Jekyll in 1886
And his alter-ego, Mr. Hyde
| “ | ...Edward Hyde, alone, in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.
- Dr. Henry Jekyll, 1886 |
” |
Dr. Henry Edward Jekyll was an English doctor who covered up a secret life full of cruel deeds. After drinking a potion of his own creation, Jekyll is transformed into the cruel, remorseless, evil Edward Hyde, representing the hidden side of Dr. Jekyll's nature brought to the fore.
History
Transformation into Hyde
Dr. Henry Jekyll was a brilliant and kind scientist who sought to purify himself from his evil thoughts. Jekyll eventually created a potion that separated his psyche into two personalities. One of pure good with no drive and a pure evil creature lacking any restraint. Jekyll's wicked side takes the name Edward Hyde and begins to cause chaos in London.
Jekyll's friend Utterson tries to discover who is Mr. Hyde.
He feels as if he is constantly battling within himself between what is good and what is evil, and is pushing away people dear to him.
Dr. Jekyll has many friends and has a friendly personality, but as Mr. Hyde, he becomes mysterious, violent, and secretive and as time goes by, Mr. Hyde grows in power, and therefore also in size. Originally Hyde was smaller than Jekyll, but over the years he turned in to a hulking, muscular manbeast while Jekyll became weaker. After taking the potion repetitively, Jekyll no longer relies upon it to unleash his other person and Mr. Hyde comes out whenever Jekyll experiences great stress or anger.
In 1886 he vanished from London after a scandal, feigning a suicide. Campion Bond however knew that by twelve years later he was to be found in Paris, Rue Richelieu. Henry was known there as "Henri L' Anglais" and was a regular patron of prostitutes. However the murder of Anna Coupeau and others by an ape-figured monster made C. Auguste Dupin to fear that the case of Rue Morgue was open again.
League member
After having gathered Allan Quatermain, Mina Murray was sent to find him. Jekyll saw her posing as a prostitute and took her into his apartment, when he transformed once more into Hyde and went to kill her. Quatermain and Dupin showed up and tried to best the monster, shooting his ear in the process, and Quatermain managed to feed it a bottle of Laudanum. Hyde lost his senses and fell through a window. The three companions reached the Nautilus and Jekyll/Hyde stayed in a secure room until recovering.
As Dr. Jekyll, he assisted the league in their first mission, finding the stolen Cavorite. He and Quatermain are send to Fu Manchu's lair. There, Jekyll almost transforms into Hyde when the two men are about to be unmasked as spies, but he manages to control himself. Later, when Mina and Allan infiltrated Fu Manchu's underground workplace, Jekyll/Hyde was send to create a distraction. Griffin infuriates Jekyll to such a degree that he becomes Hyde and begins slaughtering Manchu's henchmen. Hyde also assisted the league in their assault on Moriarty's airship, killing several of the professor's henchmen.
When witnessing the Martian Invasion, the stress of a Martian attacking them caused Jekyll to become Mr. Hyde once more, and he remained Hyde for the rest of Volume II. By this time he had developed a great respect for Mina, so when Griffin betrayed the group and assaulted her, he swore revenge on the invisible man. Having infrared vision, he is able to see Griffin and finds him in the British museum. He avenges Mina by raping Griffin to death, an act that greatly horrified and disgusted Nemo.
Hyde played a crucial role in keeping the Martians from crossing the Thames while the army prepared the H-142. Bidding farewell to Mina, he dances out onto the bridge towards an oncoming tripod, singing See Me Dance the Polka. The machine attacks him with its heat ray, burning off all his skin and apparently killing him, but he survives, charging into its front leg and ripping it off. With the walking machine toppled, Hyde rips open the top hatch and begins eating the alien inside. The other tripods activate their rays and kill Hyde with a combined barrage, destroying the only bridge left on the Thames and stranding them on the South Bank.
Legacy
Because of his sacrifice, Serpentine Park in London was renamed Hyde Park in his memory, and a statue of him was constructed in this park. This statue can be seen in 1969 when Mina visits a concert in the park. His skeleton is on display in the Secret Annex in 2009.
Resurrection
In 2164, after the events of Volume 4, a new Hyde is created from the skeleton of the original. He lives with Mina, Jack and their allies in the Universarium on New Lincoln. His personality is more subdued and controlled than the original's, and he is quite content fighting Martians on their behalf.
Personality
Jekyll is shown to be a very nervous man. He was noted as having been the type of person to pick at his food and constantly sweat. He tries his best to be civil, having refused to create a distraction at Limehouse by fighting the Chinese henchmen working there. According to Hyde, Jekyll has increasingly become a shell of his former self. It is implied by Hyde that Jekyll (and possibly Hyde by extension) is gay, which his Victorian shame over his sexuality served as the impetus for his attempt to "purge himself of the evil inside him."
Hyde on the other hand, is the exact opposite of Dr. Jekyll. He is evil, confident, strong and shows absolutely no fear in whatever sin he is committing. Despite him not caring about whom he hurts or kills, Hyde was rather accepting to join the League upon hearing that his former criminal history would be cleansed. Due to the trivial status of Jekyll's former crimes, Hyde began his life as a dwarf, but soon grew to a large size when Jekyll's personality began to waste away to nothing. Hyde is also shown to be racist, as he refers to Nemo as a "darky". Nonetheless, the two worked together a lot during the Martian invasion and Hyde at least tolerated him and seemed to respect his skills as a warrior.
After the ordeal with Moriarty, Hyde has become less beastly and became more sarcastically polite, though he is prone to insult anyone he dislikes, such as coachman William Samson Sr. However after William responded back to him, Hyde did not try to assault him neither he insulted him again showing that he grows some form of respect toward him. During the invasion, he also grew to respect his leader, Mina Murray, to the point of being puzzled by his desire to kill himself should he harm her. This was first foreshadowed when Murray confidently ordered Hyde to let go of her arm, which he silently complied to. Hyde himself has admitted that he was not noble, and his only reason to fight the Martians was so he could "slaughter something". When he talked to Mina, however he seemed sincerely disheartened by the fact that he could never be capable of real love because of his nature as a "monster" neither have any chance to be loved. He grew sincerely affectionated toward Mina because she was the only person in the world who did not hate him.
Hyde also strongly dislikes Jekyll because he said that "he doomed us both" by separating them only because he wanted to be pure. This implies that Hyde could have not survive as well separated from Jekyll. Also Hyde found pathetic how Jekyll wanted so desperately to be "rid of evil" by creating the potion even though he actually did very little if anything wrong.
Source material
The original story, "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" has long been interpreted by some readers as the story of a man struggling with his homosexuality. This interpretation is brought to the forefront in by having Hyde reveal Jekyll's homosexual tendencies to some others, and Hyde's rape (which he seems to enjoy) of Griffin. Hyde in the original book is depicted as shorter than Jekyll and deformed. In this interpretation, Hyde is portrayed as bigger than Jekyll like modern incarnations, inspired by the character of The Incredible Hulk from Marvel Comics (who ironically was originally inspired by Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde). this time, however, it is given an explanation of why it is different from the original book. the worse Hyde became, the more monstrous he transformed.
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