Dr. Banner or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Gamma Bomb

This is a post in my Omniverse series of a "realistic," shared superhero universe. The original version appeared in the Gplus days in February 2018.

The official narrative regarding the creation of the Hulk prompts one to question: Just what was going on at Los Diablos Missile Base? Let's review the eyebrow raising details: Bruce Banner is given a shocking amount of freedom to place restrictions on and make demands of the base’s military commander, a Russian scientist has somehow gotten security clearance, the control room is grossly under-staffed, and the detonation is down to just one push of a button. Ultimately this is all the result of the government's Cold War mentality, but the immediate cause of the irregularities in the base’s operation and the tragedy that followed is Dr. Bruce Banner.

The first mystery (this one obscured by governmental secrecy) is just what the gamma bomb was. It was not a gamma ray weapon—though that was exactly what Banner had dangled in front of the Army to get his project off the ground. Once he had funding and security clearance, Banner went for something more daring: he planned to build the K-Metal Bomb the German’s had sought near the close of World War II, but never perfected. He hoped to use the K-Metal (or Kryptonite as it was becoming popularly known) to power a weapon that would weaken and incapacitate but not kill (in a manner similar to so-called “slow kryptonite” developed years later by Metallo) and would also not destroy infrastructure. “Gamma” became the Army’s codename for this weapon.

Not only were the generals incredibly interested in what Banner was offering, but Banner’s secrecy (either conscious or unconscious) regarding the physics involved only served to leverage a virtual celebrity status for him. A status coupled with Cold War thinking regarding means and ends would prove disastrous for more than one person present that faithful day.  Truth being more complicated than fiction, Windsor-Smith's version of these events in Monster would split Banner into two characters: a traumatized victim of a sadistic experiment and the sadistic scientist running the experiment. 

Dr. Leonard Samson, psychiatrist, wrote extensively about the psychological dynamics of the principles after the fact. That Banner was rigid and emotional repressed was obvious to virtually everyone, but Samson argues that he projected his anger for his mentally ill and abusive father onto the bellicose General Ross and taunted him in a passive aggressive manner. (This, incidentally, only served to heighten Ross’ daughter’s attraction to the emotionally unavailable scientist.) It was Banner who demanded and got unprecedented control over the test and a limited, handpicked staff. 

Which brings us to the oddest figure in this drama, “Igor Starsky,” the Soviet spy. Igor had been assigned to establish a relationship with Banner in graduate school—something not easy to do with the young physicist. For reasons of his own, Banner suffered Starsky’s presence, but seldom showed him any genuine warmth. When they were working together on the gamma bomb, he often treated the man like a lackey. Samson surmises that Starsky’s presence on the project was merely another way for Banner to assert his mastery over Ross, his father surrogate. He was the personification of foreign power in Ross’ domain. Banner would deny ever having considered that Starsky might be a Soviet agent, but he pointedly did not reveal any more of the science involved with the project to his colleague than to the military.

Why did Starsky attempt to kill Banner in the gamma bomb test when his presumed mission was not yet completed? Clearly, he had reason to resent Banner for the treatment he had received, but wouldn’t have stealing Banner’s secrets for his government been revenge enough? Samson believes Starsky’s murderous feelings against Banner were a reaction-formation of his attraction to the scientist. His tolerance of abuse had been the masochistic, unconscious expression of the depth of his feeling, but in a pivotal moment he pushed the button to free himself from Banner, and perhaps the intensity of his own feelings, once and for all.

That isn’t, of course, how it turned out.

Omniverse: Fear Itself

This Omniversal speculation originally appeared on Google+ in January of 2018. 

Scarecrows will be a recurring motif, and the first of those is one of the Fear Lords, a group of mysterious gods or demons, who (as the Book of Vishanti states): “are not motivated by base cravings for human worship or for dominion over lowly creatures, but by the desire for greatest, purest fear-which is sustenance and life itself to them.” Until Dream was freed from his prison and reined in his subordinate, Nightmare had a place among them. So does that renegade protector of humankind known as the Straw Man or Scarecrow, the demon patron of the fear of the numinous.

When psychology professor Jonathan Crane first decided to strike a blow against the society he hated via extortion and murder, he relied on his scarecrow costume alone to create fear. He confronted Batman only twice during the 1940s. By the time he resurfaces in 1955, he is making use of a powerfully hallucinogenic fear chemical.

