Sasquatch
When former pro line-backer Dr. Walter Langkowski was exposed to gamma radiation, he was gifted the power to transform at will into Sasquatch. As a part of the Canadian government's tame super-team Alpha Flight, Sasquatch's fabulous furry finery not only provides the heavy muscle, but also a great deal of intelligence. Unfortunately, some of his teammates don't take his stuffy scientist shtick seriously.
Fiction
Dr. Walter Langkowski was once a pro line-backer. Through a chance discovery he found out that he was one of a tiny fraction of people who could survive gamma irradiation. The exposure altered his thyroid; with concentration, he could increase his size and muscle mass, with the side effect of covering him in a thick matt of golden fur. Sasquatch implied that the transformation was once painful, but the pain was decreasing with practice.
As Sasquatch, Langkowski became a part of Alpha Flight, a team of super-agents under the employ of the Canadian government, in particular the ministry of defence subsidiary codenamed Department H. One of Sasquatch's missions was to neutralise the Hulk after he entered into Canadian territory. He apparently ended the Hulk's threat, though at the cost of vast tracks of Canadian timberland. Sasquatch took some lumps during the fight, which may have resulted in his outgrowing the need to test himself against other super-persons.
Sasquatch was undergoing a regular test under a four ton hydraulic press when a minister introduced Alpha Flight to Department H's top covert operative Agent K. The minister explained that parliament had recently received a dossier from an anonymous source alleging that the living robot Machine Man had intentionally sent the Hulk to Canada on orders of the U.S. government. The minister dispatched Sasquatch, along with his colleagues Aurora and Northstar, to New York City to locate and arrest Machine Man, while Agent K did the legwork of tracing the dossier's origins.
The next morning, the agents travelled by limousine to New York City. While K followed his leads, Langkowski and the Beaubier twins were at a loose end in a luxury hotel suite. Langkowski equipped them each with a wrist monitor to track Machine Man's unique bio-radiation; rather than Jean-Paul's suggestion that he and his sister superspeed around the city, Langkowski suggested to simply go to the address in the phone book registered to Machine Man's alias of Aaron Stack. Believing him to be joking, the twins left to party the night away in the city that never sleeps.
The following morning, Langkowski travelled by taxi to Stack's address, where he picked up the signal of Machine Man flying overhead. Returning to the vehicle, he asked the bewildered cabby to take him on a tour of the city, following the signal on his wrist monitor. He located Machine Man on the roof of a waterfront warehouse and dismissed the cabby before things got hairy.
Langkowski stripped nude and transformed into Sasquatch. Despite misgivings about fighting Machine Man alone, instilled in him by his experience with the Hulk, he took the living robot on in combat. While they fought, Sasquatch questioned Machine Man about his motives for sending the Hulk to Canada, but Machine Man refused to submit to any country's authorities. Due to a tight time schedule, Machine Man dropped Sasquatch into the river and jolted him into submission with borrowed electricity. Sasquatch was conscious enough to feel Machine Man pulling him from the water onto dry land, making sure he wouldn't drown.
He was found by Aurora and Northstar, who had searched the city for him at superspeed. Together, the Alpha Flight members traced Machine Man to a large sewer chamber, though Sasquatch had a little trouble squeezing into the manhole. They discovered Machine Man writhing under the effects of a sonic disruptor, beset by masked mercenaries. Alpha Flight took the henchmen on, as Sasquatch refused to believe that Machine Man was their enemy as he could have left him for dead.
Machine Man freed himself by detaching his head and negating gravity to repeatedly ram the disruptor. Though he regained his body, the assault had disfigured his humanised face, and he was driven into a blind rage. Aurora and Northstar attempted to stop him from murdering any of the henchmen, but he turned on them as well. Sasquatch grabbed him to stop him beating on his pals, but Machine Man lashed out and pummelled Sasquatch senseless. He only stopped when he heard Aurora call him an inhuman monster. Horrified by his behaviour, Machine Man drilled his way out of the sewer, asking not to be followed. As Sasquatch nursed his headache, Aurora wondered if Agent K had fared any better than they had.
K had in fact traced the anonymous dossier back to the desk of Senator Miles Brickman, whose campaign for president centred solely on anti-Machine Man rhetoric. The news media caught wind of the story and span it into a plot to rig the election by making Canada stand with him against Machine Man. As Langkowski drove the team home, each of them fumed at the way their government had been played. Alone Against Alpha Flight!
Notes
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- Sasquatch's tangle with the Hulk took place in The Incredible Hulk Annual #8
(or Marvel UK's Hulk Comic issues 52 to 56 ).
