Supervillain origins: Hyena

Supervillain Origins: Hyena

He's the deadly and dangerous combination of two of the most dastardly villains in all comic-dom – so why have so many people never heard of him? Welcome to WatchMojo.com and today we will explore the comic book origins of Creed Quinn, otherwise known as Hyena.

Unlike most comic book characters, there are no re-imaginings or different versions to Hyena's past. Thus, we are following the storyline which unfolded in 1996's Legends of the Dark Claw #1 and DC Vs. Marvel #4.

The villainous Hyena has a lot in common with both Batman's foe the Joker and Wolverine's nemesis Sabretooth – and with good reason: he's an amalgamation of the two characters. In 1996, comics giants DC and Marvel jointly published a 4-issue mini-series called DC Vs. Marvel (or Marvel Vs. DC, depending upon the issue).

For most of the series, the issues consisted largely of heroes from one publisher engaged in battle with heroes from the other – Superman vs. the Hulk, Aquaman vs. Namor, Storm vs. Wonder Woman, and so on. However, at one point the Spectre and the Living Tribunal merged the DC and Marvel universes into one universe – creating characters that were mixtures of various heroes and villains. When this occurred, DC and Marvel created the "Amalgam Comics" line, which published stand-alone issues of some of these commingled characters.

One of these comics had as its star the Dark Claw – a combination of Batman and Wolverine – and Hyena, melding Joker and Sabretooth into one package, was served as his archenemy.

Legends of the Dark Claw #1 found Hyena battling the Dark Claw at the Gotham Gazette printing plant, and the dialogue immediately let the reader know that these two had a long past together. This was confirmed when an intruder in the home of Logan Wayne – the alter ego of the Dark Claw – discovered an old picture of Wayne and Creed Quinn, the man who became Hyena.

Dark Claw confronted the intruder, and it was revealed that she was the Huntress – a combination of DC's character of the same name and Marvel's Ms. Marvel. Huntress had been trying to track down Hyena and had discovered that Creed Quinn and Logan Wayne were both part of a top secret Canadian project. As a result of this project, both Quinn and Wayne were given superhuman abilities – but the process turned Quinn into a remorseless killing machine.

After filling Huntress in on their origins, Dark Claw returned to tracking Hyena – and discovered that the insane villain had altered the headline of the next day's Gotham Gazette. Dark Claw deduced that Hyena intended to kill the President of the United States by releasing poison gas on Air Force One. Dark Claw managed to get aboard Air Force One, but he was too late to stop the release of the gas; fortunately, he was able to remove the gas from the plane before it could accomplish its mission.

The Amalgam Comics line did not last; Spectre and the Living Tribunal restored the separate DC and Marvel universes. Aside from a few issues a year later, the Amalgam Comics line did not return. As a result, Hyena has not made further appearances, either in comics or in other media – but he is fondly remembered by those who experienced his all-too-brief appearances.

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