RAPTOR

 

RAPTOR

Real Name: Gary Wilton, Jr.

First Appearance: Avengers West Coast Annual (Vol. 2) #8, September 1993

Powers: Gary Wilton, Jr. is the son of chemical researchers Gary and Maxine Wilton. Alerted that the chemicals they were exposed to may have dangerously affected the health and appearance of their unborn son, they isolated a deficiency correcting chemical and then concocted a series of injections into Maxine that were supposed to undo any damage to the fetus. Through forced labor, Gary, Jr. was eventually born, apparently normal. He developed a timid personality as he grew, due to his mother's over-protectiveness and his stepfather's bullying. At the age of 18, he witnessed a gang beating and, while fleeing his assailants, underwent a transformation. Due to his pre-natal treatments, Gary had a chemically-altered metabolism. In times of fear, he undergoes a body-wide avian-mutagenic transformation complete with a bird-like alter-ego named the Raptor.

As Raptor, he has a humanoid-avian physiology. He possesses superhuman class 10 strength, speed, agility, endurance, reflexes, recuperative powers and durability. He is capable of winged flight due to large pair of wings separate from his arms and on his back, similar to those of the Angel/Archangel (Warren Worthington, III). His avian anatomy is entirely adapted to flying. He is covered with orange feathers, he has a hollow skeletal structure, virtually no body fat and possesses superhumanly proportionate muscle mass. He has keen eyesight and his eyes are specially adapted to withstand high-speed winds which would hurt the average human eye. He possesses a special membrane in his respiratory system enabling him to extract oxygen from the air at high velocities or altitudes. Raptor flies by flapping his wings, as a bird does, which are superhumanly strong enough to produce the thrust to move through the air and fly. He uses a swimming motion to get the lift needed to fly. His top flight speed has been charted at flying at 600 miles in a few hours. He also possesses razor sharp talons at the ends of each of his digits (hands and feet), as well as a sharp beak. He can speak easily, but will also squawk when excited or startled.

Wilton's transformations into Raptor are triggered by experiencing extreme emotion, usually fear. Raptor is an alternate personality based on the amygdala portion of the brain which is responsible for processing fear and organizing in predatory hunting. When calm, stunned, or rendered unconscious, he will revert to his human form. When Raptor is the dominant personality, he has full access to Gary's memories, even ones from in-utero. Gary, however, has only vague impressions of Raptor's actions and thoughts.

LIVING LIGHTNING

 

LIVING LIGHTNING

Real Name: Miguel Santos

First Appearance: Avengers West Coast (Vol. 2) #63, October 1990

Powers: Miguel Santos' father, Carlos, was a member of the Legion of the Living Lightning who fought the Hulk. Exploring the abandoned Lightning base, Miguel plugged himself into the Lightning Machine, and absorbed/gained electrical powers. Initially, his body generated a powerful electrical aura that he could manipulate. He could fire lightning bolts from his hands, levitate and fly through the air, and used his aura as a defensive screen to incinerate gas or projectiles. After being caught in an explosion, though, Miguel died and his mass was scattered throughout the atmosphere.

The Living Lightning was revived by Doctor Demonicus, restored to a living human form where he had previously been discorporated electro-plasma. He was given a special costume that allowed Miguel to shift between human and lightning states at will. The costume was also designed so that Demonicus could reverse the binding effect on Miguel's body if he ever betrayed the doctor, scattering his plasma to the four corners of the Earth. The Lightning betrayed Demonicus anyway, and the Avengers later altered his costume for him. The stabilizing circuitry that kept him in human form was reduced to a set of belt pods instead of an entire costume. He was also given special dampening patches that he could wear while sleeping, allowing Miguel to stay in human form through the night without having to wear the belt. Presently, Miguel may now have enough control over his powers that he doesn't need the belt's circuitry any longer.

