The Porcupine
Real Name: Alexander Gentry
First Appearance: Tales to Astonish 48
Died In: Captain America 315
What's His Problem: A brilliant weapons designer for the US military, Gentry built his "porcupine" battlesuit in their employ but realized they would make millions from his creation and probably give him next to nothing. Determined to make his fortune with the suit, he became the costumed criminal known as the Porcupine.
Abilities: Gentry was a gifted and innovative weapons designer specializing in personal armor and miniaturized offensive weapons.
Weapons: Gentry's chief weapon was the Porcupine battlesuit, originally a massive, spiny shell described succinctly by Luke Cage as a "walking haystack." Later, Gentry developed a more streamlined suit whose spiny "quills" were confined to certain areas of the costume rather than its entire exterior. The suit's quills were razor-edged steel projections that made physical contact with the Porcupine dangerous. Combined with the suit's underlayer of strength-augmenting body armor, these quills made the Porcupine highly resistant to injury. The quills could be fired from the suit with great force, either individually or as a hail of lethal projectiles; they also housed numerous concealed weapons in various hidden compartments and hollow tubes (false quills). Weaponry housed in the suit included laser beams, concussive bombs, small rockets, tear gas, sleeping gas, smoke screens, an acetylyne torch, liquid cement, hypnotic lights and electrical discharge weapons. The Porcupine armor also sometimes included belt jets that allowed the Porcupine to fly for short distances.
Favorite Quote: "No! No! I can't be stopped by gnats!" (Avengers 167, wherein Yellowjacket and the Wasp cleaned his clock for the umpteenth time.)
Heroes He Kept Running Into: Hank Pym, the Wasp, Captain America and the Defenders were among Porky's more frequent foes.
People Who Think He's Not So Bad: Porcupine's recurring partners included the Eel, Plantman and the Scarecrow, but after years of second-rate super-villainy, most criminals regarded him as a joke. Tired of crime, Gentry resolved to retire and sell his suit to the highest bidder, but his rep made the costume almost impossible to sell profitably. Gentry offered to sell the suit to the Avengers, hoping they'd want to keep it out of the wrong hands. Captain America, intrigued, agreed on the condition that Porcupine would help capture some of his criminal contacts, the Serpent Society. Porcupine reluctantly agreed, but their sting operation went bad and Gentry was fatally injured in the melee. Cap tried to console the dying Gentry by saying his heroism had helped jail some of the Society members, but Gentry died convinced he was a failure. Cap put Gentry's battlesuit on display in Avengers Mansion as "The Porcupine: Honored Foe of the Avengers."
Most Despicable Act: Truth to tell, Porcupine never did anything more despicable than theft, mass destruction and beating up the occasional super-hero (or, more often, vice versa). He was more persistent than pernicious. He was, however, one of many wascally wongdoers to crash the wedding of Mister Fantastic and Invisible Girl on behalf of Doctor Doom--a super-villainous faux pas, to be sure.
by Sean McQuaid
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