GORGON: Page 2 of 4

Publication Date: 13th Feb 2020
Written By: Monolith.
Image Work: Douglas Mangum.
Biography

BIOGRAPHY - page 2

The time came when Hydra was reformed for an ambitious new age. In the midst of the Skrull infiltration, Baron Strucker destroyed Hydra's underwater city of Ichor in a purge and assembled the High Council of Hydra, sleeper agents and buried assets once planted for the future. Strucker and the Kraken gathered the Hive, Viper and the latest Madame Hydra before preparing for the return of the Gorgon as well. His crumbled stone remains were retrieved from the S.H.I.E.L.D. 

Black Ice containment facility and brought before an ancient Hand grandmaster. Under threat of force and with the promise he could take revenge on Strucker afterwards, the grandmaster agreed to revive the contents of Gorgon's tomb without checking who would be revived first. The Hand mages used their dark magic to transfer their life energies towards Gorgon's resurrection. And, as Baron Strucker expected, Gorgon drank deeper of their life energy than they intended, reducing the grandmaster and his ninja to ash before they could take retribution. The Gorgon stood before the real Wolfgang von Strucker and the High Council and declared his loyalty to the cause of the true Hydra. [Secret Warriors (1st series) #2]

With the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., Hydra wanted to recover as many assets as they could before they were assimilated by the new H.A.M.M.E.R. The Red Worm facility held a cache of S.H.I.E.L.D. psi-ops agents that would be useful once they were reconditioned. Gorgon and Kraken went to retrieve the agents for Hydra. Some proved unsalvageable, however, and Gorgon prepared to execute them. This prompted a response from the Secret Warriors, Nick Fury's private strike team who were performing surveillance on the Red Worm. Gorgon enjoyed the sport, for these amateur fighters were completely outmatched by the former Hand grandmaster. Gorgon cut the hands off of an agent named Slingshot before the Warriors retreated with their wounded. In doing so, Gorgon crossed paths with Alex Aaron, known as Phobos and the mortal born son of Ares, God of War. Risen as the new God of Fear, Alex would be the very god Kraken once promised Gorgon he could face with Godkiller. [Secret Warriors (1st series) #3]

Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos Private Military Corp made a play for the Dock, shipyard for the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarriers, now under the control of H.A.M.M.E.R. Gorgon, Strucker and the High Council decided to intervene for their own brand of chaos. Gorgon made an attempt on Fury himself, but was waylaid by Stonewall and the Secret Warriors looking for payback. Kraken declared the attack a failure, inferring that Hydra was expected, and therefore betrayed from within. He and Strucker activated Hydra's translocators for a retreat, much to the chagrin of the fighting mad Gorgon. [Secret Warriors (1st series) #5-6]

The High Council of Hydra fell back into the shadows for a time, building their armies, forging their own Helicarrier-class dreadnoughts at the Nemesis shipyards. However, a new player entered the game: Leviathan, a Soviet-era clan of Russian spymasters emerging from a period of “overwinter.” They sought an alien power source to awaken the rest of their sleeping brethren, one which had recently been reacquired by Viper and Madame Hydra. A Leviathan unit infiltrated Nemesis and, despite Gorgon's talent for murder, they scuttled several new ships and kidnapped Viper.

Again, the attack gave signs of inside knowledge, prompting Gorgon to declare there must be a traitor in the High Council. Baron Strucker and Kraken accepted this possibility, and Kraken prepared the reprogrammed S.H.I.E.L.D. psi-agents from Red Worm to perform deep scans of all high-level Hydra operatives. When Madame Hydra left Gehenna before the scans and turned the power source over to Leviathan, she was revealed as a double agent, making the scans seem moot. Kraken had placed a tracker on all Hydra ships, and traced her flight path to a Leviathan Long Winter base. However, all they found was Viper's body, soon revived as the new Madame Hydra by the parasitic power of the Hive. Leviathan's captain Orion was alive again, and soon war broke out between Hydra and Leviathan. [Secret Warriors (1st series) #11-16]

All of this did not completely distract Hydra from the threat of Nick Fury, however. When the Howling Commandos led an attack on Hell's Heaven in China to prevent the production of more Hive parasites, Gorgon was ready with several Hydra dreadnoughts to prevent their escape. Hydra shot down two Helicarriers, severely crippling Fury's resources. Gabe Jones and Eric Koenig, veteran Howling Commandos from World War II, also died in the conflict, and Gorgon personally decapitated Jones in the melee. [Secret Warriors (1st series) #18-19]