Crane didn’t have the scientific background to synthesize the chemical. Somehow, he must have acquired it from Hugo Strange, who had employed a much weaker version in the 40s. Crane’s experimentation may well have been responsible for the increased potency of the drug, however.

Almost a decade later, wax museum owner Zoltan Drago donned a frightful costume and begins a criminal career as Mr. Fear. He employs a fear gas not dissimilar in effects to Strange’s original compound. Drago’s story was that he intended to make a chemical to bring his wax statues to life as a criminal army, but accidentally made the fear gas instead. It seems clear that Drago was mentally ill, but whether he was a mentally ill genius or liar is unknown. It has been suggested that psychic contact with the Fear Lord known as the Dweller in Darkness influenced Drago’s costume design, so perhaps it also led to his madness? Such things have certainly happened before.

After Drago’s death, at least 3 other individuals took on the Mr. Fear identity and employed the fear gas. Ariel Tremmore, the daughter of the last one, injected herself with a formula made from the fear chemical residue extracted from a sample of her father’s skin. It turned her into a monster, or perhaps made a certain inner monstrousness manifest. In any case, she too gained the ability to cause fear.

But back to scarecrows, again. Ebenezer Laughton was the second costumed criminal to take up the name and costume of the Scarecrow. He was a former sideshow contortionist (perhaps the illegitimate son of the the original Flash’s foe, the Rag Doll). Like Crane, he originally relied on the costume and his natural abilities alone, initially, to commit his crimes. He went insane, or more insane, and became a serial killer. Even serial killers have their uses, it seems, as a shadowy organization had him surgically altered to be able to produce pheromones which caused a panic reaction in those exposed.

Omniverse: Looking for Professor Zunbar

This Omniverse post first appeared on the lost G+ on February 20, 2018...

In 1954, Captain Marvel and the whole Marvel Family disappeared. Later stories would suggest the Sivana Family had finally gotten the upper-hand on their enemies and placed them in suspended animation. This version of events also suggests that the Sivanas were caught in there own trap, as well.

But were they? Later that same year, the exiled Prince Namor encountered an ugly, diminutive scientist with a scheme to create a race of amphibious humanoids. He already had a prototype, but the creature proved to be afraid of water! Zunbar hypothesized that transplanting key areas of Namor's brain to the creature could resolve the problem.

Even if Zunbar's physical appearance didn't suggest he was in reality Thaddeus Bodog Sivana, the mad nature of his scheme might give him away. Why Sivana should be operating under an alias at a time when his greatest foes had been defeated remains a mystery.

Omniverse: Birds of A Feather

There is a lost city, hidden by the clouds, drifting slowly above the modern world, every bit as silent as the tomb it has become. This was the city of an ancient civilization of winged humanoids, the Bird People. It had existed for eons before the future king of Aquilonia, Conan, came to it some 12,000 years ago. It was called Akah Ma’at, and its people were at war with the bat-winged humanoids of Ur-Xanarrh, something Conan helped them with.

The Hawkmen of Mongo may well be the descendants of an abducted group of Bird People. The cannibalistic hawkmen Travis Morgan encounters in Skartaris are certainly of the same lineage.

It may be that Akah Ma’at meant “Sky Island” and eventually came to mean “Aerie,” because when they clouds recede again, and the city appears in the modern historical record, those are the names it is given in translation. In the 1920s, an airplane because lost in a storm and crashes into the Sky Island. A young boy was the only survivor. He was taken in by the Bird People and would be the costumed hero Red Raven¹.

It is possible that the hero Black Condor (Quality Comics) represents the same individual, since the Black Condor’s origin as related in the comics of being raised by condors in the Gobi seems implausible--and not just because condor's are native to the Americas. Perhaps the Bird People were in the habit of taking in foundlings?

Red Raven eventually had to turn against his adoptive people when their warrior class, under the influence of the Bloodraven Cult of demon-worshippers, sought to make war on the surface world. The ensuing civil war destroyed part of the city and ended with population either fleeing or placing themselves in suspended animation. The city was left in the charge of two android Bi-Beasts who would later encounter the Hulk.

