Cast of Characters

[Charles Warren]

DRAGONESS
Real Name: Tamara Kurtz
Affiliation: The Mutant Liberation Front
Powers: Energy Control; Flight

Born a mutant after her parents were exposed to the radioactive fallout of Hiroshima, Tamara Kurtz became a mutant terrorist and was recruited into the Mutant Liberation Front. She was arrogant and overconfident,

Dragoness was able to bodily generate and store bio-electricity that she can release as disruptive blasts or use to excite atmospheric particles to create pyrotechnic flares; formerly possessed a pair of bionic wings.

Dragoness was a Mutant Liberation Front member who attempted to attack the Capital Building in Washington D.C, while the Senate was voting on the Mutant Registration Act.

marvel.com/universe/Dragoness#axzz4jBgZcUhR

[Charles Warren]

JURASSIC
Real Name: Unknown
Affiliation: The Mutant Liberation Front
Powers: Morphogenetic

Jurassic possesses the innate ability to make direct contact with the Earth's morphogenetic field, which allows her to draw upon the abilities of any dinosaur that has ever lived on the planet. By simply focusing on a specific dinosaur, she can draw its talent directly from the morphogenetic field and mimic its abilities, thus giving herself a variety of superhuman powers.

Jurassic was a Mutant Liberation Front member who attempted to attack the Capital Building in Washington D.C, while the Senate was voting on the Mutant Registration Act.

marvel.com/universe/Mutant_Liberation_Front#axzz4jBgZcUhR

[Charles Warren]

LOCUS
Real Name: Rayna Piper
Affiliation: The Mutant Liberation Front
Powers: Teleportation; Self-Levitation

Locus has the ability to teleport herself, other people, or other objects only to anywhere that she or they have been before. This makes her different from other teleporters like Nightcrawler who can teleport himself to anywhere he can visualize. Even more sinister is her ability to select parts of people or objects (say a hand or head), and teleport them away, leaving the rest behind, with deadly results. She also has the ability to levitate. At times, she also displayed the power to fire her teleportation effect over a distance as well.

Locus was a Mutant Liberation Front member who attempted to attack the Capital Building in Washington D.C, while the Senate was voting on the Mutant Registration Act.

marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Rayna_Piper_(Earth-616)

[Charles Warren]

QUAKE
Real Name: Unknown
Affiliation: The Mutant Liberation Front
Powers: Earth Control

Quake was a Mutant Liberation Front member who attempted to attack the Capital Building in Washington D.C, while the Senate was voting on the Mutant Registration Act.

marvel.com/universe/Mutant_Liberation_Front#axzz4jBgZcUhR

[Charles Warren]

SLAB
Real Name: Unknown
Affiliation: The Mutant Liberation Front
Powers: Body of Stone

Slab was a Mutant Liberation Front member who attempted to attack the Capital Building in Washington D.C, while the Senate was voting on the Mutant Registration Act.

marvel.com/universe/Mutant_Liberation_Front#axzz4jBgZcUhR

[Charles Warren]

STROBE
Real Name: Juliana Worthing
Affiliation: The Mutant Liberation Front
Powers: Energy Sheath

Strobe increases the kinetic motion of molecules around her body, creating a thermal field that liquefies or incinerates matter on contact

Strobe was a Mutant Liberation Front member who attempted to attack the Capital Building in Washington D.C, while the Senate was voting on the Mutant Registration Act.

marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Juliana_Worthing_(Earth-616)

[Charles Warren]

TEMPO
Real Name: Heather Tucker
Affiliation: The Mutant Liberation Front
Powers: Chronokinesis

Tempo was one of the founding members of the terrorist organization known as the Mutant Liberation Front (MLF).

Tempo was able to generate chronological fields to slow down time in a specific area. Tempo can manipulate time itself, though only in her immediate vicinity. Most often she slows or stops her opponents or speeds herself. She has been able to prevent a number of grenades from exploding by keeping them in suspended motion, and she was also able to successfully attack Rogue by amplifying her own personal speed to cause her to crash into a wall while flying. Tempo can also levitate herself and fly at subsonic speeds through unknown means. However, each time she uses her power, she risks harming herself.

Tempo was among the Mutant Liberation Front members who attempted to attack the Capital Building in Washington D.C, while the Senate was voting on the Mutant Registration Act.

marvel.com/universe/Tempo#axzz4jBgZcUhR

[Charles Warren]

ZERO
Real Name: Ambient-Energy Dampening Actualization Module Unit Zero
Affiliation: The Mutant Liberation Front
Powers: Teleportation

Zero's primary task was peace-keeping and to do so it was equipped with scanners, capable of determining a person or objects capabilities, purpose and potential. It could then use its ability to dampen and project energy to neutralize any threats, turning most advanced weapons useless and killing any potentially dangerous humans. Zero also had the ability to teleport: it opened portals between two different points, but it could only keep these portals open for a short period of time.

