DARK ANGEL'S BROTHER
Real Name: Unrevealed; possibly Haldane (see comments)
Identity/Class: Human mutate;
British citizen
Occupation: None
Group Membership: None
Affiliations: Dark Angel (Shevaun Haldane), Excalibur (Captain Britain/Brian Braddock, Meggan Puceanu, Nightcrawler/Kurt Wagner, Shadowcat/Kitty Pride)
Enemies: Carol
Tyne, Melvin
Zobski;
formerly Dark Angel, Excalibur
Known Relatives: Shevaun Haldane, Ranulph Haldane
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Darkmoor Castle
First Appearance: Dark Angel#6 (December 1992)
Powers/Abilities: He had enhanced durability, reflexes, speed, stamina and superhuman strength (Class 90). His durability was such that it could ignore some of Hell's Angel's weaker energy blasts, and seem unfazed by her blows or Captain Britain's charging attack. His strength was enough to momentarily stun Captain Britain, or to lift a fully grown man above his head with one arm with no discernable effort. He had claws and teeth. Acid could be secreted through his mouth, and due to arcane forces, this acid could even affect Shevaun despite the protection of her void. His superior physical abilities made him an excellent hand to hand combatant despite his (apparent) lack of experience or training. He had a child's mentality and was unable to speak, although he could vocalize.
Height: 6'6" (an approximation as compared to Hell's
Angel and Captain Britain)
Weight: 250 lbs. based on the estimated height listed above (bearing in mind his
high durability might suggest denser flesh and/or bone than normal human)
Eyes: Yellow with no iris (sometimes orange with no iris)
Hair: Green
History:
(Dark Angel#6 (fb) - BTS) - Ranulph Haldane had a son, whom he
used in his experiments. The child was mutated into a monstrous form and then
stored in Haldane's original pathology lab at Darkmoor Castle.
(Hell's Angel#2 (fb) - BTS) - The pathology lab went unused since the time of Queen Victoria until the modern era.
(Dark Angel#6 (fb) - BTS) - The child somehow broke out of the storage cylinder, and fled the lab and the castle. He was full of hurt and rage. Beneath it all, he was desperate for help.
(Dark Angel#6) - While wandering, the child stumbled across Carol Tyne and Melvin Zobski. He lashed out with his claws and killed both of them.
(Dark Angel#6 - BTS) - His sister, Shevaun, heard screams and flew to investigate, unaware that the creature was her brother. She discovered the bodies of Carol and Melvin. His activities also attracted the attention of the local police, who contacted Excalibur (see comments).
(Dark Angel#6 (fb) - BTS) - Nagging at the edge of Shevaun's consciousness was a tiny voice crying out in the dark for help.
(Dark Angel#6) - He tore open the tent of a couple of hikers, but his sister had caught up to him and blasted him from behind. Forgetting the hikers, he quickly turned and struck her. She struck back, but was overpowered and reluctant to cut loose for fear of killing her opponent. Secreting acid from its mouth, he burned his sister's arm despite the protection afforded by her void. Their fight was joined by Excalibur, as Nightcrawler teleported in and assisted Shevaun. Captain Britain flew in and charged into the creature, but as they rose high into the air the brother struck the Captain. Stunned, the Captain let go of his opponent and they both plummeted to the floor. Upset to see Brian hurt, Meggan prepared to use her empathic metamorph abilities on the creature. Expecting to change into a monster, she instead realized it was just a child. It lashed out at her while she was taking this in, but Shadowcat stepped in and phased Meggan. Shevaun charged at her brother from behind, demanding to know who he was. As she, Captain Britain and Nightcrawler pinned him to the floor she finally finally realized the truth. In that moment, he seemed to stop struggling.
(Dark Angel#6 (fb) - BTS) - Shevaun placed her brother in bubble of energy and left him in the care of Excalibur briefly while she went to stop her father's soul fragment falling into the hands of Mys-Tech.
(Dark Angel#6) - On her return, Shevaun thanked Excalibur for their help. She told them she believed that if any hope existed for her brother it lay with her. Captain Britain spoke for the team, saying she had earned their trust and extending an invitation for her to call them for help if it should ever be needed.
Comments: Created by Simon Furman, Gary Frank, Andy Lanning, and Helen Nally under the Marvel UK imprint.
The creature was never named in the comic. Of course, Ranulph might not have even bothered to name the child, and I doubt he registered the birth if he was intended as an experiment. For that reason, I've not even made the assumption that he received the surname Haldane. The title of the story was Bad Blood, which I think would be a good code name for this character if he was reused. Hence the filename on this profile, Haldane (which if he has a surname should be accurate) plus BB for Bad Blood. Both speculative names, but no actual name was given in his one appearance. In Dark Angel's OHotMU profile he is simply listed as "unnamed brother". It's actually very appropriate in this instance as legally he may have no name.
Considering he was able to stun Captain Britain enough that he momentarily stopped flying, and that Shevaun rated him as "too powerful to just subdue," I'd say his strength was likely comparable to the good Captain's which was Class 90 at the time. While the character has the mentality of a child, as Meggan's empathy suggests, technically he was far older than Shevaun having been in stasis since at least the Victorian era. His actual physical and mental aging process was presumably retarded during all those years in the cylinder. Considering his father has been part of the Sect of Chasidm since 987 AD and we have no way of knowing when the child was born, he could be over 1,000 years old. He would be at least 91 years old at the time of Dark Angel#6 as Queen Victoria's reign ended in 1901. If his physical aging was halted by being in suspended animation, then perhaps he hasn't achieved physical maturity yet meaning his powers weren't at their peak in his one and only appearance so far. Also, his inability to speak could be down to his mental age. Considering his father was a genius, and he was last seen in the care of his rather gifted sister who had hopes of helping him, his mental faculties may not have been at their peak either. Just to clarify, there was no mention of this character in Hell's Angel#2 only an appearance of the pathology lab where his mutated form was stored. If I wasn't gathering information on Darkmoor Castle for Ranulph Haldane's profile, when I wrote this one I might've missed how important the history of that lab was to this character.
