Basically "IT'S ALIVE!" gone wrong in context.
| “ | Project Hellfire is going to do more than dominate the battlefield. We're going to channel the power of Hell right into the leadership of this country. | „ |
| ~ Subtly vile motive that hints having an entire country possessed by demons. |
As promised, here's another one from the Ghost Rider and Wolverine collaboration, now focusing one the Hellverine comics as we speak. Story is a tad more solid than the crossover, from experience so far, we got to explore what was left off from the perspective and fate of Bagra-Ghul and seeing Wolverine's son, Akihiro, once again. Decent villain here too, also the candidate in question, and then there's Dr. Spivey... you know me when it comes to women with glasses, especially her well-fitting design. Though part me kinda wished the Destroyers got me to work with in the potentially next future works in Marvel, they've gotten much potential to perhaps become the Psycho Rangers of the comics... that's unless such a thing existed already.
Anyways, said candidate mentioned above is probably a lot more blunt in his depravity in terms of heinousness rivaling previous candidate connected to the comics' continuity, Father Pike, and just to be quick, here's his successor: General Harms. Real subtle on the name right there.
What's the Work?[]
Hellverine is the 2024 sequel comic book limited series that follows the aftermath of Ghost Rider/Wolverine: Weapons of Vengeance, written by who else but Benjamin Percy.
The story continues where it left off with the Hellverine. Apparently Bagra-Ghul escaped from Ghost Rider's stare somehow and found its way into possessing his dead son, Akihiro, becoming the second Hellverine as we speak and flies onto a vigilante rampage, killing dozens of criminals who committed only the worst of the worst. Meanwhile, his father Wolverine has been abducted by US Government's own General Harms regarding the matter and a newfound threat from hell called the Destroyers - all courtesy of the latter's own undoing - with the task of hunting down each and every one of them, at the same time, reunite with his dead son.
Who is He? What has He Done?[]
General Harms is a U.S. military general and the new leading administrator of Project Hellfire after the failures with Father Pike. Harms carries off achieving only the best results to come out from the project but near the end, it's ultimately revealed that he was previously dead before resurrected back as a semi-demon from a deal he made with Mephisto.
Before replacing Pike, General Harms was originally leading unauthorized conflict and waging wars around the world. He's laid siege upon gunning down surrendering enemies and civilians alike, hanging their corpses after killing them bloody, and burning piles of corpses to ash by dozens. This eventually earns him a bad reputation where he puts red on "red, blue, and white", in straightforward context; giving America a bad name, that's not without mentioning the fact he was almost tried at Hague one time. On his latest streak, Harms and his platoon came across an ancient church where their opposing enemies' families were hiding at that time, giving out the white flag to show they've surrendered peacefully. General Harms - being the merciless sociopath he is - instead dishonorably tore the white flag apart and launches a fatal assault that sees shooting the families dead and pulling out a grenade at them. Setting sight on a demonic skull relic with Mephisto's essence, Harms got distracted too much that he was shot in the head. Through Mephisto's deal, Harms pledges allegiance to him in return of being revived but now granted a semi-demonic form as long as he prioritizes Mephisto's behalf with the U.S. coming second.
Upon getting being promoted into the spot as lead-head admin of Project Hellfire's latest operations taking place underneath the Pentagon - a hidden laboratory facility dubbed as "The Pentangle" - General Harms begins getting the necessary funds from the government secretary where he would have demon corpses experimented on to harness hellfire energy needed for the operation's experiments. When an elite fireteam belonging to the now grieving Lt. Leland Townsend was buried after an ambush attack, Harms would have them dug up from their graves and taken to the Pentangle where he begins have their corpses reanimated through hellfire energy to perfect the ideal weaponized soldiers. The procedure proven both risky on scientific terms but also painful to them when they are revived as insanely-driven zombified versions of themselves corrupted by the energy - now rechristened as "the Destroyers". Seeking to take control over them, it backfires badly when they are unresponsive to his word, now rampaging outside the lab from attacking the Pentagon outside, killing scientists, cabinet members, and security guards. Harms, on the other hand, tried to take the coward's way and flee while completely indifferent to the damage he caused.
With the potential risk of Project Hellfire shutting down and consequential sentencing to federal prison or execution onward, General Harms manages to track down Wolverine via mistaking him for Hellverine (in actuality, is his dead son Akihiro) and convinces him into hunting down the Destroyers whilst lying he had no clue or relation to their creation. Even with Wolverine doing his dirty work, Harms wasn't above having him killed once he's no longer of any further use to his agenda, which he has one of his Hellhounds released for that matter and nearly endangered the wife and daughter when one of the named Destroyers, Peter Marmon, tried to reach out and reunite with them afterwards. At the same time, he's been constantly reminded by the secretary of the situation almost landing downhill and the consequences behind it, which Harms, again, continues being indifferent as he is apathetic and pinning the former just as guilty as him.
