Major Stories and Events

Origin

The Hate-Monger is Adolf Hitler, who ruled Nazi Germany as its Fueher from 1933 to 1945. In early 1945 the brilliant Nazi biologist Arnim Zola told Hitler that he had constructed a brain pattern-imprinting device by which the memories, personality and the actual consciousness of one brain could be transferred totally to another. Moreover, Zola told Hitler that he had discovered the process that is now known as cloning. Through these means, Zola believed he could keep the Fuehrer alive indefinitely. Intrigued, Hitler allowed Zola to "energize" his brain and to take a sample of his body's cells. Zola then cloned an entire brain from those cells.

On April 30, 1945, as the invading Russian army closed in on Berlin, Hitler, hidden in his capital buildings fortress-like bunker planned to kill his body and thanks to Zola's "energizing" process psionically transfer his consciousness into that cloned brain, which Zola was keeping safely far away. Hitler was interrupted by the arrival of the Torch and Toro, who were determined to capture him and bring him to trial. When Hitler reached for a flame-proofed switch to detonate explosives that would kill the two, the Torch set him aflame.

As he died, Hitler willed his consciousness to transfer itself into that first cloned brain with the help of Zola's automatic brain pattern-imprinting device at the latter's laboratory.

It is not definitely known whether the consciousness in the cloned brain was the actual consciousness of Adolf Hitler, that thus survived Hitler's phsyical demise, or whether it was, instead, a duplicate of Hitler's consciousness. In either event, the first Hate Monger believed himself to be the original Adolf Hitler.

Emergence as the Hate Monger

Over the following decades, Zola cloned and grew entire bodies from his samples of Hitler's cells. Zola also treated the original cloned brain and each of those in the cloned bodies so that a life force and mental essence could be projected from one to another. The first cloned brain psionically transferred its consciousness into one of the clones' bodies. The being that was thereby created took the alias 'Hate Monger' because he believed that the means to world conquest lay in fomenting hatred among the various races. Warfare would then erupt from which, he believed, only his own Aryan 'master race' would survive.

Concealing his true identity beneath a hood, the Hate Monger began preaching class, racial, and religious hatred in the United States. At the same time, the Hate Monger was testing the effectiveness of his hate-ray on a major scale by using it to bring about civil war in the small Latin American nation of San Gusto. Hate Monger was opposed in San Gusto by the Fantastic Four and Nick Fury. When the Hate Monger tried to fire a hate-ray at the Human Torch, the Invisible Woman seized the Hate Monger's arm, ruining his aim. As a result, the Hate Monger accidentally hit two of his own men with the hate-ray, who then shot him dead.

But in dying, the Hate-Monger psionically transferred his consciousness to yet another of the bodies that Zola had cloned for him. The first Hate Monger thus transferred his consciousness into new bodies at least six times, including once into a humanoid body without a humanoid head, whose brain Zola intended to transplant physically into the body of Captain America.

Thus, although there have seemed to be a long succession of individuals matching the description of the first Hate Monger, each of whom died horribly, there has been, in fact, only one such Hate Monger, who, whenever he found himself on the point of death, psionically transferred his consciousness into another of the cloned bodies.

Civil War and the Initiative

The Punisher battles the Hate Monger

Garbed in a costume that combined Nazi icongraphy with the then-thought-dead Captain America's costume, the Hate Monger set out to restore America's past glories by purging it of non-whites and non-Christians. He led a chapter of the National Force, an army of racist malcontents, in the American Southwest, outfitted them with high-tech weapons, and led them on murderous cross-border raids on illegal immigrant camps in Mexico.

Photojournalist Tatiana Arocha alerted her boyfriend Stuart Clarke and his ally the Punisher to the atrocities, although her concern led her to be captured by the National Force. Infuriated by the Hate Monger's actions and his desecration of Captain America's costume, Castle infiltrated the National Force and impressed the Hate Monger by killing Arocha (while under the hate-amplifying H-ray generator's influence) as his initiation ritual. Once he had been accepted, Castle struck at the National Force clad in his own variation of Cap's costume, but he was soon defeated and captured.

Hate Monger put him before a firing squad and prepared to execute him only for his men to be shot by SHIELD agent G.W. Bridge, who had been pursuing Castle. Hate Monger fled back to his base, which was under attack by the vengeful Clarke. Castle followed him there; after a furious battle, made all the more savage by the H-rays, Castle unmasked the Hate Monger and shot him in the head, once again killing him.

The Heroic Age

During the Heroic Age, Steve Rogers discovered one of the clones of Hitler retaining absolutely no memory of his programming. This clone goes by the name of Edmund Heidler and is a painter. Steve Rogers talks to him, trying to find any evidence of his original protocol, but he doesn't receive any other than a few racist comments. Leaving his art sale, Steve Rogers returns to Sharon Carter who wants to flat out kill him, but is stopped by Rogers, who tells her that he hasn't done anything wrong. They agree to keep an eye on him. After Rogers leaves Heidler begins to subconsciously paint swastikas in his apartment.

Fear Itself

Hate Monger and the American Panther

A man named Josh Glenn eventually emerges in the midst of the Fear Itself crossover. Originally an office worker who became frustrated by what he perceived as persecution at the hands of immigrants, Glenn took it upon himsef to continue the Hate Monger's legacy after learning about the villain through various conspiracy theory websites. Glenn's paranoid anti-immigrant attitudes culminated in an attempt to steal firearms from a local pawn shop, which resulted in his capture at the hands of the Black Panther.

Following Glenn's release, the consciousness of the original Hate Monger entered his body, as it did to his cloned bodies, granting him the abilities and experience of the real Hate Monger. The Hate Monger then set out to enact his revenge on Black Panther, recruiting a new nationalist vigilante known as the American Panther as part of his scheme

Powers and Abilities

Scientists working for the Hate Monger created his greatest weapon, the "hate-ray" (or "h-ray"). This high-frequency microwave radiation affected the centers within the human brain controlling emotions so as to stimulate and magnify the victims feelings of dread, fear and anger to unusual levels including repressed or subconscious sentiments of this kind. The hate-ray could also transform feelings of love into equally strong or perhaps stronger hatreds. The hate-ray could be fired from a handgun selectively at one victim or a small number of victims. It could be projected from a space platform or satellite over wide areas of Earth or even projected from a base on Earth so as to "bounce off" the moon and blanket any area on the Earth that was facing the moon at that time.

The Hate Monger was a skilled brawler and a capable leader. He commanded a large subterranean base incorporating H-ray generators, which generated radiation that amplified feelings of anger, aggression, and hate in those nearby.

The Hate Monger appears incapable of dying due to his ability to psionically transfer his consciousness to other cloned bodies upon his demise. Although, this was briefly thwarted by a jealous Red Skull who managed to trap the consciousness inside the Cosmic Cube, behind the scenes, it escaped.