Hydra
(pop culture)“Cut off a limb and two more shall take its place!” This boast is perhaps the most emblematic of Marvel Comics' Hydra, a subversive organization of truly global scope. Named after the durable, many-headed beast that challenged Hercules in Greek mythology, Hydra has risen from apparent defeat several times since its founding in 1944 by Nazi Baron von Strucker, who used extraterrestrial Gnobian technology to create a high-tech infrastructure for worldwide fascist revolution. Patterned on the Nazi hierarchy—Hydra operatives greet one another with shouts of “Hail Hydra!”—Hydra quickly became a militant cult of world conquest. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby during the height of the 1960s spy craze, when James Bond, Flint, John Steed and Emma Peel, the men from U.N.C.L.E, and even Maxwell Smart gained huge audiences, Hydra quickly became Marvel's embodiment of justifiable cold-war paranoia. During his indoctrination into S.H.I.E.L.D. (Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage, Law-Enforcement Division), Colonel Nick Fury learns that “our enemies are the most deadly, dangerous fanatics the world has ever known! They call themselves Hydra—and their sole objective is the complete and unchallenged mastery of the world!” Indeed, a S.H.I.E.L.D. raid on a Hydra outpost, mentioned during the group's debut (Strange Tales vol. 1 #135, 1965), yielded a large globe of Earth caught in the grip of a multi-tentacled creature capped with the green-hooded, red-goggled head of a Hydra operative. Though based primarily on the remote Pacific Ocean locale known as Hydra island, Hydra maintains a worldwide network of agents and safehouses. Hydra's tactics include assassination, high-tech sabotage, and nuclear- and biologicalweapons blackmail. Thanks to its covert subsidiary A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics), Hydra has long enjoyed a seemingly inexhaustible supply of cutting- edge vehicles, killer androids, and other weapons; devices such as the Betatron Bomb, the Death Spore Bomb, the Overkill Horn, and the Satan Claw number among Hydra's most notable near-successes. Hydra's early leadership structure is strictly hierarchical, with the operative known as the Supreme Hydra (sometimes addressed as “the Master” or “the Imperial Hydra”) chairing a central ruling committee, which in turn oversees the division chiefs who command Hydra's green-garbed rank-and-file operatives. The Supreme Hydra is treated almost as a divine figure, and maintains discipline with harsh efficiency; no matter how loyal a Hydra agent may profess to be, failure is punishable by summary execution, though operatives may redeem themselves by overcoming their would-be replacements in mortal combat. In the words of one of Hydra's hooded Masters, “No member of Hydra lives to fail a second time!” During its early decades, only males could join Hydra, though exceptions were made later for brainwashed S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Laura Brown, daughter of Imperial Hydra Arnold Brown, Madame Hydra (aka Viper), and even Jessica Drew (the original Spider-Woman), who briefly trained with Hydra but dropped out when she proved unable to assassinate Nick Fury. Like the SPECTRE agents from the James Bond milieu, early Hydra operatives addressed each other using code numbers rather than names, and even remained masked in each other's presence. During its decades of cyclic defeats and comebacks, Hydra's kudzu-like limbs have endured pruning at the hands of many heroes, including Captain Simon Savage and his Leatherneck Raiders, the Avengers, the Black Widow, G. W. Bridge, Captain America, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Iron Man, the second Madame Masque, Magneto, the Punisher, the Samurai Squad, Silver Sable, Spider-Man, Jessica Drew (formerly Spider-Woman), the Thunderiders (aka Team America), the Wild Pack, Wolverine, and Professor Charles Xavier. Hydra's power declines sharply following the apparent incineration of Strucker and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s sinking of Hydra Island; Hydra's surviving remnants subsequently remain active—even managing to strike back at S.H.I.E.L.D. hard enough to kill off an entire graduating class of cadets—but are weakened by a series of turf wars involving such villains as the Grim Reaper, Madame Hydra, the Red Skull, and even the gangsters known as Silvermane, the Kingpin, and his son Richard Fisk (aka the Schemer). S.H.I.E.L.D. later takes down most of these factions, while subsidiary groups such as A.I.M. and the Secret Empire (the latter of which had made strong inroads into the U.S. government) become autonomous entities, operating independently of Hydra. Another worldwide Hydra organization has emerged, though it is doubtful that the late Baron Strucker would recognize much about it other than the traditional green-hooded uniforms. Though still committed to world domination, Hydra has adopted a more corporate style, offering its operatives attractive salaries and generous medical benefits. In the twenty-first century, women now hold influential positions within the organization, agents no longer conceal their names from their colleagues, and Strucker's Hitlerian “leader cult” is no more. The identity of the Supreme Hydra remains a closely guarded secret, however, and failure remains a capital crime. The current postmodern, boardroom version of Hydra has made little progress toward its goal of world domination, though the free market for terror appears to be profitable enough to support not only Hydra but also competing spin-off groups such as A.I.M., Fenris, and Hydra's breakaway Pearl Sect (youthful “Strucker purists” who debuted in 1995). With Hydra's glory days clearly behind it, it might one day find itself vulnerable to a hostile takeover by Strucker himself, who has refused to remain dead.
The Supervillain Book: The Evil Side of Comics and Hollywood © 2006 Visible Ink Press®. All rights reserved.