- "HWDA!" - Tybalt's usual, if strange, greeting.
Tybalt Cobra is a biological engineer, weapons technician and scientist infamous for both the creation of the UberGun and the Bio-Slime Monster. He is the most well-known and first introduced member of the Cobra family.
Character[]
Appearance[]
He is a man of middling height with a slight frame. His height is boosted significantly by his hair, which is a tall wiry hive in pale green. He wears large round glasses and a cyan lab coat with his current affiliation's insignia on the left breast, usually over blue coveralls, with bright orange working boots.
Personality[]
Confident and somewhat unhinged, he is highly opportunistic and leaps at the opportunities to discover, create, manipulate and profit. He enjoys fine art, good films and playing dirty, and has no qualm with taking low blows to win. Although he works well with others, doing some of his best work under the SGA or the orders of Bill Large, he keeps his own agendas close to his chest.
Skills & Abilities[]
He has shown no superhuman abilities, but has inherited the usual Cobra family intelligence - super-high, at the cost of his eyesight. He is proficient both in weapons engineering and in biological engineering, focusing on the former in his early career and the latter later on. He is wily, charismatic and sly.
History[]
Cobra was born to Professor Cobra and Professor Viper, twin to Cassandra Cobra. His strange childhood and education at the hands of his less-than-sane parents forged his character: an intelligent, quick witted, and not particularly kind character. Although his relationship with his parents was not a warm one, he was close to his twin sister, but holds a strong disdain for his youngest sibling, Johnny Cobra, who maintained no interest in science, was not academically gifted, and was a rather normal 'cool' person.
Both Tybalt and Cassandra sought higher education after a lifetime of home-schooling, managing to get into prestigious colleges and learn some aspects of life outside of mad science – though he is still sometimes seen making himself foul tasting cups of tea over Bunsen burners. He worked for his parents’ laboratories for some time after a lucrative spell collaborating with the SGA, and soon later would begin working with business tycoon Bill Large.
Impressing Large with his intelligence and charisma, he not only managed to rise through the business very quickly, but also struck up a friendship with Large that bordered, according to some, on the unprofessional. His role in the business was strengthened by his success with the mark IV serum that, when injected into plant matter, caused nutrition and energy content to rise by 300%. The success earned him both riches and acclaim, and he turned down many offers from other scientific organisations only because of the praise and money showered upon him by a delighted Large.
The experiments ramped up in intensity. Enhancing plants was one thing but what of animals? What of humans, or machines? Large enthusiastically threw funding at Cobra, entertaining each whim of the mad scientist if only to see him deftly wave away the collateral damage afterwards, enchanted by both Cobra’s cruelty and his charm. After much collaborating and much avoiding of consequences, Bio-Slime as a concept was born. Why create a product to enhance an animal, when you could create the perfect organism that needs no improvement? The idea of an intelligent pet was a brilliant front, charming the populace while the Bio-Slime Monster was developed as the ultimate attack animal.
During this time, Cobra and Large created a number of artificial or hybrid life forms, such as living murder mannequin Tito Noboa and woolen wonder King Cobra. Both of these fled Cobra's care, however: Noboa for being abandoned and having a crisis regarding his creation and future, leading to his life of sadism and crime, and King Cobra out of disgust and terror at his creators' evil actions, fleeing underground. Cobra felt no pity towards these creatures, moving onto the next swiftly and abandoning the human form to create the Bio-Slime as a non-humanoid alternative.
Intern Pete Porkins dashed these plans, however, when he escaped Cobra’s ‘tie you to a chair with an acid gun’ trap and, as the slimy superhero Slug-Man, crashed the big reveal of the monster in Iraz, sending Cobra, Large and Epic Eye Scar Guy out to sea for their crimes. He has not been seen since.
Dressed to Kill[]
In the comic Dressed to Kill, Cobra works alongside Large and hitwoman Vera Mona to ensure that no violence would break out between Cassandra and Epic Eye Scar Guy at the Miss Iraz Beauty Pageant.
Colkiverse B[]
In Colkiverse B, Cobra was killed in the Bio-Slime Incident. He was partially revived, with a vengeance, by his uncle.
Relationships[]
Bill Large[]
- “I'll make you rich, Mister Large. Rich beyond money. That's what our family does.”
Large and Cobra have a close relationship. They are both high-achievers with expensive tastes, no conscience and a tendency to rile each other up over particularly nasty schemes. Their balance of business and science is both efficient and deadly (explaining why the hybrid Noboa became such a force to be reckoned with). The two fight occasionally due to their intense personalities and inherently backstabbing cutthroat natures, but the bond is suspiciously tight between them.
Cassandra Cobra[]
- “Cassie, the other half of me. What nightmares are you coding up today?”
The twins are very close. Even when apart, the influence of one is seen often on the other - the calculating Cassandra complements Tybalt's mad intensity. Cassandra is one of the few people that Tybalt sees as his intellectual equal, and the two have an impeccable synergy. They also share many traits, likes and dislikes - a love of making fun of their cousin Paisley, a hatred for Boomslang, a disdain for Johnny - with the only differing opinion being towards Vera Mona, Cassandra's sleazy on-again-off-again mercenary whom Tybalt distrusts.
Trivia[]
- He is sometimes depicted with a tooth gap.
- One of his favoured hobbies is 'illicit basement activities'.