There is some confusion regarding the origins of the Bird People. Accounts suggest that are an offshoot of the Inhumans, but this ignores the prior existence of Akah Ma’at. Rather, there is an Inhuman offshoot people with more avian features. These are the Feitherans, the people of the superhero Northwind, who lived in a hidden city in the Arctic Circle, and also probably the Aerians that live near the South Pole in the Savage Land.

¹Red Raven’s flight costume was made with Cavorite, which may or may not be the same thing as nth metal, but certainly as similar properties.

Omniverse: The Spirit of '76, or Get Down America!

In 1976, America’s dissatisfaction with the Presidential candidates offered by the major parties went in some strange directions. The All-Night Party, holding their convention in New York City, wound up nominating a security guard working the event. Who was also a talking duck.

The Constitutional question of whether a nonhuman from an alternate earth actually qualifies as an American citizen was never answered, because a photo published on the day of election suggesting inter-species sex destroyed Howard the Duck’s campaign.

The second most unusual candidate of that year was a super-villain, though admittedly, a super-villain in disguise. Ruby Thursday, a pipe-smoking young Californian, was actually ahead in the polls for a time. Her vague but proactive slogan “New Heads for Old” resonated with younger voters. Just when her campaign was gathering steam she was forced to reveal her head was actually a red sphere of flexible polymer circuitry at a public event. Her campaign was effectively over, as was her cabal’s attempt at world domination, thanks to the Defenders.

Omniverse: Incumbents are from Earth, Sivanas are from Venus

In September of 1936, all across America aircraft beginning dropping flyers proclaiming a new candidate for the highest office in the land. At the urging of her father, Beautia Sivana was running for President. Thaddeus Bodog Sivana planned to stage a coup once his daughter was in office. Hers was the most massive, multi-media, write-in campaign this country has ever seen. Her beautiful visage graced the covers of magazines and full page newspaper ads. Her captivating voice could be heard on radio addresses. Women were cool to her candidacy, but men were enthralled. Most men. Boy reporter, Billy Batson, wasn’t fooled one bit. His alter ego, Captain Marvel foiled the Sivanas’ plot and returned mad scientist and would-be president to Venus*, where Beautia would have to content herself with being Empress.

Ultimately, Beautia didn’t share her father’s devotion to evil and in fact pursued a career in social work upon her return to Earth, according to some accounts.

*Or what Sivana said was Venus. It is difficult to square the real planet with its depiction in this record.

Omniverse Vision

No android would cry over these two newly released Omniverse posts from the lost G+ about the Vision!

"Obscured Vision" looks at the weirdness around the origin of the second Vision, and reveals a conspiracy! "Obscured Vision (Reprise)" looks back to the Golden Age Vision, and his ties to the Red Planet.

Just Another Omniverse Monday

Gameroom in Progress.

I spent most of my weekend packing books and assembling a new gaming table, so all I've got for you today is two new previously only available on Google Plus Omniverse posts.

These delve into the lesser known periods: the secret vigilante past of the future Commissioner Gordon of Gotham and the heroes who combated the monster surge of the 1950s, the Monster Hunters.

More Omniverse

source

Two new (old) Omniverse posts from Google+ were released today. Give her movie opening this weekend, Captain Marvel (or Ms. Marvel) gets her due in "This Woman, This Warrior," and just out of February, I examine the birthdays of both Superman and the original Captain Marvel in "Leap Day."

Omniverse: Teen Titan Edition

I've released a few more Omniverse posts, rescued from Google Plus. All of these have to do with the Teen Titans. One shines the spotlight on the older Barton brother, Speedy. Another looks at the villain turned hero, Nighthawk, and the teen that would assume his mantle. And finally, I look at the formation of the original team.

Follow the Omniverse label for more articles.

Omniverse

Last year I did a series of superhero-themed posts on Google+ inspired by Wold-Newton essays and with the conceits there was only one Earth (encompassing both the Marvel and DC and possibly other "universes") and the world tended to work like our own, despite its somewhat altered history. This served to both ground the characters in history, making them more "realistic" and making history stranger! The name for the series was taken from Mark Gruenwald's 1979 fanzine alternate comic book realities.

With Gplus in its death throes, I exported those posts and they are now blogposts here. Only a few of them are currently visibly, but if you want to check them out, follow the Omniverse label at the bottom of this post.

