Who's This? A laughing lycanthrope.
The facts: A were-hyena created by Gerry Conway and Al Milgrom in Fury of Firestorm #4-5 (1978), Summer Day (sister of Ronnie's girlfriend Doreen) returned in the Firestorm back-ups in Flash, and later in Fury of Firestorm #10-13 when another were-hyena started killing and Firestorm was infected as well. Since then, the Hyena has appeared sporadically, often as a member of larger villain groups (FOF #45-47, Villains United, Wonder Woman #174-175, as a member of the Secret Society in Forever Evil, and Dark Crisis).
How you could have heard of her: In the background in a number of recent events. They made her the lunch lady in the Creature Commandos cartoon.
Example story: The Fury of Firestorm #12 (May 1983) "Howl" by Gerry Conway, Pat Broderick and Rodin Rodriguez
We catch this story in the middle of things, with Firestorm as were-hyena fighting new Hyena on top of the World Trade Center, while OG Hyena is falling off the building to her death (Ronnie's fault).
As we know from nature, hyenas don't fly. Well, except nuclear-powered ones so Firestorm is able to save her by - no, not catching her - by turning the street into a deep swimming pool. By the time he's saved the motorists who sank with their cars, Hyena's gone. Both of them. (Oh Ronald...) But Summer is at least the "good" Hyena. Or she tries to be.
She's, in fact, more in control of her animal temper than Firestorm, at this point. And certainly more than her therapist-now-boyfriend-now-Hyena Dr. Shi. But good news, neither Ronnie nor Professor Stein are infected, just their combined form, so we can have subplots proceed normally. But we don't care about that here (go read the issue!), so we'll skip ahead a few pages when a Hyena (Stein seems to think it's Summer, but they all look the same to me) plays a cat and mouse game (wrong animals!) with the Furry of Firestorm.
Ah good, we get some laughs. That's what hyenas are known for! It IS Summer, and all she wants is to guide the hero in his transformation and to her boyfriend before he kills the rich doctor who forced him to go through medical school all over again because he was a refugee. I feel for him, but murder is murder, so we have to side with Firestorm here.
Ronnie seems really lost in the beast, eschewing any kind of nuclear blasts or molecular transformations in favor of manimal-to-manimal combat. After a couple pages of this, they smash through the doctor's penthouse window and onto another rooftop. But the struggle inside Firestorm basically distracts him and Hyena2 starts eating him!
But we do see Summer in the back there, so it turns into She-Hyena vs. Shi-Hyena before it's too late for our nuclear boy.
The fight only ends when Firestorm creates a knock-out gas, but they don't revert to their human selves. Maybe science will find a way to save them, but we know from future appearances that it didn't. In fact, Summer started being used as a utility player, fully surrendering to the dark side (though there's perhaps a confusion between Summer and Shi, the latter tagged as the Hyena in Salvation Run, for example - I guess it depends on what pronoun any given writer uses for the character).
It may be a little odd, on paper, to give Firestorm a lycanthropic villain - the power levels are quite asymmetrical - but the personal connection to Doreen and stories like this one, where Firestorm himself turns into a beast, make the Hyena a worthy member of his rogues' gallery. The Weasel, not so much. They shouldn't have gone to that well more than once.
Who's Next? Earth-2's Captain Cold.
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