Zero was among the Mutant Liberation Front members who attempted to attack the Capital Building in Washington D.C, while the Senate was voting on the Mutant Registration Act.

marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Ambient-Energy_Dampening_Actualization_Module_Unit_Zero_(Earth-4935)

[Charles Warren]

MASTERMIND
Real Name: Jason Wyngarde
Affiliation: The Brotherhood of Mutants
Powers: Illusion Casting

Nothing is known about Mastermind's life before the time when, while working as a carnival mentalist, ha was enlisted by Magneto as a member of his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. At this time Magneto sought to protect his fellow superhuman mutants from persecution by normal human beings by conquering humanity and ruling the world himself. The other members of the Brotherhood were his allies in pursuit of his goals. As a member of the Brotherhood, Mastermind battled the original X-Men repeatedly, but the X-Men continually thwarted Magneto and the Brotherhood. Finally, Magneto attempted to enlist the enigmatic alien being known as the Stranger as an ally. Angered, the Stranger transformed Mastermind into stone and transported Magneto, he captured, to another planet.

Eventually, Mastermind returned to normal and joined Factor Three, another organization of superhuman mutants bent on world conquest. However, Mastermind and his allies joined the X-Men in defeating Factor Three's leader after discovering he was an extraterrestrial being.

After again being defeated as a member of Magneto's Brotherhood, Mastermind was invited to apply for admission to the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club. To prove his worth, Mastermind sought to use his mutant powers and artificial means to alter the personality of the X-Men Jean Grey psionically so that she would-willingly become the Inner Circle's new Black Queen. Unknown to Mastermind or anyone else, his victim was not really Grey, but was a cosmic entity, the phoenix-force, which had duplicated Grey's form and personality. Mastermind succeeded in causing the false Grey into becoming the new Black Queen, but thus unintentionally triggered the process that would soon transform her into the insane Dark Phoenix. Before the latter transformation was complete, the false Grey broke free of Mastermind's control and opened his mind to all the psionic sense impressions she received from the cosmos. Unable to cope with them, Mastermind fell into a catatonic state. The Inner Circle, of course, rejected his application for membership.

Mastermind eventually returned to normal, but remembered the glory of the cosmos he had perceived, and felt tormented that he could no longer experience it. He decided to take revenge on Grey's friends, the X-Men. He succeeded somehow, in inducing Mariko Yashida into calling off her wedding of the X-Men Wolverine, and caused the X-Men Cyclops and his teammates into thinking Madelyne Pryor, whom Cyclops loved, was Dark Phoenix. Mastermind hoped to crush the X-Men's spirits by thus manipulating them into killing Pryor. But the X-Men discovered Mastermind's deception and defeated him.

Mastermind is mutant with the power of illusion-casting. He can psionically cause other people to see, hear, touch, smell, and/or taste things which do not actually exist: for example, he can seem to make a solid wall appear in an empty space. He can also cause people to see, hear, touch, smell, and/or taste real things in ways that they would not do naturally: for example, he can make himself look and sound like a different person, or look and feel like a wall, or even seem invisible. Without artificial aids, Mastermind cannot cause only one person among many who are present to see his illusions; everyone within the range of his power, which can extend over an entire city (as when he helped Magneto capture Latin American nation of Santo Marco), will see his illusions. Since his power only affects the mind, his illusions cannot be recorded on film or tape or by other means. However, his power works so strongly on the mind that even if his victim or victims know they are being subjected to an illusion, they will still react to the illusion as if it were real unless they can rid themselves of all suspicions that it is unreal. Hence, if Mastermind creates the illusion of a wall, most people, even if they know it is an illusion, will still be unable to walk through it. Invariably Mastermind’s illusions are so skillful that most people are unable to help having the feeling, at least subconsciously, that they are real.

