LUPIN
PERSONAL DATA
- Alter Ego: Gervald
- Occupation: Palace Guard
- Group Affiliation: Enforcers of Justice
- Known Relatives: None
- Base of Operations: Kingdom of Bastia (200 years in an alternate future)
HISTORY
He didn't know who he was, just that he thought he had once been a man. He couldn't remember anything of how he had become what he was, but he feared what he may have done after his transformation when the animal instincts had ruled his mind. His first clear memory was of running through the forests of southern Oregon and northern California. He soon began going into cities, at night when a trenchcoat and hat could serve as an adequate disguise. He remained hidden, watching and trying to figure out what he was. He did not remain hidden for long.
While on one of his nighttime excursions into nearby Star City Lupin was manipulated by the enigmatic Omega into battling Hellfurnace alongside several other heroes. This battle led the heroes, including Lupin (as he began calling himself) to join forces on a more permanent basis as the original Enforcers of Justice, just as Omega had intended. Lupin remained with the Enforcers until shortly after the defeat of Overlord. At this point Lupin left to try and discover who he really was and how he had been transformed.
Lupin began his search in the area of Oregon where he first emerged from his feral state. It took a few months but his search was rewarded. He found an abandoned campsite, months old, which looked like it had seen a fierce struggle. His enhanced senses told him that this was indeed where he had first transformed. Searching the ruined campsite he came across a strange piece of jewellery, a gold crescent moon medallion. He sensed that this medallion was linked to what had happened to him. It was just then that a shaft of moonlight struck the recently uncovered medallion and once again Lupin's world changed.
When the assault on his senses ended he found himself in a strange room in what appeared to be a palace of some kind. He soon found himself surrounded by the palace's guards, and saw that many of them were wolf-men like himself, others were cat-like men and none of them were human. Though they initially seemed hostile the guards' demeanor changed suddenly when it seemed that they recognized him. Lupin was brought to the throne room and was welcomed with open arms and learned the truth of who he was.
Lupin had been transported to the future, sometime in perhaps the 22rd or 23th centuries but no one could tell him for sure. He was in a land called Bastia, where Egypt had once been, that was ruled by a royal family of cat-humanoids. He learned that in this future the world is inhabited by species of intelligent, bipedal animals descended from animals artificially evolved by human scientists. Humanity had been nearly wiped out by something known only as the Great Disaster and the surviving humans were reduced to savages. The Earth was now ruled by the evolved animals, split into feudal states who often fought against each other. Any technology still in use was whatever had been salvaged from pre-Disaster times. Some kingdoms, like Bastia, had discovered the magical arts. Bastia itself enjoyed a certain degree of prosperity, some due to the kingdom's patron deity: the cat-goddess Bast.
Lupin was told that the kingdom's prosperity attracted the attention of conquerors and was under siege by the Ape-men and Tiger-men from across the ocean. Though they were fending off the invaders well enough, the royal family also sought to develop an escape route should Bastia fall to Czar Simian's troops. The High Priestess of Bastia devised a risky spell that would transport the members of the royal family through time to escape. The key to spell was that it would need an anchor in the destination time period, but it was still a new and untested spell. The chief of the royal guards, a noble wolf-man named Gervald, volunteered to test the spell. If all went well, Gervald would be able to return to the point he left by using a mystic amulet the High Priestess gave him. The spell was cast and the chief guard vanished. For a long time the priestess and the royal family waited but Gervald never returned, until now.
With his return, the High Priestess was now able to divine what had happened to Gervald after the spell had been cast. The guardswolf had been hurtled into the past, the spell forging a link between him and someone in the past to act as a beacon through time. Then the spell went awry. Gervald somehow merged with the man in the past, his memory was wiped clean and the human's body was transformed into a duplicate of Gervald's. Without Gervald's memories to cushion the merging the human's mind snapped and the ancestral lupine instincts took over. It was only over time that the new being would regain a semblance of sanity, and thus was born Lupin.
Though his memories were still gone, Lupin still possessed all the skills Gervald had learned, and the presence of the royal family reawakened his fierce loyalties. Lupin soon resumed duties as one of the palace guards. It was then that he was told that they had tried the spell a second time. This time the one to volunteer was one of the royal family, the crown princess, and that she too had not returned. However, Czar Simian had learned of the time travel escape route and, using a time machine found amongst the ruins of the Great Disaster, had dispatched a team to find and capture the princess. Lupin took a team and managed to use the time machine to follow Simian's troops. Back in the 20th century Lupin tracked down the princess, who had also lost her memories in the trip through time and was a member of the super-hero team Justice Inc. and was called simply Cat.
Lupin and the princess, along with Justice Inc., went into the future and were able to defend Bastia from Simian's army. After the battle, Cat chose to return to the past since her lack of memories left her with no ties to Bastia. Lupin, however, remains a member of the royal guard.
POWERS & WEAPONS
Lupin is physically very powerful. He is superhumanly strong, almost at a level comparable to the Martian Manhunter, and possesses superhuman reflexes allowing him to dodge bullets. Lupin's claws are strong enough to rend steel and he heals much faster than a normal person. All of Lupin's senses are augmented and he also can communicate with and control wolves and other canines. Though he is not a werewolf, Lupin does have a lycanthrope's aversion to silver and wolvesbane. It is believed that this was the result of his human host's preconceptions of werewolves and the magic spell which bonded Lupin with the host.