Real Name:
Norbert Sykes
The Badger
Real Name:
Norbert Sykes
Identity/Class: Normal (?) human
Occupation: Bodyguard and general dogsbody for Ham
Affiliations: Ham, Mavis Davis, Nexus, Judah the Hammer, Warren Oates, John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, Bill Fields, Wombat, Kid Kang, Daisy Fields
Enemies: Ron Dorgan, Roach Wrangler, Lord Weterlackus, Larry, Hodag
Known Relatives: Mavis Davis (wife), Larry (step-father)
Aliases: Emily, Gastineau Grover dePaul, Leroy, Alice, Max Swell, Pierre
Base of Operations: Barneveld, Wisconsin
First Appearance: The Badger #1 (Capital Comics, 1983)
Powers/Abilities: "Badger is an expert at hand-to-hand combat. He began his training in Shorin-ryu but has since gone on to master dozens of obscure, esoteric, arcane, not to mention abstruse martial arts, the likes of which you seldom hear about.
He can also talk to the animals - just like Dr. Doolittle. Only with better results."
According to Ham, Badger becomes momentarily insubstantial when he changes personalities.
History: "The Badger is Norbert Sykes, a Vietnam veteran suffering from an extremely rare multiple personality disorder: Seven great personalities in one. The personality most frequently inhabited by Norbert, indeed almost exclusively preferred, is the Badger, a self-styled crime fighters who rides the highways and by-ways of America, meting out bloody justice to jaywalkers, ticket scalpers, indifferent teenaged fast food clerks, in fact, any damn body he feels like because he's CRAZY!
Badger lives with Ham the Weather Wizard in a castle south of Barneveld, Wisconsin. Ham and Badger met while both were inmates at a state mental hospital. Through cunning and chicanery, Ham has amassed a considerable fortune."
Badger is the story of an insane hero. The man who would become the Badger was christened Norbert Sykes. Sykes was an abused child, suffering for years at the hands of his step-father Larry. Then as an adult he went to Viet Nam where he spent several months as a prisoner of the Viet Cong. His fragile sanity finally snapped, and he adopted several distinct personalities to cope with the traumas in his life. One of these is the Badger, a vigilante who believes that God is a Badger called Myrtle (like I said, he's not sane) - this is now his dominant personality, and the one with the best knowledge of martial arts. Back in the US he was institutionalised for a while, after he was caught by the police beating up some punks who had annoyed him, until another inmate Ham, a 4th century Welsh druid (it's a weird and wonderful strip at times, and can be as insane as the character), explained to him how to fake it long enough to get discharged. Badger now works for Ham as an odd-job individual (and given the nature of what Ham is, they can be exceptionally odd jobs). He met his wife, Mavis Davis, during a far Eastern martial arts contest.
Comments: Badger was created by Mike Baron (who also created Nexus). The title was originally published by Capitol comics, then by First comics after Capitol went bust. When First went the way of the Dodo, the Badger eventually returned published by Dark Horse Comics. I'm informed that First had part owned the rights to the character, and Dark Horse bought those rights. The story goes that as soon as the issues they published covered the costs they'd paid out, they handed their share of the character back to Baron free of charge. The Badger went on to be published by Image comics, and has recently resurfaced at IDW. He will be back as part of the upcoming War of the Independents.
A summary of the Badger's personalities
Badger, a crazed vigilante, who came into existence after Norbert was held by the Viet Cong, and he had a vision of god as a badger called Myrtle, who empowered him to speak to animals. This experience seems to have been what finally caused all his other personalities to emerge.
Norbert Sykes - the original man
Emily - a nine year old girl, scared of everyone. Emily was created as a result of ten year old Norbert being raped by his step father Larry.
Gastineau Grover dePaul - a black man from Chicago, the seventh son of a seventh son and the hootchie-kootchie man
Leroy - Norbert's dog, shot by his stepfather Larry when Norbert was ten
Alice - a poet, very rarely seen
Max Swell - cultured and effete, Max is also gay
Pierre - the psychotic Frenchman. Pierre appears to have emerged when Norbert was on the run in Viet Nam. Having escaped the Viet Cong, he killed a number of enemy soldiers, jokingly calling out "Lucky Pierre", and saying that "we're only here as a favor to the French". A few minutes later when he accidentally shot a baby, his shattered mind snapped further and he placed the blame on Pierre, thus creating his most vicious personality.
Badger has an imitator, Lannier Lutefisk, who impersonates him, and once stole an entire issue of his comic from him.
He is often visited by "ghosts" of famous movie stars, usually Warren Oates and John Wayne, but sometimes Marilyn Monroe and Bill Fields turn up too.
CLARIFICATIONS: Not to be confused with
any other guys who name themselves after animals
any other crazed Viet Nam vets
Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.
All images and characters depicted on this site are copyright their respective holders, and are used for informational purposes only. No infringement is intended and copyrights remain at source.