HUNGER
Loxias Crown is the Vampiric being known as Hunger. Gaining his vampire-like abilities from an experiment involving the Living Vampire Morbius, nothing can stop his insatiable thirst for the power he gains from the blood of others.
Shrouded in Mystery
Loxias Crown’s childhood and parentage remain a mystery. Though as an adult, he has an unusual interest in the William Fields and Dr. Sydney Lanning, scientists at Empire State University. Hunger attacks and slays Fields at his home and promises his son, Todd, that he would return one day. Seven years pass, and upon his return with cronies at his side, he holds Lanning and other scientists hostage at ESU, demanding Fields’s notes and the energy generator that he built. Turning it on and threatening to use the generator against them, he secretly plans to absorb its energy as it overloads and explodes. Peter Parker, AKA Spider-Man, and S.H.O.C., a disguised and grown-up Todd Fields, appear and defeat Hunger and his goons by throwing them into the generator’s energy field. The generator explodes, but S.H.O.C. absorbs the energy Crown intended for himself.
He, at some point, joins the paramilitary force Hydra and becomes lovers with Dr. Andrea Janson. Crown visits Janson to find Dr. Michael Morbius, the Living Vampire, who had sought Janson for help in finding a cure. When Morbius finds out about Janson’s affiliation with Hydra and Crown, he seemingly sacrifices himself to destroy Crown, but instead, he’s taken prisoner and forced to undergo experimentation that helps turn Crown into Vampiric being Hunger.
Meanwhile Don Vincente Fortunato, a leader to the other New York City crimelords and connected to Hydra’s Wolfgang von Strucker, AKA Baron Strucker, orders Crown to retrieve S.H.O.C. and reveals his secret identity as Todd Fields. Crown and Fields, as S.H.O.C., battle but when Crown uses Peter Parker as a bargaining chip, S.H.O.C. complies with Crown’s demands. Crown teleports away with Parker as a hostage. Crown’s condition deteriorates and in hoping that Janson finds a cure, that hope shatters after he discovered she died and as such, vows revenge. Crown battles S.H.O.C. on top of a building in NYC under a hovering Hydra ship, which contains the same energy that S.H.O.C. harnesses. Crown orders Hydra to attack the building with the energy it possesses, but Morbius intervenes, causing himself and Crown to plow into the ship. They and the ship explode, and both are seemingly slain.
Vampiric Being
Crown is the direct beneficiary of experiments performed on the Living Vampire Morbius, which enable him to transform into the vampiric being Hunger. Possessing enhanced strength, speed, durability, Crown can lift two enhanced individuals with ease, and is unaffected by bullets. After his transformation, he craves the blood of others, and with it his strength increases.
Despite being surrounded by bats, a typical feature within Vampire lore, Hunger does not share all the same traits as his fellow undead creatures. While he requires blood to survive and sires children of the night, his bond with them is more of an empathic connection—when they die, he feels their deaths and is diminished by them. He remains at peak strength when his sired ranks are full, but when they are depleted, his power diminishes and he can only feed off of others to regain strength. Hunger also possesses the ability to manipulate energy, especially fire. He can also teleport across long distances, and through shapeshifting, can enlarge his hands.
Bad Blood
In a desire to become more than he is, Crown slays scientist William Fields, the creator of an energy generator, and promises his son Todd that he will return. He fulfills that promise years later and attacks another scientist for the same reason. Though Todd grows up to become the vigilante S.H.O.C., and with Spider-Man, they halt Crown’s plans with the energy generator. Crown often faces S.H.O.C., Spider-Man, and the vampire hunter Eric Brooks, AKA Blade and narrowly escapes them.
Crown, a part of and beneficiary to the experiments conducted on the Living Vampire Dr. Michael Morbius, AKA Morbius, comes up against him as Hunger. When Morbius attempts to defeat Hunger, they both seemingly perish.
Crimelord Allies and Blood Ties
Crown works for the terrorist organization Hydra under Baron Strucker and crimelord Don Fortunato who fills the shoes of NYC’s Kingpin for a time. While working for both, Crown becomes lovers with a Dr. Andrea Janson who experiments on Morbius, and benefits from the results of those experiments.
A Bloody History
Hunger later lived in the Morlock tunnels beneath New York but suffered from a muddled mind. He abducted and imprisoned Callisto and her Morlocks, and a man named Jeff. When Peter Parker and his fellow Bugle reporter Betty Brant investigated Jeff’s disappearance, Hunger found himself the investigation of two Bugle reporters, Peter Parker and Betty Brant, but got the upper hand with Peter and kidnapped Brant. Parker returned as Spider-Man with Sarah Knuckey, AKAA Marrow, by his side. Spider-Man called him a vampire, and while Hunger seemed vaguely familiar with the term, it reminded him to feed. Eugene Thompson, AKA Flash Thompson, intervened but Hunger struck him down with a brutal blow that sends him flying through the air. Though little to Hunger’s knowledge, Senator Stewart Ward had been controlling him by some nefarious means and planned to do so again.
Hunger later attacked Wilson Fisk, AKA Kingpin, Giacomo Fortunato, AKA Jimmy-6, and the Maggia crime families during one of their meetings to build a personal legion. Hunger set the building aflame and killed several mobsters, but transformed some as well into vampire-like beings like himself, a clan he called his children of the night. Kingpin and Jimmy-6 escaped, and Jimmy-6 sent his goons T-Bone and Mutt to retrieve a chest from a cemetery. Hunger’s clan stood guard, and in the ensuing fight over the chest, T-Bone became one of Hunger’s victims and attacked Mutt. Spider-Man and vampire hunter Eric Brooks, AKA Blade, assisted Mutt and defeated the vampiric crew.
While at an abandoned Roxxon factory in Manhattan, Hunger met by the web-slinger yet again alongside Blade. He admitted that his mind was less muddled than the first interaction he had with Spider-Man. Desiring to feed off of him and Blade, with his enlarged hands, he lifted them both up by their necks with ease. Though when Mutt slays T-Bone, Hunger weakened. T-Bone turned to dust, which forced Hunger to flee but not before he warned the two heroes to open the chest at their own peril which they would later find out contained a rabid Morbius.
