Comixfan Forums - Hodge, Cameron

<img src="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/headshots/cameronhodge.jpg" align=left alt="Cameron Hodge (as Phalanx)">Real Name: Cameron Hodge
Former Aliases: The Commander
First Appearance: X-Factor (1st series) #1 (as Hodge), X-Factor (1st series) #59 (mechanical form, cameo), New Mutants #95 (in mechanical form, fully), Uncanny X-Men #306 (as Phalanx)
Place of Birth: Unrevealed
Last Appearance: Cable #16
Place of Death: Phalanx Babel Spire, Mount Everest, Tibet, China
Cause of Death: Killed in destruction of Babel Spire
Known Relatives: None
Group Affiliation: Formerly Phalanx, The Right (founder/leader), X-Factor I (public relations representative)
Known Allies: Formerly Stephen Lang
Major Enemies: X-Men, New Mutants, X-Factor I
Height: 5'10" (in human form), Variable (in mechanical/Phalanx forms)
Weight: 156 lbs (in human form), Variable (in mechanical/Phalanx forms)
Eyes: Blue (in human form), Variable (in mechanical/Phalanx forms)
Hair: Gray (in human form), None (in mechanical/Phalanx forms)
Other distinguishing features: none (in human form); mechanical spider-like body, mechanical scorpion-like tail (in mechanical form); techno-organic appearance (in Phalanx form)

Cameron Hodge was the roommate of Warren Worthington III in college. Worthington was under the impression that they were good friends, but Hodge was actually insanely jealous of Worthington’s good looks, prestige, and wealth. When it was revealed later that Hodge’s roommate was actually the mutant X-Man known as the Angel, it only fueled Hodge's hatred. All those feelings attributed to Worthington were transferred to include all mutants, whom Hodge came to believe were a threat to the freedom of normal humans and therefore should be destroyed.

Hodge became a lawyer, but then turned to advertising and public relations and became a highly successful member of a leading New York advertising agency. Meanwhile, he secretly created an organization devoted to the destruction of all mutants known as The Right. Hodge lead the group under the name of The Commander.

Worthington, still believing that Hodge was his friend, turned to him to help with come up with a way to combat the growing prejudice against mutants. They came up with the idea to form a team of mutants who would pose as mutant hunters, but who would secretly be making contact with and training mutants in the use of their powers. The original members of the team of superhuman mutant outlaws known as the X-Men - the acrobatic Beast, optic-blasting Cyclops, telepathic and telekinetic Marvel Girl, and ice-manipulating lceman - agreed to join the group, which they named X-Factor. However, X-Factor’s concept quickly backfired on the group, intensifying people’s hatred of mutants, just as Hodge had planned.

The first physical display The Right committed was the kidnapping of the mutant named Rictor from his native Mexico, where he was responsible for a devastating earthquake. The Right brought him to San Francisco where they hooked him up to an elaborate device that would amplify his superhuman powers. The plan was to force Rictor to cause an earthquake on the San Andreas fault, which would cause catastrophic damage to the state of California. The Right believed that when the public found out that a mutant had caused the destruction that it would further discredit mutants in the eyes of the public, but their scheme was foiled by X-Factor who rescued Rictor and took the young mutant in as a trainee.

Hodge then contacted the genetic engineer Doctor Frederick Animus and commissioned him to find a way to prevent mutations from occurring. Instead, Animus defied his employer’s orders and created creatures with combined characters of humans and animals, which he called his “Ani-Mates”. Renaming himself the Ani-Mator, Animus planned to use these creations as a slave race for mankind, but one of his Ani-Mates, Bird-Brain, escaped and was befriended by the team of adolescent mutant trainees named the New Mutants. They accompanied Bird-Brain back to the island where Animus had conducted his experiments, but were captured by the creatures they had intended to free.

The New Mutants subsequently escaped only to be recaptured by members of The Right, including Hodge. The Right had arrived on the scene to discipline the defiant Animus. Bird-Brain and other Ani-Mates rescued the New Mutants and battled The Right. In the ensuing battle, the New Mutant named Cypher was killed. Infuriated, another New Mutant, Magik, exiled Animus and all the involved members of The Right to the dimension Limbo. Hodge narrowly escaped that fate and, because of this incident, rededicated the cause of The Right to destroy mutants, not to contain and discredit them.

When the Angel’s wings were damaged in a fight with the team of mutant assassins known as the Marauders, Hodge secretly arranged to have the damaged wings amputated. Then, he convinced Worthington to change his will, to give most of his fortune to X-Factor if he were to die, with Hodge as the executor of the estate. Soon after, Worthington seemingly committed suicide in an airplane that exploded, and Hodge came to control the Worthington fortune. By now, the other members of X Factor had realized that Hodge was their enemy. They subsequently battled The Right and learned that Hodge was actually the leader of the group. Although he escaped, The Right were dealt a crippling blow from which they never recovered.