After his resurrection, Miguel's powers were much more advanced. Even in his human state, Miguel could generate lightning bolts to shock his opponents, or manipulate electrical energy. For instance, he could electrify coins or other metal substances, or remotely change the station on a radio. He could also absorb electricity from outside sources into his body. Miguel's powers dramatically increased when he turned off the power pods on his belt and returned to his Living Lightning state. In this form he was pure energy, capable of surviving in the vacuum of space, traveling at the speed of light, and unaffected by purely physical forms of attack. Only attacks that disrupted energy or drained him of power were really effective. He could generate and absorb a much greater amount of electricity in his lightning state as well.

DOORMAN

 

DOORMAN

Real Name: DeMarr Davis

First Appearance: West Coast Avengers (Vol. 2) #46, July 1989

Powers: Doorman's mutant body acts as a portal interfacing with Darkforce Dimension. When active, his power causes anything that touches him to be displaced on contact and reappear on the other side of his body. This selective intangibility doesn't allow him walk through walls, but it does make any solid attack or projectile incapable of harming him. By pressing his body up against a solid surface, Doorman can conduct his power's effect through the surface, transporting matter through his body and the surface he's touching to the other side of both of them. His power makes him a "living door": By standing against the outer wall of a building, he can let other people walk through him to enter that building. The overall width of the wall or surface he's standing against doesn't seem to be a factor. He can use his power creatively, such as placing his hand over the helmet of an armored man, so that he or one of his teammates can punch that opponent straight through the helmet and in their unprotected face.

Doorman is capable of flight to some degree, though apparently this is only a very slow gliding effect. The exact nature of his power remains unclear, and certain freak occurrences have caused teleportation or time travel effects when people enter his body when he's not standing against a wall.

Having been chosen by Oblivion to be his emissary, Doorman now serves as an embodiment of death. Oblivion's previous servant, Deathurge, could ferry souls into the afterlife, physically interacting with their spirits to carry them into whatever lies beyond. He could become intangible in order to pass through solid objects or barriers in his path. Deathurge could also draw forth ebon energy constructs from his body, summoning simple melee weapons for combat. He has used a bow and arrows, sword, spear, trident, and various other constructs in the past. He could also fly by drawing out a set of skis and attaching them to his feet, propelling through the air at least at a few hundred miles per hour. Deathurge's chief area of expertise was suicide, and he could sense the "death-urge" within other living beings, as if they were "calling out" to him. The death-urge itself could protect him from harm, making Deathurge virtually immune to any assault leveled against him by someone with suicidal feelings. Deathurge could also use his ebon weapons to facilitate someone's suicidal wishes: by striking his intended target with one of his weapons, Deathurge tagged them with an all-consuming blackness that would spread out from the point of contact, killing his target once they were completely enveloped. If someone other than his suicidal target made contact with the ebon weapon, the construct would pass through them harmlessly, but give them a chill, like someone walking over a grave. So far, Doorman has only demonstrated the skis and ferrying ability, so exactly how much of Deathurge's power he possesses is unclear.

DeMarr Davis has uncompleted graduate studies, hand-to-hand combat training, and is an experienced card player.

FLATMAN

 

FLATMAN

Real Name: Matt (surname unrevealed)

First Appearance: West Coast Avengers (Vol. 2) #46, July 1989

Powers: Flatman is a mutant whose power near-constantly displaces his body mass to an extra-dimensional location so that he possesses only length and width. As a result, his body is compressed into a two-dimensional state most of the time, thin enough to slip through any crack and virtually invisible when viewed at an angle.

His 1/2-inch thick body has a highly malleable, ribbon-like consistency. As such, he can stretch his body, extending his reach, wrapping his arms and body around an opponent to restrain them, and so on.

MR. IMMORTAL

 

MR. IMMORTAL

Real Name: Craig Hollis

First Appearance: West Coast Avengers (Vol. 2) #46, July 1989

Powers: Mr. Immortal is reportedly a member of Homo Sapiens Supreme, a mutant sub-species where he is the only known example.

His mutant power is post-mortem regeneration. Though just as vulnerable to physical harm as any human, once his body dies, entropic forces begin to reverse themselves, repairing any injuries he's suffered and undoing all the damage caused by his death, bringing him back in perfect health. He has been shot, stabbed, drowned, blown up, drank toxic waste, been exposed to lethal radiation, fallen off a multiple story building, and even swallowed a grenade, yet he keeps coming back to life.