Switcheroo-Witcheroo

Mortals always run a risk when they traffic with magical forces. Just ask June Moone. A strange encounter with a being called the Dzamor at a costumed party left her with the power to transform into the raven-haired witch known as the Enchantress. During the late 60s and possibly longer, she used the powers of the Enchantress to combat evil. Few of her adventures are known. She kept a low profile—until she tried to trick Supergirl into altering the orbit of the moon.

At least that’s what the comics say, but we have reason to doubt the complete veracity of that account. Santa Augusta is really just a barely pseudonymous stand-in for publicity shy (at least this sort of publicity) Saint Augustine, though the New Athens Experimental School was a real place. Supergirl was commonly seen in the area, but this wasn’t Linda Danvers. Instead, it was her niece Lola Kent, daughter of Lois and Clark, who worked as a student counselor at the school. June Moone was a parapsychology teacher (I told you it was an experimental school); she had hardly aged in the decade since gaining the Enchantress identity, though she had long since split from her trouble-prone boyfriend Alan Dell.

Enchantress was still on the side of heroes, but her methods had become, it’s fair to say, unsound. She sought to capitalize on a cosmic alignment of astral forces centered at New Athens and make herself (and her mystical patron, perhaps) nearly omnipotent, so she could defeat evil once and for all. The only downside was the complete overturning of all scientific law. How Supergirl defeated her is not entirely clear, but we may be certain it was not accomplished by briefly changing the moon’s orbit as depicted.

Shortly thereafter, the two clashed again at Miami Beach. This time, the Enchantress tricked Supergirl into helping her, but ultimately the Maid of Might saw through the ruse and again defeated the sorceress. Moone vowed revenge, but never seems to have gotten it.

When next we see her, she has joined up with a band of forgotten villains who call themselves exactly that. Interestingly, this Enchantress is blonde and blue-eyed, like June Moone herself, but not her Enchantress persona. This may be the author's signal that this was the Asgardian sorceress also known as the Enchantress instead.

What little nobility there was in the Enchantress must have died in the Crisis. When she next surfaces as a coerced member of the Suicide Squad, the power hungry and sociopathic Enchantress persona has completely overtaken June Moone.

Yeah, They Call Me Speedy!

Charles Bernard "Barney" Barton took the opportunity his brother Clint refused and left the circus sideshow to become the sidekick of the second Green Arrow, Roy Harper. While they continued to be a nominal team for a longer period, the two only actually worked together for a few years. Like Bucky Barnes and the Boy Commandos before him, Barney soon got pulled into things beyond superheroics, things his perhaps more naive mentor wouldn't do.

By the early 70s, he had a heroin habit, but he was still effective at his job, so Sarge Steel and the CIA kept calling. Perhaps it was in Madripoor where he met the assassin for hire, codenamed Chesire, and began a relationship as short-lived as it was ill-advised. He later would discover he had a daughter from the affair, but the immediate result was that Steel decided he was compromised and severed all ties.

Back in the states, his former costumed allies would help him get clean. He became a drug counselor and hung up his costume for good, leaving only one battling bowman in the family.

This Woman, This Warrior

In 1958, another Kryptonian craft crashed on Earth. Superman was able to beat the authorities to the crash site and rescue a teenage girl who turned out to be his cousin, Kara Zor-El. She was the last survivor of Argo City, which had remarkable escape the destruction of Krypton by becoming a hastily improvised generation ship, only to have his people succumb to radiation poisoning over the course of the next 30 years.

The comics depicted Kara being placed in an orphanage by her bachelor cousin before being adopted by the kindly Danvers couple. In reality, as in certain “imaginary stories” of the day, Clark Kent was married, and he and his wife, Lois, eventually adopted the girl. Through there government connections, they were able to obtain for her a cover identity, Linda Lee Danvers, an orphaned child who had died. Her Kryptonian heritage was thus safeguarded and kept hidden to allow her a normal childhood, as Kal-El/Clark had had.

But Kara didn’t arrive as an infant. Adapting to life on Earth wasn’t always easy. She had to hide you she was, and she fought against the foreign culture of her adopted world. Kryptonian society had a much greater degree of gender equality than Earth of that era, even in the home of assertive investigative reporter, Lois Lane, and the so-called Man of Tomorrow. Kara defied her cousin and guardian and began adventuring as Supergirl. Superman was eventually forced to publically introduce her.