As if the situation couldn't get anymore f-cked up than to be given credit for, an enraged Leland Townsend barges into the Pentangle, demanding General Harms to conduct the same procedures onto him like he did his squadron, to which Harms agrees without any hesitation, taking the opportunity to create a much more ideal soldier out of him compared to the other five that went berserk. During his final meeting with his secretary, two remaining Destroyers found him in an act of revenge for what they've done to them, ending with the secretary maimed to death by the head as Harms ends up surviving the assault when Hellverine arrived. Little did they know that Harms that a forged rifle containing holy-water bullets, aiming it at Hellverine to prevent him from going after the last Destroyer to recapture, thus came a conflicting crisis of Bagra-Ghul possessing Wolverine once again, leaving Akihiro to die, only to turn the tables and revive him again via Bagra-Ghul possessing him once more.
Once Harms brought in the secretary's corpse, he has Spivey make modifications and inject hellfire energy onto her, now switching the current quota to nothing more than testing out a theory in mind; hellfire energy is basically the essences of multiple demons residing within the depths of its corrupting effects, so if the energy's essence can possess a person, why not possess an entire country at hand? This eventually shocked Dr. Spivey into having second thoughts of Harm's insane plan, only to smack her off after she finished modifying the secretary with hellfire energy. Driving her corpse all the way to the White House to begin testing the corpse and its essence to lay upon possessing the entire country, corrupting countless people and its government into waging riots and start wars throughout the entire globe, Hellverine and Wolverine caught up to them where the latter manages to get rid of the corpse before chaos could ensure and the former crashing his car.
Having enough, General Harms full empowers himself and tries to kill off Hellverine, only to be greeted by a weaponized Leland Townsend, still believing to be on his side until he and his surviving right-hand, Jamie Doedon, restrained him with chains. It was only moments before Hellverine smashed his skull relic with ease and incinerated him alive, therefore ending him and his plans to corrupt and have the entire U.S. possessed by demons via hellfire energy.
Heinous Standards[]
This is Marvel, we should be use by the number of planet destroyers, genocidal conquerors, destructive supervillains, etc. Just to make my point clear at this moment. We could name the shet ton all day if we could, but again, we are allowed to oftentimes focus on terms of the series they're from, and once again we're talking about this based on the rogues from Ghost Rider and Wolverine's stories. Pretty sure some of you might've gotten familiar with Stefan Skaar, Mr. Bullfinch, and two of the anti-heroes' biggest enemies, Mephisto and Sabretooth for instance, especially on a personal level.
We could number down how many times Harms lives up to his namesake after this, especially what he does to surviving families.
General Harms, meanwhile, has proven to be equally heinous as his predecessor. With only being a ranking U.S. military general on leagues with the US Government through it secretary, made a deal with Mephisto that turned him into a semi-demon with pyrokinetic powers, and given full access to the Pentangle where Project Hellfire's operations took place, he manages to commit the absolute worst for a miniseries alone. He was already guilty of carrying out unaccounted conflicts across numerous countries, massacring and gunning down countless army fighters, their loved ones, and innocent people generally throughout the Asian continent, South America, Africa, the Middle East, and even Eastern Europe. So far we see Harms hanging bloodied corpses on trees, burning dozens to hundreds in piles, gunning already surrendered refugees, and his most infamous example being the massacre of the enemy fighters' families inside an ancient church. We can assume he's racked thousands for this. This should make him heinous enough for his tier just for that, especially prior to getting his powers from Mephisto.
| “ | Project Hellfire had been formed to harness the power and technology of the underworld... but demonic forces are unstable and predatory by their very nature. Once Hell got a taste of power, it wanted more. It wanted all. If a demon could possess a body... then why not a country? Hellverine had sensed a greater evil steering the Destroyers... an evil that would focus its attention on the quiet power hidden in marbled halls. Laws would lead to strife within the country. Declarations would lead to war without. | „ |
| ~ Ultimately highlights more than "it's just a theory". These exact intentions have pinpoint direction of what could concur. |
It's not a very pretty insight on just how painful and psychological it is to be possessed and corrupted by an essence so bad, especially since when they were originally dead. They just want to wither away in peace.
