Fin Fang Foom
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Fin Fang Foom is a fictional alien dragon in the Marvel Comics universe, who has served as an ally to various other monsters and an antagonist who has opposed a number of superheroes. He first appeared in Strange Tales (1st series) #89 (October 1961).
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[edit] Character biography
Although once believed by legend to be a native of the Valley of the Sleeping Dragon in China, Fin Fang Foom - which, roughly translated, means "He Whose Limbs Shatter Mountains and Whose Back Scrapes the Sun" - is an alien being from the world of Kakaranathara (also known as Maklu IV) in the Maklu system of the Greater Magellanic Cloud. Resembling a humanoid Chinese dragon, Foom and several other like-minded members of his race departed their peaceful homeworld with the intention of conquering other planets. Landing their craft, of which Foom was the navigator, in ancient China, the crew used their natural shape-shifting powers to mimic human form, intending to enter human society and bide their time before beginning their conquest. Foom was the exception, elected to serve as a "back-up" in case something went wrong, and was placed in a tomb and given a herb that would send him into a deep slumber, so that he might sleep while his fellows entered man's world.
Fin Fang Foom was somehow briefly awakened in the 8th Century, and returned to sleep through a second application of the herb. He consequently entered into Chinese legend, and a group of humans guarded his tomb, passing the job onto their descendants. And so, Foom slept until the year 1961, when he was deliberately awakened by teenager Chen Liuchow, whose homeland was under threat from the Communist Party of China. Luichow taunted Foom with the threat of the herb, goading the dragon into chasing him, and led him straight into the Communist camp, which Foom decimated. Liuchow subsequently led him back into his tomb, where the herb returned Foom to his sleep.
At some point, the sleeping Fin Fan Foom was captured by the Elder of the Universe known as the Collector, and imprisoned in his subterranean collection of monsters. When the Mole Man attacked the facility, Foom and the other monsters were liberated and later rounded up by the recently-formed Fantastic Four and deposited on Monster Isle. However, as the island had no real security measures, and being more intelligent than his fellows and possessing no desire to serve the Mole Man, who used the island as his base, Foom departed and returned to his hibernation. Again, however, outside force acted upon him, as the madman called Doctor Vault mentally controlled Foom and had him attack It the Living Colossus. Resisting the control, Foom instead helped It fend off an invasion of Earth by the alien race called the Stonians, saving the planet for his own race to later conquer. Vault's mind control briefly forced Foom to battle It, and Foom overpowered his opponent with martial arts before freeing his mind and returning to his tomb yet again.
Years later, Fin Fang Foom was again roused from his slumber when his body was possessed by the demon Aan Taanu. Combating the group of occult adventurers (including an older Chen Liuchow, now a professor) known as the Legion of the Night in New York, Taanu was exorcised from Foom's body by his opponents, and the confused Foom once again escaped to his resting place.
At some point in the past, the Makulans' starship had been ransacked by the man who would become the supervillain called the Mandarin, whose signature rings of power were, in fact, artifacts from Makulan's ship. The Mandarin was directed to the Valley of the Sleeping Dragon by the starship captain, in the human guise of Chen Hsu, and found and awoke Fin Fang Foom, using him to threaten the Chinese government. Iron Man confronted the villains and was defeated, but when the remaining dozen other Makulans shed their human forms to begin their conquest, the Mandarin realised he was being used, and combined the power of his rings with Iron Man's armor, yielding a small nuclear blast which wiped the dragons out.
This was not, however, the end of Fin Fang Foom. Though his body was destroyed, his spirit enduring, surviving by bonding itself to a small dragon statue which was stolen from a curio shop by teenager Billy Yuan at Foom's mental urging. Using Yuan's body as a conduit for his power, Foom summoned thousands of lizards from the sewers beneath New York, merging them with Billy's body to recreate his own form. Iron Man was successfully able to defeat him, however, with some help from the last remnants of Billy's mind within Foom's own, and he was taken into the custody of Sunset Bain. Legal complications resulted in Foom being exiled to Monster Isle once again, where he and several other monsters briefly battled the dimensionally-displaced Justice League of America.