I feel I should note here that he isn't the only child of Haldane that was experimented upon. Hell's Angel#1 reveals that Shevaun was part of one of her father's experiments. Some of John Freeman's Warheads notes suggest that she was sent through one of his early wormholes to see if such a trip were survivable, though this tidbit never saw publication as far as I'm aware. This was dated as being roughly 1980, so about 12 years prior to her becoming Hell's Angel.
There is no explanation given as to what allowed him to escape after so many years of being kept in the laboratory. However, as the lab had been abandoned for close to a century I imagine it is likely something to do with Shevaun reopening it and using it after many years of it being undisturbed. Perhaps an atmospheric change that weakened the tensile strength of the cylinder. Also, it's not clear what alerted the Police to the presence of the monster, as Shevaun reaches the scene of Carol and Melvin's killing before them but they are already briefing Excalibur by this point. There is no time frame given as to how long he had been wandering free, however, so there could've been other sightings (or killings) not shown in this issue.
I wonder how he got on? Shevaun clearly had hopes for him. He did seem to calm down once Shevaun had realized the truth about him (he's not struggling when she, Cap and Nightcrawler pin him down - Kurt, at least, he should be able to throw away with ease), which could be down to her telepathic abilities. She does hear his child-like voice nagging at her subconscious, though this is just as likely to be her automatically reading him rather than him consciously reaching out to her. That's not to say that as brother and sister they couldn't form some sort of telepathic bond and he could develop telepathy of his own. It would be interesting to see him return. Although he killed at least two people, its worth bearing in mind that these were the actions of an extremely traumatized child mutated against his will as opposed to those of a career criminal.
Although he isn't mentioned again after#6, Captain Britain's sister appears in#7 (and#8). In#7 Psylocke doesn't ask after the child, but says it was Brian's suggestion to visit Darkmoor Castle and check on Shevaun before carrying on to meet Excalibur (her appearances in Dark Angel precede Excalibur#55). This suggests Brian and/or Psylocke weren't too concerned about the mutated killing machine last seen in Shevaun's care. Though perhaps it was the reason for Brian suggesting the visit to Betsy, and she was just more interested in having a girly night out than babysitting. There is also no mention of him in Dark Angel#13 when Shevaun is preparing to move out of Darkmoor Castle. Presumably at some point he was moved out of Darkmoor too.
As I wrote this profile, Revolutionary War was just hitting the comic stores. The Dark Angel installment was the last one I'd read. Her brother didn't appear in that issue either. Dark Angel says of her father that he was "born a thousand years ago. He waited nearly all of that before he had me. When you're immortal, you can afford to dally." This sort of glosses over her brothers existence, but then I have no idea if Kieron Gillen (who wrote the Dark Angel story and will be including her in his Iron Man series) has any idea about this character. And as Shevaun was the first child that Ranulph had that he actually had anything close to a normal relationship with, her statement is appropriate. He clearly wasn't thinking of starting a family back in the Victorian era with a hideously mutated son. Oh, and by the way... if you are a Dark Angel fan reading this and haven't seen her Revolutionary War issue then get to it! It's well worth it. In fact, if you are a Marvel UK fan, just collect the whole Revolutionary War series! The issue also suggests that her powers were part of the deal made by Mys-Tech, which is interesting. It certainly ties in with the notion of her being experimented on as a child. Perhaps her brother was an early attempt to satisfy that part of the deal? It's also worth noting that Dark Angel has apparently moved back into Darkmoor Castle (presumably since the apparent downfall of Mys-Tech), though whether her brother is there or not is anybody's guess at this point.
One last point. Shevaun questions her father about his experiments and suggests there may be more of her siblings in the pathology laboratory. He says nothing to confirm or deny this (he is a drooling mess being tortured in an afterlife dead zone by this point to be fair). So there may be other Haldane siblings around, which isn't terribly shocking when you think that Ranulph was over a thousand years old and has had time to father many children. And not all of those would necessarily be stored in that laboratory, which is described as his "original" pathology lab. Surely this implies he has had other path labs since.
Thanks to Markus Raymond for the images.
Profile by Changeling.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Dark Angel's brother, who may be called Haldane, has no known connections to
Carol Tyne was an assistant location manager from Hull. At age twenty two she became involved in Melvin Zobski's Blood Beast VII and selected Darkmoor as a potential location for the film. Melvin was an overweight film maker of some description who may have had some link to the previous six Blood Beast movies. Carol and Melvin drove over Darkmoor to view Darkmoor Castle. While Melvin was describing a scene in which a female character ran towards the castle and was confronted with the films titular beast, they encountered the mutated form of Ranulph Haldane's son. The child lashed out and killed both of them.
These are the two people being killed in the image of the Haldane's son in action.
--Dark Angel#6
images: (without ads)
Dark Angel#6, p1, pan5 (Main image)
Dark Angel#6, p2 (In action)
Dark Angel#6, p1, pan4 (Carol and Melvin)
Other Appearances:
Hell's Angel#2 (August 1992) - Bernie Jaye (Story), Geoff Senior (Art), Peri
Godbold & Caroline Steeden (Colors), Helen Stone (Editor), Paul Neary
(Editor-In-Chief)
Dark Angel#6 (December 1992) - Simon Furman (Writer), Gary Frank (Art Starts),
Andy Lanning (Finishes), Helen Nally (Colors), Gary Russell (Editor), Paul Neary
(Editor-In-Chief)
Last updated: 02/02/14
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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