HIGH EVOLUTIONARY

 

HIGH EVOLUTIONARY

Real Name: Herbert Edgar Wyndham

First Appearance: The Mighty Thor (Vol. 1) #134, November 1966

Powers: The High Evolutionary was born Herbert Edgar Wyndham, a brilliant geneticist early in the 20th century who mastered the human genome thanks to notes provided by the Inhuman scientist Phaeder. Using his Evolutionary Accelerator and its unique isotopes, Wyndham developed the means of evolving animals into humanoid form and intelligence. He originally adopted an armored costume to protect himself from injury during his bestial experiments (including lines of silver for dealing with the local werewolf found outside his laboratory on Wundagore Mountain).

Despite his vast array of scientific and technological advancements, the High Evolutionary did not receive superhuman abilities of his own until he exposed himself to his Evolutionary Accelerator on a distant planet in order to survive wounds he suffered due to rampaging New Men. The Evolutionary evolved billions of years into mankind's future genetic potential, casting aside his human form to become a purely spiritual entity. He eventually returned to corporeal form by devolving himself through sheer force of will.

Even in his restored human state, the High Evolutionary deliberately maintained a higher level of personal evolution. He now permanently possessed increased overall durability and longevity, a superhuman intellectual capacity, and some level of matter manipulation abilities. Furthermore, his armor was now a cybernetically-integrated life support system with numerous features. It shielded him from the vacuum of space and a substantially increased level of physical punishment, even standing up to repeated blows by the Hulk. It also contained a miniaturized version of his Evolutionary Accelerator technology, allowing the High Evolutionary to evolve himself on command. The life support aspect of the armor was completely autonomous, actively preventing the Evolutionary from committing suicide in his lower moments. The armor had self-repair and biological healing capabilities, rebuilding itself and using controlled application of the Accelerator to undo any physical harm that happened to penetrate the armor and harm Wyndham. Even when the High Evolutionary willed himself to devolve into protoplasmic soup, the armor reassembled itself and then forcibly evolved him back to his contemporary level of evolution.

Identifying the exact level of the High Evolutionary's personal powers at any given time is difficult, since his armor can access the Accelerator to evolve him at a moment's notice to develop new powers. Among the abilities he routinely demonstrates, however, are superhuman Class 100 strength and tremendous resistance to physical injury. He can also increase his size proportionately to become a giant standing several stories tall. He has physically grappled with Hercules, the Hulk, and even Galactus for extended periods. The Evolutionary has demonstrated psychic abilities such as telepathic communication, astral projection, psychokinesis for self-levitation and manipulation of other materials, and long-range teleportation. He can project beams of concussive force from his hands or eyes, and plasmatic rays that break objects down into their component molecules. He can also induce evolutionary reactions on other matter from a distance. This enables him to forcibly revert his New Men to animals with a thought, evolve or devolve humans, even reverse or accelerate the evolutionary status of his environment, such as pushing the geological and climate conditions of a small area of Earth billions of years ahead in the planet's development.