STRANGER

 

STRANGER

Real Name: Unrevealed

First Appearance: The Uncanny X-Men (Vol. 1) #11, May 1965

Powers: A member of the Elders of the Universe, the Stranger is a cosmic being who has deliberately concealed or misrepresented his origins on several occasions. He once claimed to be the collective sentience and power of the Eternals of Gigantor, similar to the Uni-Mind, making him the last representative and an infinitely powerful member of a dead race. He later admitted this was false. Another report suggested he was the fourth face of the Living Tribunal, having separated from the Tribunals eons ago in order to seek its own destiny. The Stranger denied this accusation, and the Living Tribunal refused to confirm it for certain. Considering the manner by which abstract entities operate, the Stranger may literally represent the concept of the unknown or unknowable, a seeker of mysteries who is a mystery himself, even to himself.

The Stranger is capable of size- and shape-changing. He can choose to appear the size of a normal human (for disguise), but traditionally appears as a giant of 15 feet tall. He can grow larger if he chooses, and has occasionally appeared with alien proportions instead of typical humanoid ones. The Stranger can also transform into pure energy, transporting himself at the speed of thought through space. He may actually be an energy being, who only appears in solid form by choice. The Stranger possesses telepathic senses, making him sensitive to psychic calls and other phenomena. He has advanced telekinetic and matter manipulation abilities allowing him to reconstruct his environment, transmute elements, and so on. He can also project enormous amounts of cosmic energy across the electromagnetic spectrum, creating light, heat, force blasts, force fields, disintegration beams, and so on. Often times, he seems to supplement his personal abilities with advanced technology, but this may merely be an affectation, storing his cosmic power in outside vessels for easier use.