Hellhound is one of the DC Universe’s lesser-known villains. He is one of those men who, despite not being a meta-human or a supervillain, manages to be a complete badass – which is a recurrent motif in Batman’s side of the narrative.
His mercenary background and loathing for Catwoman provide a solid framework for his story. The best thing is that he is usually pitted against DC’s other bad characters rather than the good guys.
He is not the only one who wears the mantle. This is a title that has been passed down down the generations because who would not desire a name like Hellhound? So, in this video, we will go into the circumstances surrounding this underappreciated villain.
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Hellhound – The Lesser Known: Backstory
The first Hellhound, Kai, was a disciple of the Armless Master, a martial arts master who managed one of the most renowned dojos in Gotham City. Kai was his best student and he was also a superstitious guy. Surprisingly, Kai was also a petty thief on the side. Of course, not many were aware of this.
One of Kai’s schemes revolved around stealing a figurine of an ancient cat deity known as ‘Bast’. This wasn’t nearly as simple as it sounded. Kai believed that this figurine could bless its owners with mystical powers. So, he stole it for himself.
As he performed the ritual, another notorious thief interrupted him – Selina Kyle a.k.a. Catwoman. Apparently, she touched the idol and he believed this tainted the ritual. With Kai being superstitious, he was furious at Selina and he resorted to beating her. Sometime later, Selina tracked Kai’s origins to the dojo and she was welcomed as a student there.
In the dojo, Kai and Selina interacted with each other while Kai was oblivious to the girl being Catwoman. However, he eventually managed to figure it out through their interactions. He wasn’t fond of her either because he used to resent her for ‘tainting’ the ceremony. Kai eventually adopted the moniker of Hellhound and fought Catwoman. However, he lost.
Once again furious and even maddened, Hellhound demanded Catwoman to kill her (not out of embarrassment but to complete the ritual that she had interrupted). Turns out, if Kyle killed Kai here, he would be reborn as a true hound of hell. To make things worse for Kai, Catwoman did not kill him. Instead, she scarred his face with her claws. This only added fuel to the fire of the hatred that burned in Kai’s heart.
Kai went from being the Armless Master’s most accomplished student to falling out of his master’s favor. An embarrassed Kai then chose to depart from Gotham City. He began to accumulate his own disciples. He trained them himself, making them capable enough to be hired as mercenaries abroad. Working outside the legal structure of the country, he eventually got involved with Rheelasia.
This South-East Asian island was a troubled one. The local industries would counterfeit foreign goods for their business and make profits. During this time, he once again crossed paths with the woman he couldn’t stand. Catwoman was present here since a Boston-based electronics firm had offered her fifty thousand dollars to repossess a certain prototype microchip before anyone in the island could pirate it. Meanwhile, Lady Shiva, an assassin, had killed the Armless Master.
Kai’s employer, the Collector, asked the two of them to recover the ‘Wheel of Plagues’. For this, Hellhound and Catwoman reluctantly allied with one another for their next mission. This wheel was an underground wheel and an ancient journal contained knowledge about it. The inscriptions weren’t decipherable in general but those in the Order of St. Dumas could translate it. With everything falling into place, this should’ve been a smooth mission for the troubled duo.
What complicated the entire situation was the fact that Ra’s al Ghul had his eyes on the same artifact as the Collector. Ra’s goal of cleansing the Earth and the wheel’s alleged ability to create a dangerous plague aligned with one another. He hired Bane to assist him in his mission, which meant that they’d come into direct conflict with Hellhound and Catwoman.
Kai and Kyle managed to infiltrate the labyrinth and breach it despite the booby traps to find the wheel. However, Bane defeated both of them to take away the artifact while the duo were imprisoned in Ra’s al Ghul’s compound. At the same time, Batman, Robin, and Nightwing were tracking Bane and Ra’s.
As Batman engaged Ra’s in a fight, Catwoman used the chaos as leverage and freed herself and Hellhound. They escaped, after which they fought each other once again. Too bad for Kai, he experienced defeat in the hands of Kyle once more. He begged her to kill him again and once more, she spared his life. This time, she tied him up and left.
Kai continued his life as a mercenary in Rheelasia. During this time, local drug kingpin Jackie Pamerjanian hired him. The kingpin used to overlook the kidnappings of tourists and ex-pats and then used them as his slaves while holding them for ransom. Hellhound was hired to be an enforcer. His job was to supervise the guards and kill those who tried to escape or had the potential to do so.
