Professor Hellingen

"For the sake of hatred I bear within me for years, I won't forget the reason why I need him alive, I could've crushed the both of you last night had I wanted so."

- Hellingen to Zagor and Chico

Professor Garth Hellingen is a fictional character from the Italian comic book Zagor. He is undoubtedly the greatest and most dangerous villain that the Spirit with a Hatchet ever encountered. Zagor has beaten him several times, but he returns every time, and will probably never be completely defeated. Hellingen is a mad, but ingenious scientist, who wields devices such as universal translators, wireless connection, and mind-controlling microchips in mid-1800s.

Appearance
Hellingen is an aging man of average built and height. Despite balding, he still has some white hair of middle length. He is always seen dressed in black gown and black shoes.

After the explosion of his first laboratory, Hellingen's face becomess scarred, a trait that is carried over to his clone.

Titan
Hellingen's goal is to conquer the world, which led into his first confrontation with Zagor. This confrontation took place on an island on lake Erie, where Hellingen constructed a giant robot he named Titan, which he planned to use to conquer USA. Hellingen uses Titan to intimidate the native tribe of Ottawa, which draws Zagor's attention. In their confrontation, Zagor manages to capture Hellingen, and forces him to destroy his laboratory and sink the Titan to the bottom of the lake. After the explosion, Zagor believed that Hellingen is dead.

Squalus
Hellingen, however, survived, built a new laboratory, and constructed the submarine Squalus, which he used to dive down to the bottom of lake Erie in order to fix the Titan. After Zagor confronts him, Hellingen captures him, and using a drug, forces him to become his unwilling accomplice. After fully repairing Titan, Hellingen switched it on remotely, prompting it to start ascending from lake. However, due to Zagor's sidekick Chico secretly watering down the drug, Zagor came to his senses early, awakening on the Squalus that was operated by Hellingen's goons. Zagor manages to beat the crew, and seeing Titan climbing out of the lake, uses the Squalus as a torpedo to ram the Titan. Moment before impact, which destroy both machines, Tagor manages to leap out of Squalus. Zagor returns to Hellingen's laboratory to confront him, but Hellingen disables him with paralyzing beams. Zagor is saved when his friend, Captain Fishleg, enters the laboratory and flings a harpoon at Hellingen. His new laboratory is destoryed as well, and he is once again believed dead.

Alliance with Kraizer
Hellingen survived yet again, and forged an alliance with American military officer, colonel Kraizer, who helped him build a base and a laboratory in the middle of Darkwood, driving out all Darkwood Natives and trappers. Aided by Kraizer's soldiers, Hellingen constructed long-range ballitic missiles. Zagor discovers Hellingen's base, but is captured. Hellingen plans to bomb Washington to force president Jackson to surrender the rule to Kraizer and his army. He almost succeeds: the president is forced to surrender, and Kraizer's army marches on Washington. Zagor however, manages to break free, and turns the tables on Hellingen, forcing him to launch his missiles on Kraizer and his army. After Kraizer's demize and failure of all his plans, Hellingen suffers a mental breakdown, and is turned in to authorities.

Alliance with Akkronians
After his defeat and subsequent breakdown, Hellingen goes mad and ends up in mental institution. In time, and aided by medications, he manages to reclaim most of his sanity, and the army, eager to use his intelect, transports him to a distant observatory named Skylab, granting him means to invent new weapons.

Deciding to work on his own projects instead, Hellingen invents a radio receiver, which accidentally breaks into communications of a spaceship orbiting Earth. The spaceship turns out to belong to the extraterrestrial species of Akkronians. Deciding to use their presence to his advantage, Hellingen contacts Akkronians, convincing them that he is the only man on the Earth intelligent enough to communicate with them. He also convinces them that, while primitive, Earthlings are fierce and savage, and that the Akkronians will need his help.

Believing him, Akkronians attack Skylab, wiping out the scientists and soldiers, and taking Hellingen with them. Before leaving, Hellingen erects his tombstone, to convince anyone investigating that he is dead.