Craig is also immortal, and will not age at all as time passes. His body reverses individual cell death just as easily as total system shutdown, which has the side effect of preserving his body at its physical peak.

BIG BERTHA

 

BIG BERTHA

Real Name: Ashley Crawford (legally changed to Bertha Crawford)

First Appearance: West Coast Avengers (Vol. 2) #46, July 1989

Powers: Big Bertha was born with the mutant ability to mentally control her weight by manipulating her mass and gravity. By expanding and re-configuring both the adipose tissues and fat deposits in her body, she is able to adjust her figure at will. She can cause her body to inflate into a massively obese state. During the process, she gains the enhanced skeletal and muscular structures needed to adequately support the extra mass.

Big Bertha's fat and tissue are highly elastic and resilient, allowing her to absorb various forms of physical attack without puncturing, tearing, bruising, etc. Increasing the force of gravity allows her to withstand tremendous forces and impact without budging from the spot. She can also temporarily decrease gravity, allowing her to leap many times her own height up into the air, and then increase her weight again to come crashing down on top of an opponent. She can easily submerge people and objects underneath herself by increasing the gravitational force pulling her down.

In her obese form, Big Bertha has superhuman strength (lifting 50 tons), enough to tear off and lift heavy metal pillars with incredible ease. Apparently, Big Bertha cannot remove her extra fatty tissue as easily as she can manifest it. Similar to those suffering from bulimia, she has to retch up the extra fat through her stomach to revert back to normal, regurgitating hundreds of pounds of fat in the process.

In her civilian identity, Ashley Crawford is a thin-sized world-renowned supermodel and is extremely wealthy from her profession. Her power allows her to selectively manipulate individual areas of fatty tissue in her body, but she’s used that ability to enhance her modeling instead of for adventuring. She is also a skilled pilot and card player.

MASTER PANDEMONIUM

 

MASTER PANDEMONIUM

Real Name: Martin Preston

First Appearance: Avengers West Coast (Vol. 2) #4, January 1986

Powers: Martin Preston was a rich and successful Hollywood actor who lost his right arm in a drunken car accident. The demon lord Mephisto was alerted to Preston’s screams of agony and offered to restore Preston’s arm in exchange for his soul. In agreement, Mephisto summoned a lesser demon, wrenched off its arm, and magically attached it to Preston’s shoulder stump. Preston lost consciousness during the process and was insensate when Mephisto severed his uninsured left arm and replaced it with a demon’s arm as well. As Master Pandemonium, his body is a living "abode for demons".

Pandemonium could summon any and all of these demons at will, causing them to detach from his body, carrying out his will while leaving him missing arms or legs until the demons rejoined with him. While his limbs were in place, Master Pandemonium possessed the same supernatural strength (Class 10) as his demonic counterparts did when separated from him.

His missing soul was manifested as a hole on his stomach in the shape of an inverted pentagram. Someone's fist or any other physical attack would pass right through this hole, and it could also be used as a gateway to summon an endless horde of demons called the Rakasha, in addition to Pandemonium's main four demonic servants. He can also levitate, project concussive blasts or streams of mystical flame from his mouth, and absorb heat and flame to make him virtually immune to such attacks. With the Amulet of Azmodeus, he was also capable of summoning a bird-like demon of the same name as his familiar, and of teleporting himself and others.

Martin Preston is a talented actor with knowledge of demon lore and certain rites of magic.

ARACHNE

 

ARACHNE

Real Name: Julia Cornwall Carpenter

First Appearance: Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #6, October 1984 (as Spider-Woman); Ms. Marvel (Vol. 2) #6, October 2006 (as Arachne); The Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #637, July 2010 (as Madame Web)

Powers: Julia Carpenter was injected with an experimental serum derived from spiders. As a result, she gained many of the same powers as Spider-Man. As Spider-Woman II, her powers included superhuman strength, speed, agility, endurance, reflexes, and the inter-atomic bonding power responsible for their wall-crawling abilities. Julia is also capable of materializing psionic webbing, formed out of her own mental energy. These psi-webs are woven by her mind and can take the form of simple strands and lines or shaped into more elaborate web designs. They have an elastic physical quality, allowing them to bend and flex without breaking. She can use her webbing to swing on like a rope, to surround and bind an opponent, to block off hallways and paths, etc. The psi-webbing conducts her own inter-atomic bonding power, allowing her to make anything that touches the webs to cling to them. Because they are composed of energy, they can also interact with pure energy forms, such as lassoing the normally insubstantial electrical form of the Living Lightning. She can dissolve her psi-webs with a thought. Later on, a secondary exposure to her original serum boosted her strength and stamina.

