PHIL LYONS PHIL LYONS
Identity/Class: Human
Occupation: Professional criminal
Group Membership: The Slug (Ulysses X. Lugman)'s agents (Lenny and others unidentified)
Affiliations: The Slug
Enemies: Nomad (Jack Monroe)
Known Relatives: Edward Lyons (father), Vivian Lyons (mother), Priscilla Lyons (sister; aka Vagabond and Scourge)
Aliases: None, other than "Priscilla's brother"
Base of Operations: Unrevealed;
formerly the Slug's yacht, just outside the U.S territorial limit, east of Miami;
presumably formerly Gary, Indiana
First Appearance: Captain America I#325 (January, 1987)
Powers/Abilities: Phil had no superhuman abilities.
He either had enough fighting experience, or his desire to get in good with the Slug pushed him to risk his life, or drugs gave him false confidence, such that he would challenge a costumed adventurer who had proven himself by taking out a pair of bodyguards in seconds. His vaulting over the Slug was the most athletic action he demonstrated.
Enjoying the hedonistic lifestyle, he was willing to betray friends of family who sought to help him. Although not wishing to see such a person killed, he could quickly rationalize his actions as necessary.
A smoker, he would have had less endurance than normal as well as a characteristic offensive odor.
Additionally, he was likely high or drunk much of the time, which would lower his inhibitions, slow his reflexes/reaction time, and impair his judgment.
Height: Unrevealed (he appeared to be a bit shorter than the 5'11" Jack Monroe, so perhaps 5'9"-5'10"_
Weight: Unrevealed (perhaps 180 lbs.)
Eyes: Unrevealed (I found no images that showed his eyes close enough to see his irides)
Hair: Auburn (according to my wife, as my color vision is sub-spectacular)
History:
(Captain
America I#325 (fb) - BTS / USAgent#2 (fb) - BTS)
- Phil Lyons fell in with a bad crowd and eventually ran away
from home to work and traveled to Miami where he got heavily into
the drug trade; his parents disowned him. 
(Captain America I#325 (fb) - BTS) - Phil came to work for local druglord the Slug (Ulysses X. Lugman), working on his yacht, just outside the U.S territorial limit. He enjoyed the job, considering it to offer him good food, money, women, and drugs. Although he did not enjoy some of the Slug's activities, such as publicly punishing employees for failures, he accepted this, feeling that every job had its downsides.
(Captain America I#325 (fb) - BTS / USAgent#2 (fb) - BTS) - Hoping to convince Phil to come, his older sister, Priscilla, began hitchhiking her way to Florida in hopes of helping Phil.
(Captain America I#325 (fb) - BTS) <A month before the main story> - Priscilla encountered Jack Monroe (aka Nomad) in Kentucky when he stopped to pick her up on his motorcycle. Eventually, Priscilla shared her reasons for traveling to Florida, and after Monroe shared his heroic costumed identity with her and offered to help, the two shared some level of romance.
(Captain America I#325 (fb) - BTS) - Priscilla told Jack to relay to Phil that he should come home and that "Dad forgives you and <we're> all worried about you." Jack told Priscilla he would stay in touch.
(Captain America I#325 (fb) - BTS) - Nomad went undercover on the Slug's yacht, working as a server.
(Captain America I#325) - Jack located Phil, who recognized him as "the new guy," and relayed Priscilla's message to him, but Phil angrily argued that he was very happy with his situation and warned Jack that if he did anything to jeopardize his job, he would blow the whistle on him.
(Captain America I#325 (fb) - BTS) - Wishing
to make sure he stayed in good with the boss, Phil reported Jack to the
Slug, who convinced Phil to use Jack's desire to help him to bring him
in; Phil was to inject Jack with a heroin overdose. Feeling that the
Slug just planned to teach him a lesson and hoping to get into the
Slug's good graces, Phil agreed.
(Captain
America I#325 - BTS) - After having not heard from Jack in three weeks,
Priscilla sent a message to Captain America via his hotline, which
relayed to him that Nomad was in danger and gave him Priscilla's
contact phone number (see comments).
(Captain America I#325) - Despite being unsure what to do about Phil, Jack was suiting up in preparation to take down the Slug that night, when Phil approached his cabin. Hearing this, Jack -- having only had time to don his leggings -- jumped into bed and pretended to be asleep. Phil called out his name and told him that he had changed his mind about this place and that he did want to go home.
