Mister Hyde

Mister Hyde, born Calvin Zabo, is an American villain and former scientist. Zabo invented a special serum to make himself significantly taller, stronger, more merciless, and physically unrecognizable, and it is this form that inspired his Mister Hyde moniker that he uses to commit crimes.

Biography

Some time around 1963, Calvin Zabo, a known lowlife, attempted to get a job working under Dr. Don Blake. He fully intended to eventually rob Blake blind, but Blake refused him for his reputation. Zabo vowed revenge, and developed a serum that dramatically transformed him: it caused his baser instincts to take over, making him a dozen times stronger and physically unrecognizable. He called this new form Mister Hyde, inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's famous story. By switching between his two forms, Zabo was untraceable after committing crimes as Hyde. Late in the year, Hyde enacted his revenge on Dr. Blake, storming into his office and knocking him out of the window. He ripped the door of Blake's safe off of its hinges, taking out cash and invaluable research papers. Back at his hideout, Hyde heard over the radio that Thor had saved Blake from his fall; unbeknownst to him, Blake in fact was Thor, and had saved himself. Hyde then trailed Blake and his nurse/love interest Jane Foster, interrupting their dinner at gunpoint. He forced them into Blake's car and took the two to his castle hideout, where he tied up Blake and triggered a bomb with a 24-hour timer that only he knew how to stop. He took Foster to his final goal, a submarine nearby that he intended to steal. He was interrupted by Thor, and the two fought, putting Foster in an uncomfortable position: she believed that Blake was still in the castle, and that if Hyde was killed the bomb would explode and kill him. She pleaded with Thor to let Hyde escape, and in the confusion, Hyde did just that, quietly vowing revenge.

While experimenting in his apartment one day, Hyde heard an intruder. Transforming himself, he found the intruder to be the Cobra, a villain in a snake costume outfitted with extensive technological weaponry. The aggressive Hyde fought him, but the two soon figured out that they shared a common enemy in Thor. The two decided to team up, certain that their combined efforts could defeat him. Hyde pulled out a time-reversal ray that he had developed: when pointed at a living target, the ray would display "footage" of their life in reverse, eventually ending at their birth. Hyde naturally intended to use this ray on Thor and learn where he lived. They staged a robbery of a jewelry store, and Cobra successfully focused the ray on the hero as Hyde ran from him. The two escaped, and Thor was forced to give up his search. Reviewing the ray's results, they saw that Thor had come from the office of Dr. Don Blake, but the footage mysteriously stopped there. The two stormed through the window of Blake's office, demanding that he tell them where Thor was and taking his nurse Jane Foster hostage. But the truth was that Blake and Thor were one and the same, and through a fortuitous series of events, Blake managed to transform into Thor under the pretense of the former having escaped to call the police. The villains fled, but Thor chased them into a trade show for heavy machinery. Cobra took control of a machine that was able to circumvent the unliftable enchantment of Thor's mighty hammer Mjölnir, taking it into its grasp and stowing it in its storage compartment.

Thor maneuvered away from the villains into the throngs of people at the trade show, seemingly disappearing. In fact, by losing control of his hammer for a full minute, Thor automatically transformed back into Blake. Cobra and Hyde threatened to attack the crowd if Thor didn't show himself, at which point Blake stepped forward. He agreed to give them Thor once again in exchange for retrieving his cane from the machine. The powerful Mister Hyde ripped it open and gave it to him, and Blake dashed off out of sight to transform into Thor. The thunder god fought the two villains, easily overpowering them until Hyde made his escape and Cobra was incapacitated for the police to take into custody. Hyde later ambushed Thor and knocked Mjölnir from his hand, engaging him in one-on-one combat. An unarmed Thor was still the superior fighter, defeating him in under a minute and allowing the police to take him in as well. Soon after, Thor's brother and nemesis Loki disguised himself as a regular human and paid Cobra and Hyde's bail. In exchange for freeing them, Loki requested their assistance in defeating Thor. To begin with, he magically doubled their power, and told them to capture Jane Foster. An "unalterable edict" of Odin's forbade Loki from revealing that Thor and Don Blake were the same person, making Thor's connection to Jane Foster a confusing one for Hyde and Cobra. Nonetheless, they took to their task with gusto. As planned, the two captured Foster and ran from Thor. He confronted them on the street, where they told him to not pursue them or Foster would be "finished." Instead, he was to meet them again at that spot in 24 hours and surrender his hammer. Thor begrudgingly complied, not willing to put Jane's life at risk. The two kept Foster at a large house in New Jersey, and Thor found her with Odin's help and despite various deceptions on Loki's part. Thor arrived at the mansion and battled the Cobra and Hyde, and their intense combat soon resulted in an explosion that destroyed part of the building. Thor found Foster alive but in critical condition among the rubble. He knew she was dying, and could not be saved under normal circumstances. Swinging Mjölnir at a ferocious speed, Thor stopped time from passing within the house, allowing him to defeat his foes and keep Jane stable.

What became of the two villains immediately following this confrontation is unclear, but some time the following year they were both coerced by Doctor Doom's emotion machine into attacking the Baxter Building on the day of the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm. Cobra and Hyde entered the fray, a massive battle pitting heroes against villains, marking their most high-profile encounter yet. Cobra wrapped himself around the valiant Captain America, while Mister Hyde confronted Cap's Avengers cohort Hawkeye. In the end, Reed Richards used a device provided by Uatu to transport all of the villains back slightly in time and wipe their memories of these events. Reed and Sue Storm were thus successfully and peacefully married.