Whirlwind (Character) - Comic Vine (original) (raw)

Origin

Much like any criminal, David Cannon's great talents would be blinded by greed and fortune.

Much like any criminal, David Cannon's great talents would be blinded by greed and fortune.

A devastating villain that would occasionally hound the Avengers first began when a young David Cannon realized that he had a unique talent to move his body at great speeds. Fascinated as to how he never grew tired or gained sickness, Cannon realized that he was untouchable when spinning in a tight circle. Cannon quickly started on the wrong path with his gained talents by becoming a bully towards other children and then used them for his criminal career as a petty thief. As an adult Cannon found legitimate work as a circus performer, a professional wrestler, and a professional ice skater. However Cannon’s talents caught the attention of some criminals who specialize on fixing games and employed Cannon to help them with their criminal gains. Cocky and flamboyant over his success, Cannon grew careless over his actions as authorities grew suspicious over his activities which caused him and his criminal partners to be investigated.

Growing over confident with his success and abilities, Cannon quit his career on fixing games and pursued a criminal career as a costumed thief. Designing a costume and an alias that strongly resembled his abilities, Cannon embarked on a crime spree as the Human Top.

Character Creation

David Cannon was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and first appeared in Tales to Astonish issue 50 (1963).

Character Evolution

The Silver Age

David Cannon made his first debut as the costumed criminal known as the Human Top. Becoming a successful and challenging villain for the newest costumed hero, Giant Man.

The Bronze Age

As his main enemy Hank Pym became more involved with the Avengers, Cannon's criminal changed for the better when he redesigned his costumed and renamed himself as Whirlwind. As Whirlwind, Cannon became a threat towards Hank Pym and the Avengers several times. Eventually Cannon never made any more major impacts as his remaining career became unsuccessful and he became nothing more than a distrusting lacky who challenged the patience of his partners because of his arrogant, self-centered, egotistical attitude.

Major Story Arcs

The Human Top

Elusive and challenging

Elusive and challenging

As the Human Top, Cannon successfully forced the city into a state of hopelessness, as authorities were unable to stop Cannon from a series of store robberies. After Hank Pym read about the Human Top in the local papers, Cannon would catch the attention of the new costumed hero known as Giant Man. Cannon proved very difficult for Giant Man as he managed to evade capture and prove that he was actually untouchable against the likes of other super-powered individuals. Eventually Cannon’s crime-spree would finally be halted by both Giant Man and his partner Wasp. Angered as to how his successful streak came to an end, Cannon would try to gain revenge against Giant Man which proved unsuccessful and ended with Cannon facing defeat once more. Later Cannon (un costumed) would encounter a confused Hulk and dupe the monster into fighting Giant Man as another revenge attempt.

The Whirlwind Attacks

Sporting a new look

Sporting a new look

Finding his stint as the Human Top unsuccessful and becoming ridiculous, Cannon set his goals on not only improving his looks, but also improving his skills with his mutant abilities. Gaining a new look and much more deadlier than before, Cannon continued on with his criminal career as the Whirlwind. Dedicating his next actions on gaining revenge against both Hank Pym and the Wasp, who were by now full-time Avengers, Cannon managed to get a job as the Wasp’s (Janet Van Dyne) personal chauffer. Not realizing that her chauffeur’s true identity, Cannon took the advantage of gaining access into the Avengers Mansion and making his attack in there against both the unsuspected Wasp and Hank Pym as the Whirlwind. Managing to defeat both heroes because of the Pym particles used against Pym and Janet, Cannon placed both shrunken heroes into Pym’s ant-hill to be killed by his own ants.

As Pym and Wasp battle the army of ants within Pym’s ant-hill, Whirlwind decides to rid the rest of the Avengers by placing a bomb within the mansion, which was noticed by Pym within the ant-hill. As Whirlwind quickly caught the attention of the remaining Avengers, he was defeated and almost apprehended by the mutant speedster Quicksilver and Cannon’s attempts to blow up the Mansion failed when Pym and Wasp escaped the ant hill and warned the Avengers of where the bomb is placed.

Masters of Evil

Despite Cannon’s inability to properly work well with others, Cannon participated in the second incarnation of the Masters of Evil to gain revenge against the Avengers and Hank Pym. With Cannon and the other members unaware of the true identity of the Crimson Cowl who acted as leader of the group, Cannon cared less about the mysterious Crimson Cowl as the team successfully defeated and captured the Avengers. Yet Cannon’s hopes for ridding his enemies proved unsuccessful as the Avengers escaped and the Cowl’s identity would be revealed as the insane robot known as Ultron before the team of heroes defeated the Masters of Evil.

