DEMONSTAFF
DEMONSTAFF
Real Name: Hallan Gorko
Identity/Class: Extratemporal (Earth-Thor: Once and Future Thor) mutate
Occupation: former interdimensional physicist employed by Adcore
Group Membership: none
Affiliations: former employee of Dunbar
former pawn of Zarrko the Tomorrow Man
Enemies: Beta Ray Bill, Dunbar, Eternity, Warlord Kargul and the forces of Elsewhen, Sanitation Squad, Thor Odinson, Thor/Thunderstrike (Eric Masterson), Thor (Dargo Ktor), Thor Corps, Uroc
Known Relatives: Ellene (wife)
Aliases: none
Base of Operations: an interdimensional pocket
realm;
formerly New York of Earth-Thor: Once and Future Thor @ 2593
A.D.
First Appearance: Thor I#440 (January, 1992)
Powers/Abilities: Demonstaff is permeated with energy
which enables him to open portals through time, space, and dimensions. He
can summon beings from virtually any area, releasing them in such a fashion that
they tend to oppose his enemies. He is forced to wear his costume in order to
hold his energy form together.
He believed that his staff, the Dimensionizer, helped him
focus his power, but the staff was actually nonfunctional. He used the staff to
fire energy blasts or form virtually impenetrable shields, but these energies
apparently came from within him as well.
History:
(Thor Corps#1 (fb) - BTS) - Gorko was employed by the advertising agency Adcore,
who funded his experiments in interdimensional physics. His superior, Dunbar,
secretly sought to use his experiments to learn how to manipulate reality in
order to enhance their ability to manipulate the public.
(Thor Corps#1-4 (fb)) - Gorko was the lover of Ellene, but she could never compete with his obsession with exploring other planes of reality. As he immersed himself ever more deeply in his work, he became increasingly distant from Ellene. One day while working, his employer, Dunbar, noticed a malfunction in his equipment. He was attempting to repair it when a sudden burst of energy was released, mutating Gorko. While he was hospitalized, Ellene convinced Dunbar to continue his work, hoping that they could cure Gorko. As work progressed, they developed the Dimensionizer, but Ellene was lost through a dimensional rift, after which Gorko went mad with grief. He blamed Dunbar for his troubles, and Dunbar had him placed in a sanitarium to treat his madness, but Gorko escaped.
(Thor Corps#1 (fb) - BTS) - Gorko became Demonstaff.
(Thor I#440 (fb) - BTS) - Demonstaff had at least one encounter with Thor (Dargo), who came to regard him as his greatest enemy.
(Thor I#440) - Demonstaff was one of several warriors plucked from time by Zarrko the Tomorrow Man and sent to battle the Thor Corps (Beta Ray Bill, Masterson, Dargo). Demonstaff blasted Dargo, but was then forced to dodge the rampage of Uroc. Demonstaff then vanished in a flash of light.
(Thor Corps#1) <2593> - Demonstaff summoned a group of
primitive men from "the dawn of time" to attack Thor/Dargo, to occupy him so
that he could pursue a mission of vengeance. He confronted Dunbar at Adcore,
forcing him to open the company's vault, from which he stole the Dimensionizer
to help him relocate Ellene. When Dargo arrived, having tracked Demonstaff's
energy signature, Demonstaff summoned a group of mutates to attack Dargo and
cover his escape. As he vanished, Demonstaff disguised his staff's energy signal
so Dargo could not track him again.
Demonstaff observed Dargo from a distance, as he returned to
his home, discovering his human form and his wife, Salla. Demonstaff then
abducted Salla and left a holofax claiming that Dunbar had sabotaged his work
and caused his mutation. The holofax instructed Dargo to find Ellene for him, or
he would never see Salla again. When Dargo agreed, Demonstaff sent him into the
past, joining with Beta Ray Bill and Thor/Thunderstrike in the mission. However,
the trio was banished into the past by Kargul, who sought to thwart Demonstaff's
true plot: the destruction of all reality.
(Thor Corps#2) <8/1/2593> - Demonstaff appeared in Kargul's
imaging pool, taunting him, and then causing the pool to erupt into an
immense waterspout through the portal, flooding his chambers. Afterwards, he
confirmed to Salla that he intended to unleash the barrier force between
alternate dimensions, causing all realities to collapse on each other. Kargul
amassed the forces of Elsewhen in an effort to stop Demonstaff, while Dunbar
organized the Sanitation Squad of Adcore for the same purpose. However,
Demonstaff confronted Dunbar alone in his office, knocked him out, and dressed
him in his costume, so that Kargul's forces and the Sanitation Squad confronted
and slew "Demonstaff," only to realize that it was Dunbar.
