REAL NAME: Robert Benton
OCCUPATION: Scientist, adventurer
IDENTITY: Public
CLASS: Human technology user / Chemically empowered human
LEGAL STATUS: Citizen of USA
OTHER ALIASES: The Terror
PLACE OF BIRTH: New York City, USA
MARITAL STATUS: Single
KNOWN RELATIVES: NA
GROUP AFFILIATIONS: The FIXERS
BASE OF OPERATIONS: NY City, The Bench (Washington DC)
FIRST APPEARANCE: Planet Comics #5 (May 1940)
HEIGHT: 6' 1" / 8'
WEIGHT: 225 lbs / 1400 lbs
EYES: Blue / Yellow
HAIR: Black / Bald
Bob Benton was a brilliant biochemist who was being harassed by a criminal organization that wanted to force him to "cook" drugs for them. To convince him, the bullies beat his lab assistant, young Tim Benton. That same night, Benton and Tim were working on Bob's secret project: a formula to, in Bob's own words, "unfold human potential." Tim accidentally altered the composition of the formula and the resulting vapors transformed Benton into Fero, a giant ape-like creature with superhuman strength and invulnerability. Fero confronted the bullies who were harassing Bob, ending the conflict permanently. Benton later synthesized the formula in pill form and became an adventurer, a kind of scientific detective who faced vampires, werewolves or alien invaders, as well as more common criminals. Tim accompanied him on some of these adventures. Bob Benton was the first recruited by the Battlemaster to be part of the Fixers.
POWERS & WEAPONS
He was a scientific genius and a very gifted detective. He despised conventional weapons and instead he made use of his incredible inventions, such as a suit that protected him from electrical damage, cold, heat, or small caliber bullets and stab wounds or the pills that transformed him into Fero. In his mutated form Benton, or more accurately Fero, gains inhuman strength in addition to an unbelievable degree of invulnerability to physical harm. Benton possessed his own jet, filled with scientific equipment, including a device capable of recording a person's memories.