The Chauffer

Cannon still acted as Janet Van Dyne’s chauffer under the alias known as Charles Matthews. From what started as an attempt to steal Janet’s personal fortune and lay low from his costume identity, Cannon found himself becoming romantically obsessed with Janet. Trying to make advances towards her when her husband Hank Pym was believed to be dead, Cannon would eventually be fired after being caught attempting to embezzle Janet’s money. This and Hank Pym’s return would cause Cannon to attack the couple once more and force his Charles Matthews identity to be discovered by Pym. With the fight coming to a halt when Janet’s home was burning, Cannon managed to flee the scene leaving his two enemies in the burning home, which they eventually survived from.

Team Player

Cannon's obsession with Wasp cost the Masters of Evil a defeat and ruined his reputation

Cannon's obsession with Wasp cost the Masters of Evil a defeat and ruined his reputation

Cannon later found himself forming with another group of super-villains that was ran by another leader that secretly had plans of his. Joining Count Nefaria’s Lethal Legion, each member had their powers increased including Cannon. Set out to attack and defeat the Avengers, the Lethal Legion would realize the true purpose of their increased powers when Nefaria absorbed all their powers into himself, giving Nefaria unlimited powers. Duped into another criminal masterminds's own secret plot once again, Cannon still joined the ranks of another villain group formed by Egghead, which was the third incarnation of the Masters of Evil. With Egghead and the Masters of Evil planning their attack against Pym and the Avengers, Egghead's plans would be foiled by Cannon's premature attempt to attack the Avengers on his own. This not only caused Egghead's plans to be foiled, his group alonside with Cannon to be defeated, but also would accidently meet his fate in the hands of Hawkeye.

Cannon would quickly escape custody and hear of a new Masters of Evil planning on making an attack against the Avengers. With the massive group of villains who were under the guidance of Baron Zemo, Zemo would decline Cannon’s acceptance within his group because of his actions with the recent Masters of Evil. Yet Zemo would see some use with Cannon as he falsely promised Cannon membership by giving Cannon the task of killing Captain America alongside with Trapster, who also tried to join Zemo’s group.

Looking for ways to increase his criminal reputation and join Zemo’s Masters of Evil, Cannon hired the Tinkerer to build him an upgraded suit with two wrist gauntlets that had a spinning saw blade attached to them. Alongside with Trapster who also gained modified weaponry from the Tinkerer, both men worked together on their attempt to kill Captain America. As Zemo predicted, both Trapster and Cannon proved to be no match against Captain America, despite their upgraded weaponry.

Unstable and Obsessed

Cannon next formed another partnership with Tiger Shark as both men went about stealing an experimental “psycho circuit”. Attracting members of the West Coast Avengers, both Cannon and Tiger Shark were defeated and apprehended by the authorities. Still obsessed with Janet Van Dyne, Cannon went through extreme measures of expressing his feelings about the Avenger that questioned his mental status. Trying to find a way to ease his obsessed urges, Cannon would force prostitutes into dressing up as Janet and brutally murdering them because of his inner hatred for Janet. Tracking both Janet and her husband Pym in Las Vegas, Cannon attacked both heroes as he blamed Janet for his criminal career. Yet, both Pym and Janet still managed to defeat the obsessed and enraged Cannon.

From Bad to Worse

After many years of being incarcerated, Cannon managed to escape once again and participate in a bounty on the future kingpin known as Ricadonna. However Cannon’s return went from bad to worse when he competed with a former ally Trapster. With both villains fighting against each other, Trapster managed to defeat Cannon by gluing his legs to the ground before Cannon began spinning. This caused Cannon’s legs and spine to break and nearly force the Cannon into retirement.

Civil War

After making a full recovery, Cannon was forced into participating Zemo’s Thunderbolt’s Army during the Super Human Registration Act (SHRA). The Thunderbolts had to fight off cities filled with civilians who were suddenly empowered when the Grandmaster opened up the Wellspring of Power. The Thunderbolts army were broken up into numerous squads and sent to various locations throughout the world. The Chicago based Alpha squad consisted of Whirlwind, Porcupine, Doctor Octopus, X-Ray, Unicorn, Quicksand and Boomerang. The Alpha squad was responsible of maintaining order in the Windy City.

