Karl Stragg

Karl Stragg was an American scientist and criminal. In early 1966, he and the Ox were both serving time in New York state prison. Sensing an opportunity, Stragg manipulated the simple Ox into helping him escape in exchange for granting him exceptional intelligence. The plan worked, and the two escaped using the Ox's brute force. Ox led Stragg to the abandoned laboratory of his prior leader, Mister Fear, where Stragg carried out an experiment that switched their respective consciousnesses, leaving Stragg's mind in the Ox's body and vice versa. Stragg tricked the Ox, leaving him weak in mind and body while Karl became a brilliant powerhouse.

However, side effects of the experiment soon became clear, as Stragg was filled with savage, brutish urges to rampage aimlessly across the city. He saw Karen Page on the sidewalk, who had been terrorized by the original Ox in a previous encounter. She screamed, and the hero Daredevil attacked. The new Ox took him down with relative ease with a blow from a large pipe to the midsection. He dressed the unconscious Daredevil in a spare set of the Ox's clothes and kidnapped Karen, partly to learn her connection to the original Ox and partly to keep her from testifying to the police. He returned to Mister Fear's hideout only to be ironically outsmarted by the original Ox, who used a piece of heavy machinery to disorient Stragg and free Karen. The increasingly wild Stragg went to the police station heliport where he was confronted by the quickly released Daredevil once more. A fight ensued, and Stragg carelessly fell off the roof to his death. Given a new lease on life, the old Ox in Stragg's body intended to return to prison.