Cuthbert

The last character from the comics appearing in Jupiter’s Legacy episode three is a minor one, in the show as he is in the original story. In Painting the Clouds with Sunshine, we follow George Hutchence in his fabled mansion, and we make the acquaintance of his butler, Cuthbert. Portrayed by Brian Tree, in the show Cuthbert is the usual, stereotypical butler we’ve see many times; in the comics, he is as well, but he eventually becomes the Alfred to George’s Batman, and he stands by his master’s side during the most painful time of his life. Let’s take a look.

Not much is known about Cuthbert, not even his first name. He had been the butler of the Hutchence Family for generations, following his father’s footsteps, and both he and his wife kept serving the same family in their huge mansion in Los Angeles, California, and in their “minor” mansion in New York City. Cuthbert’s work implied absolute loyalty towards his masters, but this wasn’t made any easier by the new generation of Hutchences: Mr. Hutchence was a alcoholic, who often lashed out in violent drunken outbursts, while Mrs. Hutchence suffered from a serious mental illness, probably schizophrenia, that made her just as unstable as her husband. Cuthbert did his best to serve the family nevertheless, and mostly took care of his masters’ son, George, who on the opposite grew up to be a fine and kind gentleman, albeit an incorrigible womanizer with a perch for risk. When the stock market crashed in 1929, the Hutchence Family was among the few ones who maintained their fortune, and Cuthbert and his wife never lost their jobs. They feared of doing so, though, some years later, in 1936: Mr. and Mrs. Hutchence had died, and George, now the only living heir of the family, embarked in a crazy adventure at sea with his best friend, Sheldon Sampson. He was away for two whole years, and when he came back, he was much, much different from the man who had left on the journey: he now possessed incredible superhuman abilities, that he was committed to use for the good of others as the masked hero Skyfox.

Trusting the man who he considered as some sort of surrogate father implicitly, George shared his secret identity with Cuthbert, and from there on, the butler started assisting him also in his life as a masked crime fighter, helping him organize hideouts within the mansion and even underneath it, and keeping contacts with the other heroes of the Union of Justice. Even if George was now a superhero, Cuthbert kept seeing him with the eyes of a father, and was worried for his increasing loneliness: with his childish attitude towards women, George had many paramours, but seemed to be unable to find someone who could share his life with. Finally, George truly fell in love for the first time in his life, with a model named Sunny. Cuthbert was glad to see his master change attitude and plan a future with the lady, and he secretly rejoiced when he finally proposed to her… but things didn’t exactly go as planned, and Sunny rejected him, claiming that she needed a more mature man by her side, not an eternal man-boy. Cuthbert was possibly the only person on the planet who knew just how much George loved Sunny, and knew that her leaving was a breaking point in his young master’s life… and he was right. One day, George Hutchence simply disappeared, leaving behind nothing: he gave all his family fortune away, and arranged things so that Cuthbert and his wife had a more than generous pension for the rest of their lives, as well as the house he had been raised in. When The Utopian and Lady Liberty came inquiring on Skyfox, Cuthbert could only tell them the little he knew: that George had loved Sunny deeply, and that his broken heart would have required time for fixing. He didn’t know where his master had gone and, in all sincerity, he didn’t even know if he would have ever showed up again.

Cuthbert is a wise and loyal man, completely devoted to his job, and to the family he’s been working for for his entire life. An old-school butler, he has consecrated his entire existence to the well-being of a single family, and he does everything in his capacity to assist his masters… even becoming the improvised assistant of one of the world’s greatest superheroes.