Dark Reign

Norman Osborn's driver

Norman Osborn's driver

After leaving the Thunderbolts and escaping the authorities, Cannon gathered other villains who formerly served with the Masters of Evil and possibly attempted on recreating another on his own. After seeing Norman Osborn reach success among the population with his team of Thunderbolts, Cannon decided to steal Norman Osborn’s wealth by using one of his own teammates, Mac Gargan. Knowing the history between Gargan and Osborn, Cannon blackmailed Gargan into leading his boss into a trap. This however backfired against Cannon when Gargan showed his loyalty towards Osborn as both men ultimately defeated Cannon and his group of villains. Forcing Cannon and Tiger Shark to be secretly under his payroll, Cannon would serve as Norman’s personal limo driver during his time as director of HAMMER (which was formerly SHIELD).

The Heroic Age

Cannon has been recently shown as an mole for Zodiac, and as Norman Osbourne's chauffeur. He recently tried to attack Hank Pym and his Avengers Academy in public. He made it very clear how he blames Pym for Janet's death and is clearly looking for blood. Although he was swiftly defeated, it seems that the whole attack was just a publicity stunt arranged by Striker's mother.

Fear Itself

Whirlwind and several other felons that included Aftershock, Living Laser, Icemaster and Ember escaped from the Raft after a mystic hammer crashed into the facility. Juggernaut picked up the mystical item and transformed into Kuurth of the Worthy. Whirlwind and the other Raft escapees headed into Stamford where they started attacking innocent civilians. Speedball took on all five villains by himself but was eventually overwhelmed after Ember ignited the air around him and lost consciousness from lack of oxygen. Whirlwind and his companions left the scene after Speedball was laid out.

Mandarin City

Wearing Stark Armor

Wearing Stark Armor

Whirlwind was one of many villains recruited by The Mandarin to join a concerted attack against Tony Stark, after publicizing his relapse into alcoholism. Teamed up with Living Laser and the new Melter, they believed they killed War Machine, only for Rhodey to fake his death and take over as a new Iron Man. This new Iron Man caught up with Whirlwind when Mandarin sent him with Titanium Man to steal a hard drive from a Vancouver Stark facility.

Whirlwind would later turn on Mandarin when he found out that Mandarin had implanted a bomb inside of him to keep Whirlwind in line. Stark, who was also a captive of the Mandarin, convinced Whirlwind and a few others to defect to his side, outfitting them with Stark armors of their own.

Infinity Heist

Whirlwind and Blizzard were set to take advantage of the Avengers being distracted by an alien invasion to get themselves a big score when they were approached by Spymaster with an even bigger score: ripping off Avengers Tower. He already had a buyer lined up (which would pay them $20 million each) and a crew including: Whiplash, Firebrand, Titanium Man, and Unicorn.

Spymaster's crew

Spymaster's crew

Despite the drama between members, the crew still went through with breaking into Stark’s armory. Once Spymaster had teleported some of the armors to the buyer, he then teleported himself leaving his crew in the lurch. Before he left, he fired a gun, setting off the alarm and calling whichever superheroes were on duty. Surprisingly, Whirlwind and the others were able to fight them off, surprising Titanium Man, who was secretly the buyer and Kree soldier, Captain Atlas. With their plan to leave them as patsies failed, Atlas decided to kidnap the crew to execute on his starship.

While preparing them for execution, Iron Man arrived having received an alert that he was robbed. After Whirlwind and the others made it clear that they would give him no grief for saving him, the crew teamed up with Iron Man to fight off the Kree, who were planning on taking over New York City with the stolen Stark armors. Once freed, Whirlwind and the others took a beach vacation after Whiplash smuggled one of the armors and sold it to Taskmaster.

Hench App

Ant-Man's crew

Ant-Man's crew

To get new jobs, Whirlwind started using a gig economy app created by Power Broker called Hench. This put him at odds with Ant-Man, who had just started a security consulting firm, Ant-Man Security Solutions. However, the Hench app also offered everyday people powers so that they may start henching. Ant-Man’s daughter, Cassie, took advantage of this after having her superhero gear withheld from her by her parents. Unfortunately, the Power Broker knew who she was and conspired with Darren Cross to use her as bait.

Using the Hench app, Ant-Man hired a number of the recent superhuman goons he tangled with, including Whirlwind, to help him break into Cross Technological and save her. They were successful, even managing to steal some of Cross' inventions on the side. Unfortunately, Scott’s ex-girlfriend, Darla Deering, who was helping was being followed 24/7 by surveillance drones for her reality show. They caught everything, editing it to blame Scott. Scott got himself thrown in prison to save everyone else until his old teammate and lawyer, She-Hulk, could get him out.

