#hydromen

[inhumansforever]

Inhuman of The Day

February 19th - Henry Croft

Dr. Henry Croft was the elected leader of a group of humans who were transformed into Inhumans by the super villain, Dr. Hydro.  Dr. Hydro was obsessed with the delusion that mankind needed to evolve into amphibian, sea-faring beings in order to survive.  The renegade Inhuman, Maelstrom, gave Dr. Hydro a specialized version of the Terrigen Mists to aid him in his schemes.  First Dr. Hydro transformed himself into an Inhuman amphibian being with the mists; and then had his minions take a large group of innocent civilians hostage and also transformed them into amphibians with the use of this specialized variety of the Terrigen Mists.  These amphibian beings came to be known as the ‘Hydro-Men.’  

Prince Namor The Sub-Mariner ultimately defeated Dr. Hydro, but there appeared to be no cure for the Hydro-Men.  No longer able to survive on the surface world, Namor offered them a home in the sunken kingdom of Atlantis.   Croft was one the first of Dr. Hydro victims.  He had bee a professor of genealogy and the others elected him as their leader and tasked him to venture back into the human world in hopes of finding a means of transforming them back into regular humans.  Croft sought out Reed Richards of The Fantastic Four.  

Richards identified that it had been Terrigen that had transformed Croft and the others.  He contacted the Inhumans of Attilan and, with the aid of the Inhuman scientists, Nadar and Budan, was eventually able to concoct a chemical compound that could reverse the mutagenic effects of Terrigen.  Croft volunteered to be the first exposed to this new compound and it succeeded into transforming him back to his human form.  The compound was then used to revert the rest of the Hydro-Men back into regular humans and they were each able to return to their former lives.  

[inhumansforever]

Inhuman of The Day

April 2nd - Doctor Hydro

Dr. Herman Frayne.  An Inhuman with green, scaled skin, the ability to transform his body into a watery liquid form, as well as breath under water.  Dr. Frayne was not born of Attilan.  Rather he was a human professor of ecological studies who became obsessed with the notion that mankind needed to adapt into amphibian beings so to achieve true actualization.  Somehow Dr. Frayne came into contact with the renegade Inhuman geneticist, Phaeder, and his son, Maelstrom.  These Inhumans provided Dr. Frayne with a specialized variation of the Terrigen Mists, mists that transformed Frayne into a his amphibian form.

Renaming himself ‘Doctor Hydro,’ the villain set forth to bring his twisted obsessions to fruition.  He took over the oceanography research station known as Hydro-Base and used it as his base of  operations.  He then used hired mercenaries to hijack several airliners, reverting the planes to Hydro-Base and taking the passages as prisoners.  These prisoners were exposed to a similar form of the Terrigen Mists and each transformed into an amphibian beings. One of the hostages that Dr. Hydro transformed was Betty Dean Prentiss, a colleague of Prince Namor The Sub-Mariner.  Namor tracked Prentiss down to Hydro-Base and engaged Dr. Hydro and his minions.  Dr. Hydro was ultimately defeated and apparently killed by Namor.  

The transformation of Ms. Prentiss and the other ‘Hydro Men,’ however, appeared to be permanent.  Namor brought the Hydro-Men to Atlantis where they did their best to cope.  Later, Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, along with the Inhuman scientists, Nadar and Budan, were able to create a chemical compound that could undo the mutagenic effects of Terrigenesis.  This compound was used to transform the Hydro-Men back into regular humans.

Meanwhile, it turned out that Dr. Hydro was not killed in his initial battle with The Sub-Mariner.  His minions had rescued him and he hatched a new scheme to extract revenge on Prince Namor.  He used demolitions to open a fissure in the seafloor near Atlantis, causing an eruption of lava that threatened to destroy the undersea kingdom.  Namor intervened once again and, following an intense battle, Dr. Hydro attempted to escape by transforming into a liquid form.  Namor trapped Hydro inside of a vacuum tank and permanently sealed it.  It is assumed that Dr. Hydro perished while trapped within this tank, but it is possible that he may one day return.