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History

Years ago, shortly after superhumans first started appearing in New York City in the Modern Age, a young Dontrell Hamilton gathered five other young criminals together to form a street gang and increase their personal strength. He was inspired to do so by the supervillain group known as the Sinister Six, which joined forces in order to fight the vigilante known as Spider-Man, their common enemy.

Dontrell meet up with his girlfriend Mariah Dillard, social outcasts Lonnie Lincoln, an albino, and Mortimer Norris, who was deformed, and partners in crime Raymond Jones and Cornell Stokes to form his gang. He believed that if they could come up with a gimmick like super villains had, they could take over crime in Harlem. Lincoln had the idea to fill-in their teeth so they all were fangs. Jones, Stokes and Norris followed him in this idea. In their next meeting, Norris came up with a name and the Fang Gang was born.

However, before the Gang could actually do anything, their temporal alliance fell apart to infighting. Mortimer made advances towards Mariah, causing Dontrell and him to come to blows. Lonnie insulted Mariah’s her weight when he tried to calm Dontrell, causing both of them to leave the gang. The four remaining members of the Fang Gang went their separate ways.[1]

Legacy[]

While Dontrell's plans for the Fang Gang never went to fruition, the individual members of the group would all have a part to play in the criminal world of New York City.

  • Mortimer went to work for the Maggia, until he was exposed to a radioactive isotope he was stealing for them. Mutated further, he called himself Mister Fish and attempted to form a power base to overthrow his former employees in the Maggia, but was stopped by Power Man. He was seemly killed during the battle, [2] but survived and became a low-level supervillain.
  • Mariah became known as Black Mariah, and became the leader of the Rat Pack, a street gang that focused primarily on stealing. [3] She remained a low-level crime boss during her career.
  • Raymond and Cornell took the names they got after fanging their teeth, Piranha Jones and Cottonmouth, respectively. They kept on working together for a while, rejecting Dontrell for his failure in keeping the Fang Gang together. But they would eventually go on their own paths.[4]
    • Raymond become a minor crime boss in the South Bronx, a small and unimportant part of a bigger criminal world.[5] Years later, Jones got himself killed by a bomb set off by Tombstone when he attempt to overthrow a weakened Lonnie Lincoln as crimelord of Harlem.[6]
    • Cornell, however, fared far better than his former partner. A few years after the failure of the Fang Gang, heroin trade rised in New York. Taking advantage of this new opportunity, Cottonmouth created a criminal enterprise centered around the heroin trade. He quickly become a leading drug lord, controlling most of the city's heroin trade.[7] He tried to recruit Power Man into his organization, but he eventually gathered enough evidence to take down Strokes.[8] Even after allying himself with the likes of the Rivals or the New Pride[9][10], Cottonmouth never came close to his initial success.
  • Dontrell came to be known as Cockroach Hamilton, a hitman for hire. He was primarily employed by Piranha Jones, his former peer in the Fang Gang, and often fought Power Man.[11] Dontrell always resented his former friends because of their success in the criminal world compared to his. He always thought that, had the Fang Gang could have remained together, they could have governed the underworld since superpowered criminals and vigilantes weren't as abundant when they formed.[12]
  • Lonnie took the name Tombstone and become a professional thug, being hired by bigger fish for dirty work. He avoided getting caught by intimidating witnesses out of testifying against him. However, Spider-Man would expose Tombstone with tapes taken by reporter Robbie Robertson.[13] Tombstone tried to get revenge on Robertson, only to be shot and exposed to the chemical Diox-3, which gave him super strength.[14] Using his experience with the underworld and his newfound power, Tombstone sought to ascend in the criminal hierarchy and make a name for himself. Cappable of clashing both wits and strength with the likes of the Kingpin and Spider-Man, Lonnie was by far the most successful member of the Fang Gang, climbing the criminal ladder far better than any of his once-equals. He eventually became one of the most powerful and notorious crimelords the city had ever seen.

See Also

Links and References

References

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