TIGER TIGER
Real Name: Zakir Shastri
Identity/Class: Alternate
reality (Earth-1287) human mutate;
Indian
(but Paidean citizen)
Occupation: Assassin;
former special task force leader, mercenary
Group Membership: Formerly special task force eliminating mountain bandits
Affiliations: VXX199 (unwitting pawn of);
formerly Ghost (Tam Van Ok), Kimmo Tuolema, Vic West, Wind
(Red Cougar/Julio Diego Gonzales)
Enemies: Brava (Domenica Contreras), Andre
Lamont, Vic West, Zanskar mountain bandits;
formerly Kimmo Toulema
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: India
First
Appearance: (as Shastri) Strikeforce: Morituri#24 (December 1988);
(as Tiger) Strikeforce: Morituri#27 (March 1989)
Powers/Abilities: Tiger's fingers radiate an
energy that dissolves molecular bonds, enabling him to slice through
almost any matter. He presumably also had low-level superhuman strength
and enhanced durability and endurance, a standard result of the Morituri
Process.
As a mercenary he wore phase armor that could
deflect shrapnel, and used weapons including pulse grenades, blaster
rifles and knives, all of which he was extremely adept with.
Height: 6'1" (by estimation)
Weight: 195 lbs. (by estimation)
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Black
History:
(Strikeforce:
Morituri#24 - BTS) - The Morituri Process had been developed
so humanity could fight the alien Horde that was attacking Earth. It
turned the people who volunteered for it into superhumans, but also
killed them within a year. Despite this being public knowledge,
volunteers continued to come forward, people willing to sacrifice
their own lives for the greater good, and as a result the Morituri had
become famous worldwide for their valor. However there were factions
in the Paidean world government who saw potential value in also having
a secret team of Morituri to be used for covert operations, not
fighting the Horde but eliminating political opponents and
consolidating their own power base. This would require less altruistic
volunteers, ones with more flexible morals, but those motivated only
by self-interest would doubtless refuse to undergo a process that
would soon kill them. The solution arose when the conspirators learned
that Doctor Kimmo Tuolema, the man who had developed the Morituri
Process, now believed he might have found a cure for the fatal side
effects, though as yet it was untested and so he'd been keeping the
possibility a secret, only mentioning it in his notes that the
conspirators had illicitly read. That the solution might not work
wasn't important; the conspirators realized all they needed to do was
tell their candidates that they would receive money, superpowers and
a long life, and if the last proved untrue then their new
Morituri wouldn't know that until it was too late.
(Strikeforce:
Morituri#24) - Zakir Shastri was an Indian mercenary, an
adrenaline junkie who took personal pleasure in battle and in killing,
and who enjoyed remembering seeing the terror on his opponents' faces
and hearing their death cries after the fact.
(Strikeforce:
Morituri#29 (fb) - BTS) - Shastri had few moral lines he
would not cross, but he prided himself as a Sikh on not tolerating
dishonesty, backstabbers and double-dealers.
(Strikeforce: Morituri#24) - He had
helped coordinate Pakistan's "assimilation" into the Paidea, and then
worked as a leader of a special taskforce sent to wipe out mountain
bandits in the Zanskar Mountain Range (see comments) in northern
India, a task Zakir took great pleasure in. He led his men in a surprise
assault on a bandit camp, personally cutting the throat of a sentry
before his team launched a blitzkrieg night attack on the main group.
Discovering several women and children huddled together in a cave, he
threw a grenade in their midst, exculpating this brutality as needing to
ensure the bandits didn't breed and multiply. Returning to his men he
found they had captured some prisoners, who he gunned down summarily.
Informed that the scanners showed no signs of other humans for ten
miles, thus confirming all targets had been eliminated, Zakir order his
men to tag, count and photograph the bodies for headquarters, then dig a
pit, dump the corpses in it and cover them in quicklime.
(Strikeforce: Morituri#25
(fb) - BTS) - Zakir and the other two candidates, Cambodian
assassin Tam Van Ok and Native American serial killer Julio Diego
Gonzales, the self-styled "Red Cougar," were recruited as per the plan.
(Strikeforce: Morituri#25) - One of the conspirators, government agent Vic West, brought the trio to Doctor Tuolema to undergo the Morituri Process. The scientist was reluctant to put anyone who he didn't recognize from the list of approved candidates through the procedure...
(Strikeforce: Morituri#27 (fb)) - but West convinced Tuolema, falsely claiming they had located his missing daughter in a Horde prison camp and that the new agents' first mission would be to rescue her. West also revealed he knew about the cure, but blackmailed Tuolema to ensure he didn't tell the candidates that it might not work.
(Strikeforce:
Morituri#26 - BTS) - With the trio only
beginning their pre-process check-ups it became clear that the Horde
threat might about to abruptly end thanks to the arrival of new
extraterrestrials, the VXX199, who seemed both hostile to and more
powerful than the invaders. However, this only made the conspirators
feel that getting their own agents into the field was more urgent than
ever, and that they couldn't afford to wait and see whether or not the
cure worked. Shortly afterwards the Horde and new aliens both retreated
to other parts of the solar system, ending the war.
(Strikeforce: Morituri#27 (fb)) - Tuolema sensed
that the three "specialists" were different than the past Morituri
candidates; unlike those young and enthusiastic volunteers, the new
trio had an air of death about them, and Tuolema correctly deduced
they were assassins, used to killing and gaining powers only made
them deadlier. Shastri became able to radiate energy a few inches
out from his fingers, able to slice through virtually any matter,
and was given the anonym Tiger. Suspicious of West, Tuolema hid a
recording device in his desk, thus discovering that the evidence of
his daughter's whereabouts was fake and that West and his
confederates planned to assassinate both him and then the prime
minister, so he fled hoping to alert the Morituri. However, the
process to empower the three assassins had been completed barring
perfunctory final check-ups.