Mastermind accompanied Magneto and the Brotherhood of Mutants when they attacked the Capital Building in Washington D.C, while the Senate was voting on the Mutant Registration Act.

marveldirectory.com/individuals/m/mastermind.htm

[Charles Warren]

SCARLET WITCH
Real Name: Wanda Maximoff
Affiliation: The Brotherhood of Mutants; formerly the Avengers
Powers: Reality Warping; Magic

Wanda Maximoff was the daughter of the mutant called Magnus and a gypsy woman named Magda. Just prior to her birth, her mother fled from her father, terrified of the bizarre powers he suddenly manifested and his intentions of world domination. Seeking refuge in the scientific citadel of Wundagore in the Balkan mountains of the tiny nation of Transia, Magda was taken in by Bova, a woman evolved from a cow by the master of genetic acceleration, the High Evolutionary. Magda gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, with Bova as her midwife. Still afraid that her husband might find her and learn of the children, Magda left Bova a note explaining her fears, and walked into the frozen mountain wilderness to perish. Feeling that it was not right to raise two seemingly normal babies in the environment of the evolved animal-men of Wundagore, Bova was relieved when several nights later, an American couple vacationing in Europe, Robert and Madeline Frank, also came to Wundagore seeking natal assistance. Bova intended to award the couple the days-old twins to raise along with their own newborn. Unfortunately, the couple's child was stillborn and Madeline died from complications in childbirth. Bova presented Robert Frank with the twins, representing them as his own natural children, in the hope it would assuage his grief. (Years later, Frank and the children would believe that he was their natural father.) Bova then presented the twins to her master, the High Evolutionary, who agreed to find human foster parents for them.

The High Evolutionary did find such parents for them in the persons of Django and Marya Maximoff, a gypsy couple camped nearby who had lost their own two children, Ana and Mateo, during World War II. The Maximoffs accepted the strange gifts from the High Evolutionary and were told their names were Wanda and Pietro, the names their natural mother had given them at birth. The Maximoffs cared for the children as if they were their own. (Years later, Django would believe that Wanda and Pietro were his natural children Ana and Mateo.) As adolescents, Wanda and Pietro discovered that they had peculiar talents. With a particular gesture while she was in a certain frame of mind, Wanda found that she could cause unusual phenomena to occur. When Django began to steal food to feed his starving family, enraged villagers attacked the gypsy camp. Using his phenomenal speed, Pietro fled from the camp with his sister. The traumatic circumstances of the separation from their family were so severe that not until well into adulthood could they remember anything but the barest details of their childhood. The next few years, Wanda and Pietro wandered central Europe, living off the land.

One day, Wanda accidentally caused a house to burst into flames with her uncontrollable hex powers, and was chased by superstitious townspeople. Despite Pietro's attempt to defend her, they were soon overpowered and about to become victims of mob violence when Magneto came to their rescue. Unaware that he was their natural father, Magneto pressed them into service in his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, costumed them, and named them the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. For months they served Magneto out of a sense of obligation and fear of his reprisal. When the extraterrestrial Stranger transported Magneto from Earth, the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver left the Brotherhood and petitioned for membership in the Avengers. They were inducted along with Hawkeye to take the place of the charter members, who wished a leave of absence.

At one point during her career as an Avenger, the Scarlet Witch underwent training in sorcery under the tutelage of a true witch named Agatha Harkness. The mental discipline of sorcery aided the Scarlet Witch's powers of concentration, enabling her to exercise much greater control over her mutant hexes than ever before. While an active member of the Avengers, the Scarlet Witch met, became romantically involved with, and married the synthetic man called the Vision. For a few years after their marriage, the two lived in Avengers Mansion, saving their Avenger' salaries. Eventually, the couple bought a house in Leonia, New Jersey, and retired from active membership. They returned to active duty when the Baxter Building was threatened by Annihilus' null-field. The Vision assumed chairmanship when most of the Avengers disappeared while fighting the first Secret War. After a several week stint, the Vision stepped down as leader and the couple returned to Leonia. By warping probabilities, Wanda managed to be impregnated by the artificial Vision. They have since had twin sons named Thomas and William.

The Scarlet Witch possesses the mutant power of affecting probability fields. By a combination of gestures and mental concentration, she creates a hex-sphere, a finite pocket of reality-disrupting quasi-psionic force, which upon reaching its intended target, causes disturbance in the molecular-level probability field surrounding the target. Thus, unlikely phenomena will occur. Among the many phenomena she is able to cause are: the sudden melting of gun barrels, the spontaneous combustion of any flammable object, the rapid rust or decay of various organic and inorganic materials, the poltergeist-like deflection of an object in flight, the sudden evacuation of air from a given volume, the disruption of energy transmissions and fields, and so on. These phenomena occur practically instantaneously after the completion of her hex. Her range of hex-casting is limited by her line of sight. (She cannot watch a live television broadcast and cause a hex-phenomenon to occur at its point of origin.)

