SIR HYSTRIX
Real Name: Presumably Hystrix
Identity/Class: Terrestrial fauna (porcupine) mutate (New Men)
Occupation: Knight, warrior
Group Membership: Knights of Wundagore (notably Sir Hogg, Sir Gote, Sir Lepard, Sir Lyan, Sir Ossilot, Sir Ursus; likely Sir Ram), New Men (inclusive of the previously listed Knights of Wundagore; presumably including Count Tagar, Sir Porga, and Bova Ayshire)
Affiliations: Jonathan Drew, High Evolutionary (Herbert Wyndham), Magda, Magnus
Enemies: Chthon;
indirectly Gregor Russoff;
Known Relatives: None, although he considered the High Evolutionary as his figurative /adoptive father
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Unrevealed;
last confirmed (and possibly buried near) High Evolutionary's citadel atop Mount Wundagore, Transia, Europe, Earth
Powers/Abilities: A hystricine semi-humanoid biped, Porcunius may have had superhuman strength, durability, and or olfactory (smell) and auditory (hearing) senses (and possibly relatively poor vision).
He also may or may not have sharp claws and/or quills. However, he was only shown in death, and it not not clear whether he had quills or just coarse hair/fur.
As a Knight of Wundagore, he was trained and experienced in armed and
unarmed combat, wore armor, wielded a sword and blaster
His fully armored form likely appeared thusly.
He presumably sometimes flew atop an atomic
steed, upon which he likely wielded some sort of energy lance.
Atop an atomic steed, he likely appeared thusly.
History:
(Web of Spider-Man I Annual#4/2
(fb) - BTS / Quicksilver I#9 (fb) - BTS) - Via his genetic accelerator
and Isotope B, Herbert Wyndham evolved a porcupine into semi-humanoid
biped form.
(Thor I#135 (fb) / Uncanny
X-Men Annual#12/3 (fb) - BTS) - The Magnus-possessed Jonathon Drew convinced
Wyndham to train his New Men to become highly-skilled, highly
principled warriors as the Knights of Wundagore. Although Wyndham was
dubious about this, he soon saw that the striving to teach them the
code of honor and chivalry was the ideal way to instill the code of
conduct in the uncultured creatures.
(Uncanny X-Men Annual#12/3 (fb) - BTS) - For over a decade, Wyndham continued to create New Men (to whom he was known as the High Evolutionary), and the Magnus-possessed Drew continued to supervise their training as knights.
(Web of Spider-Man I Annual#4/2 (fb) - BTS) - After being knighted by the High Evolutionary, he became Sir Hystrix.
(Uncanny X-Men Annual#12/3 (fb) - BTS / Web of Spider-Man I Annual#4/2 (fb - BTS) <1958; see comments> - Sir Hystrix was amongst the
Knights of Wundagore who faced Chthon's
Other.
After two hours, the two-pronged
assault from Magnus' Spell of Binding and the Knights fighting
alongside the High Evolutionary resulted
Chthon being trapped again within Mount Wundagore.
Although proclaiming victory, the High Evolutionary appreciated that half of his noble knights had perished in the conflict.
(Web of Spider-Man I Annual#4/2 (fb)) - Presumably the next morning, as Sir
Hogg lamented his brethren's deaths, the High Evolutionary surveyed the
dead and wounded.
Kneeling over the fallen Sir Hystrix, the
Evolutionary noted that
made 17 of his 42 beloved New Men who had died the night before. He
further considered that he had casually had then trained -- Sir Hystrix
in specific, but the other Knights of Pendragon in general -- as
warriors
and that they might have been better to have never known what it like
to be human than to come to this end.
Comments: Created by Mark Gruenwald, Ron Lim and Tony DeZuniga.
Porcupines are large rodents.
There are two families of porcupines, but the "Old World" porcupines
belong to the family hystricidae, as opposed to the "New World"
porcupines of the family erethizontidae.
Sir Hystrix may or may not have been amongst
the first group that
confronted the Other, alongside Sir Ursus and Sir Lepard. If so, these
images and comments are relevant to Sir Hystrix; if not, then not. So,
anyway, they are relegated to the comments until they are confirmed or
denied.
|
. (Uncanny X-Men Annual#12/3) - Ordered to scout the area on their atomic steeds,
Sir Leppard, Sir Ursus and three other Knights of Wundagore were
briefly buffeted by harsh winds before being confronted by the
malevolent force of the Other (the elemental host of Chthon). Although the Knights flew to challenge it, the Other considered them to be like gnats before him, and that even the blasts from their lances were but matches before a raging inferno. In response, the Other used winds to smash them against the mountainside. Note: It's also possible that Sir Hystrix was the 6th
New Man who was knighted into the Knights of Wundagore in Uncanny X-Men
Annual#12, in which the history for those guys, such as Sir Gote, would also apply: |
Close-up appearance of Knights of Wundagore on atomic steeds (not Hystrix, as this was in the modern era in their first known encounter with Thor):
Based on relatively recent data, Sir Hystrix may have been created anywhere between 1931 and 1958. However...
Retcon shenanigans, necessary or otherwise...
So, the Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff)'s birth (and that of Quicksilver's, but he is less critical to this) had long been tied to Chthon back in Avengers I#185-187, and the fact that she was the child of Magda and Magneto (Max Eisenhardt; that was a Marvel "fact" since 1982) -- who had married shortly after World War II -- but had been previously believed to be the child of the Whizzer (Bob Frank) and Miss America (Madelyne Joyce Frank), who had had super-heroic careers into the mid-1950s, led to the date of this battle with Chthon to having occurred in 1958 A.D., and then, Marvel Time vs. Real Time led to Wanda and Pietro having been kept in stasis for decades to explain why they were not in their 40's in the 2000s, their 50's in the 2010s, etc.
I THINK it was the issue with Marvel not having the movie rights to the X-Men characters +/- mutants that led to the retcon revelation that Wanda and Pietro were not the children of Magneto, all previous evidence to the contrary. And then James Robinson's Scarlet Witch series revealed Wanda's real mother to be Natalya Maximoff (and, I believe it was stated that the High Evolutionary had abducted Natalya's twins).
I
think James Robinson did a solid attempt to resolve the retcon
situation for the best, but there are a lot of characters with existing
history tied to the previous continuity (including High Evolutionary,
the New Men and Knights of Wundagore, Magnus, Spider-Woman, Bova, Miss
America, Whizzer, Gregor Russoff and the Puppet Master), for which
things have not been resolved.
Meanwhile, other writers took it upon themselves to retcon Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew)'s origins. The
story was interesting...it was just horrible for continuity. It is best
considered part of Jessica's various altered memory programs. But the
sad reality is that most writers coming along don't know or care about
the history and will just rely upon this retcon.
Profile by Snood.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Sir Hystrix should be distinguished from:
First posted: 02/05/2025
Last updated: 02/05/2025
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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