Hunter (Gargoyles)

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In the Walt Disney animated television series Gargoyles, several of the show's antagonists have used the name and identity of the Hunter. Traditionally, the Hunter persona was used specifically for the purpose of destroying members of the gargoyle species, such as the show's protagonists the Manhattan Clan. Other characters who have allied with gargoyles at one time or another, such as Macbeth, have also been enemies of the Hunter. Each Hunter has worn a distinctive mask, black with three red slashes across its face.

[edit] Early Hunters

The Hunter first appeared in the multi-parter episode City of Stone, both in flashbacks to Scotland in the High Middle Ages and present day Manhattan. It was revealed through these flashbacks that the first Hunter had been the show's version of the historical Gillecomgain. Gillecomgain had been wounded as a boy by Demona, whose talons left three scars across his face. Gillecomgain, scarred inside as well as out, vowed revenge and became the Hunter. As well as helping to drive the gargoyle species to near extinction, he worked as an assassin for the current king, Duncan I of Scotland. In this capacity he murdered Findláech of Moray, father of the young Macbeth, and was rewarded with Stewardship of Moray.

Gillecomgain, however, became overconfident and attempted to blackmail Prince Duncan. Duncan, in retribution, revealed Gillecomgain's identity as the Hunter to Macbeth, now a fearsome warrior. Macbeth challenged Gillecomgain and would have been killed but for the intervention of Demona, seeking her own vengeance against the Hunter. Together, they killed Gillecomgain. The matter did not end there, however, because King Duncan himself collected Gillecomgain's mask, stating "There will always be a Hunter, and there will always be the hunted".

Duncan continued to use the Hunter identity in his campaign to wipe out the gargoyles. Duncan had become suspicious of Macbeth's loyalties, more so after he heard the prophecies of the Weird Sisters, and turned on his cousin, thus forcing Macbeth into an alliance with the gargoyles, specifically Demona. The pact was sealed by the Weird Sisters, who cast a spell over Macbeth and Demona to link them eternally, and the pair went on to defeat and kill Duncan. Macbeth became king of Scotland.

However, Duncan's son, Canmore was bitter at his father's death. Though Macbeth refused to kill the boy, Canmore had learned the Hunter's craft from his father and adopted the mantle for himself. Canmore finally succeeded to the throne of Scotland, believing that he had killed Macbeth and Demona (though both survived). Nevertheless, his family continued to use the Hunter identity through the ages, seeking out gargoyles to destroy - specifically the now-immortal Demona.

[edit] Modern Hunters

One character using the name and the mask of the Hunter was involved during the present day events during City of Stone. However, this Hunter was not descended from the Canmore family. Rather, it was Macbeth himself, who wanted to kill Demona and thus end his own immortality.

More Hunters were introduced during the second season's finale episode Hunter's Moon. In this episode, three of Duncan's descendents, the siblings Jason, Jon and Robyn Canmore arrived in Manhattan in search of Demona and others of her kind. They had earlier witnessed their father, Charles Canmore killed fighting Demona in 1980 at the Notre Dame Cathedral. The three of them, using false identities, worked their way into various influential organisations in the city in order to find their prey using phony aliases and references. Jason, who was the eldest and most driven (voiced by Diedrich Bader), joined the police force under the name Jason Conover, becoming Elisa Maza's partner. Pragmatic Robyn (Sheena Easton) using the name Robyn Correy was hired to Nightstone Unlimited, the corporation owned by Demona in her guise as the human Dominique Destine. Jon (Scott Cleverdon) was the least aggressive of the three, occasionally pressing Jason to abandon his crusade, but he nevertheless supported his brother and sister in his role as reporter Jon Carter.

While hunting the Manhattan Clan, Jason refused to accept the notion that they opposed Demona themselves. Furthermore, the trio deduce that Demona is human by day and she may given this ability to the others, which means they could easily escape into the human population the next morning if they discover that the Hunters have found their hidden home, the clock tower. To prevent this, the Hunters preemptively destroy the tower and when they learn that the Clan survived and escaped, they used Jon's reportage to reveal the existence of gargoyles to the public into to start a panic. However, Jason and Robyn came to doubt the merits of their feud and were subsequently arrested. Jon, who paralysed Jason while trying to kill the gargoyle Goliath, was instead driven insane with guilt and blamed the accident on the gargoyles.

The Hunter name was all but dropped then. Jason, confined to a wheelchair, abandoned his mission altogether. Jon, adopting the name John Castaway, instead lent his weight to a more respectable (but no less evil) organisation called the Quarrymen. Only Robyn was left to continue the legacy, and at the end of the show's run she was imprisoned in Rikers Island.

Despite this, the proposed (but unrealised) spin-off series Bad Guys would have seen Robyn forcibly recruited into an expendable group called the Redemption Squad, charged with apprehending criminals too dangerous for normal law enforcement. Though initially given no choice but to comply, Robyn may have come to see the assignment as a chance to redeem both herself and the line of Hunters from which she had sprung. She would have been the team's field leader, and would eventually have begun a tempestuous relationship with the character Dingo.

Two of the modern day Hunters, Jon and Robyn, were named after Jon and Robyn Weisman, the siblings of series creator Greg Weisman.

[edit] Other Hunters

Various other Hunters were alluded to or introduced briefly during the series' run, each of them descended from Donald Canmore. A Renaissance hunter fought against Demona in Florence (Italy) in 1495, using an ingenious flying machine based on Leonardo Da Vinci designs. As previously mentioned, the father of today's three hunters was also a hunter called Charles Canmore until he was killed by Demona at the Notre Dame Cathedral, in 1980.

As well as these, an episode was produced for the series Team Atlantis (a cancelled spin-off of Atlantis: The Lost Empire) featuring Demona and a Hunter called Fiona Canmore. The episode was set during the 1920s but Greg Weisman, who was mostly responsible for the cross-over, has alluded to the fact that Fiona could well be alive into the present day.