Eventually it doesn't stop there, as we see from his operations in Project Hellfire, like with Pike, he also experimented on demon corpses for weaponization but not just that, for the purpose of harnessing hellfire energy. It gets worse when he used the five corpses of Leland's elite fireteam to get reanimated through said energy with clear explicit weight that they are in genuine pain during the procedure and when revived, they are driven insane by the energy's corruption within, as we see from James Marmon who desperately tries to cling back to his family and Jamie Coeden suffering a breakdown over his revived state to the point begged Leland (who is stable enough to handle the energy) to mercy-kill him in a suicidal manner. Now, yes, the Destroyers' massacres were unintentional on Harms' behalf, nevertheless he could barely give a damn about the bloodshed and said conflicts he caused above should help compensate for heinousness alone.
What further pushes him is his intentions to use the secretary's corpse to test out on its hellfire energy's essences of other demons onto an entire country, plunging it into declaring wars and laws leading to riots against the globe as a means of bringing forth Hell on Earth. Now the difficult part about this is how it was gonna happen and how much of the effects was going to take place, though I'm confident to say it's never reliant on Fridge Horror since the explanation about hellfire energy above concurs that from a demon's nature within tends to be unstable so bad when it corrupts or possesses the reanimated person, as we see through the miniseries, they are always in pain and driven insane due to the energy's unpredictable. Picture what would happen if Harms manages to infuse the same energy onto the entire White House and the U.S. through the secretary's modified corpse, we could culminate leading to exactly 340 million people possessed and corrupted by hellfire energy on a scale rivaling Stefan's. Earlier ago, Harms' rants about "Hell becoming the new country's leadership" weren't a bluff either, and considering he was on his way to the White House should cement the pinpointed dots.
With or without his intentions, I think globally causing conflict around the world via warmongering and how he kills his victims, coupled with his latest Project Hellfire operations that led to the creation of the Destroyers, should suffice enough for his tier alone. Especially since way long before he got to make a deal with Mephisto and getting his current semi-demon abilities. Passes with flying colors.
Mitigating Factors[]
Nada. Simply blunt as to put, General Harms lives up to his name for a reason. Apathetic, merciless, and lacking emotion, he's fine with massacring the innocent and their families bloodied and hanged with zero remorse plastered all over his face.
To his soldiers and men, the people he claimed to have "respected" is absolutely shallow, to which earlier tries to take total demand over the first revived Destroyers as if they're were his attack dogs and he was their "master", proving he sees very little in the "heroes that were once buried" as anything else but pawns at his disposal. This treatment even extends to the secretary and Dr. Spivey, which his relationships with them is mainly superficial, he did very little to protect the former during the Destroyers' ambush and brushes it off when he comes about deciding to use her corpse to have the White House and the U.S. possessed by the demonic essences of hellfire energy. For Spivey, he did originally tried to evacuate with her from the first time they created the Destroyers, but likewise, other than superficial, he's proven to be dismissive of her after she had doubts of his later intentions and smacked her aside.
While he does work alongside the Wolverine in recapturing the Destroyers or the time he enlisted Leland Townsend into becoming a test subject for Project Hellfire with a welcoming stance, none of these resemble any motions of honor. At best, General Harms is utterly pragmatic, only accepting assistance from Wolverine into doing his job and doesn't have an issue getting him killed once recapturing the Destroyers was a success. The only reason he brought Leland into Project Hellfire in the first place, other than the fact he was threatened with the former calling the media about it, but took the opportunity to use him as a "living" test subject than a dead one rather than actually giving him the obligation to reunite with his dead team. Harms wasn't even angry at Spivey for failing to get Leland to stay put after modifications, he was more preserved over the fact that the faster he is at regrouping his dead team, the better, but nevertheless, remains entitled of controlling them as demonstrated from his final moments, having the gall to believe Leland would still assist him mid-battle. After all... this is the same guy who tore down a white flag the enemies' families surrendered.
Also, there's no guarantee he pledged genuine loyalty to Mephisto, like the rest, vice versa. No further details whatsoever. Once again mainly out of fanatical circumstances and out of high supremacy over it, not to mention the way he pledge his loyalty upon being resurrected was more in favor of giving away his humanity in exchange of siding with a group more stronger. Hence his ranting comparison of Hell being a "kingdom" than the U.S. being beneath the hierarchy. Also, the threat of being sent to federal prison, death, or nearly being tried to Hague were mainly his fault for his sociopathic tendencies and massacring entire families, don't expect a Freudian Excuse to pop up from this guy at any moment.
Final Verdict[]
Solid yes on my end, to be honest.