In the plantation, Black Canary worked as a slave, who unfortunately got tangled in this mess during a mission with the Birds of Prey. Hellhound recognized Canary the moment he saw her and wanted to fight her to test his skills. He let her escape as he wanted to test out his abilities by hunting her. However, as Canary vanished, Jackie grew furious at Kai. Eventually, the Rheelasian army raided Jackie’s plantations and freed the slaves.
With this act, Hellhound’s professional reputation as a mercenary took a huge hit, prompting him to return to Gotham City. Now, Kai was reduced to working as a bodyguard for Lew Moxon, a low-level criminal in Gotham’s underground.
During one of Batman’s missions, the Bat pretended to be the crime lord Matches Malone. He intended to unite the rival syndicates as the fake chairman to take control over the mobs in Gotham City. The daughter of Cluemaster, Stephanie Brown, was eager to gain Malone’s approval, oblivious to it being Batman. She set the plan for the summit where Malone would proceed with his plan. However, Batman was in the dark about this and wasn’t aware of the role he would have to play at the summit. Naturally, he failed to show up.
Paranoia grew among both sides due to Malone’s absence and there was a firefight. Hellhound was unable to save his boss Moxon from Philo Zeiss, who also ended up killing Kai. The accident created a terrible power vacuum in the underworld, causing Gotham’s largest gang wars.
Following Hellhound’s death, his belongings were handed over to Calculator for reselling his equipment. During this time, a petty thief named Jack Clifford purchased Kai’s equipment and costume.
The Other Hellhounds
With Kai’s belongings, Jack filled in his predecessor’s shoes to be the second Hellhound. He worked alongside Derrick Coe, a man who claimed to be the one who would succeed Black Spider II. As Calculator had a longtime feud with the Birds of Prey, Jack and Derrick decided to become his pawns to aid him.
When Calculator reformed his Secret Society of Super-Villains, Jack’s Hellhound became one of the first recruits. This move helped him garner a good reputation quickly despite being unknown in the Underworld not too long ago.
However, the Society was a government target, of course. With Hellhound finding himself as a member, he also had to find himself as a prime target for government agencies, namely the Suicide Squad. The Squad captured him and he was exiled to a distant planet called Salvation, alongside the second to last criminal batches.
As he arrived on the new planet, an alien creature wounded him mortally. It had a barbed stinger, which is used to slice open his stomach. The other villains agreed to leave Hellhound behind but the Body Doubles forced them to bind Jack’s wounds and carry him. However, he was later used as bait to distract monsters known as Lion-Lizards. This allowed the others to make their getaway while Hellhound was devoured.
With the second Hellhound gone, the spot was open once again. And it was a spot that was wanted by Jack Clifford’s cousin, Devil Dog, and a dog-like metahuman called Anubis. At a title match in El Paso, the two fought one another for the title of Hellhound. However, the Blue Beetle interrupted the match. Disgraced, Anubis and Devil Dog formed The Global Ultra-Society of Dread to take down Blue Beetle. The plan failed and they were beaten. They renamed themselves to be The Dog Pound and it is alleged that Anubis later performed the ritual Kai had tried to perform to become a true Hellhound.
What Made Hellhound So Powerful?
Kai was an exemplary martial artist who was the prized disciple of the Armless Master. He had tried to obtain mystic powers but this plan was foiled by Catwoman, time and again.
As a result, Kai has no supernatural abilities to rely on. But he makes a successful life for himself as a criminal with his martial arts and experience as a thief. As Hellhound, he also trained dogs for hunting and attacking and was extremely proficient with knives.
Despite being knocked down several times, mainly by Catwoman, Hellhound never lost his spirit, which was the real power that helped him to get back up.
Hellhound in the Justice League Animated Series
The Justice League Unlimited animated series features Hellhound in one of its episodes. He appears in Season 3, Episode 9, in the episode called Grudge Match.
In the episode, the entrepreneur Roulette runs a cage-fighting match business called Meta-Brawl. Hellhound is a fighter signed under her but in the episode, Roulette incurs losses, one of the reasons being the low quality of the fighters left to her.
During one of the matches at Blüdhaven, her business hit rock bottom. Hellhound, who was one of the last fighters left, fought against Shatterfist. However, the crowd was small and they considered the match to be boring, which is the moment that set off the events of this episode.
If you’ve watched the show then it’s an easy one to recall. This is the one where several female fighters of the DC fight against each other due to being controlled. It depicts Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl, Huntress, Canary, and Vixen, fighting in Roulette’s match under the influence of Grodd’s mind-control technology.
The thing about Hellhound here is that his name was never mentioned. Everyone just assumes that it is Hellhound because of the likeliness with reference to the martial arts and the costume.
It’s easy for writers and the audience alike to overlook their minor characters. But DC isn’t one to do so. And Hellhound’s story proves that.
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