Issue 25 - Hank Henshaw

Just in time for the Supergirl premiere, President-level Patron Brian selected HANK HENSHAW! Learn how this pastiche of Reed Richards became a fully fleshed out character AFTER he lost all his flesh!

SHOW NOTES:

• Introduction
• Background
  • Created by Dan Jurgens in Adventures of Superman #465 (May 1990)
  • Originally a parody of the Fantastic Four, he, his wife, and two other members of a space shuttle encounter cosmic radiation - Hank suffers no effects initially other than white hair, but his body eventually decays - he transfers his consciousness to a computer
  • He appears to his wife in a robot body, and she jumps out a window
  • He then transfers his body to Superman's birthing matrix to journey into space
  • Comes to believe that Superman was responsible for the shuttle accident, and vows vengeance
  • After Superman's death, Hank creates a cyborg body and claims to be Superman reborn, in order to destroy his reputation - manages to convince Lois he really is Clark due to vague memories from the birthing matrix
  • Defeats the Eradicator, another Superman claimant, and Coast City is destroyed in the aftermath - Cyborg claims Eradicator was responsible
  • Plans to destroy Metropolis with a warhead, but is stopped by Steel, Supergirl, and the resurrected Superman - attacks Eradicator with a blast of kryptonite radiation, which passes through Eradicator to Superman, and restores his powers
  • Superman punches a hole through Cyborg's body and kills him
  • Later on, we discover Hank had transferred his consciousness to a device on Doomsday, who is floating in space - Hank's mind takes over an Apokolips fighter and creates a new body to take over the planet - is defeated by Darkseid's Omega Beams
  • He gets captured into a small orb, which Darkseid releases him from if he promises to never return to Apokolips
  • Helps a Tribunal capture several Kryptonians, including Superman - he turns on the Tribunal, and is punished by being sent to an event horizon
  • Later is revealed to be in charge of Manhunters, which he has upgraded with Kryptonian technology
  • His head is taken to Sinestro, and serves the Anti-Monitor so he can later die and rest in peace
  • Most of his body is destroyed by the Green Lanterns, but he is resurrected by the Manhunters and is not happy about it
  • Helps Ganthet save the Green Lanterns, because he wants to use the information to make himself mortal again
  • His consciousness ends up merged with Boodikka until she fights a resurrected Doomsday, and he creates another body - his nanotech merges with the damaged Doomsday to become Cyborg Doomsday - Doomsday removes Henshaw from his body, and his consciousness is captured by STAR Labs
  • New 52 - soft reboot of character - Hank is only survivor of a 10 year journey on board a space shuttle, but has no memory of the trip - thanks to Mxyzptlk, he remembers the pre-New 52 mindset of Cyborg Superman, and begins recruiting Superman villains to battle the Man of Steel
• Issues (18:44)
  • Brian - "Why does Hank hate Superman so much?"
  • Has a death wish that cannot be fulfilled because he's an inorganic consciousness (25:05)
• Treatment (30:33)
  • In-universe
  • Out-of-universe
• Skit
• Ending

References:

• Max Landis' "Death and Return of Superman" video - Anthony - 9:00
• Steel - Anthony - 11:23
• Justice League - Superman's "World of Cardboard" speech - Dr. Issues - 24:09
• Office Space - "Today is the worst part of my life" - Anthony - 27:28

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