Scarlet Witch's hex-casting ability still has a 20% unreliability factor. Her sorcerous training has not given her a set of powers separate from her mutant abilities, but only honed her control over her existing abilities. She has, however, a special affinity for the natural elements and materials that true witches utilize in their spells: the four alchemical elements, wood, organic substances, etc. The reliability factor of her hex-casting ability is also limited by her physical condition: when well rested, in good health, and mentally and emotionally alert, Scarlet Witch can cast numerous hex-spheres in rapid succession and attain desirable results for almost an hour.

Contrary to certain accounts, the Scarlet Witch cannot levitate, shoot magical energy concussive blasts, or transmute elements.

Scarlet Witch accompanied Magneto and the Brotherhood of Mutants when they attacked the Capital Building in Washington D.C, while the Senate was voting on the Mutant Registration Act.

[Charles Warren]

SENATOR ROBERT KELLY
Real Name: Robert Edward Kelly
Affiliation: U.S. Senator from Massachusetts
Powers: None

As member of the U.S. Senate, Robert Kelly long regarded the growing number of mutants as a threat to national security. To cope with this supposed danger, he promoted legislation such as the Mutant Registration Act, requiring those with powers of genetic origin to disclose their abilities to the government. This proposal prompted the second Brotherhood of Evil Mutants to attempt to assassinate Kelly in Washington, D.C. The Brotherhood did not succeed, thanks to the intervention of the X-Men.

The failed assassination attempt fueled the Senator's resolve to pass the Registration Act. He cultivated a partnership with industrialist Sebastian Shaw, who built mutant-hunting Sentinels and supported Kelly's plans. Unbeknownst to the Senator, Shaw was a mutant and the Black King of the Hellfire Club. Following one of his meetings with Shaw in New York, the Senator's limousine was demolished by debris from a fight involving the X-Men. Kelly survived -- but his wife, Sharon, died in the wreckage. Kelly's grief strengthened his position that mutants were too dangerous to be allowed to run rampant, and he ordered the production of more Sentinels.

Kelly supported "Operation: Zero Tolerance" until he realized the android known as Bastion, programmed to exterminate mutants, was using the program to convert innocent humans into Sentinels and trampling on the rights of U.S. citizens. When he withdrew his support, the Senator became one of the Sentinels' targets. To save his life, he called on the X-Men and wielded his political influence to enlist the worldwide intelligence and peacekeeping organization S.H.I.E.L.D. to shut down Bastion. His political views unaffected by the experience, Kelly declared his candidacy for president on an anti-mutant platform.

marveldirectory.com/individuals/s/senatorkelly.htm

[Charles Warren]

TOAD
Real Name: Mortimer Toynbee
Affiliation: The Brotherhood of Mutants
Powers: Leaping, Prehensile Tongue

Mortimer Toynbee was abandoned by his parents so early in childhood that he cannot remember them. He was placed in an orphanage where the other children, who regarded him as a freak due to his ugliness, his unusual physique, and his leaping ability, continually tormented him. Toynbee was so traumatized by his loneliness and the continual abuse he received that it affected his learning abilities. The teachers and administrators in the orphanage therefore regarded Toynbee as mentally retarded, even though, in actuality, he was of normal intelligence. So desperate did Toynbee become for affection that he developed a pathetically subservient personality, and would unquestioningly obey anyone he thought sincerely cared about him.

At some point after achieving adulthood, Toynbee was discovered by Magneto and recruited for his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Magneto gave Toynbee the alias of the Toad because of Toynbee's powers, appearance, and personality. Magneto did not believe that the Toad's powers would be of any great service to him, but he thought it useful to have an expendable pawn who would follow his orders unquestioningly. The Toad was indeed pathetically devoted to Magneto, whom he subconsciously referred to as a surrogate father. He blinded himself to Magneto's continual verbal and physical abuse because Magneto was out to conquer the human race that had rejected the Toad. The Toad believed that he would be given a place of honor in the new society that Magneto would create.

As a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, the Toad met the mutant Scarlet Witch, and became infatuated with her, though she did not reciprocate the feeling.

The Toad is a mutant with superhuman leaping ability. He has been observed reaching an altitude of twenty-four feet and covering a distance on the ground of thirty-six feet in a single leap. No definite limit to his leaping ability is yet known. Although the Toad usually stands in a crouching position, he can stand erect if he wishes. His unusually flexible spine enables him to crouch continually without damage. The Toad has no knowledge of hand-to-hand combat. However, his powers enable him to execute a leaping kick of superhuman force at an opponent. The Toad has a surprisingly great knowledge of advanced technology, thanks to his studies of machinery in the possession of Arcade, Magneto, and the Stranger. However, he is not himself talented at developing technological devices.

