#god created the earth so we could wreck it amirite

[likesirensinshadows]

I cannot explain why exactly I'm browsing a christian movie review website but I need everyone to look at their article on mad max fury road:

I am obsessed

This is it. There is a particular vibe with this movie that I can't quite put into words but this is the closest it gets

[thevindicativevordan]

I really like this blog, your analysis and ideas for Superman and his characters was great to read! I hope you don't mind, may I ask what do you think about Hank Henshaw? Do you have any ideas for him?

I think he needs to be radically changed in order to keep working, because as of right now his entire character is "hey remember Reign of the Supermen? That was cool amirite?"

Henshaw was created in an era where the editorial mandate was "the only survivor of Krypton is Clark", and that meant Superman didn't have an "evil Superman" counterpart Rogue in the Post Crisis era the way Pre Crisis did. So the writers had to come up with ways to get around that, some of the workarounds I liked such as Bizarro becoming a clone that Lex makes, and some of which were just so goddamn stupid like the Pocket Universe. But all of the Post Crisis evil Superman counterparts got killed off relatively quickly, including both Bizzaro and Zod after they were used.

Henshaw though was in one of the most popular Superman stories of all time, and he was Jurgens baby, so he got to stick around. But he was a character who was created to serve a purpose in that one specific story, and outside of that what does he have to offer? Disguising himself as Clark and setting out to ruin Superman's reputation since Doomsday robbed him of killing Clark was a great motivation, but once Clark returns and exposes him as a fraud, Henshaw just doesn't really have the character potential to justify keeping him around as is.

Henshaw wants to kill Superman. Great! That sums up the complete motivations of 90% of the rest of Superman's Rogues (which is in part why they aren't on the same level as Batman or Spider-Man's). Henshaw is really strong and tough and can hurt Superman with brute force. Again, a lot of Superman Rogues can do that too. Henshaw is an "evil Superman" design wise. Putting aside the multiple evil Supermen we get these days, most of them just variants on "real" Superman gone bad, Zod and Bizarro are better known and more popular. Henshaw can manipulate technology and rebuild himself from anything. Brainiac, Livewire, and Metallo also do that. Henshaw can't die? Well he's eclipsed in that regard by Doomsday.

He's overshadowed in the aspects that most people focus on by multiple other villains, with only his ties to Reign keeping him relevant which is why Jurgens always calls back to that storyline with him. His motivation is just generic revenge which doesn't work because if he has no goal other than killing Superman, all he can do is fail. His name "Cyborg Superman" is dumb because it only works within the context of Reign when people thought he might be the legit Superman reborn. It's just not a particular inspired name for him to keep using anymore.

If it sounds like I'm just ragging on him I totally am. He just doesn't work for me in his current role as 90s nostalgia. But I do have some ideas for how he could be reworked to be better utilized in the modern day.

What I Would Do With Hank Henshaw

So first we need to change a lot about him while still working with what came before. Right off the bat I'm having Henshaw ditch the "Cyborg Superman" name and form, and use that all too brief "data form" he had in Action Comics Rebirth.

That looks cool! Now we need to address Hank's biggest problem: what does he want exactly beyond just killing Superman? What are some goals he can feasibly achieve that make him a compelling threat? They've tried giving him a new motive a couple times, such as making him a nihilist who only wants to die in Sinestro Corps War, but ultimately he needs a reason to keep existing. If he just wants death he can track Doomsday down or throw himself into a black hole. I've got two roads to take Henshaw down, one that's pretty simple but justifies keeping him around as a threat and allows him the ability to maybe "win", the other more complex.

The simple route is that we merge Henshaw with the Metaleks. These guys were an army of xenoforming robots who were sent out by some unknown alien race to transform planets into something that's more to that race's liking.

Their creators are long dead, but the Metaleks continue the task they were built for. Henshaw catches wind of them, decides they'd make for an excellent army to do his bidding in the same way the Manhunters were, and attempts to seize control. Instead he gets absorbed into their collective hive mind, his hatred infecting them until it warps their programming, his malevolent mind guiding them and lending them his intellect. Now the Metaleks are a swarm of locusts, out to cleanse the entire galaxy of all life, with Henshaw as the Metalmind behind it all (yes that is his new name, shut up I'm not getting paid for this). With Clark going cosmic, this makes for a good way to keep the two foes fighting each other. Henshaw doesn't have enough control to make the Metaleks focus solely on killing Superman, but his upgrades and coordination means the Metaleks are a much greater threat to other planets than they were previously. Henshaw can now potentially "win" by cleansing a world of life, something that is going to hurt Clark bad given Clark's entire background, and because anywhere not named Earth gets wrecked all the time.

That's the simplistic route. Upgrades Henshaw as a threat while reducing his motives to "kill everything". The more complex route leans into Henshaw's origins as a Reed Richards expy, by basing him off that other evil Reed Richards:

Jurgens had Superman imprison Henshaw within a fake life with his family and friends who died in the accident that gave him powers. I'd have that fake life knaw at Henshaw until ultimately he realizes that his feud with Superman is a pointless waste of time, and what he really wants is his family back and his status as a respected leader restored. But he's a mass murderer and there's no redemption for him at this point, so Henshaw embarks on a quest to build his own little world for him to rule over.

First he seizes control of the Metaleks as in above, but in this route he manages to bring them under his control, christening himself their Metalmind. With an army of terraforming robots on his side, Henshaw begins terraforming his own world. He also retrieves the corpses of his family who died from their mutations and begins working on resurrecting them. At this stage you can have Henshaw in any number of schemes to acquire the resources or tech he needs to build his own kingdom, or to acquire the bodies.

At the second stage once he's got what he needs, he'll start building. First he revives his family (while ensuring that they will be loyal to him above all else). Then he starts creating his "children":

He's been around long enough to know either Superman or someone else will come after him eventually, and Hank Henshaw is prepared. He creates a race of beings who view him as both father and god, who will give him the adoration he craves and showcase his intellect. At this stage you can have stories involving Henshaw where he dispatches his "children" on missions to prove their worth and test their capabilities. Clark has to find and stop these agents while also trying to figure out where they're coming from.

The final stage is when Henshaw is confident that his forces are powerful enough to take on Superman, and then he does the unthinkable. He petitions the United Planets to join as a member. To Clark's horror they accept, and as the head of a planet Henshaw now enjoys intergalactic diplomatic immunity. His creations are now seeded inside the United Planets itself, and Henshaw can put his efforts wherever he wants. He can run twisted science experiments with his family, be the fist of the United Planets alongside Zod, helping the organization grow in ways Superman would abhor, he can try to kill Superman whenever Clark attempts to block his schemes, with his ability to still wrangle concessions from the UP as a way to keep him from just losing all the time. He can be Clark's Dr. Doom in other words, that long term opponent who is always working an angle, and has an entire nation/world behind him he rules as a god.

To me that's a much more interesting angle than him talking about that one time back in the 90s when he was cool anyway.