Pleasant Hill

Fighting through Pleasant Hill

Fighting through Pleasant Hill

At some point, Whirlwind was arrested by SHIELD and locked up in their state of the art new prison, Pleasant Hill. Using reality warping abilities of Kobik, Whirlwind and other supercriminals had their minds and appearances altered to believe they were in a Norman Rockwell-like small American town. Whirlwind was “cast” as a teenager named Scotty, who was visiting an ice cream shop run by Absorbing Man when the illusion suddenly failed. Together, they lash out on the SHIELD agents littering the city streets.

The illusion failed thanks to The Hood and his new Illuminati. Absorbing Man’s wife, Titania, joined in exchange for breaking Absorbing Man out. Whirlwind got to tag along and enthusiastically wanted to join Hood’s operation, however, The Hood started losing support right away when he suggested they kill the families of the Avengers. For their insolence, Whirlwind and the others were teleported by Hood to Times Square for the cops to arrest them again. Whirlwind took off before he could be caught.

Sinister War

The Sin-Eater Six

The Sin-Eater Six

Whirlwind eventually rejoins the Lethal Legion. They target an ESU symposium to steal the best renewable energy device in existence for Count Nefaria. This gets the attention of Sin-Eater, back from the dead. He is able to shoot Whirlwind and his two legionnaires, Grey Gargoyle and Living Laser.

Due to the new magical nature of Sin-Eater’s gun, Whirlwind and the others survived being shot. Instead, they had a newfound impulse to repent for their sins and willingly went to Ravencroft to pay back their debt to society. Unfortunately, the Kindred twins, Sarah and Gabriel, were manipulating Sin-Eater, eventually causing him to have a mental breakdown and releasing the sins he had amassed. Once Whirlwind and the others had their sins returned, they immediately regressed to their criminal ways.

The Kindred twins then broke them out of prison to add to their assault on Spider-Man.Their plan was to attract multiple teams of Spider-Man rogues to a graveyard and convince them that they were all hellbound and the only way Kindred would free them was if they took out Spider-Man, starting a supervillain war. Whirlwind would follow Sin-Eater against the other teams. Eventually, Doc Ock uses a piece of Black Ant's helmet to knock everyone out through the ear centipedes Kindred was using to control them.

Victor Shade

Avengers, Inc

Avengers, Inc

Whirlwind was doing well staying on the straight and narrow when he was forced to work for the spy agency, WHISPER. They sent him to kill Janet Van Dyne and her new protege, Nadia. However, the two Wasps were able to overpower Whirlwind and send him to prison. While he was locked up at The Raft, Whirlwind had his death faked by Hank Pym, who had returned from a future where he was bonded to Ultron. Pym offered him membership to a new Lethal Legion that would stand guard if Ultron was ever to return. He rejected the offer and was revived during the investigation of his murder.

Jan had been hired by Luke Cage under the new anti-vigilante law as a plainclothes private eye with superhuman specialties. Her first case was investigating Whirlwind’s death, however, Whirlwind’s body awoke with a new personality. He was now claiming to be Victor Shade, a former alias of The Vision. His resemblance to Vision did not stop there. The bulletwound in his head had even scarred into a diamond shape, and he was now capable of using his mutant ability to speed up his molecules and adjust his density. To keep him close while she continues to investigate, Janet hired this Victor Shade as the first employee of her detective agency, Avengers, Inc.

While investigating villains who were being killed in the same manner as Whirlwind but not revived, Avengers Inc were led to Hank Pym, who was posing as a medical examiner and forging the morgue documents. He explained his plan to Avengers Inc causing the Victor Shade personality possessing Whirlwind to reveal itself as Ultron-12, a previous version of the Ultron program that sees Pym as a father. He revealed himself to protect Pym from Ultron who had been manipulating Pym into assembling the Lethal Legion as a hivemind army that Ultron could network.

With Avengers Inc as his back up, Ultron-12 was able to flush the Ultron programming out of the villains and combine the nanotech Ultron was using to control them into a new body, so that he could return David Cannon's body back to him.

Ravencroft

After David is purged of Ultron-12, he is sent to Ravencroft. There, he makes friends with Anna May Watson, who was being treated for Krakoan Derangement. She had made friends with a number of the inmates. When Electro attacked trying to free Sandman, David was tempted to escape, but when Anna was targeted by Electro, David and a few other inmates decided to defend her.