Toad accompanied Magneto, when he attacked the U.S. Senate during their vote on the Mutant Registration Act.

www.marveldirectory.com/individuals/t/toad.htm

[Charles Warren]

QUICKSILVER
Real Name: Pietro Maximoff
Affiliation: The Brotherhood of Mutants; formerly the Avengers
Powers: Super-Speed

Pietro Maximoff is the son of the mutant called Magneto and his wife, the gypsy named Magda. Just prior to Pietro's birth, Magda fled from Magneto, terrified of the bizarre powers he suddenly manifested and his intentions of world domination. Seeking refuge in the scientific citadel of Wundagore in the Balkan Mountains of the tiny European nation of Transia, Magda was taken in by Bova, a humanoid cow evolved by the genetic engineer called the High Evolutionary. Magda gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, with Bova as her midwife, and named them Wanda and Pietro. Still afraid that her husband might find her and learn of the children, Magda left Bova a note explaining her fears and walked into the frozen mountain wilderness to perish.

Feeling that it was not right to raise two seemingly normal babies amid the evolved animal-men of Wundagore, Bova was relieved when, several nights later, an American couple, Robert and Madeline Frank, also came to Wundagore seeking assistance. The Franks were former super heroes active during World War II known as the Whizzer and Miss America; Madeline was now pregnant and about to give birth. Bova intended to give the couple the days-old twins to raise along with their own newborn. Unfortunately, the couple's child was stillborn and Madeline died from complications in giving birth. Bova presented Robert Frank with the twins, claiming they were his own natural children, in the hope that it would assuage his grief. Instead, Frank fled from Wundagore upon hearing of his wife's death, nearly insane with grief. (Years later, the children would come to believe for a time that Frank was their natural father.)

Bova then presented the twins to her master, the High Evolutionary, who agreed to find foster human parents for them. He chose Django and Marya Maximoff, a gypsy couple camped nearby who had lost their own twin children, Ana and Mateo, during World War II. The Maximoffs accepted the strange gifts from the High Evolutionary and cared for the children as if they were their own. (Years later, the aging Django would mistakenly believe that Wanda and Pietro were his natural children Ana and Mateo.)

As adolescents, Wanda and Pietro discovered that they had unusual superhuman abilities. When Django began to steal food to feed his starving family, enraged villagers attacked the gypsy camp. Using his phenomenal speed, Pietro fled from the camp with his sister. The circumstances of their separation from their family were so traumatic that not until well into adulthood could they remember anything but the barest details of their childhood. For the next few years Wanda and Pietro wandered central Europe, living off the land.

One day, Wanda accidentally caused a house to burst into flame through her hex powers, which she could not yet control. Superstitious townspeople began chasing her, thinking she was a witch. Despite Pietro's attempt to defend her, they were soon overpowered and were about to become victims of mob violence when Magneto came to their rescue. Unaware that he was their natural father, Magneto pressed them into service in his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, costumed them, and named them the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. For months they served Magneto out of a sense of obligation and fear of his reprisal. As members of the Brotherhood, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch aided Magneto in his terrorist campaigns against humanity and helped him combat the original members of the X-Men. Magneto did not realize Wanda and Pietro were his children, nor did they know he was their father.

When the Brotherhood was defeated by the overwhelming powers of the alien Stranger, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch quit the Brotherhood; the Stranger transported Magneto away from Earth, and Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch returned to Transia.

Avengers, a world-renowned team of super heroes. They were inducted along with Hawkeye to take the place of the charter members, who wished to take a leave of absence. Although the hot-tempered Quicksilver and Hawkeye often both rebelled against his orders, Avengers leader Captain America molded them into valuable team members.

Quicksilver is a mutant who possesses the superhuman capacity to think and move at great speeds. His entire body is adapted towards the rigors of high-speed running. His cardiovascular and respiratory systems are many times more efficient than those of a normal human being. He metabolizes an estimated 95% of the caloric energy content of foodstuffs (normal human use is about 25%). The chemical processes of Quicksilver's musculature are so highly enhanced that his body does not generate fatigue poisons, the normal by-products of locomotion, which force the body to rest. Rather, his body constantly expels waste products during his accelerated respiration through exhalation. His joints are smoother and lubricated more efficiently than those of a normal human being. His tendons have the tensile strength of spring steel. His bones contain unknown materials significantly more durable than calcium to withstand the dynamic shocks of his feet touching the ground at speeds of over 100 miles per hour. Quicksilver's practical reaction time is about five times faster than a normal human's and the speed at which his brain processes information is heightened to a level commensurate with his bodily speed, enabling him to perceive his surroundings while traveling at high velocities. Quicksilver's lachrymose is more viscous than normal, thus preventing rapid evaporation and replenishment of surface fluids on his eyeballs under the influence of high wind velocity to occlude his vision.

