JANUS JANUS
Real Name: Willem Vincent
Identity/Class: Human mutant (apparently);
Canadian citizen
Occupation: Warrior;
former poet and painter
Group Membership: Derangers (Breakdown/Esme Fernando, Laura Dean, Freakout/Arthur Amadeus van Krijg, Goblyn)
Affiliations: Alpha Flight (Box/Madison Jeffries, Sasquatch/Walter (Wanda) Langkowski, Vindicator/Heather Hudson), Manikin/Whitman Knapp, Purple Girl/Kara Killgrave, Wolverine (James Howlett/Logan)
formerly mentally controlled by Bedlam (William Nowlan);
formerly treated by Lionel Jeffries (Scramble)
Enemies: Bedlam (William Nowlan), Scramble (Lionel Jeffries);
formerly Alpha Flight
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: "Two-Face" (nickname from Purple Girl)
Base of Operations: Unrevealed;
formerly Bedlam's Arctic Circle base;
formerly the New Life Clinic, Vancouver, Canada;
born in unspecified location in Canada
First Appearance: (Behind-the-scenes; only their former containment cylinders are shown) Alpha Flight I#49 (August, 1987)
(seen, identified) Alpha Flight I#53 (December, 1987)
Powers/Abilities: Janus can manifest his dissociative identity disorder by forming a mirror-image duplicate of himself that can act independently, although generally guided by the same goals.
Mental assaults on one of Janus' forms apparently affect the other form as well.
Janus is an exceptional combatant, with high-end human strength and endurance, with exceptional agility.
He has some skill as a painter and poet.
Height: Unrevealed (approximately 5'11")
Weight: Unrevealed (approxiately 190 lbs.)
Eyes: Unrevealed
Hair: Brown (it is unrevealed whether his hair changes to white as Janus or whether the white hair seen is part of his costume)
History:
(Alpha Flight I#53 (fb) - BTS / Gamers Handbook of the Marvel Universe 1989 Character Updates / Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z Update#5: Scramble entry) - Willem was torn between the desire to pursue art or music, possibly an early symptom of his dissociative-identity disorder.
(Alpha Flight I#53 (fb) - BTS) - As an aspiring artist and painter, Vincent's creativity was disrupted by his psychopathic side.
(Alpha Flight I#53 (fb) - BTS / Gamers Handbook of the Marvel Universe 1989 Character Updates / Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z Update#5: Scramble entry) - Vincent was eventually committed to a mental health facility.
(Alpha Flight I#53 (fb) - BTS / Gamers Handbook of the Marvel Universe 1989 Character Updates / Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z Update#5: Scramble entry) - With his ultimate intention to create a superior species, Dr. Lionel Jeffries (aka the insane Scramble) secretly used corpses’ body parts to restore others, and, under the guise of psychiatric treatment, imprisoned patients with superhuman potential.(Alpha Flight I#53 (fb) - BTS / Gamers
Handbook of the Marvel Universe 1989 Character Updates) - Discovering
Vicent's's latent power to manifest a duplicate form, Dr. Jeffries had
him transferred to his New Life Clinic in Vancouver alongside autistic portal
generating Laura Dean who exchanged bodies with her monstrous twin Goblyn; the explosive-powered mental breakdown victim Esme Fernando; and drug-induced
brain damaged berserker Arthur Amadeus van Krijg, who was unable to feel pain.
(Alpha Flight I#49 (fb) - BTS / Gamers Handbook of the Marvel Universe 1989 Character Updates) - Vincent and the others were kept in stasis tanks at the New Life Clinic.
(Alpha Flight I#49 (fb) - BTS / Gamers Handbook of the Marvel Universe 1989 Character Updates) - Alpha Flight member Aurora stumbled across the four holding cells while suffering a psychological episode in her Jean-Marie Beaubier persona.
(Alpha Flight I#49 (fb) - BTS / Alpha Flight I#53 (fb) / Gamers Handbook of the Marvel Universe 1989 Character Updates / Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z Update#5: Scramble entry) - During the battle between Alpha Flight and Scramble (now calling himself Omega), the power to the New Life Clinic was cut, plunging the complex into darkness and allowing the four captives to escape.
(Alpha Flight I#49 - BTS) - Still in her Jean-Marie persona, Aurora sat a short distance from the shattered containers.(Alpha Flight I#52 - BTS) - The mental-powered sociopath Bedlam was revived by Gary Cody, whom he then slew.
(Alpha Flight I#53 (fb) / Gamers Handbook of the Marvel Universe 1989 Character Updates)
- Learning of the existence of Scramble's former captives, Bedlam
decided that they fit his own distorted version of a super-team (like
what had been intended by Guardian/James Hudson, who had originally
arranged Bedlam's empowerment).
