MARVEL BOY I

 

MARVEL BOY I

Real Name: Robert Grayson

First Appearance: Marvel Boy (Vol. 1) #1, December 1950

Powers: The original Marvel Boy, Robert “Bob” Grayson, was the American-born child of a German scientist who fled the outbreak of World War II, traveling with his father to a distant colony of Eternals on the planet Uranus established some 30,000 years prior. While there, Eternal scientists granted him special tools to help him adapt to their hermetically-sealed environment: Metabolic pills which increased his constitution and sturdiness, wrist bands that manipulated light, heat, and gravity to keep him comfortable and functional on a world much further from the sun than he was used to, and a psionic headband which unleashed telepathic abilities within him.

He eventually returned to Earth in the 1950s, using weaponized versions of the wrist bands and other tools as the hero Marvel Boy. Though originally possessing no innate superhuman powers (except for an alleged IQ of 360), he was trained to detect telepathic intrusion, but could not discern its source. The headband he wore during those years granted him limited telepathic abilities: He could read the surface thoughts of unprotected minds and speak the language of anyone he encountered.

On Uranus, Marvel Boy possessed the equivalent strength, durability, and agility of a physically fit young man; while on Earth, he was somewhat weaker due to the change in gravity and atmosphere, and took the same metabolic pills (dubbed “uranium pills”) to compensate. Taken at least once every 24 hours, the pills increased his strength in the enhanced human range (up to 1 ton), enabled him to make standing leaps of several hundred feet, and acrobatic prowess beyond even the most highly trained athletes.

The upgraded wrist bands enabled him to fly by manipulating gravitons and could amplify ambient solar energy to create blinding discharges of light, intense heat, and photonic energy blasts. He wore special contact lenses to protect himself from their effects. He is an accomplished hand-to-hand combatant with substantial scientific knowledge due to his studies with the Uranian Eternals. He traveled originally via the Silver Bullet, a spaceship combining both Earthly and Uranian technology able to fly in atmospheres and outer space. Constructed from a specially developed hydrogen-uranium compound that rendered its power virtually inexhaustible, it could travel nearly 75 miles per minute in Earth’s atmosphere and cross 1.75 billion miles between Earth and Uranus in mere hours.

After returning to his colony in 1959, however, Bob found it destroyed by native Uranians called the Membrane (or “Aboriginoids” by him). He underwent dramatic genetic alteration to survive in Uranus’s methane-ammonia atmosphere and was absorbed into the Membrane’s collective hive mind for decades. Though the full extent of his transformation remains a mystery, when he returned to Earth decades later after permanently separating from the Membrane, he no longer possessed his metabolic pills or functional wrist bands. Instead, he now permanently requires a spacesuit that creates an artificial Uranian environment, for he grew naturally accustomed to it during his time in the Membrane. His helmet’s alien material allows him to extend parts of his body through it without losing atmosphere. He also now consumes food via a retractable and extendable esophagus.

He still maintains his telepathic headband, though, and can use it to track brain wave patterns, read the thoughts of other people, cast audio-visual illusions to disguise appearances or alter the perception of events, and project his own memories directly into the minds of others for display. He could even access psychometric energies, reading the residual psychic imprint off of objects in his environment to reconstruct past events to see and hear. It also allows him to record genetic structures and use this information to convert life forms to their previous states. His upgraded wristbands allow him to discharge powerful energy blasts and control some forms of technology from a distance. He travels in a Uranian spaceship even more advanced than the Silver Bullet, although a few of its capabilities are fully understood.