In the darkness, Jack failed to see the syringe in Phil's hand and, wanting to believe the best of him, he let Phil get close enough to stab it into his chest (specifically his left pectoral muscle). Leaping out of his bed, Jack felt the effects of the drug right away (see comments); everything went dark and he collapsed on the ground.
(Captain America I#325 (fb) - BTS) - Lenny and an unidentified member of the Slug's men, presumably having waited right outside the room, carried the semi-conscious Jack up to the deck.
(Captain America I#325) - The Slug's men mocked Jack's "pajamas," noting how many of the Slug's servants were "fruity types," and then they laughed as they noted how he would be breathing salt water as they tossed him overboard.
Phil felt bad for having gotten one of Priscilla's friends killed, he swiftly rationalized that he had to tell the Slug to stay in good with him. Lenny then told Phil he had "done good" and told him to come with him and tell the Slug how he handled that sneak.
(Captain America I#325 (fb) - BTS) - Jack retained enough wits to use his pants as a flotation device.
(Captain America I#325 (fb) - BTS) - Captain America met with Priscilla, who knew enough details about Jack to convince Cap her request was legitimate, and she told him what she knew of the Slug's yacht.
(Captain America I#325 - BTS) - Fortunately picked up by Captain America in a rented motorboat en route to the Slug's yacht, the recovered Nomad set the yacht aflame by starting a fire in the kitchen.
(Captain America I#325) - After Nomad took out the Slug's bodyguards and charged the Slug, Lugman begged for help, and Phil literally leapt to the rescue, using his hands to spring off the Slug's chest toward Nomad. However, the now-prepared Nomad simply grabbed Phil's head and swung it into his knee, knocking Phil out with a single strike; Nomad considered that "starry-eyed jerks shouldn't mess with professionals" and that he was taking it easy on him, out of respect for Priscilla.
(Captain America I#325 (fb) - BTS) - Phil presumably escaped with many of the Slug's henchmen in a ferry or in Captain America's motorboat.
(Captain America I#325 - BTS) - As the ship went up in smoke, Nomad rushed to find Phil (he had been battering the Slug atop his mobile tractor/sled device), but found him missing and assumed he had escaped.
Captain America, Nomad, and the Slug all escaped the burning ship.
(USAgent#2 (fb) - BTS) - Phil died of an alleged drug overdose.
USAgent#2
(fb) - BTS) - Priscilla went home for his funeral, and though she had
her suspicions about foul play, she couldn't prove anything, and
guilt over having been adventuring with super-heroes and having left
her brother to his own fate made her angry. She became obsessed with
avenging Phil and making pay those who had made the life of crime so
seductive. This desire led her to seek out strength augmentation under
the Power Broker (Curtiss Jackson) and later to join the Scourge of the
Underworld program.
Comments: Created by Mark Gruenwald, Paul Neary, and John Beatty.
While I have no personal experience with the drug, medical websites
note that heroin's peak effects take place in seconds if injected
intravenously (IV), but if given intramuscularly (IM), they take 5-8
minutes. Jack was injected IM, and even though he was given an
overdose, it would still take minutes, rather than seconds. Regardless,
presumably it was the super-soldier variant in his bloodstream that
allowed Jack to retain enough of his wits after collapsing and being
thrown in the water to remove his pants and use them as a flotation
device.
Then again, perhaps he was drugged with some Marvel universe super-heroin-variant...
Thanks to the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe team's Chris Buchner for providing the credits for Captain America: America's Avenger while I was away from home.
Profile by Snood.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Phil Lyons should be distinguished from:
Appearances:
Captain America I#325 (January, 1987) - Mark Gruenwald (writer), Paul Neary (penciler), John Beatty (inker), Don Daley (editor)
Captain
America: America's Avenger (August, 2011) - Jeff Christiansen, Mike
O'Sullivan, & Stuart Vandal (head
writers/coordinators); Markus Raymond & Mike Fichera (writers;
assistant coordinators); Sean
McQuaid, Kevin
Garcia, Madison, Patrick Ryall, Ronald Byrd, Patrick Duke, Rob London,
Matt Forbeck, Paul Fairchild, & Chris Biggs (writers); Gus Vasquez
(penciler), Tom Chu (inker), James Emmett & Joe Hockstein
(editorial assistants), Alex Starbuck & Nelson Ribeiro
(assistant editors), Jennifer Grunwald & Mark D. Beazley (editors,
special projects), Jeff Youngquist (editor)
First posted: 07/24/2022
Last updated: 07/28/2022
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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