm was no match for the super-strong
Brogin, who captured him and brought him to Doom. |
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Having been trained in the mystic occult arts of the
Orient, he initially used his skills to resist flames and hot coals as
part of a circus act; he became virtually fireproof as a result of Dr.
Doom's treatment. In each successive adventure, he demonstrated additional
abilities, such as levitating a rope to climb, utilizing a flying
carpet, and mental transfer of the group's minds into inanimate objects,
which allowed them to animate and control the objects. It's not clear
whether his rope and/or carpet have magical properties, or if the power
is within Dakor. Dakor's rope was asbestos, and he was also skilled in
using it as a lasso. He also had snake-charming abilities, and he used a
giant snake (a python, I'd guess)
on one occasion. He masterminded the attack on the Thing using Alicia's
statues. "Yogi" is his title, and not his first name. Dakor is presumably of Indian origin, although the
specific source of his training and additional abilities is unrevealed.
He further developed his mental powers during a long prison term. In his
first adventure under Doom, Dakor posed as the assistant of a wealthy
maharajah who wished to give the Human Torch a high-tech hot-rod car.
Johnny Storm naturally took the bait, and Dakor revealed his true nature
once Johnny was trapped in the car with him. Johnny's fire powers had no
effect on Dakor, who rendered Johnny unconscious with knock-out gas and
took him to Doom. |
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He initially was charismatic and a skilled con artist, and he gained greatly enhanced hearing from Dr. Doom--this allowed him to track others, such as the Invisible Girl/Woman, by sound. He made the majority of the plans for the Trio, but he had to be careful not to boss Bull around too much. Harry is also a reasonably skilled costume artist. |
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Appearances:
Fantastic Four I#23 (February, 1964) - Stan Lee (writer/editor), Jack
Kirby (pencils), George Roussos (inks), Sam Rosen (letters)
Strange Tales I#122 (July, 1964) - Stan Lee (writer/editor), Dick Ayers
(pencils), George Roussos (inks), Stan Goldberg (colors), Sam Rosen
(letters)
Strange Tales I#129 (February, 1965) - Stan Lee (writer/editor), Dick
Ayers (pencils), Frank Giacoia (inks), Stan Goldberg (colors), Artie
Simek (letters)
Marvel Two-in-One I#60 (February, 1980) - Mark Gruenwald & Ralph
Macchio (writers), George Perez (pencils), Gene Day (inks), Roger Stern
(editor)
Penance: Relentless#1 (November, 2007) - Paul Jenkins (writer), Paul
Gulacy (artist), Molly Lazer (editor), Tom Brevoort (executive editor)
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
First Posted: 12/05/2001
Last updated: 01/21/2021
All characters mentioned or pictured are ™ and © 2001 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Please visit The Marvel Official Site at: http://www.marvel.com
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