HERCULES & THE PRIDE

Created by: Rik Offenberger
Art by: Gilbert Monsanto

PERSONAL INFORMATION

REAL NAME: Zander Theodoropoulos
IDENTITY: Publically known
OCCUPATION: Criminal
PLACE OF BIRTH: Mandraki, Dodecanese Islands, Greece
CITIZENSHIP: United States of America
MARITAL STATUS: Single
KNOWN RELATIVES: None
KNOWN ALLIES: None
GROUP AFFILIATIONS: The Pride
BASE OF OPERATIONS: Washington D.C.
EDUCATION: Mandraki High School
FIRST APPEARANCE: G-Man Comics 3in1 #3, April 2023
HEIGHT: 6’5″ (171 cm)
WEIGHT: 268 lbs (122 kg)
EYES: Brown
HAIR: Brown

HISTORY

Zander Theodoropoulos was a lion tamer from Mandraki, Greece who traveled with the circus in a lion tamer act called “Ηρακλής και το καμάρι” When he came to America “to make it big” he and his pride of lions joined the Circo Lorenzo.
For three generations over 100 years, Circo Lorenzo was the premier circus attraction for Spanish-speaking performers. If you spoke Spanish anywhere in North America you had seen Circo Lorenzo. The circus itself was a third-generation operation with many performers who are also multi-generational. The circus featured beautiful aerial acts, and tremendously funny clowns, it was best known for its animal act. The lion tamers are fierce and the audience couldn’t believe that the lion tamer would survive night after night. When their lion tamer died in a freak accident, Zander Theodoropoulos who spoke multiple languages stepped in. The act’s name was changed to “HÉRCULES Y EL ORGULLO”. When the Circo Lorenzo was sold to Adrián “El Jefe” Londoño, Zander Theodoropoulos found he was involved in a circus of crime. When Payasos del Crimen a band of 10 clowns began committing crimes across America, Zander, and his lions also began a life of crime as well.

Unable to hide from the authorities as a giant of a man with three lions, Zaner uses his lion-taming techniques to stage higher-value crimes that would support himself and his lions. He counted on people’s natural fear of lions to cause them to submit to his will for fear of being eaten or mauled, he embarked on a series of bank robberies and armored car robberies.

POWERS & ABILITIES

Zander has no superpowers, he took the lions in as orphaned cubs and raised them to adulthood as domesticated, tame lions. Lions with 3-inch (7.5-centimeter) claws and a mouth that opens 1 foot (30 centimeters) wide, but tame nonetheless. Zander used operant conditioning, to teach his lions to connect behavior with a signal, and then reward the lions for correct behavior. Whenever the lions behave in the desired way, or even close to the desired way, the Zandor offers positive reinforcement usually in the form of food. The idea is that positive reinforcement of a seemingly random behavior increases the likelihood of it happening again. Applying a technique called shaping helps refine the behavior. Zander combined operant conditioning with classical conditioning to train the lion to respond to a finger-snap cue, instead of following the target, by associating the behavior with snapping his fingers.