Kara left home at 18 for Stanhope College and didn’t look back. She got involved in movements for social change: the civil rights movement, protest against the Vietnam War, and the women’s movement. She largely abandoned her superhero identity. In the late 60s, she was living in San Francisco and working at KSF-TV as a camera operator and freelance journalist. That was when she wasn’t involved in activism. She joined the women’s group Sudsofloppen and other organizations, and participated in protests from picketing to guerrilla theater under an assumed name, Karen Starr. It was at one of these protests that she showed up in a cape, white swimsuit, and blue go-go boots. The police and others trying to counter the protesters didn't know what to make of her. The press started calling her Power-Girl, much to her irritation.

By the mid-70s, she was in New York City and took a job as editor of Woman magazine, owned by J. Jonah Jameson. Jameson disliked the “women’s lib” approach the previous editor had taken. He wanted something useful for women: diet tips, fashion, recipes, the like. He was going to be disappointed. The magazine was also provide coverage of a new superhero, Ms. Marvel, who espoused the magazine’s feminist viewpoint. A superhero who was none other than Linda Danvers.

Monsters on The Prowl

In the 1950s, superheroes dwindled away for a time. The Justice Society disbanded in 1951 after refusing to reveal their identities to HUAC. Sub-Mariner, Human Torch, and Captain America had disappeared by the middle of the decade.

Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and a handful of others continued to operate, but increasingly they were faced with alien and monstrous menaces. They weren’t the only ones. Whether they came from outer space, under the earth or oceans, or were born of some misguided experiment, monsters were emerging everywhere, and regular humanity was having to face them. The authoritarian alien telepath, the Green Martian Gardner, may have been exerting a conformist influence over the minds of America, but creatures kept crawling forth from the collective unconscious.

The so-called Monster Hunters were an informal group of adventures dedicated to combating these monsters. They were led by Ulysses Bloodstone, who had the bloodgem embedded in his chest, an artifact of the ancient Empire of Tears. He was joined by Dr. Druid, psychiatrist turned mystic, the hero Hurricane, who was actually the Eternal Makkari; and Zawadi, a mysterious Wakandan exile. Later, they were joined by Namor’s cousin, Namora, and the aging adventure with a magic ring known as Congo Bill.

The Monster Hunters seem to have disbanded sometime around 1960 as a new age of superheroes dawned. Their legacy was a number of other teams dedicated to fighting weird menaces where they encountered them like the Challengers of the Unknown, who formed in 1957, the subterranean explorer Cave Carson and his associates, and the undersea adventurers known as the Sea Devils.

Teen Titans, Go!

It’s likely the British Invasion had almost as much to do with the formation of the Teen Titans as the existence of the Justice League. Robin (Bruce Wayne, Jr.), Aqualad (Garth) and Kid Flash (Wally West), wanted to be superheroes, certainly, but in 1964 the trio of teenage boys were transfixed by images of ecstatic girls in the grip of Beatlemania. They didn't know how to play instruments, but they knew how to superhero.

The kids’ ages varied more widely than the published version suggests. Garth was 17, Wally was 15, and Bruce was the tag-along at 13. At first they were just “The Junior Justice League,” but by the time 13 year-old Wonder Woman protégé Donna Troy joined them they had taken on the Teen Titans name. Their parents/mentors forbade heroics unsupervised—though things did happen. Mostly, though, the Teen Titans did public appearances and youth outreach.

The group disbanded by the late 60s, with several of the members going off to college, but the name Teen Titans would be periodically resurrected by other teenage superheroes over the next two decades. In the 80s, John Hughes made a highly fictionalized film about the original group, which today is considered a cult classic.

Leap Day

Both the original Captain Marvel and Superman celebrate birthdays on Leap Day, February 29th. Captain Marvel was, of course, not born in the conventional sense, but chose that day for celebration to mock Dr. Sivana who had wanted to make that day his rival’s “deathday."

Kal-El was born on 38 Eorx 9998, by Kryptonian reckoning, a date not easily translatable any Earth calendar. His friends in the Justice Society, and later the Justice League, chose those Leap day to celebrate it.

Superman would have one of his most memorable birthdays on that day in 1984, when Mongul exposed him to the alien plant called the Black Mercy. He had to be rescued by his friends from the Justice League, particularly the quick thinking of Robin, Jason Todd.

