Horridus | |
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Publication information | |
Publisher | Image Comics IDW Publishing |
First appearance | The Savage Dragon #4 (August 1993) |
Created by | Erik Larsen |
In-story information | |
Alter ego | Sarah Dexter |
Species | Human/Alien Hybrid |
Team affiliations | Special Operations Strikeforce Chicago Police Department Freak Force |
Notable aliases | Sara Hill |
Abilities |
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Horridus, born Sarah Hill, is a superheroine created by Erik Larsen for his Image Comics series, The Savage Dragon , as a member of the Freak Force.
Meggan Tully, while dating George Hill, is abducted by aliens and impregnated. The event is removed from her memory and she is returned to her car. George believes the child is his and marries Meggan.
When the unusually shaped child is born, Meggan and George chain her up in the basement, with only a television set for company. They believe the child to be a punishment for their pre-marital sex.
After years of guilt and suffering, George and Meggan Hill commit suicide and Sarah is found by the paper delivery boy. The local police are afraid to enter the basement and call in an officer – called Dragon – from the Chicago Police Department, who releases Horridus and takes her to his station house. [1]
CPD's Captain James Stewart is extremely enthusiastic about assembling a superhuman strikeforce for his department and recruits Sarah Hill, giving her the codename Horridus, to his "Freak Force" program. There, she meets Dragon, Rapture, Barbaric and Ricochet who at the time is too young to join the department. Due to restrictions imposed by the local government and their police superiors, the 'freak' officers quit the police force and become bounty hunters, allying themselves with the veteran hero Superpatriot and the new Mighty Man.
Freak Force fights a number of menaces, ranging from the supervillains such as the Fantastical Force, the Covenant of the Sword, the Throwaways, Master Atom, Bludgeon, their own evil clones and the Frightening Force, the extraterrestrial Martians, Matrix Swarm and Cosmic Cops, and other heroes like Badrock, the WildC.A.T.S. and Cyberforce.
They even fight their own government; at one point Horridus assists in taking down a secret prison for super types. [2]
Eventually, Horridus and most of her teammates join the United States government's new superteam to replace Youngblood – presumed dead from the Martian attack - the Special Operations Strikeforce. Horridus gains more worldly and fighting experience.
For a time, Horridus lives with Rapture. However, Horridus still hasn't come to terms with the fact she is very sharp; at one point she destroys Rapture's waterbed, after which Horridus briefly meets the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (IDW), whom she considers cute. The character briefly appeared in the Turtles' series, developing a brief relationship with Michelangelo.
Her living situation changes after Rapture's death on an off-world mission. At one point she lives with Dragon, developing an attraction for him. Unfortunately, as a consequence to her isolated background and lack of proper social skills, she does not know how to handle it and ends up inappropriately touching him in the middle of the night, causing a good deal of drama.
As a bridesmaid, Horridus attends the wedding of Dragon and her superhero friend, Jennifer Murphy. It is interrupted by the seeming murder of Jennifer by the armored Overlord. However, Jennifer had been replaced by a double. [3] Horridus then serves as a nanny to Angel when Dragon is out fighting crime. According to Hawkins she was also being trained by Sgt Marvel to fight better.
Horridus suffers another loss when Chelsea Nirvana, Freak Force's old nemesis, murders Ann Stevens and steals the Mighty Man powers. Chelsea dies of misuse of the MM form, which passes to Dart. [4]
Horridus gains a position with the Chicago branch of the Special Operations Strikeforce. However, like the rest of the city, it is owned outright by the criminal society, the Vicious Circle. [5]
Horridus died of COVID-19 after "refusing" to get vaccinated (in actuality having been unable to get vaccinated due to the toughness of her skin), with the attending physician lamenting, "Superheroes are supposed to die saving the world--not from some virus.", before eventually being resurrected with Malcolm Dragon's blood. [6]
After issue #75 of the Savage Dragon series, an alternate version of Earth was introduced into that universe. In this one, Freak Force had never fully formed, though Horridus did spend some time employed by the Chicago Police Department. [7] Twenty-eight issues later, in #103, the original Earth is destroyed, killing virtually all of its inhabitants, including that universe's version of Horridus. [8]
A 'savage world' Horridus does exist where she is held captive in Brainiape's arena. She rescued along with others. She goes with Dragon to try to rescue Dart from Mako and witnesses Dart's death first hand. She's part of a superhuman army put together by Super Patriot to try to stop Mighty Man who at this point was Billy Berman and was shown defeated in the background.
This Horridus is shown tossed into Dimension X along with the genius Rex by an evil version of the Dragon. [9]
Meggan Puceanu is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, usually as a supporting character in stories featuring Captain Britain, and the X-Men. A mutant empath and shapeshifting elemental, she was created by writer Alan Moore and artist Alan Davis, and first appeared in Mighty World of Marvel #7, which was published in the United Kingdom by Marvel's British publication arm, Marvel UK. Her first appearance in an American Marvel publication was in The New Mutants Annual #2 (1986). She eventually chose the codename Gloriana, a name of victory coined by the demons of Hell.
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Strikeforce: Morituri was a science fiction comic book series published by Marvel Comics from 1986 to 1989. The series was created by writer Peter B. Gillis and artist Brent Anderson.
Erik J. Larsen is an American comic book artist, writer, and publisher. He currently acts as the chief financial officer of Image Comics. He gained attention in the early 1990s with his art on Spider-Man series for Marvel Comics. In 1992 he was one of several artists who stopped working for Marvel to found Image Comics, where he launched his superhero series Savage Dragon – one of the longest running creator-owned superhero comics series – and served for several years as the company's publisher.
The Savage Dragon is a superhero created by Erik Larsen, published by Image Comics and taking place in the Image Universe. The comic features the adventures of a superheroic police officer named the Dragon. The character first appeared as the Dragon in Graphic Fantasy #1 and first appeared as the "Savage Dragon" in Megaton #3.
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Mighty Man is a superhero created by comics creator Erik Larsen. He has been a major character in Larsen's series The Savage Dragon and its spin-off Freak Force, as well as in Gary Carlson's Big Bang Comics series. His first appearance was Megaton #2, which was also the first appearance of the Savage Dragon.
Freak Force is the name of a fictional team of superhuman bounty hunters operating out of Chicago, Illinois. They originated in the Image Comics comic book series Savage Dragon, but subsequently went on to star in their own series. All the characters were created by Erik Larsen, many during his adolescence.
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Dart is an Image Comics superhero created by Erik Larsen. She first appeared in The Savage Dragon #2. There were three people who taken up the mantle The first was Jill August, the second was her niece Alison Summers, using the mantle to become a supervillain, and then the third and current Dart is Jane August, Jill's sister.
Jennifer Dragon, originally Jennifer Wilson and sometimes using the codename Smasher, is a recurring comic book character in Erik Larsen's Savage Dragon and Robert Kirkman's Invincible. The wife of the Savage Dragon and mother of Angel and Malcolm Dragon, she debuted in the first issue of The Savage Dragon: Sex & Violence mini-series, though she had a one-panel cameo prior to that in Savage Dragon issue 40.
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Covenant of the Sword is a fictional, covert organization bent on global domination appearing in comic books published by Image Universe. It was created by Erik Larsen, Keith Giffen and Dave Johnson, and first appeared in SuperPatriot #1. Although mainly appearing in Larsen's flagship title The Savage Dragon and the related title SuperPatriot, the Covenant also appeared in a number of Extreme Studios comics by Rob Liefeld, most notably Bloodstrike and Badrock. Damien Darklord is one of the members who is also a major villain in the Savage Dragon series.