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Dr. Howard Hodges was a friend and colleague of Mike Morgan, Mary Michaels and Stewart Lowe, until he turned them into the Terrific Trio.

History

At some point, Hodges started coveting Mary Michaels, so he orchestrated a laboratory accident that would take her fiancé, Mike Morgan, out of his way. He eluded the same fate by using the pretext of a budget meeting, so as to justify his absence in the time of the accident. However, he did not intend for Mary Michaels to be present in that moment either. It is unclear whether Hodges intended to kill, or consciously turn Mike Morgan into a metahuman. Nevertheless, he sold both of them out to the military, to use them as weapons.

Dr. Hodges guaranteed to General Norman that the Trio could be controlled once they managed to adjust to their new condition. However, the group's molecular stability started to unravel, and Hodges feared that they might become psychotic. After Magma broke into his lab, Hodges warned General Norman, who soon assaulted the Trio Tower in an attempt to purge them.

The Trio managed to elude death, and headed off to the Bay Ridge Research Center to confront Hodges. They accused him of knowingly exposing the Trio to a dangerous experiment, which Hodges adamantly denied. They was not convinced of his innocence, so they set off to finish the experiment. In the face of impending obliteration, Hodges warned them that the radiation could not be contained. He then finally admitted setting-up the accident, but only for Morgan. He didn't plan for Mary to be exposed, as he claimed to love her, and was hoping to gain her affection once Morgan was gone. Hodges begged them to turn off the device before the radiation reached critical mass, but the Trio was now determined to take everything down with them. At that point, Batman intervened and engaged the disgruntled heroes. Hodges, whose feet had been frozen to the floor, tried to crawl his way out, but Magma blocked his exit. Batman managed to fight off Magma and hit the abort button. After the crisis was averted and all three Trio members supposedly perished, Hodges defended himself by pronouncing that he was their friend. Unconvinced, Batman left, leaving Hodges looking genuinely repentant for his past mistakes and mourning his friends.

Appearance

Batman Beyond

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