Badger is the story of Norbert Sykes, a Viet Nam veteran and abused child who has developed split personality disorder. One of his personalities is the Badger, a superhero. Working for Hammaglystwythbrngxxaxolotl, a fifth century Welsh weather wizard, he proceeded to encounter and battle a procession of weird and wonderful opponents during the run of his series.

 

Created by Mike Baron, who also created Nexus, Badger originally appeared in a series from Capital Comics. With issue five, his comic moved to First, where it ran to seventy issues and a couple of graphic novels. With the demise of First comics, the Badger vanished off the radar for several years, reappearing in a two mini-series from Dark Horse during the mid-nineties, and then as an ongoing series from Image in 1997 (which lasted 11 issues).

Count Kohler - a demon who made a deal with Ham. In return for some sacrifices he sent Ham a Waffenpoof, but the thing got lost in transit. This led to arguments between the two, and eventually Kohler turned up on his doorstep with a bunch of demonically possessed thugs. After laying siege to the castle and nearly killing its inhabitants, he was banished back to his home dimension by Ham.

Supporting Cast

Some of Badger's friends, associates, and enemies not given their own entries include:

The Phantom of Bascom Hill - In 1971 Doug was an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin protesting against the Vietnam War. On the early hours of a Sunday morning he parked his van which he had turned into a huge bomb alongside the lab. He ran inside to hit the fire alarm to make sure anybody inside would get clear, but he misjudged the timer and the bomb blew up while he was still inside. A grad student called Millie Peterson who had been working late was killed in the blast.

Doug was knocked through the sub-basement and into the honeycomb of tunnels below, much of his face burnt off by the heat. He managed to crawl out from the wreckage and took the night train to Canada. From there he made his way to Syria, where he enrolled in a Soviet-backed terrorist training camp, where he learned martial arts. A few years later he learned his former sweetheart, now a college professor, was planning to get married to a Veteran, and attacked him. His ex called on her friend Riley Thorp, who brought the Badger in on the case. Badger confronted the Phantom, eventually convincing him to turn himself over to the authorities.

Senator Bob Kasten -  truffle hunting pig from France as well as a daring and heroic individual (he had saved his previous owner from a house fire, which is why only one of his legs had been eaten). He was deliberately starving himself when the Badger met him, to prevent anyone else from trying to eat parts of him. Ham purchased Senator Bob, who moved to America with his new friends.

Some time later Daisy was threatened by a vampire, and Badger called on his old friend, now a seasoned graduate of the Van Helsing Vampire hunting school. When the vamp had Badger on the ropes, Senator came to the rescue, and when the nosferatu relieved him of his stake, Senator Bob used his peg leg and a daring forward roll to finish the creature off.

Badass The Demon Hunter - For at least 4000 years Badass has been battling demons. He is the Fist of An, a mythical Babylonian demon hunter, who can be summoned to do battle by singing the worst song in the world backwards. In 2000 B.C. he fought Shazamar who was attempting to open the Black Door which would allow demons to flood our reality, successfully stopping her. She died, only to be reborn in the modern age, where she sought out Ham to be her blood sacrifice needed to open the door. Badger and Mavis summoned Badass and with his help they stopped her latest attempt to release her demonic lord Zabala into the world.

Lamont - a buffalo, and the Badger's favored ride whenever he wants a steed. He's been with the Badger when the hero went hunting escaped Rhino, he's an excellent figure skater, he's a little vain when it comes to his hairdo's, and he nearly won a race in the Australian outback against a Wombat riding an emu.

Dr. Buick Riviera -  a madman who utilizes a strange form of martial arts. He first encountered the Badger when the two of them were hired by rival salesmen to endorse their discount warehouses as proof of how mad the discounts were. Later Badger encountered him again when the maniac was working for IBOB, the international brotherhood of Brujos, trying to sacrifice rare animals to break down the barriers between dimensions.

Cobra - a police man in Chicago before being thrown off the force for unnecessary roughness. After Badger beat up on his brother, he came looking for a fight... and got one. But the Badger impressed him during their battle and when the fight ended the two became friends.

Cobra got into commodities after he left the force, and has offices in the Prudential Tower.

Streetwise - a New Yorker who knows everything that happens in that city [#59, #67]

Meldrum Funmaker - a Winnebago Indian.  A friend of and neighbor of Jim Wonktendonk, he ran into the Badger when the insane one came to Jim's aid against the Hodag's neo-Nazis. By Crossroads he had been retconned into an old army buddy of Badger's. [#10, Crossroads #2, Badger Goes Berserk]

Connie Ammerperson - black lesbian cab driver and liberal woman's activist. She met the Badger when he used her cab as a getaway car while trying to escape the authorities with a  black jaguar. [#9, #26, Badger Goes Berserk]

Jim Wonktendonk -  fellow Nam vet. First met the Badger when Ham introduced them. Jim had been procuring exotic animals for Ham, who was using them for sacrifices.[#7, #8]

Pamela Sue Tilson - whom Badger dated for a while. First met the Badger when he turned up at a dog fight she was attending too. [#4, #7, #9, #11]

Riley Thorp - an associate professor of Economics at the University of Wisconsin, and teaches martial arts on the south side of town, being a master of several styles. He first met the Badger when he was out for jogging, spotting the vigilante practicing some katas. The two swiftly became friends, and he has remained one of the Badger's closest associates, each helping the other out on several occasions

Yak - a magician who has given up casting spells and seeks to make others do the same, rather than risk exposing Earth to demonic forces from outside our dimension. When he sensed that Ham was awake and up to his old tricks he traveled to Wisconsin to stop him. When magic and force proved to be of no use, he remained with his servant Yeti waiting for Ham to summon a demon, so that the Yak could turn it against Ham. But Ham eventually began to cut back on the magic, in part because of an unpleasant encounter with Lord Weterlackus, and the Yak decided it was relatively safe to leave him alone.

Yeti - according to the Yak, the Yeti is not of this Earth, and is very old. For a long time he served the Yak as a manservant and bodyguard. He first met the Badger when he accompanied the Yak to America when the mystic traveled there to confront the newly awakened druid Ham. With his hair-trigger temper, the two came to blows almost immediately, but there was never any animosity between the two after that initial encounter.

Fuzzbuster - owl with attitude that Badger often uses as a police radar spotter to avoid tickets (hence his name) [#49, #55, #60, #61]

Daisy Fields - Badger’s personal psychiatrist and Ham's secretary. She is the only person Ham cares about, and is one of the few who can make him do the right thing. (on most issues).