(Alpha Flight I#53 (fb) / Gamers Handbook of the Marvel Universe 1989 Character Updates) - Tracking down the escapees, Bedlam took mental control of and transported them to his newly created Arctic Circle base. He forged them into a fighting team and then bound them in his base. At some point, Fernando, van Krijg, and Vincent were codenamed Breakdown, Freakout, and Janus (named for the two-faced Olympian god), respectively.
(Alpha Flight I#53 (fb) - BTS) - Bedlam captured Alpha Flight members Vindicator and Sasquatch (with Box/Madison Jeffries having escaped by transforming and retreating into an inert piece of machinery), along with Alpha trainees Purple Girl and Manikin; and transported them to his Arctic Circle base where they were imprisoned across from the still bound Vincent, Fernando, Dean, and van Krijg.
(Alpha Flight I#53) - Bedlam briefly linked the minds of his prisoners allowing each to see the origins/recent histories of the others. He then released the two groups from their imprisonment and -- naming his first group the Derangers -- forced them to fight, with the winning team to serve as the core to the new master race.
Struggling against the "past" and present" selves of Manikin (Proto, Apeman, Highbrow), Janus duplicated himself, and the second Janus attacked and battered Manikin's prime, otherwise-unpowered Whitman Knapp form.
When one of Janus' forms began strangling Knapp, Purple Girl took mental control of that Janus and forced him to relent, while Manikin's "apeman" form punched back Goblyn, getting her off Purple Girl's trail.
Distracted by attacks from Freakout (whom he subsequently slew) Bedlam
lost control of the others, allowing Alpha and their trainees as well
as the remaining Derangers unite against Bedlam.
Bedlam forced Janus' two selves to strangle and seemingly kill each other (see comments).
(Alpha Flight I#53 - BTS) - Vindicator slew Bedlam.Comments: Created by Bill Mantlo, Jim Lee, and Whilce Portacio.
People typically pass out when choked, and you'd think Janus' selves would have passed out from suffocation at that same time, so it doesn't seem that likely that they would have died...maybe they crushed each other larynges or caused some fatal cerebral hemorrhage or something.
Breakdown, Freakout, and Janus all received real
names in the Scramble entry in the Official Handbook of the Marvel
Universe A-Z Update#5. Stuart Vandal, the profile writer, revealed the
reasons for the name choices below, and discussed the choices of
providing names or not here:
Janus
- a disturbed artist, so his name came fairly directly from another
great artist known to have suffered mental problems. Thus Willem Vincent
was named for Vincent Willem van Gogh.
Further thanks to Loki for supplying the Gamer's Handbook of the Marvel Universe pages!
The Gamer's entry only pictured one form of Janus, but since they are mirror-flipped versions of each other, I just flipped and made a copy of the flipped image to add the second version.
According to Wikipedia, The Gamer's Handbook of the Marvel Universe is a series of role-playing game supplements published by TSR beginning in 1988 for the Marvel Super Heroes role-playing game.
Profile by Snood.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Janus should be distinguished from:
images: (without ads)
Alpha Flight I#53, pg. 9, 2nd column, panel 1-5 (Janus: painting; smashing; Jeffries-treatment; escape; Bedlam capture);
pg. 13, panel 1 (Janus restrained by Manikin's Ape-Man);
panel 2 (Janus releases other self against Knapp);
pg. 17, panel 5, panel 7 (Purple Girl controlling Janus);
pg. 20, panel 1 (Bedlam forcing Janus' selves to strangle each other)
Gamers Handbook of the Marvel Universe 1989 Character Updates (aka Volume 5) - main image
Appearances:
Alpha Flight I#49 (August, 1987) - Bill Mantlo (writer), June Brigman (penciler), Whilce Portacio (inker), Carl Potts (editor)
Alpha Flight I#52 (November, 1987) - Bill Mantlo (writer), June Brigman (penciler), Whilce Portacio (inker), Carl Potts (editor)
Alpha Flight I#53 (December, 1987) - Bill Mantlo (writer), Jim Lee (penciler), Whilce Portacio (inker), Carl Potts (editor)
Alpha Flight I#54 (January, 1988) - Bill Mantlo (writer), Hugh Haynes (penciler), Whilce Portacio (inker), Carl Potts (editor)
Gamers Handbook of the Marvel Universe 1989 Character Updates (aka Volume 5) - designed by Scott Bennie, David Martin, Chris Mortika, David Rogers, and William Tracy
Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z Update#5: Scramble entry (February, 2011) - Stuart Vandal (writer),
First posted: 02/19/2018
Last updated: 03/08/2018
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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