Quicksilver has been timed at speeds of up to 175 miles per hour, approximately three times faster than the fastest land animal, the cheetah. He has sufficient energy reserves to enable him to run at this average speed for about four hours, whereupon he must reduce his speed, replenish his body's store of energy, or do both.

Quicksilver has used his powers of acceleration for various feats. He has plucked an arrow out of the air from a standing start, after the arrow left the bow and traveled a distance of about 20 feet. He has dodged machine gun fire, but presumably he was able to see the path of the bullets change as his assailant was attempting to track him with a burst. He has created cyclone-like gusts of wind, which are able to knock a man off his feet, by racing around in a ten-foot diameter circle. With a 500-foot approach to gain momentum, Quicksilver can run approximately 300 feet up the side of a surface with a 90-degree inclination (such as a building) before gravity overtakes him. With a 100-foot approach to gain momentum, he can run across a body of water for approximately 1000 feet before beginning to sink.

Quicksilver accompanied Magneto, when he attacked the U.S. Senate during their vote on the Mutant Registration Act.

www.marveldirectory.com/individuals/q/quicksilver.htm

[Charles Warren]

VISION
Real Name: Vision
Affiliation: The West Coast Avengers
Powers: Density Control

The metal monstrosity called Ultron created the synthetic humanoid known as the Vision from the remains of the original, android Human Torch of the 1940s to serve as a vehicle of vengeance against the Avengers, Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Himself constructed by size-changing scientist Henry Pym, Ultron inadvertently gained sentience and rebelled against the Avengers' resident roboticist. The living machine programmed the Vision's neural processors with the brain patterns of the ionically charged costumed champion called Wonder Man and implanted a control crystal to keep him in check.

Ultron dispatched the Vision to draw the Avengers into a deathtrap, and it was during this initial encounter that the diminutive dynamo known as the Wasp coined the synthezoid's name. At first sight of the spectral entity, the horrified heroine called him an "unearthly, inhuman vision." Moved by the Avengers' plight, the Vision betrayed his programming and helped the mighty mortals defeat his calculating creator.

The Vision served the Avengers faithfully for a number of years, standing with his teammates against the foes no single hero could defeat. Tentatively at first, the almost-human android embarked on a romantic relationship with the hex-casting heroine called the Scarlet Witch that blossomed into true love and marriage. The newlyweds left Avengers Mansion to live a quiet life in New Jersey.

When the Vision's malfunctioning control crystal interfered with his ability to reason, he became bent on creating a new golden age of peace on Earth by seizing control of the world's computers and defense systems. Ultimately, the Vision reverted to form by severing his connection to the planet's databanks and extracting the control crystal from his mechanized mind.

In the wake of the android Avengers' meltdown, the nations of Earth came to regard him as a high-level security threat. Government operatives abducted and dismantled the Vision, erasing his memory. The Scarlet Witch and the Avengers recovered their teammates' components, and Pym rebuilt and reprogrammed the Vision. The scientist downloaded the sum total of the Avengers' computer files into the synthezoid's neural processors, but Wonder Man refused to allow a new record of his brain patterns to be synthesized. Apparently, he had grown resentful of his digital doppelganger and was attracted to the Scarlet Witch himself. Hence, the Vision returned to existence sans human emotion, unable even to recall his love for his wife.

The Vision possesses complete control over his density, and so is able to render himself intangible or extraordinarily massive and diamond-hard at will. He can partially materialize within another person, causing his victim extreme pain. The solar cell on the Vision's forehead emits beams of infrared and microwave radiation, with temperatures ranging from 500 to 30,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Vision and the rest of the West Coast Avengers confronted both the Brotherhood of Mutants and the Muir Island New Mutants when Magneto attacked the U.S. Senate during their vote on the Mutant Registration Act.

www.marveldirectory.com/individuals/v/vision.htm

[Charles Warren]

WONDER MAN
Real Name: Simon Williams
Affiliation: The West Coast Avengers
Powers: Super Strength

