Griffin

Griffin, portrayed by Claude Rains in the 1933 film, in an invisible state wearing an outfit to enable others to see him.

### Portrayed/Played by

Claude RainsAndrey KharitonovChristian SlaterOliver Jackson-CohenMichael Dorman

## In-universe information

### Relations

Frank Griffin (brother)Frank Raymond (grandson)

### Enemies

The Human Fly (Tōmei Ningen to Hae Otoko)

**Jack Griffin**, better known as **The Invisible Man**, is a fictional character that first appeared as the titular protagonist of H. G. Wells' 1897 science fiction novel The Invisible Man.

## History

### The Invisible Man Original Novel

Griffin is a gifted young medical student with albinism who studies optical density. He believes that he is on the verge of a great scientific discovery, but feels uncomfortable working under his professor named Hobbema (whom he calls a "thief of ideas"). To ensure that he gets sole credit for the discovery, he leaves university and moves to a dingy apartment to continue his experiments alone.

To finance his experiments, Griffin robs his own father, which drives the father to commit suicide (because the money had not even been his own). Working as a recluse in his flat, Griffin invents a formula to bend light and decrease the refractive index of physical objects, making them invisible. He intends from the start to perform the process on the neighbours' cat and then on himself, but is forced to rush his experiments due to persistent intrusion from his landlord, who is suspicious of his activities and considers him to be a vivisectionist. He processes himself to hide from his landlord, and sets fire to the building to cover his tracks. He winds up alone, wandering invisible and naked through the streets of London, struggling to survive out in the open, unseen by those around him.

To make himself visible again, Griffin steals some clothes from a dingy backstreet theatre shop, including a trench-coat and hat. He wraps his head in bandages to conceal his invisibility, covering his eyes with large dark goggles. He takes up residence in the "Coach and Horses" Inn in the village of Iping, so he can reverse his experiment in a quiet environment, but complications arise with locals unnerved by his appearance (particularly Teddy Henfrey, the clock-jobber who considered him to be a criminal evading persecution and Mr. Cuss, who first encounters his invisibility). As a result, his progress slows and he has insufficient money to satisfy the inn owner, Mrs. Hall. To pay the bill, Griffin burgles the home of Reverend Bunting. The police pursue him, and in a fit of frustrated anger, he reveals his invisibility by throwing off his clothes and escaping.

Now driven insane by his inability to reverse the experiment, Griffin seeks assistance from a tramp named Thomas Marvel. He has Marvel carry money for him, but Marvel runs away with the money. Griffin pursues him to the town of Port Burdock, where he runs into his old schoolmate Dr. Kemp. Still bitter and angry towards the rest of humanity, Griffin attempts to convince Kemp to be his visible partner and help him begin a "reign of terror". Kemp, rather than assisting the crazed Invisible Man, alerts Colonel Adye of the Port Burdock police. Furious, Griffin vows to kill Kemp, but is forced to flee. Kemp rallies the people of Port Burdock, who find and overcome Griffin when he attempts a one-man siege on Kemp's house. Griffin is surrounded and savagely beaten by navvies. His last words are "Mercy! Mercy!", prompting Kemp to call off the mob and administer first aid, though it is too late. Griffin dies, becoming visible again, revealing a brutally battered corpse.

### The Invisible Man (1933)

Jack Griffin works for Dr. Cranley, assisting him in food preservation experiments alongside his friend Dr. Arthur Kemp. Griffin is deeply in love with Cranley's daughter, Flora, and the two plan to marry, but Griffin is poor and thus afraid he has nothing to offer her. He begins experimenting with an obscure and dangerous drug called monocane, hoping his work will make him rich and famous—and a worthwhile husband for Flora. Griffin discovers a combination of monocane and other chemicals that makes a person invisible. Too excited by his discovery to think clearly, Griffin leaves Kemp and the Cranleys to complete the experiment in solitude. He injects himself with the formula over the course of a month and becomes invisible. Only after he is invisible does he realize that he does not know how to reverse the process. Panicking, Griffin goes to the village of Iping and rents a room in the Lion's Head Inn, where he begins searching for a formula to reverse the invisibility. He makes himself appear visible by wrapping his head in bandages and wearing dark goggles. Curious locals, the maddening side effects of monocane, and frustration from multiple failed tests drive Griffin insane. After he assaults Jenny Hall and severely injures her husband, Herbert, Griffin is confronted by the police, but sheds his clothing to be invisible and eludes them. He seeks help from Kemp, but the monocane has so affected his mind that he succumbs to megalomania and plans world domination with "invisible armies". He wants to make Kemp his visible partner and assistant. Not even a visit from Flora and her father helps ease Griffin's increasing insanity. He vows to kill Kemp after his old friend alerts Inspector Lane to his whereabouts and despite intensive police protection surrounding Kemp, Griffin eventually makes good on his threats. After killing Kemp by tying him up in his car and sending it over a cliff, he seeks refuge from the cold in a farmer's barn. The farmer summons police, who set fire to the barn. As Griffin flees the burning barn, the Chief of detectives, who can see his footprints in the snow, shoots at him, the shot passing through both of his lungs. Griffin dies from the gunshot wounds in the hospital. During this, the effects of the monocane begin to wear off and Griffin returns to sanity, apologizing for his crimes by saying "I meddled in things that man must leave alone". The invisibility also wears off in death and Griffin's body becomes visible again.

