Claude Griffin (Earth-8918)

"I am invisible, you see, simply because people refuse to see me."

- The Invisible Man Claude Griffin is a brilliant but troubled English research scientist who studied optics out of his small apartment in London. One day, he invented a groundbreaking formula that he subsequently tested on himself, which resulted in his whole body gaining a skintight light-bending aura that rendered Griffin completely invisible. When he found that he was unable to reverse the process, he began to slowly descend into madness and went on a crime spree throughout southern England until he was found by agents of the British intelligence service, who recruited Griffin into their new "extraordinary" clandestine force in exchange for amnesty.

Early Life
Not much is known about Claude Griffin's early years, save that which is posited by Griffin himself. He claims that he was generally ignored by most of the people in his life, including his own parents, which left his emotional development somewhat stunted and instilled in Griffin a need for recognition and approval.

Education and Becoming Invisible
Griffin figured that the best way to gain the approval he craved was to hone his intellect and put it to use in the service of mankind. He excelled in his education and was eventually accepted into the Royal Holloway College in London, where he dedicated his studies to optics under the tutelage of Dr. Oliver Cranely.

Griffin secretly hated working for Cranely, describing him as a "thief of ideas" who was often dismissive of his students' roles in the College's major breakthroughs. In anticipation of such an event happening to him, Griffin eventually dropped out and continued his research alone in his dingy apartment.

One day, Griffin was at work researching the optic properties of certain chemical compounds when he invented (seemingly by accident) a formula that could actually bend light around whatever object it coated, effectively making that object invisible. Griffin was overjoyed by the potential prospects of his discovery, but was still cautious of the potential side effects.

Griffin initially intended to test the formula first on inanimate objects before progressing to mice and dogs, but in the face of repeated intrusions by his suspicious landlord, he was forced to test the formula on himself by injecting it into his own bloodstream. The process of turning invisible caused Griffin an immense amount of pain (he later described it as feeling like his blood was literally boiling), so he then injected himself with the obscure anesthetic monocane to dull it. The experiment worked, leaving Griffin completely invisible to the naked eye - it was only after the fact that Griffin, in his rush to get the formula tested, forgot to think about how the process could be reversed.

Going into Hiding
This revelation drove Griffin into a mad panic. In an effort to dodge his landlord, Griffin packed up his essential laboratory tools and then set fire to his apartment before escaping into the streets of London, stripping off his clothes so as to move about unseen. Knowing he would need to continue his research in private, Griffin stole a trench coat and wide-brimmed hat from a nearby theatre shop and covered his face in bandages and goggles to conceal his invisibility, then fled London for the small village of Iping in West Sussex.

When Griffin arrived in Iping, he rented a room at the Coach & Horses Inn from which he hoped to work on the cure in private. Unfortunately, he instead became the talk of the town due to his mysterious origins and reclusive, irritable manner.

Reign of Terror
Contrary to Griffin's hopes, becoming the center of attention was now starting to impair his health. As a result, his progress on the cure slowed to a near stop. When he found out he didn't have sufficient money to pay for his room at the inn, he resorted to burglarizing the home of the town's reverend - even so, he still lacked the money to pay off the inkeeper.

In the course of Griffin's argument with the inkeeper, police arrived to arrest him - the townsfolk had settled on the theory that this mysterious stranger was a criminal evading prosecution. It was at this point when Griffin finally lost it; he revealed his invisibility to the terrified onlookers and used it to overpower all the people present and escape, leaving behind his notebooks containing records of the experiments.

Hiding in the downs, Griffin eventually ran into Thomas Marvel, a fellow vagrant, and convinced him to aid Griffin in recovering the notebooks. During the recovery operation, however, Marvel betrayed Griffin to the authorities because he was terrified of the man. Griffin pursued Marvel all the way to the town of Midhurst, but lost him somewhere in the streets. It was there that Griffin remembered that his old classmate, a man named Arthur Kemp, lived in Midhurst, and subsequently sought him out.

Initially, Griffin and Kemp's reunion was fairly amicable, despite Griffin's wounded and desperate state. But somewhere in their conversation, Griffin had an epiphany: In the past few days, his invisibility proved to be a blessing that gave him great power over other men - men who had denied him the love and recognition he desperately needed. Drunk on his power, Griffin and Kemp's conversation descended into Griffin madly ranting about his condition and that if he wasn't to be famous, he would be infamous. Griffin tried to convince Kemp to be a visible accomplice in his "Reign of Terror" on English society, but Kemp was appalled by his colleague's vision and forced the Invisible Man out of his house.

Griffin was ultimately not disappointed, deciding that Kemp wouldn't understand anyway. He ended up finally locating Thomas Marvel on the outskirts of town and hatched an elaborate escape plan to throw the authorities off his trail: After recovering his notebooks from the police station, Griffin injected Marvel with a second batch of the invisibility serum that he whipped up in Iping and sent him into town before fleeing. Kemp had rallied the townsfolk against the Invisible Man, but they ended up beating Marvel to death, thinking that he was Griffin.

Joining the League
Griffin was eventually located in the town of Portsmouth by two agents of the British intelligence services: Jonathan Harker, an occultist who worked out of a solicitor's firm, and his wife, Mina, who was altered by an encounter with a certain Transylvanian nobleman. The two agents captured Griffin while he was in the process of setting fire to a girls' school and offered him the chance to make amends for his crimes by serving the security interests of the British Empire. Griffin agreed.

Trivia

 * In the original novel by H.G. Wells, Griffin's first name is not given. The Griffin of Earth-8918's name is a reference to Claude Rains, the actor who portrayed the character in the 1933 Universal film adaptation of the novel.