Homeland Agency for Defence Against Enhanced Subjects

Existing as an off the books division of UNION whose existence is known only to Director Cage and a select handful of others, the Homeland Agency for Defence Against Enhanced Subjects or HADES for short is a deep black group dedicated to finding methods to combat and depower superhumans.

Headed up by Professor Soren Magnussen, a genius and former supervillain granted immortality and rehabilitated by Director Cage, the department engages in intense research of superhuman subjects, including covert kidnapping of living subjects and autopsy of deceased ones. They are in possession of the Magnussen Archive, a vast repository of knowledge relating directly to active and inactive superhumans, and have been able to prioritise the development of methods to incapacitate the most dangerous subjects on this list.

To carry out their more shady covert operations, Magnussen developed a new type of elite taskforce known as the Cerberus Unit. These units consist of three highly trained and lethal soldiers, mentally linked through a psychic procedure which allows them to operate in total harmony with each other. They are armed with Nullifiers, weapons which are able to adaptively combat the powers of thousands of known superhumans listed in the Archive, as well as a variety of other weaponry uniquely tailored to the individual wielding it.

HADES came to the attention of the superhuman community after their actions during the Bedlam incident in 2009, where they were able to incapacitate the powerful villain. While their actions were arguably heroic, superhumans became suspicious of their activities, particularly relating to the possible abduction and experimentation of superhumans for research and weapons development.

After covert heroes Longsight and Scattershot infiltrated HADES to uncover the truth, they were both discovered and killed under order of Professor Magnussen himself, in order to continue to conceal the truth about the department to the world at large.