PIP THE TROLL

 

PIP THE TROLL

Real Name: Pip Gofern

First Appearance: Strange Tales (Vol. 1) #179, April 1975

Powers: Pip Gofern was born a prince on the humanoid-populated world of Laxidazia. A chance encounter an encampment of trolls, a degenerate sub-species of the Laxidazian race, changed him. Taking an immediate liking to them, Pip engaged in food, drink, and dance with the trolls, imbibing vast quantities of their special ale. When Pip awoke the next day with a hangover, he discovered that the ale he drank the night before had mutagenic properties, for he had taken on trollish characteristics. His feet had become hoof like, his fourth and fifth finger had grown together, his ears had become longer, and his lust for pleasure had grown profoundly.

He possessed average strength until dying and later being resurrected in a new body by Adam Warlock, giving him now roughly Class 10 strength and an increased resistance to injury. He carried the Space Gem for some years and employed it for teleportation purposes. Enough of the gem's energies surged through his body so that he retained his transport powers even after losing possession of the gem. Pip is able to teleport across intergalactic distances, instantly reaching any place he has been to before or can visualize mentally. He can carry any people or objects that he's in contact with along on the transport. Pip can also psychically link with other people through physical contact, allowing him to teleport to anyplace they have been to before or can visualize.

Pip the Troll is famously known for his carnal prowess.

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".

INFINITY GEMS

 

INFINITY GEMS

First Appearance: Marvel Premiere (Vol. 1) #1, April 1972 (Soul Gem); Marvel Team-Up (Vol. 1) #55, March 1977 (Time/Power Gems); Avengers Annual (Vol. 1) #7, August 1977 (remaining gems)

Description: The Infinity Gems (previously known as the “Soul Gems") are some of the most powerful artifacts in the Universe. Each one allows its owner complete omnipotence over one aspect of the universe: Time, space, reality, the mind, power, and the soul. When all six are directly wielded together, nothing is impossible for their bearer.

When wielded separately, the power of the Gems varies from user to user, depending on what they are capable of tapping into. The Infinity Gems are linked to each other mentally. Supposedly, this is because the Gems were the remnant of the previous supreme being of the universe (Galactus's origin universe), although how that ties into the recent revelations (from Ultimates 2) is unclear. Anyone who has wielded the Gems in the past remains linked to them in some way, possessing a form of cosmic awareness derived from having been tied into a greater infinity. For instance, Thanos was once able to send a telepathic call to Nebula, which was intercepted by Gamora, all because of their previous wielding of the Gems.

The Soul Gem was introduced first, in the possession of the High Evolutionary when he passed it on to Adam Warlock. It had a unique interaction with Adam's own cosmic powers. Adam was extra-powerful on his own, and his abilities were burning his body out. To compensate, he limited his powers to their minimal levels, but focused them through the Soul Gem, which was fed by spiritual energy: His own confidence, convictions, and the faith that others had in him. The Soul Gem had an unexplained vampiric nature, though, causing it and Adam to hunger for the souls of others. It also coaxed most of Adam's soul into itself, leaving him unable to remove it. The scenario was reversed, and Adam began spending most of his energies on containing the Soul Gem's appetites, rather than using it to enhance his powers. In later years, Adam learned to use the Soul Gem to fire karmic blasts, disrupting the soul rather than taking it. Others have wielded the Soul Gem like the In-Betweener and Rune, the later of whom's natural vampiric abilities were drastically exaggerated by the Gem.

The Power Gem has infinite raw power that can be directed for devastating effect, or harnessed to augment any given system. Wielders such as Champion, Thor, Drax, and Titania have used it to achieve literally immeasurable strength, with their physical power levels constrained only by their imaginations.

The Time Gem can be manipulated for time travel, viewing the past and future, altering the flow of time on specific people or objects, etc. Gamora harnessed the Time Gem only minimally, gaining a form of precognitive sight to anticipate and counter her opponents in battle, or unbidden visions of the future that alerted her to potential dangers. The Gardener wielded the Gem in his garden, accelerating plant growth and maintaining his flowers at the apex of their bloom.

The Mind Gem grants mental powers or boosts existing ones. This was the Gem Moondragon used, amplifying her moderate telepathic and telekinetic abilities to Phoenix levels, allowing her to rearrange molecular structures, even creating a working starship by assembling molecules from the soil around her. In the Ultraverse, the Mind Gem turned the bestial creature known as Primevil into a coherent, educated, and intelligent being.

The Reality Gem is the most difficult gem to wield individually. Like the power of Proteus or the Disassembled era Scarlet Witch, it can alter reality itself, manifesting whims, reconstructing universal laws, dimensional structure, and so on. The sensory input provided from Space, Time, Soul, and Mind is often necessary to understand and control the power of the Reality Gem, causing minds to lose themselves if they attempt to wield it alone. Loki and Night Man had an encounter over the Reality Gem where Night Man's every move or decision caused him to split off a doppelganger, causing him to manifest every possible outcome of a situation in a single timeline. Recently, Carol Danvers recovered the Reality Gem in another reality, indicating the rules of the Infinity Gems may have changed, since typically the Gems can only operate in their own native reality.

The Space Gem reduces the idea of distance to a mere concept, allowing the wielder to be anywhere they choose to be. Often this appears in the form of teleportation. Pip the Troll was given permanent teleportation powers from his time with the Space Gem. The Elder known as the Runner subliminally tapped into the gem's power, believing it was making him faster as he ran. In fact, it was bending space between him and his destinations.