QUASAR

 

QUASAR

Real Name: Wendell Elvis Vaughn

First Appearance: Captain America (Vol. 1) #217, January 1978

Powers: S.H.I.E.L.D. espionage agent Wendell Vaughn is Quasar, the Protector of the Universe, and wears the Quantum-Bands on his wrists as the symbol of his station.

The Quantum-Bands are jeweled metallic wristbands, unique cosmic artifacts designed by the being known as Eon to empower the person he appointed as Protector of the Universe. When he first donned the bands, Wendell had no concept of their full capabilities. They molecularly bonded to his wrists, making it impossible to remove them. Using the bands, Quasar could initially just manipulate quantum energy as visible, yellow light. He could produce intangible radiant light as a soft glow or blinding flashes from the bands. By projecting quantum energy and using it to bind particles in the atmosphere together, he could create solid constructs, seemingly out of pure energy. Through willpower, Wendell could shape these constructs into different forms, making them hollow or solid through-and-through. He could project battering rams of force, create a personal energy sheath for protection, generate spheres, domes, cages, scissors, ramps, giant drills, nunchuka, etc. Each construct was also laced with anti-gravity properties, so that he could levitate and propel himself through the air and lift virtually any amount of weight with his constructs by placing one underneath something and willing the construct to rise and move about.

After meeting his benefactor, Eon, Quasar unlocked a far greater potential in the bands, including the ability to access the full range of electromagnetism, not just visible light. Wendell can now sustain his life functions indefinitely with his bands while out in space, and can Quantum Jump through the Quantum Zone (the source of his powers and all electromagnetic energy in the universe), enabling him to cross intergalactic distances in a matter of moments. Because of the adverse effect this has on the environment in atmospheres, Quasar only Quantum Jumps while in space. He can, however, overcome this difficulty by shaping a Q-construct around himself before Quantum Jumping, containing the vacuum backwash. Using his bands, Quasar can sense the full range of electromagnetic and cosmic energies. This allows him to pick up radio transmissions, detect signals sent by microwaves or other means, register the presence of people or objects that produce energy, and identify and recognize energy signatures he has felt before. Quasar has pre-programmed his bands to alert him to sudden flare ups of energy happening in his general area, and wove an invisible lattice of quantum energy around Earth, alerting him to incoming extra-terrestrial threats.

Because his control over electromagnetic energy now extends into non-visible ranges of radiation, Quasar can make his force fields or constructs invisible to the naked eye. He can also use this power to make his bands invisible, to disguise himself in his civilian identity. Quasar's bands can absorb any form of electromagnetic or cosmic energy in his immediate area -- he does not need to make direct contact with it, he can draw the energy to his bands. When it comes to living beings who generate energy, he can only drain them of their power when they are actively using it. Quasar cannot directly affect mystical or psychic energy, but he has set up a defensive field around his brain which naturally protects him from mental attack. Because each band has seven gems on it, Wendell is technically capable of performing 14 different tasks at once. This includes flying, his force field, each new energy construct, tapping into different radio transmissions, etc. Practically, however, Quasar has difficulty maintaining three different types of constructs at once. Firing 14 identical energy balls in a single direction is no problem, but holding some allies aloft on a platform, caging one opponent in a sphere, and redirecting the assaults of another opponent proved taxing.

Quasar lost the Quantum-Bands during a time when he was temporarily dead, but was resurrected thanks to the residual energy of the Star Brand, which he had picked up on a trip to the New Universe. The Star Brand is a zero point energy collector and a self-perpetuating temporal paradox, but suffice it to say that while Wendell possessed the Star Brand he had superhuman strength, considerable resistance to physical injury, infinite self-healing abilities, the ability to survive in the vacuum of space, flight, and the power to radiate explosive and destructive bursts of force from his body. The Star Brand itself was a small tattoo which the wielder could move from one place on their body to another by touching the Brand to a different area of their skin and willing it to move over. By placing the Brand over his eye, Quasar could visually see and track energy signatures. Because the Star Brand was intrinsically linked to its own universe, its power ultimately faded away in our universe, luckily just as Wendell was able to reacquire his bands.

Quasar was temporarily dead again, and was resurrected as a quantum-phasic entity. He essentially exists as a living Quantum Construct now, able to direct and manipulate quantum energy even without the bands, also he has since reacquired them as well.

Wendell Vaughn has had basic espionage training through S.H.I.E.L.D. and has had extensive hand-to-hand combat training through both S.H.I.E.L.D. and Captain America, though little experience in using it. His military and espionage training have given him some ability in the areas of modern weaponry, piloting small aircraft, tactical skills, combat tech, surveillance, and cryptography.

MAJOR VICTORY

 

MAJOR VICTORY

Real Name: Vance Astro (legally changed from Vance Astrovik)

First Appearance: Marvel Super-Heroes (Vol. 1) #18, January 1969

Powers: Vance Astro is the alternate timeline self (from Earth-691) of Vance Astrovik (Marvel Boy, Justice) of Earth-616. Believing faster-than-light travel technology to be impossible, America in the late 20th century devised a two thousand year round-trip mission whereby a single astronaut would be specially-preserved and transported to the Beta Centauri system. Astro's blood was replaced by a special preservative fluid while his skin was totally encased in an air-tight containment suit. He spent the majority of the next thousand years in suspended animation on board his ship, only awakened by the ship every few decades to check his navigation systems. Vance eventually arrived on Centauri IV only to discover to his dismay that a colony of Earth humans were already there to greet him. Harkovian physics had replaced Einstein's rules of the universe some 200 years after he left, and not only had Earth heavily colonized its own solar system with genetically-engineered branches of humanity, they had also established the first extra-solar colony on Centauri more than a century previously.