The tragedy prompts Zagor to investigate, and he is, at first, fooled by the tombstone. However, figuring that things don't add up, Zagor uses hallucinogenic mushrooms to establish a spiritual connection with Tawar, the shaman of Tunican tribe, who urges him to excavate the grave. Finding the grave empty, Zagor gives up on the investigation.

However, Hellingen soon uses Akkronians to capture Zagor and Chico and brings them to his new base on Naatani hill. While Hellingen gloats at his apparent victory and explains them his plan, Zagor breaks free and attacks Hellingen and Akkronians, but is captured once again when all his weapons prove useless against Akkronains. Realizing Zagor is too dangerous to be left with free will, Hellingen subjects him to surgery, implementing microchip into his brain, turning him to mind slave.

Hellingen uses Zagor to capture many warriors of the nearby Mohawk tribe, including Zagor's blood brother Tonka, the tribe's chieftain, who the Akkronians plan to use as blood sources to better their own species on their planet. However, in a brawl with one of the warriors, Zagor's microchip is shattered, and he manages to come to his senses and decides to free the Mohawks from captivity. His assault on Hellingen's base fails, and he is cast into underground river, where he is discovered and healed by Keokuk, a former Mohawk shaman that now guards the "Secret of Naatani Hill".

Leading Zagor below ground, Keokuk reveals that this isn't the first times that Akkronians came to Earth: their first visit took place "before 1000 moons", but they were forced back after Rakum, another shaman, discovered the Akkronians' weakness with the aid of the Great Spirit, and fashioned a weapon that could defeat them. At the cost of his life, Keokuk summons Rakum's spirit, who grants Zagor his weapons.

Leading yet another assault, Zagor attacks Akkronians again, but this time, he is able to kill them thanks to Rakum's weapons. Horrified at the prospect of being wiped out, the Akkronians flee, leaving Hellingen behind. After beating him into submission, Zagor forces Hellingen to free the Mohawk warriors from the chemical induced coma he placed them in. Almost immediately after being freed, the Mohawk warriors destroy the Akkronians' base, despite furious protests from Hellingen. However, urged by coloner Perry (who led the army to assault on Zagor's earlier request), Zagor prevents the warriors from destroying a transparent glass box, which turns out to be a teleportation machine. Tricking the present into letting him enter the machine, under the pretense of demonstration, Hellingen attempts to teleport himself to the Akkronians' spaceship. However, the machine malfunctions, and Hellingen is transported to the outer space, where the vacuum causes his body to burst, killing him.

Paralel Dimension
Hellingen's spirit ended up in space and found himself on a huge abandoned spaceship that was wandering the universe. Commandeering the ship, Hellingen directed him towards the Earth, where he created gruesome hallucinations for Zagor and Darkwood residents. In fact, he managed to transport Zagor to another, parallel dimension, where Zagor's dream was destroyed: peace between the whites and Natives was shattered, and a war, in which most of Zagor's friends died, broke out. But in the final confrontation Zagor managed to figure out where he was and defeat Hellingen. His spirit returned to eternal rest on the spaceship, and Zagor returned to his own dimension in which everything was normal.

An Alliance with Vendigo
The Spirit of Evil, Vendigo, manages to gather the scattered parts of Hellingen's body and brings him back to life, and builds him a castle on Nattani Hill. Hellingen, however, tricks Vendigo, and banishes him from his castle wanting to take revenge on Zagor himself. The US secret service "Elsewhere" sends agent Raven to help Zagor, but Hellingen manages to capture both of them and decides to destroy New York's with the cannons from his spacecraft. Zagor, however, manages to break free, and he and Hellingen are transported onto the spacecraft itself. Comandeering the ship, Zagor navigates it to the deep space where the cannons are unable to harm Earth. While both of them are still on the spacecraft, the Vendigo appears, and, angry at Hellingen's betrayal, seizes him. Zagor manages to teleport himself back to Earth before the spaceship is destroyed, and Vendigo takes Hellingen to Chaos Dimension, a place similar to hell, where he leaves Hellingen to demons to torture him forever.