The Headmen
Members: Gorilla Man II (Arthur Nagan), Shrunken Bones (Jerold Morgan), Chondu the Mystic (Harvey Schliemermann) and Ruby Thursday (Thursday Rubinstein).
First Appearance: Tales of Suspense 9 (Chondu), Mystery Tales 21 (Nagan), World of Fantasy 11 (Morgan), Defenders 32 (Ruby), Defenders 21 (assembled Headmen). (Note: The first appearances of Chondu, Nagan and Morgan were all reprinted in Weird Wonder Tales 7, the comic that inspired their revival as the Headmen.)
What's Their Problem? The Headmen are renegade geniuses devoted to covert world conquest through manipulation of politics, business and social movements. Their methods generally involve VERY weird science and lots of brain surgery--each of the Headmen themselves being cranial curiosities of sorts as a result of their own experiments.
Powers: Nagan, the Headmen's leader, is a phenomenally brilliant surgeon whose head is attached to a gorilla's body (seems the apes he'd been using in his organ transplant experiments revolted and gave him a taste of his own medicine). Morgan is a genius biochemist who perfected a variation on Hank Pym's size-changing formulae, though not before an imperfect version of it shrank his bones without affecting his skin, giving his whole body the baggy look. Chondu is a mesmerist and minor sorcerer whose colleagues have transplanted his brain into various forms since he was unlucky enough to get mixed up with them. When last seen, Chondu was an irascible but otherwise healthy disembodied head. Ruby is a warped genius who invented the morphing plastic into which she transplanted her consciousness. Her new head is an "organic computer" with superhuman processing and storage capabilities; she can also manipulate its form at will, drawing additional mass from an extradimensional source as needed. She can even expel this extra mass as materials ranging from solid projectiles to viscous super-glue.
Favorite Quote: "We all agree, do we not, that we should be running this world by virtue of our intellects?" (Defenders 33. The always egomaniacal Nagan, heading a brainstorming session of his criminal colleagues.)
Heroes They Keep Running Into: The Headmen's bizarrely byzantine schemes were repeatedly thwarted by the Defenders, who ultimately headed off their plans for world conquest. They've since gone head-to-head with Spider-Man and She-Hulk, in addition to individual outings against their old Defenders foes.
People Who Think They're Not So Bad: In their heyday, the Headmen were influential advisors to various heads of state and corporate bigwigs--everyone from the Indian government to the US auto industry. Ruby even made headlines by running for president! (Then again, so did Howard the Duck around that time--we have Steve Gerber to thank for both historic developments.)
Most Despicable Act: The Headmen's schemes came to a head when they shrank the White House, its occupants, the Defenders, rival would-be-world conqueror Nebulon and his army of Bozos, trapping them in a glorified ant-farm through which the Headmen hoped to study human society in miniature indefinitely.
by Sean Mcquaid
Headmen Head Shots!
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