The Helmet of Hades is the common name of one of the three Immortal Weapons.
History[]
Early History[]
The helmet of the three Immortal Weapons, which later be known as the Helmet of Hades, was crafted by the Super-Ancient Beings long ago at a currently unknown point in Earth's history, to be included in their fourth trial, the Trial of the Cities.
When the Super-Ancients realised that even after they were gone from the Earth (by extinction, or otherwise departing the planet), there may yet be intelligent life, and so devised a series of trials for such a race to undertake to confirm they were worthy enough to survive the Omega Event. The fourth of these trials came to be known as the Trial of the Cities.
The Ancients chose three of their cities and left a mysterious blue gem deep with each city's vault which would need to be collected and added to the Three Immortal Weapons in order to "empower" them. The Helmet's gem was secured within the vault at Ra. The empowered Weapons were needed for a sacrificial ceremony at the Altar of the Cosmos, wherein after the Helmet and Mace would be laid with the sacrifice in the pool, and the Sword would be used to kill the sacrifice and fulfill the trial.
Eventually, the Super-Ancients would pass on some of their knowledge to the group of humans that would become known as the Four Legendary Kingdoms; among the things they shared were the Immortal Weapons, and their importance in the fourth trial for humanity. The Four Kingdoms split the Weapons between them, with the Kingdom of Underworld taking the Helmet.
Over the millennia, the Helmet, worn by the Kings of the Kingdom of Underworld during the course of conflicts, earned a footnote in many tales and myths, and became known by many names, primarily the Helmet of Hades in deference to the Kings of Underworld's title of Hades. The Helmet proceeded to be passed down the Underworld Kingdom's line of succession.
Some time after his ascension to King of Underworld in the late 20th century, Anthony DeSaxe was granted the Helmet, which he proceeded to keep secure in his penthouse's vault at Saxony Tower. Out of curiosity, Anthony later had the Helmet examined, discovering the composition of the Helmet's alloy, and determined that it had no innate abilities as some legends claimed.
The Three Secret Cities[]
A few days after the conclusion of the Third Trial, the mission to begin the Trial of the Cities began in earnest. As he joined forces with Jack West Jr's team, Anthony urged them to join him in heading to his New York apartment to obtain both the Helmet and the tablet of the Altar of the Cosmos. Meanwhile, the King of Land, Orlando Compton-Jones, having claimed the Sword of the Rock, also set out to retrieve the Helmet as well.
Shortly after Hades led them into his vault, the group was alerted to the arrival of Orlando, Cardinal Ricardo Mendoza and Sunil Malik and their men, who took the Helmet from its case while Hades and the others hid in a panic room. After establishing their plans for locating the Trident, Orlando's group departed with the Helmet in hand.
After Orlando arrived at Thule and prematurely initiated the trial by implanting the Sword in the altar, the King of Land sent Chloe Carnarvon with the Helmet to Ra to empower it. However, when Chloe and her team of Brazilian special forces troops arrived, they encountered a compliment of Bronze Guardians. Though they managed to get past them to the cupola bridge with the Helmet, they soon found themselves caught between the Bronze Guardians as they slowly marched up to the cupola and the Silver Guardians that barred their way to the vault containing the Helmet of Hades's matching gem.
Jack's team proceeded to Ra, Thule and Atlas with the intention of backing Orlando's people up in case they needed the help. Soon, Iolanthe Compton-Jones and David "Nobody" Black began working to catch up to Chloe and her remaining men, and as each group from Jack's team came up against the Guardians, Jack realised that the Weapons themselves were the key to getting past the Bronze and Silver Guardians. Iolanthe took the Helmet from Chloe, and after briefly passing it to Nobody to help him get past the Bronze Guardians, the British royal donned it, which allowed her to move past the Silver Guardians unnoticed. Iolanthe proceeded to carry the Sword to the inner vault of Ra, where she added the blue gem to the indentation in the Weapon's brow, empowering it for the final ceremony. However, upon returning to the bridge, Iolanthe was forced to hand the Helmet over to Chloe as her former assistant revealed a video displaying Lily's life in peril. With the trial at Ra completed, Chloe and her retinue left the infamous golden city with the Weapon.
As the Kings of the Four Kingdoms gathered at the Rock of Gibraltar for the sacrificial ceremony to finish the Trial of the Cities, the Helmet-carrying Chloe soon arrived and allowed Hardin "Sphinx" Lancaster to take it from him. Setting the stone tablet in the sacrificial pool and closing Lily - wearing the empowered Helmet - inside with the Mace, Sphinx proceeded to complete the Trial as the Sagittarius A-star's radio waves hit the Earth and stabbed Lily in the heart with the Sword. With the Oracle's death, the Trial of the Cities was successfully completed, and before the group departed, someone tossed a pill of greystone powder into the pool, solidifying the Helmet and the other Weapons within.
The Two Lost Mountains[]
As Sphinx was about to deliver the fatal blow to Lily, her twin brother Alexander, who had also been held captive by the Trismagi, appeared and shot Sphinx in the shoulder, only to be gunned down himself. Furious, Sphinx had the mortally wounded Alexander take Lily's place in the sacrificial pool, with the Oracle being forced to don the Helmet as Sphinx used the Sword to stab him in the heart, successfully fulfilling the Trial of the Cities.
After Pooh Bear, Stretch and Alby Calvin arrived at the Altar of the Cosmos to retrieve what they thought was Lily's body, only to discover that it was in fact Alexander, they set about extracting the abandoned Immortal Weapons, and took them with them to Hades's Estate. The trio soon began working on the Helmet and the other Weapons in the hope of finding ways to counter Sphinx's new army of bronze and silver automatons. Alby spent hours using a spectrometer to analyse the Helmet, discovering that it was emitting a low-level gamma particle resonance, but seemed to find no practical way to replicate this "ability" before the team was thrust into their next encounters with Sphinx and his automatons.
Attributes[]
Though the Helmet of Hades appear to simply be an ordinary forged piece of armour, like many other creations of the Super-Ancient Beings, it possesses special properties that modern human technology cannot analyse or properly understand. The Helmet has the "ability" to hide the one that wears it from the view of the bronze and silver automatons at the Three Secret Cities. As Alby later discovered using a spectrometer, the Helmet emits low-level gamma particles, which is what confuses the perception of the automatons.
Trivia[]
- The Helmet of Hades is noted to have a few names which suggested it to have the ability to move unseen, as part of its ability to bypass Ra's Guardians. These names include;
- Helm of Darkness
- Helmet of Invisibility