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| As a result of the New 52 in 2011, the entire line of DC characters was relaunched, incorporating properties belonging to the company's imprints: Wildstorm, Milestone, and Vertigo. As such, elements of this character's history have been altered in some way from the previous incarnation. For a complete list of all versions of this character, see our disambiguation page. |
Gerard Shugel is the third Ultra-Humanite, a brilliant criminal scientist specialising in body-switching technology. He is the father of Dr. Laura Shugel-Shen and the adoptive grandfather of the Monkey Prince.
History
Fifteen years ago; Gerard, Laura and Winston Shen attempted to open a portal to the Phantom Zone and bring the Monkey King through to serve as Gerard's henchman. They succeeded in opening the portal, but boulders rained down out of it, almost crushing them. Gerard's insistence on running the experiment in the open in the middle of Metropolis quickly drew the attention of the Justice League, who broke the Phantom Zone Projector in half and smashed its Phantom Crystal Lens. Winston and Laura abandoned Gerard and escaped while the League were distracted fighting him. Gerard eventually managed to get away with the destroyed lens and half of the Projector, the other half was taken by the League.
Much to his disapproval, Laura and Winston got married and also adopted a baby boy called Marcus, claiming he came from an orphanage. The Shugel-Shen's cut ties with Gerard when Marcus was a baby and moved to Gotham City.[2][3]
In the present day, they returned to Metropolis, where Laura and Winston took jobs with LexCorp. Laura was near-fatally injured when a demon attacked the facility they were working in, forcing Winston to take her to Gerard to save her life. He also brought Marcus, who did not remember Gerard and had not known he existed.
Gerard wanted to transfer Laura's mind into a new body but Winston insisted that he repair her damaged spine instead, and Gerard begrudgingly agreed. The next day, while they were synthesising new vertebrae for Laura, Gerard's security system picked up Supergirl and the Monkey Prince fighting outside the house. Unaware that the Monkey Prince was his grandson, Gerard changed into his albino gorilla body and went out to confront them.[4]
He tried to shoot Supergirl with a Kryptonite-infused hard light projectile but Monkey Prince blocked it. Supergirl destroyed his gun when suddenly a mysterious green rain began to fall and repaired the crystalline battery at the centre of the cannon. Supergirl knocked him unconscious before he could take another shot, but he realised that he could use the rain to fix his broken Phantom Crystal Lens.
Gerard switched back into his human body and took a sample of the rainwater. He successfully restored the lens and told Winston that they would use it to bring the Monkey King to Earth at last.[2] However, the Projector was unable to maintain a stable portal, which Winston realised was due to Gerard replacing the half of the Projector seized by the League with Earth-manufactured parts that could not perfectly replicate the original Kryptonian technology. Gerard declared that they would steal the original other half of the Projector from the Hall of Justice.
Gerard and Winston found the remains of the Projector in a store room in the ruins of the Hall. Winston rebuilt the Projector but before they could test it the Monkey Prince arrived on the scene and confronted them. He attacked them with a wave of miniature clones of himself, which Gerard crushed, but while fighting the clones off he knocked over Winston; who fell into the Projector and activated it while knocking himself out. The portal reopened and the silhouette of the Monkey King appeared on the other side. The Monkey King appeared to reach for the unconscious Winston and the Monkey Prince desperately dove through the portal to protect him. Gerard quickly deduced that the Monkey Prince was Marcus, and that he was also a monkey god who must have come from the Phantom Zone on the day fifteen years ago.
When Marcus returned through the portal, Gerard revealed that he knew who he was and injected him with nanobots that bound to his pain receptors to force Marcus to obey him.[3] Gerard carried the still-unconscious Winston back to his lab and treated his injuries. Winston and Laura both made a full recovery and reconciled with Gerard, unaware of what he had done to their son.[5]
Ultra-Humanite joined a band of gorilla supervillains lead by Monsieur Mallah to take over Bludhaven, and then Gorilla City. An impromptu team of siminan superheroes, including Marcus, joined together to stop them. The two sides fought, but Gerard didn't use the nanites to incapacitate Marcus or even fight his grandson, instead only attacking his teammates. Detective Chimp discovered that Mallah was using severed monkey arms in a magic ritual to increase their powers and Gerard and the others turned on him, horrified at what he had done to their fellow primates.
Gerard and the others escaped, but he realised that he could replicate what Mallah had done and teamed up with a monkey wizard named Eek-Gor. They created dozens of clones of Marcus' arm to use in another ritual but Marcus sensed what they had done and came to stop them. They fought and Marcus was able to knock out Eek-Gor and destroy the cloned arms. When Gerard threatened to use the nanobots Marcus replied that he hadn't when he had the chance before and knew he wouldn't. After a moment, Gerard begrudgingly admitted he was right and tossed the remote for the nanobots away. Marcus arrested Eek-Gor but not Gerard, and the two agreed to meet for family dinner on Sunday.[1]
Powers and Abilities
Powers
- Multiple Bodies: Shugel has the technology to switch his consciousness between multiple bodies intended for different purposes.
- Baseline Body: Shugel's baseline and likely original human body appears to be enhanced beyond typical human capabilities.
- Enhanced Strength: Even in his human body, Gerard possesses considerably greater strength than would be expected for a man of his age and physique. He was able to easily lift Winston with one hand.[4]
- Albino Gorilla Body: One of Gerard's alternate bodies is a huge albino gorilla designed for use in combat.
- Baseline Body: Shugel's baseline and likely original human body appears to be enhanced beyond typical human capabilities.
Abilities
Notes
- Gerard Shugel was created by Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, and Amanda Conner, first appearing in Power Girl (Volume 2) #1. However, in the Prime Earth continuity, Gerard Shugel first appeared as part of the New 52 DC Universe in Monkey Prince #9 by Gene Luen Yang and Bernard Chang.
Related
- 5 Appearances of Gerard Shugel (Prime Earth)
- 5 Images featuring Gerard Shugel (Prime Earth)
- Quotations by or about Gerard Shugel (Prime Earth)
- Character Gallery: Gerard Shugel (Prime Earth)
Footnotes
  This character, team, or organization, is or was primarily an enemy of Supergirl. This template will categorize articles that include it into the "Supergirl Villains category." |