The Whisperer

While Police Commissioner James Gordon did not immediately embrace the vigilante known as the Bat-Man, he was quicker to do so than might be expected. It may well have something to do with a secret in Gordon's past.

At the age of thirty-five, before his move to Gotham, James "Wildcat" Gordon became the youngest police commissioner in New York City history. In early 1936, a mysterious and violent crimefighter was prowling the streets--The Whisperer. Gordon's department tried to catch the vigilante, but perhaps not too hard because Gordon was the Whisperer. The pulps continued with fictionalized exploits of the Whisperer long after Gordon had given up that identity and moved to Gotham to avoid scrutiny.

One wonders, on chilly Gotham nights standing next to the Bat-Signal, if James Gordon sometimes missed those days?

Justice is Like the Hawk

Looking for pawns in a contest with Kang the Conqueror, the Grandmaster decided to recreate members of the Crime Syndicate of America from an alternate Earth to fight the Avengers. He called his creations the Squadron Sinister. The current Owlman in the world of the Crime Syndicate was Bruce Wayne, the son of Thomas Wayne, jr., the eldest son of Thomas and Martha Wayne. This Bruce Wayne had no exact counterpart on the Earth of the Avengers, but privileged, scion of wealth, Kyle Richmond had the same mother (or technically, her alternate Earth counterpart) and the same arrogance and sense of entitlement.

The Grandmaster manipulated Richmond into assuming the identity of Owlman and partnered him with his Ultraman and Power Ring doubles. The Avengers defeated the Squadron, though Grandmaster ultimately out-maneuvered Kang. The game finished, the Grandmaster left the Squadron to their own devices. Owlman continued as a criminal for a time, but ultimately turned against his fellow Squadron members when they sought to aid the alien Nebulon in melting the polar ice caps. He alerted the Defenders and joined them in battle against his former allies.

Richmond’s heroic actions nearly cost him his life, but he was saved by the Defenders and granted “membership” in their (non-)team. Turning his back on his old life, he took the name Nighthawk after the masked crimefighter of the Old West, a hero of his youth. The road to reform wasn’t easy for Richmond, he faced legal troubles and the ghosts of his past. Ultimately, he died defeating a plot to precipitate World War III by a psychic attack on the Soviet Union.

Only a few years after his death, another young man would take up the identity of Nighthawk and form a new iteration of the Teen Titans. This was Dwayne Taylor, whose parents had been killed by white supremacists, whose group, ironically, was being supported by Richmond’s own company without his knowledge.

Obscured Vision (Reprise)

In 1918, Alistair Crowley made contact with an entity he called “Lam.” Crowley drew a picture of Lam, and much has been had made of its passing resemblance to the popular image of the “Grey” extraterrestrial, but that vision of Crowley’s also resembles another Vision, the first super-being called by that name in the 1940s. Timely Comics gives us three different origins for this Vision, perhaps revealing three different occasions he made contact with our world. The only one of these that is verified is the assertion that, on at least one occasion, Dr. Enoch Mason’s “Dimension Smasher” brought him to Earth. We suspect this is true, because Dr. Saul Erdel, a one-time colleague of Mason’s, had a similar thing happen when operating a related device some fifteen years later.

With his “Dimension Smasher,” Mason was doing further work in the field pioneered by Tillinghast. Mason seems to have breached a place called “Smoke World” in older texts, which is otherwise known as the Still Zone ( and maybe the Phantom Zone. And/or Immortus’ Limbo). From this realm emerged a Martian from the distant past. A Green Martian, more precisely, a descendant of exiled Skrull Eternals. This Green Martian was a lawman named Roh’Kar.

Roh’Kar’s task was to monitor the White Martin criminal exiles in the Still Zone. He had noticed periodic “soft places” permeable to (from his perspective) future spacetime coordinates, localized to Thu’ulca’andra (Sol III). Roh’Kar, following protocol, made what contact was necessary to shore up the breaches, but did not reveal his true origins. Indeed, he cloaked himself in mysticism and altered his form for purposes of misinformation. (When actively pursuing a criminal decades later, he would be more forthcoming when enlisting the aid of Batman.) He was a lawman through and through, however, and could not resist helping to bring criminals to justice during his visits to earth.

Some accounts suggest Roh’Kar escaped the plague that killed most of his people, but was captured and held captive by the U.S. government.