(Strikeforce:
Morituri#27 - BTS) - The doctor's departure prompted the
conspiracy to move ahead on their time table. Tiger was sent to Spain
to slay the Morituri Brava, who had returned home there to visit her
father now that the war had ended. Tam Van Ok, now the invisible
Ghost, was instructed to surveil where Tuolema was suspected of
heading and eliminate him if he showed, while the now superfast Red
Cougar, codenamed Wind, would target the remaining Morituri, all
gathered together in Atlanta on board their official train. However,
unknown to the conspirators, Ghost thus overheard Tuolema tell a
deceased Morituri's widower that the cure was untested.
(Strikeforce: Morituri#28 (fb) - BTS) -
Tiger got to Brava's home in Barcelona, and while she was baking in
the kitchen he murdered her father.
(Strikeforce: Morituri#28)
- When Brava entered the living room calling for her father to come and
try to the cookies she had just baked, Tiger threw her father's corpse
into the room. Predictably she rushed to his side in distress, giving
Tiger an opening to strike her while he guard was down, knocking her
unconscious.
(Strikeforce: Morituri#28 - BTS) - Finding
Brava attractive, Tiger decided to offer her a chance to live a little
longer if she agreed to sleep with him.
(Strikeforce: Morituri#28) -
Tiger waited for Brava to wake, and when she did he readily admitted
to slaying her father, adding that she was next, but that he wanted
to show her who was better first, and if she submitted to him he
might let her live a little longer. When she told him she would make
him pay he calmly told her that if she failed to kneel he would have
to teach her another lesson, and to make his point he sliced apart a
nearby lamp with a swipe of his hand. Instead of being cowed Brava
tackled him, smashing them both through the building wall, but Tiger
rolled as his back hit the ground and threw Brava across the yard.
Standing up Tiger chided his foe, telling her that she should have
let him have his way with her, as now he had no choice but to kill
her. She threw a car at him, but he sliced it in two, then asked if
she had any last requests. Both lunged at each other, but Tiger
ducked Brava's punch and cut open her belly, then stood laughing as
she collapsed and died.
Flying in from
the USA, Tuolema arrived at Barcelona International Airport to learn
from news reports that Brava had been murdered.
(Strikeforce:
Morituri#29) - Trying to figure out what to do next,
Tuolema went into one the airport's bars to drink. Unfortunately for
him, so too did Tiger, who was intending to catch a flight back to
America. Saying he respected the doctor, but business was business,
Tiger was about to kill him on the spot when Tuolema asked him to hold
off just long enough to hear what Tuolema had intended to tell Brava
about the cure. Agreeing with some suspicion, Tiger followed Tuolema to
nearby toilets so they would have some privacy, and there informed Tiger
that not only might it not work, but that it might even have worse side
effects than just killing him, and that his employers knew this.
Realizing Tuolema was telling him the truth, Tiger decided to let him
live, saying that as far as his employers were concerned he and Tuolema
never met there. While Tuolema caught a flight to Helsinki, Tiger
brooded over what he had learned, angry at being lied to, and decided to
make the game his.
(Strikeforce:
Morituri#30 - BTS) - Concerned that neither Tiger nor
Ghost had checked in, and thus that they might have struck a deal with
Tuolema, conspiracy leader Defense Minister Andre Lamont ordered Vic
West to eliminate them both once they served their purpose.
Unfortunately for West, Ghost was standing behind him invisible at that
moment, having decided to confirm what he had overheard Tuolema saying,
so the moment Lamont ended his call, Ghost killed West.
(Strikeforce: Morituri#31) - Shortly thereafter Tiger went to the assassin's base station intending to interrogate West in order to learn the identities of the other conspirators. Finding West's corpse and hearing that the prime minister had just been assassinated, Tiger concluded with some frustration that he had no way now of reaching his former employers, and decided to return to India, figuring that he could deal with them if they dared to try and track him down. However, he was unaware that the VXX199 were making plans to use the political upheaval that had been caused to restructure Earth society for their own ends, and had chosen him to be a key player serving as a catalyst for these plans.
Comments: Created by James D. Hudnall, John Calimee and Val Meyerik.
The comic says he was killing bandits in the
Zaskar mountains, but this appears to be a misspelling of Zanskar, which
is a mountain range in northern India.
This profile was completed on 08/18/2026, but its publication was delayed as it was intended for the Appendix 25th anniversary's celebratory event to represent Strikeforce: Morituri.
Profile by Loki.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Tiger has no known connections to:
images: (without ads)
Strikeforce: Morituri#27,
p25, pan1 (main image)
Strikeforce: Morituri#29,
p4, pan8 (face close-up)
Strikeforce:
Morituri#28, p4, pan2
(standing straight)
Strikeforce: Morituri#28, p12, pan1-3 (killing Brava)
Appearances:
Strikeforce: Morituri#24 (December
1988) - James D. Hudnall (writer), John Calimee (pencils), Val
Meyerik (inks), Carl Potts (editor)
Strikeforce:
Morituri#25 (January 1989) - James D. Hudnall (writer),
John Calimee (pencils), Tony DeZuniga (inks), Carl Potts (editor)
Strikeforce: Morituri#27-29 (March-May 1989) - James
D. Hudnall (writer), Mark Bagley (pencils), Val Meyerik (inks), Carl
Potts (editor)
Strikeforce:
Morituri#31 (July 1989) - James D. Hudnall (writer), John Calimee (pencils), Val
Meyerik (inks), Carl Potts (editor)
First Posted: 09/03/2026
Last updated: 08/18/2026
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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