Origin
The Hijacker was a minor criminal that used used his Vario-Blaster and Crime Tank to wreck havoc. Howard Mitchell owned the Mitchell Armored Truck Company and his trucks were carrying large amounts of money until his trucks started getting hijacked by a criminal called the Hijacker. The guards in the truck would be sprayed with a gas that causes brief unconsciousness and memory lapses. The Hijacker would steal all the money inside and Mitchell began to lose customers. Mitchell hired the Ant Man to catch the Hijacker so Pym told Mitchell to announce that one of his trucks would be carrying another large payroll. The next day, Ant Man was complaining of serious abdomen pains and told the guards it was an appendicitis. Ant Man left the scene and Mitchell told his guards to continue with the delivery because he didn’t want to lose another customer. As the guards were outside the city limits, they saw a moving truck in front of them. The back of the truck opened up and there was a giant magnet inside which pulled the armored vehicle into the truck. The Hijacker appeared and threw a gas grenade to incapacitate the guards. The Hijacker was using a blowtorch to break into the armored van when Ant Man appeared. Ant Man had feigned illness and pretended to stay behind because he figured the Hijacker would not strike if he thought the tiny Avenger was inside. The Hijacker attacked but was unsuccessful when he was defeated by Ant Man after his mask was shredded by the Avenger and exposed to his own nerve gas. Ant Man removed the mask to reveal Howard Mitchell himself. Mitchell’s company was losing money and thought he could get it back by stealing the money he was delivering. He hired the Ant Man himself, thinking Pym would never consider him a suspect. However, Pym always suspected Mitchell to be the Hijacker when he saw the primitive statues in his office and learned that he spent some time in the jungles of Peru. Pym knew their was an Indian tribe in Peru that had an ancient vapor that could cause memory lapses when inhaled. Mitchell was handcuffed and taken into police custody.
Story Arcs
The Hijacker would later appear when he infiltrated a facility that was testing numerous weapons and gadgets created by Stark Industries. This would lead to a conflict with the Thing and Bill Foster who were testing an atmosphere suit at that facility. The Hijacker managed to take down Bill Foster and Talia Kruma with some nerve gas while the Thing was inside the testing chamber. The Hijacker found Stark’s top security prototype vault that contained advanced SHIELD hardware, defensive weaponry and some space exploration gear. The Hijacker wanted to steal some of this technology and sell it for millions. However he would be defeated by the Thing and Black Goliath after they destroyed his powerful Crime Tank.
The Hijacker would later appear to settle an old score with the Thing. He was just one of many super criminals that tried to attack the Thing while he was hospitalized. Numerous heroes came to the Thing’s aid and Iron Man was the one that destroyed the Hijacker’s Crime Tank when he flew through the murder machine. The Hijacker would eventually meet his demise at the Bar with No Name as one of the victims of the Scourge of the Underworld.
Resurrection
The Hood resurrected several victims killed by the Scourge of the Underworld including the Hijacker. The Hood has augmented the abilities of some of these resurrected criminals which makes them more dangerous. The Hood told his new army that the Scourge was secretly the Punisher and he has ordered them to eliminate Frank Castle. The spell that brought them back to life only lasts thirty days and only the Hood can extend their lives.
The Hijacker and the rest of the resurrected villains come after the Punisher and G.W. Bridge on the streets of New York. The Hijacker apparently runs over Castle with his Crime-Tank during the fight but the Punisher survived when he used Pym particles to enter the tank. Castle takes over the Crime-Tank and hits Basilisk with a gas spray. Whether the Hijacker was killed by Castle remains to be seen, but it proved untrue. The Hijacker was indeed still alive and decided to hijack several military weapons from a secret bunker in order to make off with millions from a a secret vault. In the process, he ploughed through the city and killed a mother and her son. Infuriated the current Venom, Flash Thompson brutally attacked him and finally crossed the line by biting his head off and killing him once more.
A new Hijacker was hired by the Slug to distract SHIELD while the crime boss brought his shipments of narcotic into port. The Hijacker briefly took control of the ship and fought Sam Wilson and Scott Lang, who incidently had targeted the vessel to steal an immature Giganto pup from Maria Hill. Sometime later the Hijacker would escape custody and committed a spree of robberies in the Miami area, one involving a rickshaw in a pedestrian mall. Sometime later he met up with Whirlwind, the Voice and the Magician after being hired to do a job by Janice Lincoln and Scott Lang.
Equipment & Abilities
The Hijacker had no powers but wore an insulated suit and mask that was equipped with some gadgets including his Vario-Blaster attached to his utility belt. This Vario-Blaster had different settings that could fire nerve-gas, heat blasts, emit nuclear flame that could melt some of the strongest metals and could use it to control and activate nearby machines. The Hijacker had a Crime Tank which was a metal fortress on tank treads. This Crime Tank could smash through steel walls like papier-mache, used electromagnets and had spikes on its tank treads. The resurrected Hijacker has an updated costume and different kinds of gases at his disposal. Some of these gases include sleep gas, fear gas, poison gas, madness gas and the list goes on and on.