Gideon Suhn Lee was the techno-baron at the center of Aliens vs. Predator: Eternal, the 1998 Dark Horse comic by Ian Edginton and Alex Maleev. Born centuries earlier as the peddler Li Yat Sen, he was left to die on a mountain until a burning Predator ship crashed beside him. He built a fortune in near-future Tokyo from its wreckage and stayed thirty-eight for seven hundred years by eating the hearts of Yautja. He paid hunting teams to bring the hunters down, and in the end a Predator tore out his heart and took his skull in a subway.
Biography
Li Yat Sen On The Mountain
Long before he took the name Gideon Suhn Lee, he was Li Yat Sen, and he later described himself as a liar, thief, whore and murderer. He sold mountain villagers a cure mixed from snake blood, ginseng and urine, and seventeen of them died from it. The survivors drove him onto a cliff, smashed his chest and left him to bleed out in the cold. He had little use for gods, but he prayed anyway. The sky then cracked open, and a Predator ship fell burning over the mountain with its dead hunters inside.
Li saw the wreck as an opportunity rather than a judgment from heaven. He later told Rebecca McBride that the dead hunters aboard the ship had saved his life, and that the metal and technology in its hull had become the base of his fortune. He called the fallen creatures men who walk like gods, and their hearts and Yautja blood became the secret of his long life. From then on, Gideon kept himself alive the same way, and the hunters became both his medicine and his prey.
A Fortune Built On The Wreck
By the time of the comic, Gideon was a billionaire who owned a tower above the Tokyo sprawl and companies that worked metal taken from the crashed ship. He kept the ship itself hidden inside the tower along with a private archive of Predator gear, masks and skulls. He called himself a man who had spent several lifetimes studying the species, and he used that knowledge to stage wars where hunters would come looking for worthy prey. His staff included the scientist Doctor Kishiro, who studied the wreck and its sealed cargo.
The Chamibia Hunt
Gideon sent Major Cabot and Cabot's hunting team into Chamibia, a former French colony thirty years into a civil war. Prince Laurent had come out of exile to negotiate the first peace in that war, and Gideon used the talks as bait. He told the team that the civilians were not their concern, and that the hunters would come if the fighting grew hot enough. The ceasefire broke, attackers hidden by their cloaks killed the prince and the soldiers around him, and Cabot came back with nothing but another paid hunt.
The Trophy Wall And The Eggs
Three months later the hunters had not returned, and Gideon was out of patience. He walked Cabot past a trophy wall of masks and skulls and told him the hunt was not about trophies, war or politics. He said he was thirty-eight and had been thirty-eight for seven centuries. He explained his method with the story of Subotai, a samurai who ate a Predator heart and lived past two hundred. Gideon said he had been eating the hearts of fallen hunters ever since, and that he meant to go on.
The tour ended at the wrecked ship from the mountain, where Doctor Kishiro had cracked open a cargo pod full of organic sacs. Cabot recognized them as eggs, and a Facehugger burst from one and seized a technician in a hazard suit. Gideon was delighted rather than afraid. He thought the sacs held Predator young and told Cabot that they could breed and clone them, which might put him out of a job. He had Kishiro lock the specimens down and watch the hosts until the next day.
The Tower Attack
The embryos matured inside the hosts, and what came out were not Predator young but chestbursters. Cabot told Gideon to kill them while they were still small, but Gideon refused because he wanted whatever the new creatures could be made to produce. Hunters then broke through the Predator alloy lining the lab walls to reclaim the embryos. They would not kill an unarmed person, so Doctor Kishiro saved Gideon by standing between him and their targeting lasers. Gideon passed the blast off as a minor lab accident and ordered another hunt.
In private, Gideon admitted that he was dying. Walking alone in his garden, he felt death creeping into his bones, because the hunters were no longer giving up their hearts on his schedule. Under the stars he reflected that he was over seven hundred years old and had seen empires rise and fall. Meanwhile, the two adult Xenomorphs that had escaped the tower began taking people from the streets of Tokyo, and the covert Unit K of the Japanese secret service started watching the district around his building.
Lazarus And Rebecca McBride
The reporter Rebecca McBride had survived Chamibia with a spear tip and no tape, and a contact traced its metal to a company that Gideon owned. She flew to Tokyo and worked with a reclusive otaku hacker who called himself Lazarus. After she was drugged on the street, she woke up in Gideon's home, where he greeted her as a guest and revealed that he was Lazarus. Every lead she had followed to Tokyo had been placed in her path by the man she had come to expose.