Simon Williams was the younger of two sons of Sanford Williams, an industrialist who founded a highly successful minutions factory called Williams Innovations. When his older brother Eric declined his father's offer to join the family firm, Simon, the more studious, less athletic of the two, readily accepted. When Sanford Williams died, Simon inherited full control over the business, although he was only 22. Under Simon's inexperienced management, Williams Innovations began to lose its competitive edge in the marketplace to such rapidly growing firms as Stark Industries. Desperately, Simon sought his brother's aid, and the elder Williams agreed to offer his advice. Eric suggested to Simon that he embezzle some money from the company in order to invest in some business enterprises Eric had gotten wealthy from, namely the illicit racketeering run by the criminal Maggia families. Desperate to save his father's business, Simon did as his brother suggested. His embezzlement and Maggia connection was discovered by his company's board of directors, and Simon Williams was brought to trial. Found guilty and facing a prison sentence, Williams was released when Amora the Enchantress paid his bail and ensorcelled the authorities. Baron Heinrich Zemo had read of Williams' case and, intrigued by the newspapers' assertion that he blamed Anthony Stark for his downfall, dispatched the Enchantress to recruit Williams for the Masters of Evil. (Zemo believed Stark to be the employer of his enemy Iron Man; in fact, Stark was himself secretly Iron Man.). Disoriented by the upheavals in his life, Simon Williams agreed to accompany the Enchantress to Zemo's South American base.

Williams agreed to become a test subject for Zemo's "ionic ray" treatment, a process that would endow him with superhuman strength and durability. After undergoing the arduous chemical and radiation treatments, Williams emerged with the attributes he was promised. Zemo then gave him a costume, dubbed him Wonder Man, and outlined his plan to use him to defeat his foes the Avengers.

To ensure Wonder Man's cooperation, Zemo told him that a side effect of the treatment that gave him his superhuman powers was that it altered his metabolism so that he would die within the week unless he was given regular treatments of an unspecified antidote. Not wishing to die, Wonder Man agreed to Zemo's plan and in a staged battle with the Masters of Evil, he won the confidence of the Avengers. When he explained to them that he was dying, the Avengers accepted Wonder Man into their ranks and unsuccessfully tried every means of science known to them to cure him. Soon Wonder Man led the Avengers into an ambush by the Masters of Evil. In the course of the battle, Wonder Man had an attack of conscience and decided that he could not betray the Avengers' kindness to him even if it cost him his life. Deprived of Zemo's life-prolonging treatment, Wonder Man succumbed to the mysterious side effect of his power acquisition. Telling the Avengers that he was glad that his final act was noble one, Wonder Man fell still, displaying no vital signs.

Although the Avengers assumed that he had died and brought his body back to the United States for identification and burial, Wonder Man had actually gone into a deathlike coma brought on by the still unstable mutagenic changes triggered in his body. Sometime later, Williams' brother Eric, now known as the criminal Grim Reaper, retrieved his younger brother's body. The Reaper wished to use his brother's cryogenically preserved body to bribe the Vision, the android whose artificial brain was cybernetically programmed with the memories and behavior patterns of Simon Williams, into betraying the Avengers. The Grim Reaper tried to convince the Vision that his consciousness could be transferred into Wonder Man's body, giving the Vision a more human form. Later, the Reaper claimed that Wonder Man could not be resurrected and offered to have the Vision's consciousness transferred into Captain America's body instead. The Vision pretended to go along with the Reaper's scheme in order to help the Avengers apprehend him.

The Grim Reaper managed to escape after the incident, however, and took with him his brother's seemingly lifeless body. Now obsessed with the idea of reviving his brother by any means whatsoever, the Reaper took Wonder Man's body to New Orleans hoping that the local houngans (voodoo priests) could resuscitate it. Led by the Black Talon, the leader of their voodoo cult, the houngans used their magic's to reanimate Wonder Man, but as a mindless zombie. Frustrated by the imperfect result, the Grim Reaper had the houngans instruct the semi-living being to accuse the Vision of "stealing" his mind. He then pecked the body into a large crate and shipped it to Avengers Mansion. When the crate was opened, Wonder Man indeed did as bade but to no real effect.

The Avengers subdued Wonder Man and brought it with them to New Orleans to investigate what had happened. Curiously, as Wonder Man began moving about again, he began shaking off the effects of both the houngans' magic and Baron Zemo's detrimental radiation treatment. Within a few days, Wonder Man was conscious and fully functional ones again, much to his surprise. The Avengers later examined him and learned that he had simply been in a coma while his body was fully metamorphosized from one of flesh and blood to one of an unspecified superhuman flash-like substance nourished by ionic energy instead of blood.

