Leroy Jackson (Earth-616)

From Marvel Database

Hammer

Gallery

Real Name

Leroy Jackson

Current Alias

Hammer

Alignment

Bad

Universe

Earth-616

Characteristics

Gender

Male

Eyes

Brown

Hair

Bald

Status

Citizenship

American

First appearance

Last appearance

Unknown

Unknown

History

Leroy "Hammer" Jackson was the son of "Crackerjack" Jackson, and he grew up to be a criminal, claiming to hate everyone and everything.

He was sentenced to prison for reasons that have not been revealed and was assigned there to a chain gang. An unidentified person in the prison administration with a perverse sense of humor decided that "Hammer", who was black, should be chained while working on the chain gang to another prisoner, Johnny Anvil, who was well known as a racist who hated blacks. However, Hammer and Anvil's hatred for prison proved to be even stronger than their hatred for each other, and they succeeded in escaping while still chained together at the wrists.

In escaping, Hammer overpowered a guard and stole his .38 handgun. Eventually Hammer and Anvil lost the search party that had gone after them. But then the two convicts encountered Chleee, a member of the alien race the Gix, who had been mortally wounded in the crash landing of his starship. Panicking at the sight of the strange alien, Hammer fired his stolen handgun at Chleee and unintentionally saved his life. Unaware that Hammer had actually been trying to kill him, Chleee wished to thank him and Anvil. Believing the chain linking their wrists to be merely a "drab adornment," Chleee split the chain and used a device called a molecular transfuser to create an "energy synthecon" joining their wrists in its place. By absorbing kinetic energy, the energy synthecon granted the two escaped convicts superhuman strength. Gix then departed in his starship.

Hammer and Anvil returned to the prison and used their new superhuman strength to begin tearing it apart in revenge for their captivity there. Then, suddenly, the monstrous Hulk arrived at the prison. By coincidence, the Hulk had recently met "Crackajack" Jackson, who was on his way to the prison to visit his son, and who befriended the lonely monster. The grateful Hulk took the elder Jackson into the prison, leaping over the outer wall. Seeing his father, Hammer began quarreling with him. "Crackajack" Jackson accidentally brushed his hand against the energy synthecon, whose sheer power killed him on contact. Enraged at the death of his friend, the Hulk attacked Hammer and Anvil. The two convicts fought back, but finally the Hulk seized hold of the energy synthecon, despite the pain it caused even to his superhuman form, and split it in two. The synthecon had linked Hammer and Anvil psychically as well as physically, and the mental shock they suffered when the synthecon was severed drove them insane.

Eventually, however, Hammer and Anvil regained their sanity, and Ivor Carlson, the head of the Deterrence Research Corporation, had them released from prison and hired them as corporation employees. Founded and formerly headed by the villain Moses Magnum, the DRC dealt in munitions and was willing to use criminal methods to achieve its goals. Carlson had DRC scientists repair the synthecon and, he claimed, they altered it so that it no longer would link Hammer and Anvil mentally and so that Hammer and Anvil could remove it at will. Once again given superhuman strength by the synthecon, Hammer and Anvil battled the heroes Spider-Man and the Guardians of the Galaxy on behalf of the DRC. One of the Guardians, Martinex, used his freezing power to cover the synthecon with ice, radically lowering its temperature and thus rendering it brittle. Spider-Man then fired his webbing at it, shattering the device. Thus Hammer and Anvil were defeated once more.

The DRC repaired the synthecon once more, and sometime later Hammer and Anvil clashed with the original Spider-Woman in Los Angeles when they kidnapped Amanda Sheridan, the head of Sheridan Industries for the DRC. With Sheridan the corporation's prisoner, the DRC intended to attempt a corporate takeover of Sheridan Industries. Spider-Woman rescued Sheridan and fought Hammer and Anvil twice more. In her final battle with them, Spider-Woman fired bio-electrical energy into the synthecon to render it inoperative, and then defeated its wearers.

Somehow the synthecon became operational once more. It is not known whether or for how long Hammer and Anvil remained employed by the DRC. However, a considerable time after their defeat by Spider-Woman, Hammer and Anvil, once again linked by the synthecon, encountered the Hulk in the desert in New Mexico. Then the enigmatic assassin Scourge, who had been disguised as an aged American Indian, killed Hammer by shooting him in the face with an explosive bullet. Apparently the synthecon now linked the life forces of Hammer and Anvil and Anvil could not remove it, at least not by himself. On seeing Hammer dying, Anvil realized that he himself would perish as a result. Indeed, when Hammer expired seconds later, Anvil's life came to an end as well.

Powers and Abilities

Powers

None known.

Abilities

None known.

Strength level

Unknown.

Weaknesses

None known.

Paraphernalia

Equipment: None known.
Transportation: None known.
Weapons: None known.

Notes

• No special notes.
  

Trivia

• No trivia.

See Also

• Appearances of Leroy Jackson (Earth-616)
• Character Gallery: Leroy Jackson (Earth-616)
• Fan-Art Gallery: Leroy Jackson (Earth-616)
• Quotations by Leroy Jackson (Earth-616)

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Links and References

• Unofficial Handbook of the Marvel Univers