Gideon showed Rebecca up a staircase lined with trophies and asked her to write his biography. He had paid for her visa to Chamibia when no one else would, and he had left the spear tip for her to find. He also admitted that he had ordered her cameraman, Earl, killed and her reputation ruined so she would have nowhere left to go but his story. With death close, he wanted one honest record of his seven centuries, and he took her along when he and Cabot went hunting again.
The Subway Hunt
One of the escaped Xenomorphs had snatched a salaryman from a bullet train platform, and Gideon wanted the creature alive as bait for the Predators. His people cleared the subway with a fake warning about hallucinogenic gas, and Cabot led the squad underground with Rebecca beside them. They found the salaryman already dead, staked out the way a goat is staked for a tiger. Rebecca turned on the station's hot water so the steam would spoil the hunters' infrared sight. Gideon drew a sword and said they would fight in the old way.
Gideon faced one of the hunters himself and told it he had spent several lifetimes studying its species, calling the hunters violent, resourceful and bound by a warrior's primitive code of honor. With Rebecca and Cabot nearby, he remarked that it was a pity he was not an honorable man and struck the Predator down with a hidden weapon. Kneeling over the body, he claimed its heart with the words "to the victor the spoils." He did not see the second hunter until it was too late, and he admitted he must be getting old.
Final Fate
A second Predator closed on Gideon Suhn Lee while he was still holding the heart he had just taken and tore the heart out of his chest. His seven centuries ended on the floor of a subway station under Ginza. The hunter then gripped his face and pulled his skull free as a trophy. Rebecca took Cabot's gun and shot the remaining Xenomorph at contact range, and its acid blood burned her. The government seized Gideon's personal assets but never found his Predator archive or the ship, and a posthumous payment for the biography he had wanted made her rich.
Personality And Traits
Gideon was charming, patient and completely without scruples. He admitted the crimes of his first life without shame, and in the present he treated soldiers, civilians and his own staff as bait or tools. He manipulated Rebecca McBride for months, killed her colleague and wrecked her career so that she would write the book he wanted. His real fear was death, and his studies of the Yautja and his interest in the eggs all served one goal. He wanted to stay alive at any price, and to be remembered when he finally was not.
Despite his long study of the Yautja, Gideon never shared their values. He admired the hunters as walking gods and respected their skill, but he saw their honor as a weakness he could use, as he showed under Ginza. He refused to destroy the chestbursters because he hoped to profit from them, even after Cabot warned him. That vanity and greed brought the hunters to his tower and later into the subway. His last words were a dry joke about growing old, spoken by a man who had cheated age for seven hundred years.
Skills And Resources
Centuries of life gave Gideon a deep knowledge of the Predators, their weapons and their habits, and he could predict where they would hunt. He was a capable swordsman who preferred to fight in the old way, but he was willing to use a concealed gun when honor got in his way. He controlled a business empire built on Predator alloy, employed scientists such as Doctor Kishiro, and paid mercenaries led by Major Cabot. He also posed online as a skilled hacker who traded secrets with the cyber underground.
Famous Quotes
- "Liar, thief, whore, murderer. Li Yat Sen is all of these."
- "It is an opportunity."
- "You are a guest in my home, Miss McBride. I am Gideon Suhn Lee, but you perhaps best know me as Lazarus."
- "...In the old way."
- "A pity, then, I'm not an honorable man."
- "Ahh, to the victor the spoils."
- "How careless. I must be getting old."
Conclusion
Gideon Suhn Lee began as the dying swindler Li Yat Sen and became a billionaire who lived for seven centuries on the hearts of the hunters. He built his fortune on a crashed ship, staged a war in Chamibia to lure the Predators, and brought Xenomorph eggs into his own tower. He manipulated Rebecca McBride into writing his story and finally joined the hunt himself. In the subway he killed a Predator without honor and took its heart, only for a second hunter to tear out his own heart and then take his skull as a trophy.
Appearances
- Aliens vs. Predator: Eternal #1 to #4 by Ian Edginton and Alex Maleev (Dark Horse Comics, 1998)
Tag Categories: Predator Universe Characters | Alien Universe Characters | Predator Lore | Avp Lore