The film portrays Griffin more sympathetically than the novel. The novel's Griffin is callous and cruel from the beginning and only pursues the experiment for wealth and his ego. The movie shows Griffin as an honourable man who is misguided. His insanity is purely a side-effect of the invisibility drug and his motivation for the experiment was a misguided desire to do good for science and mankind, born primarily out of his love for his fiancée.

## Appearances in other works

### Books

#### *The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen* (comics)

**Hawley Griffin** is the Invisible Man. Alan Moore has stated that he is a combination of H. G. Wells' Griffin and serial killer Hawley Crippen.

In the *Extraordinary Gentlemen* film, the character Griffin is supplanted by Rodney Skinner due to rights issues.

### Film

#### *Mad Monster Party?* and *Mad Mad Mad Monsters*

The Invisible Man appears in *Mad Monster Party?* voiced by Allen Swift, impersonating Claude Rains. This depiction of the Invisible Man is shown to wear a fez, dark glasses and a purple dressing gown. He is among the monsters invited by Baron Boris von Frankenstein to attend his meeting at his castle on the Isle of Evil in the Caribbean Sea. A pie thrown into his face reveals that he has an enormous nose and is extremely ugly.

The Invisible Man appears in *Mad Mad Mad Monsters* (a "prequel of sorts" to *Mad Monster Party?*) voiced again by Allen Swift. This version goes by the name of Claude. He, his invisible wife Nagatha, and their invisible boy Ghoul and his invisible dog Goblin are invited by Baron Henry von Frankenstein to attend the wedding of Frankenstein's Monster and the Monster's Bride at the Transylvania-Astoria Hotel on the midnight of Friday the 13th.

#### *Hotel Transylvania* series

In Genndy Tartakovsky's 2012 Sony Pictures Animation film *Hotel Transylvania*, Griffin the Invisible Man (voiced by David Spade) is one of the supporting character monsters who checks into Hotel Transylvania, and is among Count Dracula's (Adam Sandler) circle of friends. This version is completely invisible, and his glasses are the only thing that can be seen in the movie. He is more outwardly, heroic and laid-back than his previous incarnations, which portray him as an aggressive, power-hungry psychopath. In one scene, Dracula makes a disparaging remark about people with red curly hair, and Griffin takes offense to this, saying that he has red curly hair. He is also 6 feet and 3 inches.

David Spade reprised his role as Griffin, the Invisible Man, in the 2015 sequel *Hotel Transylvania 2*. He unsuccessfully tries to make his friends think he has an invisible girlfriend (and finds one in the end). Spade reprised the role again in the 2018 film *Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation*.

### Film and television

#### *The Invisible Man* (2000 TV series)

The Syfy television series *The Invisible Man* features thief/con man character Darien Fawkes (played by Vincent Ventresca) whose scientist brother worked on the development of a gland that made the subject invisibility by secreting a chemical known as 'quicksilver' throughout the body, the quicksilver bending light to render the subject invisible. Darien's nemesis was Arnaud DeFehrn, played by Joel Bissonnette, although he went by the Swiss-French name Arnaud De Thiel as a cover while working on the gland to sabotage it, DeFehrn's actions giving the gland a 'defect' where a low level of quicksilver seeping into the subject's brain will eventually drive the gland's owner insane without regular access to a specific drug to counter these effects. DeFehrn developed his own version of the gland, but became permanently invisible when it was imperfectly implanted. In attempting to retrieve the gland, he later uses the pseudonym Hawley Griffin (a reference to the League of Extraordinary Gentleman and the original Invisible Man), pretending to be a CIA agent from the South. The series concluded with DeFehrn's gland removed and Darien cured of the risk of quicksilver madness.

#### *The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen* (film)

In the 2003 film adaptation of the *League of Extraordinary Gentlemen* comic book series, the Invisible Man who joins the League is not Griffin (due to copyright issues), but Rodney Skinner (played by Tony Curran), a cheerful thief who stole the invisibility formula from the original Invisible Man (presumably Griffin). The fact that his skin is invisible is also related to his name of "Skinner". Skin samples of him are taken by Dorian Gray for Professor Moriarty, allowing him to duplicate the invisibility process, Contrary to the graphic novels, Skinner remains loyal to the League, infiltrating Moriarty's base and working out how best to destroy it. During the raid on Moriarty's lair, Moriarty's own invisible man is shot by Allan Quatermain while threatening Tom Sawyer. At the film's conclusion, the plans are lost through a hole in the ice when Moriarty is shot, and Skinner decides to remain with the League, now composed of Captain Nemo, Mina Harker, Henry Jekyll, and Tom Sawyer.

#### *Hollow Man* series

In Claudio Fäh's 2006 Destination Films film *Hollow Man 2*, Michael Griffin (played by Christian Slater) is a soldier upon whom the formula developed by Sebastian Caine five years earlier is applied by the Reisner Institute, as a part of a covertly Department of Defense-funded operation to create the perfect assassin for black ops missions, codenamed "Silent Knight". The film is a stand-alone sequel to the 2000 Columbia Pictures sci-fi horror thriller film *Hollow Man*, directed by Paul Verhoeven.