Becoming active in the 31st century with the Guardians of the Galaxy, Vance Astro lived under the constant threat that any tear of his containment suit would oxygenate his skin, causing it to age 1,000 years within seconds. Early in his career, he supplemented the suit with an outer costume of Kevlar, and Martinex later redesigned his costume out of a flexible Adamantium derivative which was virtually incapable of being pierced. In addition, Vance's mind had developed over his long journey, and he began manifesting his latent psychokinetic powers. As such, he found himself capable only of administering pressure to objects, and not levitating or manipulating them like a true telekinetic. Instead, he projected concussive force from his forehead either as a uni-directional beam or a full-circle radial discharge. He eventually recovered Captain America's shield and began using it as his personal weapon, including adding a psychokinetic blast to his throws so that the shield flew with tremendous force. After a bullet made of Dargonite penetrated his Adamantium casing, Vance was saved by the intervention of Krugarr, the future Sorcerer Supreme, and Hollywood, the future incarnation of Wonder Man. Hollywood gave Vance a transfusion of his ionically-enriched blood, while Krugarr cast an enchantment which enabled him to remove his containment suit and survive with his skin exposed to open air.

Adopting the new alias of Major Victory, Astro adopted a new patriotic costume to go with his shield. However, he soon gave up the shield so that it could be used as a rallying symbol for a new Earth government. Around this time, the Beyonder encountered Vance and, seemingly on a whim, altered his costume to possess a black undergarment. The meaning of this became clear when Mephisto undid Krugarr's enchantment months later, forcing Vance's body to age rapidly. The undergarment came to life, quickly covering Major Victory's entire body and duplicating the properties of his containment suit to keep him alive. Questions arose as to whether this "Black suit from the Beyonder" was another symbiote similar to Venom, and to the nature of "The Power of That Which Lies Within Yet Beyond", a mysterious force which was increasing Vance's psychokinetic powers. It was eventually determined that the suit was just an unliving sympathetic exo-armor, and the elaborately named Within Yet Beyond was merely the effects of his ionically-enhanced blood acting upon his mental powers. The sheer force of his psychokinetic blasts was dramatically amplified, and he became capable of more varied telekinetic feats. He could cast a protective bubble or shields, create hard energy columns to raise him off the ground or floating disks to ferry him and others around, move objects about in a controlled manner, encase targets in psychokinetic bonds or stasis fields, etc.

AGENTS OF ATLAS

 

AGENTS OF ATLAS

Roster: Gorilla-Man, M-11 the Human Robot, Namora, Marvel Boy/Uranian (Robert Grayson), Venus, Jimmy Woo, and 3-D Man II

First Appearance: Agents of Atlas (Vol. 1) #1, October 2006

Brief History: A superhero team formed by the United States federal government in 1958* and brought back together by their leader Jimmy Woo nearly 40 years later, the Agents of Atlas are a team of misfits dedicated to using the resources of an evil empire to bring about good.

*The Agents of Atlas are the current incarnation of various characters originally owned by Atlas Comics, one of the companies which merged to become Marvel Comics in the early 1960s. Largely abandoned when Marvel Comics began, the Atlas characters were revisited in ”What If..?" (Vol. 1) #9, June 1978 that teamed them with the first 3-D Man, a retcon character created in the 1970s but active in the 1950s, as a 1950's team of Avengers. Unlike most "What If..?" stories, the issue left open the suggestion that this team had actually existed in secret in the main 616 Marvel Universe. However, at least one version of the group was wiped from existence during the “Avengers Forever” 12-issue series. The Agents of Atlas series established the modern and official version of the team, sans the original 3-D Man, active briefly in 1958-59 as "The G-Men" and regrouped decades later in the present as Agents of the Atlas Foundation. The limited series also managed to retcon the history and status of every single member.

CRUSADER

 

CRUSADER

Real Name: Thelius

First Appearance: Fantastic Four (Vol. 1) #164, November 1975

Powers: Thelius was originally a member of the Eternals (Homo Sapiens Immortalis), an evolutionary offshoot of humanity created by the extraterrestrial cosmic beings known as the Celestials. All Earth-born Eternals typically possess long lifespans, indestructible bodies and vast physical and cosmic energy-manipulation powers due to a mass cosmic bombardment during their 3rd or 4th generation, however Thelius was from of a generation of Eternals born on the planet Uranus descended from the 1st generation of Eternals. As such, his sole natural abilities include enhanced strength, longevity, and possible mind reading.

Thelius was surgically altered by Eternal High Council scientists to look and sound exactly like the young Robert Grayson, the Earth-born Uranian-raised human who became the first super-hero known as Marvel Boy. After the physical transformation was completed, they rewrote his memory. Through the headband he wore as Marvel Boy, everything Grayson had experienced on Earth was fed into Thelius' slowly forming mind while he lay in a dormancy chamber. The Eternals also implanted him with the notion that the High Council was infallible. Thelius was also given the real Quantum-Bands to wear.

As the Crusader, he wielded the Quantum-Bands, unique cosmic artifacts created by the abstract cosmic being Eon to empower the individual he deems worthy as his appointed Protector of the Universe.

He was limited in their usage as he lacked the proper skills, insights and mental capacity to harness their full capabilities, falsely believing them to be solar powered. He used their power to fly and project intense, blinding light beams capable of melting steel. His mental transformation into Bob Grayson was aborted prematurely, leaving him permanently confused about his origins and prone to irrational anger.

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.