Wonder Man suffered considerable psycholoical trauma adjusting to the change that had come over him as well as his memories of being "dead." During the initial months of adjustment, he resided at Avengers Mansion as a guest and frequently lent his aid to the team. Despite his vast strength and resistance to injury, Wonder Man dreaded the thought of dying and facing oblivion again, and was often overwhelmed by cowardice in life-threatening situations. Finally, while battling the near-omnipotent Korvac, Wonder Man was able to master his fears long enough to live up to his full potential. However, he still felt twinges of the same irrational fear from time to time, Unable to vanquish it completely. He was eventually re-elected to membership in the Avengers, and became close friends with his Avenger the Beast.

The Grim Reaper, learning that his brother was now conscious and no longer zombie like, stole into Avengers Mansion, subdued the Avengers, and held a mock trial to determine if this Wonder Man truly was his brother. Satisfied that Wonder Man was his brother brought back to full life, the Reaper planned to kill the Vision, whom he saw as an inhuman mockery of his brother. Wonder Man fought his brother to save the Vision and defeated him. The Avengers committed the Grim Reaper to a mental institution but he eventually got free. The Reaper was now convinced that despite the evidence of the trial Wonder Man could not be his brother for his brother would never lift a hand against him. Thus both the Vision and Wonder Man were mockeries of his brother who must die. The Reaper made another attempt on the two that ended in failure.

While living at Avengers Mansion, Simon Williams decided to seek employment in order to give himself something useful to do and so he was not financially dependent upon the Avengers. Having no inclination to go back into a business where he had faced his greatest humiliation, he determined to become an actor since he felt that during much of his time with the Avengers he was only acting at being a hero. His steadiest work was as a strongman on a children's television show. He eventually quit the job and also terminated his Avengers' membership during a major reshuffling of the roster. Unable to get decent acting work, he accepted a job at Cordco Incorporated as a troubleshooter and security consultant. He only lasted there a day before deciding to move on. Heading out to Los Angeles, he decided to exploit his nearly indestructible body by doing stunt work for the movies. He was highly successful at this and soon began getting acting work as well.

When Hawkeye went to Los Angeles to form the West Coast Avengers, Wonder Man was invited to join the team. Despite certain qualms about living up to the Avengers' standards, he accepted. While helping the team in its struggle to establish its own identity, Wonder Man began to come to terms with himself and his role as a hero. Impressive victories over such foes as Graviton, Ultron, and his brother the Grim Reaper served to bolster his self-esteem and his stunt work served to remind him just how impervious he was to mortal danger). His turning point came when he went on national television to announce that he was guilty of the embezzlement charge brought against him years ago and that he was sorry about it. Released from the grip of this personal devil of his past, Wonder Man was gratified when the public gave him a vote of confidence for his candid admission. He has also come to regard the Vision as a surrogate "twin brother" due to their psychological similarity.

Strength Level: Wonder Man possesses superhuman strength enabling him to lift (press) 95 tons under optimal conditions.

Known Superhuman Powers: Wonder Man possesses superhuman strength, durability, stamina. The tissue and bones of his entire body have been augmented in strength and to a certain extent supplanted by an unknown substance during the "ionic ray" bombardment. Despite Wonder Man's statements that he is composed of "ionic energy," he is actually composed of organic matter that is permeated with this form of energy. His superhuman stamina enables him to exert himself at peak level for up to one half hour before fatigue poisons build up in his blood, causing him to tire. His skin and tissue is hard enough to enable him to resist virtually any form of penetration wound. He can withstand temperature extremes from -150 degrees to 1500 degrees Fahrenheit without any harm. He no longer requires food, water, or air, since the energy that gives him life is far more efficient and self-sustaining than the biochemical processes that sustain ordinary human life. Despite his various invulnerabilities, it still is possible to render him unconscious by a sufficiently powerful force. He still possesses nerve ending which allow him to feel pain at certain level. Because of the energy empowering him, Wonder Man no longer ages.

Paraphernalia: Wonder Man employed small jet-engines on his belt in order to fly. These engines, designed by Anthony Stark, enable him to fly for up to 5 hours before refueling. He can attain a maximum altitude of 2 miles and a maximum speed of 80 miles per hour (provided he is not carrying any cargo). He can lift aloft up to 300 pounds before he exceeds the design limits of the jet engines. He can exceed the design limits by a maximum factor of 1000 before causing a total system seize-up.

Wonder Man and the rest of the West Coast Avengers confronted both the Brotherhood of Mutants and the Muir Island New Mutants when Magneto attacked the U.S. Senate during their vote on the Mutant Registration Act.

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