Meanwhile, Demonstaff ranted on, claiming that Dunbar and
Ellene and conspired against him.
(Thor Corps#3) - Salla told Demonstaff that he should try to
find a way to be reunited with Ellene, and he realized that he did still love
her. He traveled into the past, to the moment of his transformation, and he
attempted to slay Dunbar to prevent his alleged tampering. However, in his haste
he missed Dunbar and struck instead the equipment, causing the very explosion
which had mutated him in the first place. Devastated, he returned to his plot of
attempting to bring order to the universe by destroying all realities.
Actively using his Dimensionizer against the dimensional
barriers, Demonstaff caused Eternity to shudder in metaphysical pain, and past
eras throughout time began to collide with one another.
(Thor Corps#4) - Salla tackled Demonstaff in an effort to stop
him, but he easily overpowered her. When she revealed she would sacrifice her
own life if he would spare Dargo, Demonstaff decided to show her that Dargo
would not do the same for her. However, Dargo proved him wrong, surrendering his
hammer, returning to human form, replacing Salla as his hostage, and refusing
all temptations Demonstaff offered him in place of Salla. Demonstaff then
reunited Dargo and Salla, telling them he would kill one of them, but that they
must choose which one.
However, Thor, "Thunderstrike," and Beta Ray Bill then
arrived and returned Dargo's hammer. Demonstaff summoned an army of mutates to
attack them, but as he was distracted, Beta Ray Bill shattered his Dimensionizer.
While this caused the mutates to vanish, it also pushed the dimensional barriers
beyond their limit so that the dimensions threatened to collapse upon
themselves. The four members of the Thor Corps combined the energies of their
enchanted hammers, but the Earth dimension was still at risk to be destroyed.
Ellene dove through the portal to Demonstaff, forcing him to
accept the fact that she had never betrayed him, but that he had pushed her away
through his neglect of her. She also revealed that the Dimensionizer had never
worked, and that it had been his own power doing the work all along. Realizing
that he did still love Ellene, he channeled all of his power, adding it to the
power of the Thor Corps, and restoring reality to the status quo.
Kargul confronted the now powerless Demonstaff in a trackless
void between realms for his actions, which had damaged the multiverse and caused
countless "crises on infinite worlds." However, he also showed mercy, reuniting
him with Ellene. She pulled his mask off, revealing that he had regained his
fully human form, and the two were more than happy to be exiled from all other
beings, as long as they could be together.
Comments: Created by Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz, and Al Milgrom.
Demonstaff's origin was shown four separate times, each from a different perspective, so its not exactly clear what happened. I went with the final version, as Ellene seemed the most unbiased of the group, but it may be that Dunbar did tamper with Gorko's equipment and cause the explosion.
In addition, Demonstaff appears to be just obtaining his staff in Thor Corps#1 and then he was cured and seemingly reformed at the end of Thor Corps#4. Dargo recognized Demonstaff as his foe in Thor Corps#1, so apparently he must have had another staff/weapon before obtaining the Dimensionizer.
Thanks to Don Campbell for pointing out that Ellene was/is Hallan's wife, not just his girlfriend.
CLARIFICATIONS:
No known connection to:
The former lover of Hallan Gorko, she found herself drifting
further and further any from him as he became more obsessed with exploring other
dimensions. After he was mutated, she insisted that Dunbar and she continue
Hallan's work in the hopes of finding a cure. However, as she attempted to
harness the energies on which he had worked, she herself fell into a dimensional
rift. She drifted in interdimensional space for weeks until she was rescued by
Warlord Kargul of Elsewhen, who brought her to his world at the center of the
chosen realities. Kargul agreed to help her find her way back to her reality,
but by the time they had succeeded in sorting through the countless realities to
reach success, the now insane Gorko assumed she had betrayed him and become
Kargul's consort.
However, Ellene had never stopped loving Gorko, and she
ultimately risked her life to reach the maddened Demonstaff, convincing him to
stop the destruction of realities he had attempted. She willingly agreed to
share exile with the now normal Gorko in an interdimensional pocket realm.
--Thor Corps#1 (1-4(fb), 1-4
images:
Thor Corps#4, p10, pan1
Thor Corps#3, p16, pan3 (masked face) or #4,p15,pan6
p18 (unmasked mutated face)
Thor Corps#4, p31, pan1 (unmasked normal face)
p23, pan1 (Ellene)
Last updated: 04/16/04
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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