Julia lost her powers for a time and was crippled after a fight with the third Spider-Woman (Charlotte Witter). After regaining her powers and mobility, she renamed herself "Arachne". She has learned how to use her psi-webs to increase her natural sensitivity as well as for physical grappling. Like a spider can sense vibrations from the center of their web, Arachne can sense thought patterns passing through the aether and psionically reverberating off of her webs. She cannot read minds, but she can sense the presence of other sentient beings within a given radius, and pinpoint their location with some degree of accuracy when they are in range. The "death" of Madame Web connected Julia to the Web of Life, giving her clairvoyance, precognition, and teleporting abilities.

U.S. AGENT

 

U.S. AGENT

Real Name: John F. Walker

First Appearance: Captain America (Vol. 1) #323, November 1986 (as Super-Patriot II); Captain America (Vol. 1) #333, September 1987 (as Captain America VI); Captain America (Vol. 1) #354, June 1989 (as U.S. Agent)

Powers: John F. Walker began his career just out of the Army. He underwent the Power Broker Process to enhance his musculature, giving him Class 20 strength, superhuman endurance, reflexes, and resistance to physical injury. Outfitting himself as the Super-Patriot, he used a set of American throwing stars and a Liberty's Torch which produced a jet of flame out from its hilt. After being chosen by the Commission to replace Steve Rogers, Walker was given the patriotic chain-mail uniform of Captain America and the unique steel/Vibranium alloy throwing shield. After Rogers returned, Walker was given a new identity as the U.S. Agent and a new shield forged out of Vibranium.

When he joined Force Works years later, Agent adopted a new set of weaponry, replacing his solid shield with photonic energy generators mounted in his gauntlets. By calling out "Shield -- Ignite!", the generators projected a photon shield onto the back of his arm, which could disperse any energy directed at it. Saying "Shield -- Release!" would discharge the shield's photonic energy as a destructive blast, and he would require a few moments to let the generators recharge before he could form a new shield.

After taking a job with Edwin Cord and the Jury, Agent began using a new eagle badge shield that he could throw and then control its trajectory in midair using control studs in his gloves. He also employed Jury flight disks, mechanical plates strapped to his boots that enabled him to fly with great speed and maneuverability.

At one point, he went back to using his Vibranium shield only to have it shatter into pieces during the aftermath of Battleworld. After being heavily beaten and stabbed through the chest by Protocide, Agent underwent surgical procedures to save his life, which also apparently augmented his strength to some degree in the process. Shortly after this, Walker was approached by the Commission again to head a new department known as STARS. He agreed, and was given a set of modified weaponry. His new crash helmet protected his head from impact and was equipped with built in radio transceivers. His energy truncheon could produce painful surges of energy on contact, at varying levels of intensity, and his new shield was in the eagle badge design but reinforced by tangible photonic energy.

During his period with the new Invaders, Walker frequently utilized grenades and semi-automatic weapons, along with a disk-shaped shield which could extend razor sharp spikes around its border. He later returned to using a stylized version of his discus shield.

In battle with the Thunderbolts, Agent lost an arm and leg to Scourge, who was wielding the Asgardian spear of Odin, Gungnir. Although still super-powered, Walker was forced to use a wheelchair and a mechanical hand for utility. While trapped in a pocket dimension with the Dark Avengers, Toxic Doxie cultivated some symbiote bio-mass to recreate his missing limbs. These limbs seem to look and act exactly like his original limbs, with all their strength. It's unknown if his limbs have a traditional symbiote's vulnerability to fire and sonics.