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"18 hours ago, we lost a chopper carrying a cabinet minister and his aide in this charming little country."
―MajGen. Philips (from Predator)

Major General Homer L. Philips[1][2] was a high ranking officer in U.S. Army Intelligence, serving as part of the top-secret Code 4 BRAVO intelligence unit.[1] Philips was the mission coordinator who recruited Alan "Dutch" Schaefer's mercenary team, at the request of CIA agent Al Dillon, for a mission in Guatemala in 1987.

Biography[]

Early life[]

Philips was a Vietnam veteran, having fought at Da Nang during the Vietnam War.[1] Later, he was assigned to the special intelligence unit Code 4 BRAVO, whose latest operations involved assisting the American-backed government in Guatemala against a guerrilla rebel movement.[1] Philips had previous experience working with Dutch before recruiting him for the Guatemala mission.

Mission to Guatemala[]

"You're looking good, Dutch."
"It's been a long time, General."
Philips and Dutch (from Predator)

When several CIA agents operating in Guatemala were captured by the communist rebels, Philips helped their handler Al Dillon recruit Dutch's team for a rescue operation — after a squad of Green Berets led by Jim Hopper had failed in that mission. It is unclear if Philips knew the true identities of the captured men, as Dutch was led to believe they were members of the Guatemalan government to help secure his assistance.

The rescue of Dutch[]

"My God..."
Philips, witnessing the aftermath of the Jungle Hunter's detonation (from Predator)

When Anna was rescued from the jungle by the extraction team intended for Dutch's squad, Philips received her testimony about the Yautja they had encountered. Convinced of the severity of the situation, Philips personally joined the return flight into the jungle that sought to rescue whatever remained of Dutch and his team. Philips and the helicopter crew thus witnessed the enormous explosion caused by the Jungle Hunter's Self-Destruct Device; Philips was awed almost into silence by the destructive power on display. Shortly afterwards, the chopper crew located Dutch amidst the devastation caused by the blast and extracted him.

Investigating the Predators[]

PCWPhilips

Philips as he appears in ''Predator: Cold War''.

In 1989, two years after the events in Guatemala, Philips, now apparently in charge of a covert operation tracking the activities of Predators on Earth, recruited Dutch's brother John Schaefer, a detective in the NYPD, for a dangerous mission with the promise of finding his missing brother Dutch. The incident began when a Predator interrupted a war between two gangs which Schaefer was investigating. Philips was sent in to investigate and cover up the event. The event culminated in Philips leading troops and against a Predator incursion into New York City, assisted by gang members lead by Dutch.

The following year, when a Predator ship crashed in Siberia, Philips again recruited detective Schaefer for a mission to retrieve the vessel. Philips personally commanded the mission, which ended in failure when Schaefer and a Russian officer destroyed the ship.

In 1996, Philips, in charge of all missions dealing with the Predators at the Pentagon, sent two teams back into Guatemala to confirm attacks by what seemed to be another Predator. It was actually one that detective Schaefer had fought and wounded in 1989, driven berserk by his wounds. When both investigative teams were wiped out, Philips orchestrated a plot to recruit Schaefer once more to take down the beast. This involved arranging for Schaefer to meet a man claiming to be the helicopter pilot who flew his brother out of Guatemala in 1987, who told him that Philips had left Dutch in the country after the incident.

Detective Schaefer headed back to South America to find out the truth. Meanwhile, Philips also oversaw the examination of blood samples from the creature by military scientists, retrieved by one of the teams.

At the end of the incident, Schaefer successfully defeated the creature, but after having been fed numerous contradictory stories about what happened to his brother, he returned to the states and confronted Philips at gunpoint in Washington, D.C., in the midst of his regular weekly golf game. Promising to interrogate Philips under threat of violence, Schaefer lead the General into the woods.

It is unknown as of yet what Schaefer was able to learn about Dutch's fate, or indeed what happened to Major General Philips or detective Schaefer.

Trivia[]

  • The map General Philips used to brief Dutch in Predator is a map of Guatemala. The map shows part of the Chapada das Mangabeiras mountain range.
  • His rank in the comics is also only ever referred to as "General", the rank of Major General coming from the film.
  • The real-life goblin spider species Predatoroonops phillips is named after Homer Philips; every member of the Predatoroonops genus has a name that references Predator, due to the perceived similarity between the spider's mouthparts and the Predator's mandibles.[3]

Appearances[]

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Paul Monette. Predator novelization, p. 3 (1987), Jove Books.
  2. Hunter script (April 7, 1986 draft) by Jim Thomas and John Thomas
  3. Brescovit, Bonaldo, Santos, Ott & Rheims, 2012: The Brazilian goblin spiders of the new genus Predatoroonops (Araneae, Oonopidae). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, n. 370, pp. 1–68 (whole text).
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