Read more about Hugo Danner at: Wikipedia

Official Site: Public Domain

Hugo Danner is a fictional character, the protagonist of the 1930 American novel Gladiator, by Philip Gordon Wylie. Born in the late 19th century with superhuman abilities via prenatal chemical experimentation, Danner tries to use his powers for good, making him a precursor of the superhero. However, Danner grows disillusioned with his inability to find a permanent outlet for his great strength, and dies frustrated.

Apart from Wylie's novel, the character has also appeared in a feature film and publications by Marvel Comics and DC Comics. Comedic actor Joe E. Brown portrayed him in a 1938 movie adaptation of the book. Decades later the character starred in an adaptation titled "Man-God" in Marvel's black-and-white comics-magazine Marvel Preview # 9 (Winter 1976). He next appeared in DC's standard color comic book Young All-Stars in 1988 and 1989, as the estranged father of an illegitimate son named Iron Munro. In 2005, he returned in the comic-book miniseries Legend, published by the DC imprint Wildstorm. Here Danner, in the late 1960s, fights as a U.S. Army supersoldier in the Vietnam War rather than as a super Legionnaire in World War I.

In early February 1930, Wylie described the inspiration for Danner's creation in the introduction to one of the earliest printings of Gladiator:

The novel begins during the closing years of the 19th century, as Colorado science Professor Abednego Danner searches for a way to improve the innate weaknesses of human biology and create a new "race that doesn't know fear — because it cannot know harm". After 14 years of research he finally discovers "alkaline radicals" that vastly improve "muscular strength and the nervous discharge of energy". Following very successful animal testing, which yields super-strong tadpoles and a bulletproof kitten capable of taking down cattle as prey, he injects this super-serum into the womb of his pregnant wife, Matilda. Hugo Danner is born on Christmas several months later.

Hugo Danner has not been a contender in any CBUB matches.