Background:  Baden-Baden was a dead end.  The promised promotions had passed Wilhelm Förster by.  He would spend the rest of his working days toiling in the organic chemistry lab at tasks he found unstimulating, taking home his miserable little paycheck, and never achieving his ambitions.  But there was another way.  The news broadcasts had shown it was possible.  This was why Wilhelm was spending the night of the 28th of March, 1998 with one arm immersed in a beaker of carbolic acid and the other immersed in a beaker of formaldehyde.

He concentrated.  The carbolic acid burned, his head throbbed, a thin trickle of blood flowed down from his nose.  A few bubbles formed in the formaldehyde.  A good sign.  Then, in an instant, both beakers shattered, suddenly filled with a hard, black plastic.  "Ja, polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride.  Gut."  It worked.  He always knew it would.  Now it was just a matter of seeing how far he could take it.  He would never be chained to a desk again.

Description:  Few have seen the Hell Kraken in the flesh since his eruption and fewer still have survived the experience.  Due to UN Security Council Resolution 1228 in the aftermath of the Aktau Incident, the Kraken has agreed to constrain himself by residing within an articulated Teflon suit.  It's really safest for everyone involved, not to mention the only way the Kraken could convince anyone to let him back into their country.  As a result, Hell Kraken isn't the six foot and some of artfully sculpted flesh the public thinks of when they think of Novas.  Instead, he's nine feet and two thousand pounds of whirring, clanking, seamless, Art Deco inspired polytetrafluoroethylene topped off by a single view port.  Through the swirling black fluid visible within, a pale human face can occasionally be made out.  When the Kraken's powers are needed, a small orifice opens up on the tip of one finger or, at the very most, the suit's wrist unseals to exude just enough of the Kraken's mercurial form.  Nothing remains the same in the form's presence.