The second and last (?) character I missed in Jessica Jones was pretty easy to spot, even if he’s well hidden in an unexpected version. In episode two, AKA Freak Accident, Jessica breaks into Robert Coleman‘s apartment to investigate on him, and finds there the man’s pet mongoose, Emil. Well, in the comics there’s an Emil linked to the Whizzer, but he’s not his mongoose, he’s his father. The mongoose, on the other hand, refers to one of the most absurd and idiotic superhero origins in the history of comics. Let’s see together.
Emil Frank was most probably born in New York City, but that’s never been confirmed, although he lived there for most of his life. He grew up in the first years of the XX Century, and became a renowned medical doctor by the 1920s. He married an unnamed woman, but she died shortly after, as she gave birth to their first (and only) son, Robert. From that moment, Emil took care of his 
son all by himself, and as he grew up, he also enlisted his aid in his medical clinic, making him his assistant. Robert was so happy in helping his father that he eventually decided he would have become a doctor just like him one day. In 1941, however, Emil was visited by a peculiar patient, a gangster named Grannio: Grannio brought to him a rival mobster, Jennings, who had been wounded in a gunfight, and he asked Frank to help him. Unable to refuse, Emil started operating on Jennings to remove the bullet, but during the operation Grannio intervened, and moved his hand so that the scalpel pierced the patient’s heart. This was all part of a plan: Grannio and his minion Spike were ready to swear that Emil Frank had killed Jennings in cold blood, thus moving on the doctor all the responsibility in the eyes of the law… and all the blame from the vengeful mobster under Jennings. Scared, Emil decided to leave the country along with his son, as soon as possible.
The first useful occasion came to him in the form of a medical expedition in Cameroon, in Africa, that welcomed a 
proficient doctor like Emil Frank with open arms. Once there, however, things started to go bad really fast: Robert, in fact, contracted a deadly tropical virus, one that not even Emil knew how to treat. He tried anything modern science could offer him, but failed: wanting to at least try African traditional remedies, he brought his son to the forest looking for a cure, but things got even worse, as the young man was bitten by a cobra. The animal’s powerful venom sent Robert to a coma immediately, so that only Emil remained to witness what happened before: a mongoose appeared out of nowhere and attacked the cobra, managing to kill it, but being mortally wounded in the process. Exhausted, driven nearly insane by the tension and the heat, Emil caught the mongoose and improvised a blood transfusion, wanting to use the animal’s blood to revive his son. As soon as the ludicrous experiment was over, however, the strain exacted its toll, and the old man’s heart gave up. Emil died of a stress-induced heart attack, just as his impossible idea proved to be the right one: his son was regaining his senses and discovering he had somehow gained super-speed from the blood transfusion. The first thing that Robert wanted to do, of course, was to clear his father’s name, still tainted by the accusation of murder…
Emil Frank is a brilliant man, a skilled medical doctor and quite a resourceful scientist. Definitely not a traditional physician, he proves to be quite open-minded when necessity calls. The only thing Dr. Frank values more than his medical profession is his role as a father, as raising Robert on his own created quite a bond between them: his feelings for his son, especially, bring him to try new and weird ways to exercise his profession…
Who's Who 