DRAX THE DESTROYER

 

DRAX

Real Name: Arthur Sampson Douglas

First Appearance: Iron Man (Vol. 1) #55, February 1973

Powers: Drax the Destroyer was originally a human named Arthur Douglas, a real estate agent who was killed in a passing act by Thanos. The Mad Titan's father and grandfather, Mentor and a cosmic being named Kronos, arranged the creation of a superhumanly powerful being whose mission in life would be to hunt down and kill Thanos. Kronos captured Douglas' soul before it passed beyond the veil, and used it to inhabit a body he had forged out of inanimate material and charged with cosmic power. Mentor and Kronos also blocked all of Douglas' memories of his old life, replacing it with a monomaniacal hatred of Thanos. According to Maelstrom, Drax may have actually been a conceptual entity himself, an avatar for Kronos acting as an agent of life to limit the champion of Death.

As Drax, Arthur now possessed Class 40 strength, matchless endurance, considerable resistance to all forms of injury, the ability to survive in the vacuum of space and could fly fast enough to enter warp space and reach trans-light speeds under his own power. He could also discharge concussive blasts of cosmic energy from his hands, and possessed an innate homing ability that let him sense Thanos anywhere in the universe. Both Drax and Thanos died for a time, Drax at the hands of his own misguided daughter, Moondragon, who telepathically destroyed his mind. After Mistress Death resurrected Thanos, Kronos resurrected Drax in turn, giving him even more power to fight Thanos. Now possessing a Hulk-like physique and Class 100 strength, Drax was unfortunately brain damaged thanks to the manner of his death in his previous incarnation. This may account for the irregularities in his ability to sense Thanos -- Drax now seemed to have a psychometric sense for Thanos's essence, instead of a sense for Thanos himself. Drax proved capable of sensing the residual presence of Thanos on those who had been with him recently, and could determine if people were going to encounter Thanos in the near future. Upon joining the Infinity Watch, Drax was given the Power Gem for safekeeping, and he swallowed it. The quirks of his physiology prevented the gem from being digested and it increased his physical power to even greater degrees as he subconsciously tapped into a fraction of its power. Drax no longer possesses the gem however.

Later, Drax underwent a considerable retro-mutation. The catalyst appeared to be when he drank some spilled plasma from the singularity drive of a fallen starship. After that, the Blood Brothers savagely beat him, only to discover his intelligence actually increased for a time based on how much punishment he took. Drax was then killed by Paibok the Power-Skrull, but emerged from his own corpse like from a butterfly cocoon. Drax is now physically much weaker and can no longer project energy blasts or fly. On the flip side, his intelligence has returned to normal levels and he possesses superhuman speed, which he uses in conjunction with a pair of hunting knives he has adopted. Curiously, he has also displayed considerable knowledge of advanced technology and alien fighting styles, along with a tactical brilliance that wasn't evident in any of his prior incarnations. He has also demonstrated some mild psychic abilities from time to time, such as sensing thoughts through "proximal psychic bleedthrough" or initiating deeper mindmelds with other people. Many of these instances came very early in his resurrection, though, and may have only been a temporary symptom of his "readjustment".