Creation
The Monster debuted in the story “The Blizzard,” which began in the first issue of the anthology, IMAGE! 30th Anniversary Anthology.
It is one of The Unnamed, a group of unrelated strange heroes of American history. An advertisement for this new project included a timeline. On the timeline was: 1944 – The Monster is made
Major Story Arcs
Rocky Mountain Disappearances
Thanks to a map and notes from an agent of a mysterious government agency, known as The Founding Fathers, a number of missing persons cases were connected to The Monster, including:
- August 15, 1933 – Joe Halpern
- September 7, 1987 – Tom Young and his dog, Gus
- August 7, 1988 – Keith Reinhard
- February 28, 2019 – James Pruitt
All of whom really went missing in the Rocky Mountains. After three more people went missing in 2019, Simon Pure was hired to hunt and capture the creature by a special US defense program. They tagged the monster and re-released it.
The Blizzard
The Monster was roaming the snowy Colorado wilderness, when a prison transport with 3 prison guards and five prisoners were working their way through. When the transport crashed into a truck full of the remnants of The Monster’s last kill, the survivors were forced to move on foot. After killing one prison guard and two prisoners, The Monster followed the survivors, who sought refuge in an abandoned ranger’s shack.
Among the survivors was prisoner Michael Verardi, who was convicted of killing his son’s killer. He was the first of them to survive a direct encounter with The Monster. He reported back that leading up to an attack, the target starts having hallucinations. They band together and use the uncooperative member of their group as bait to lure The Monster out.
When The Monster got close, the four, who had armed themselves, come out of the ranger shack guns blazing. Despite hitting The Monster many times, it never slowed down and killed one more of the survivors. The remaining survivors were plagued by visions of their guilt. Verardi, who kept seeing his dead son, telling him to embrace his guilt, finally grabbed an improvised bomb from a propane tank and blew himself and The Monster up.
Neither body was found, but The Monster’s GPS tag did die.
Power & Abilities
Beastly: The Monster has large claws and teeth. It also has super strength and endurance, seemingly able to take a lot of pain.
Illusions: The Monster is capable of casting illusions of its targets greatest sin and guilt.