Personality

Possibly Cannon’s greatest downfall as a costume criminal is his selfish and extremely unbalanced personality that questions his loyalty among villain groups and partnerships. It’s a fact that Cannon is indeed a powerful mutant who displays powers that are very useful against superhero types and other desirable goals, but his selfish arrogance does have him stir conflict among himself and other villains who are allied with him. Known to flee his teammates during a battle and prematurely anticipate a fight against foes that causes his team to suffer a loss, it’s understandable as to how many villains have second thoughts about recruiting Cannon into their ranks.

One dangerous aspect of Cannon’s personality is his deep obsession with Janet Van Dyne (the Wasp). Spending great amounts of time stalking her as a chauffer, Cannon has convinced himself that Janet does have romantic feelings for him and that she rightfully belongs to him. Adding more fuel for his selfish personality, Cannon views other people as objects and has no feelings for anybody else but for himself. When having feelings for Janet, Cannon has an abnormal reaction that turns aggressive with murderous impulses which causes him to become highly dangerous.

Powers & Abilities

The highlight of Cannon's powers is that his spinning powers makes him nearly untouchable.

The highlight of Cannon's powers is that his spinning powers makes him nearly untouchable.

David Cannon is a mutant who has the ability to rotate his body lengthwise at superhuman speed. He can spin his body at about 400 revolutions per minute. It’s unclear if his arms or other limbs could spin the exact same amount and carry the same amount affects. When Cannon’s body is completely engulfed in the self-made whirlwind, his body becomes centered focused to where he could still see, hear, and speak. He could also travel any direction when spinning and travel up to 50 miles per hour in a straight line without tiring. Another unique feature of Cannon’s powers is that when he’s spinning, he becomes extremely difficult to physically touch because of his body’s abnormal rotation. Even though Cannon does appear to be human, his physiology isn’t normal because of his body adapting to his abilities. Because of this, the body fluids within Cannon are thick as heavy oil and his organs are more thick and durable than normal human physiology

Cannon later found ways to manipulate his powers to where he could use them for combat. Instead of having his entire body spinning in a whirlwind, Cannon could ride the whirlwind that his body made, leaving his upper body exposed. He also could manipulate his arms into forming small tornadoes that could be used against opponents. After awhile, Cannon managed to manipulate his abilities and reflexes to where he could deflect massive objects, pick up any objects while spinning, quickly change in and out of clothes while spinning, and physically attack a person while spinning.

As Victor Shade, Daniel's super speed was used on a molecular level. By speeding up or down his molecules, he was able to simulate density shifting like that of The Vision.

Physical Characteristics

Weapons and Equipment

As the Human Top, Cannon wore a dark-green full body suit and a custom made helmet that protected him from any possible debris or injury.

Later Cannon improvised his suit into a modified armored helmet that strapped around his shoulders and torso. The helmet also helped Cannon steer himself much better and have better manipulation over his powers. It’s unclear if it was Cannon himself who designed this costume or the Tinkerer.

No Caption Provided

Whirlwind is also one of the many villains who sought out Tinkerer’s services who designed Cannon with a full body armored suit and two saw blade attachments on each wrist. Each blade was ran by a DC servomotor that was activated by a switch located within the palm. The switch is sensitive and can easily be activated and brake by a simple motion of the hand. However Cannon realized that there were flaws to both the costume and wrist blades. With the helmet only having eyeholes and lacking a mouthpiece for easier breathing, Cannon was forced into changing this costume many times. The wrist blades proved a possible risk of Cannon injuring his knuckles, which also forced him to relieve the use of the gauntlets and later find, another form of weaponry. Occasionally Cannon changes and alters his costume and armor that would either give more protection or/and make him much more deadlier than before.

Cannon has also used shurikens and other throwing weapons.

Alternate realities

Amalgam: In this universe, he is combined with Red Tornado to create 'Crimson Whirlwind'.

Heroes Reborn: Though not actually an alternate reality the Heroes Reborn version of Whirlwind has an armor consisting of many blades. For some reason, the armor in Heroes Reborn is adopted by the 616 version

Other Media

Television

Earth's Mightiest Heroes

Earth's Mightiest Heroes

Video Games

Ultimate Alliance 2

Ultimate Alliance 2

Merchandise

Marvel Legends

Marvel Legends