After Worthington resurfaced as a Horseman of the eternal mutant Apocalypse and a new set of metal wings, subsequently shaking off Apocalypse's control and rejoining his X-Factor teammates as Archangel, Hodge made a pact with the demon N’astirh in which Hodge would provide the demon with mutant babies for its scheme to invade the Earth. In return, N'astirh promised Hodge that he would not die in his next battle with the mutants. Soon after, Warren Worthington’s fiancée, Candy Southern, was kidnapped and Hodge killed her in an act of revenge against Worthington. Driven into a berserk rage, Archangel beheaded Hodge.

However, as N'astirh had promised, Hodge did not die, and he later resurfaced in the island nation of Genosha as nothing more than his human head attached to a large mechanical spider-like creature. He dispatched Genosha's Magistrate police to capture as many members of the X-Men and its various splinter teams as possible, thereby luring those members who escaped capture to Genosha to attempt a rescue of their teammates. When there, Hodge planned to either subjugate or kill them all. His plan succeeded in luring them all to the island nation, but instead of a triumph, it was his greatest disaster.

His first captives were the weather-manipulating Storm, plasma-generating Boom-Boom, feral lycanthrope Wolfsbane, vibration-generating Rictor, and the techno-organic Warlock. Hodge attempted to siphon off Warlock’s shapeshifting power so he could change his spider-form at will, but was foiled by Wolfsbane. She was unable to save Warlock, however, and he died in her arms. It soon became apparent to the government of Genosha, as well as to the assembled mutants, that Hodge was planning to take over the island and use it as his base for the extermination of all mutants. Hodge’s body was destroyed by the mutant brothers Cyclops and Havok, and he was buried during the collapse of a skyscraper instigated by Rictor.

Hodge nonetheless survived, due to his partial success in siphoning Warlock's powers as well as the transmode virus, which allowed him to transform living creatures into techno-organic beings like himself. Hodge came to ally himself with the grassroots anti-mutant organization known as the Friends of Humanity. Hodge convinced them to allow him to transform them into creatures like himself, and together they became the techno-organic collective known as the Phalanx, an offshoot of the alien Technarchy race of which Warlock was a member.

The Phalanx subsequently assimilated a number of people, including loved ones of the X-Men, while clashing with the mutants at various times. However, the Phalanx soon found themselves taken over by the transmode virus' basic operating program which had two ineradicable goals: to overwhelm surrounding lifeforms, and then build a communications tower known as a Babel Spire to contact the alien Technarchy that spawned it. The Technarchy would then arrive and drain the energy of this Phalanx "event". However, the Phalanx were betrayed from within by Stephen Lang, a former enemy of the X-Men who had been assimilated into the collective. Hodge learned of Lang's deception and, as the Phalanx's Babel Spire on the slopes of Mount Everest began to self-destruct, Lang attempted to flee but was dragged back in by Hodge to die in the exploding structure along with the rest of his techno-organic brethren.

Cameron Hodge originally possessed no superhuman powers. After a deal with the demon N'astirh, Hodge was granted a form of immortality which meant his body could not be killed by conventional means. Hodge was later outfitted with a cybernetic body constructed by members of his organization, The Right. The cyborg body was shaped like a spider's, having eight legs and a low squat torso, but also containing other attachments, such as weapon systems and a scorpion-like tail. The armored body held numerous weapons, the full range of which were never revealed, but included bolas, laser blasters, molecular adhesive projectors, saw blades, spikes, and tentacles. Hodge could directly access computer information from his cyborg body, and another mechanical unit enabled his body to phase out of reality for brief periods to avoid attack. Circuits in the body allowed the body to repair itself at a phenomenal rate. Hodge also proved immune to psychic attacks, and was able to reflect them back on their originators.

Later, as a member of the Phalanx, Hodge was a part of the collective hive-like alien intelligence and physical mass of the Phalanx entity, sharing in its powers of matter-assimilation, shape-changing, computer interfacing, and the ability to project blasts of concussive energy.

APPEARANCES:
Amazing Spider-Man (1st series) #282
Cable #16
Iron Man (1st series) Annual #8
New Mutants #51, 60, 95-97
Uncanny X-Men #271-272, 306
X-Factor (1st series) #1-5, 7-13, 16-19, 21-23, 33-34, 47, 57, 59-62, 106
X-Factor (1st series) Annual #1
X-Men (2nd series) #36