Shortly after this, around the same time that the Hulk battled a Mindless One transformed into a duplicate of Fin Fang Foom by Nightmare, Thor was heard to claim that the Hall of Bones on Asgard was crafted from the skeleton of Fin Fang Foom, whom he professed to have slain. Whether or not this is an accurate account is in question, as Foom turned up alive and well soon after - Thor's foe, the Midgard Serpent once adopted Foom's form, so confusion may stem from that. On the other hand, Foom has proven exceptionally durable and able to survive death in abnormal ways, hence he may have been able to regenerate following the destruction of Asgard when Ragnarok occurred.
Whatever the case, having spent some time rethinking his role in the world, Foom had become a follower of Buddhism, and, with the rest of his crew gone, decided to reform. He willfully entered into a rehabilitation program, which saw himself and three other monsters - the robot Elektro, the giant ape Gorgilla and the alien Googam - shrunk down to human size, hypnotically stripped of their powers, and allowed to enter human society. Taking up a job as head chef in a Chinese restaurant within the Baxter Building, Foom teamed up with the other monsters to defeat the size-changing warlord Tim Boo Baa as the "Fin Fang Four."
Some time later, Foom appeared to become a pawn of the Beyond Corporation©. Appearing at his gigantic height but bereft of his usual intelligence (speaking in a manner similar to his green-skinned, purple-pantsed twin, the Incredible Hulk), Foom was buried within a mountain near the town of Abcess, North Dakota, until the superhero team Nextwave - a team formerly run by Beyond's subsidiary, the Highest Anti-Terrorism Effort (H.A.T.E.) - discovered the sinister motives of their superiors and went rogue in an attempt to stop them. Seeking to destroy Beyond's assortment of unusual weapons, Foom included, Nextwave headed for Abcess where Foom was being unearthed, and engaged in battle with the giant lizard. Reduced to his basest instincts - namely, the desire to procreate, only to be stymied by his complete lack of genitals despite the fact he wears underpants - Foom was eventually defeated by Aaron Stack, who allowed himself to be swallowed by the reptile and eviscerated him from within. Coughing up his own heart, Foom collapsed. However, "Fin Fang Four" writer Roger Langridge notes that, if given the opportunity to do a further Fin Fang Foom story, he would explain the Beyond Corporation's Foom as being merely a clone of Foom made when intelligence agency S.H.I.E.L.D. took a sample of his DNA years ago. [1]
Supporting the notion that Beyond's Foom may not have been the genuine article, Fin Fang Foom subsequently reappeared, still at his shrunken size, begrudgingly aiding Wong in defeating the forces of HYDRA and their giant Santa robot at Christmas.
[edit] Powers and abilities
Fin Fang Foom possesses superhuman strength. He has the ability to fly via his wings at supersonic speeds, and can spew an intensely destructive acidic mist resembling flames from his mouth for distances as far away from himself as 300 feet. He also has incredible resistance to injury and cannot be injured by conventional weaponry. He can regenerate from extremely severe wounds. He is extraordinarily long-lived, having survived for a number of centuries. He once displayed the ability to take the form of a vast number of normal-sized lizards. He is also highly intelligent, despite appearing to be a dumb beast. Foom has shown the ability to communicate telepathically. He also is a master of a fighting style which resembles martial arts of Earth. His spirit seems to be virtually impossible to force from the physical plane. After various deaths, he has been able to possess various objects/people and find ways to create a new body identical to the first.
[edit] Appearances in other media
[edit] Television
- Fin Fang Foom was a recurring villain in the Iron Man animated television series which ran from 1994-1995. The cartoon was essentially quite true to the comics in telling Foom's story, except for some small details - here, rather than be placed in a tomb, he hibernated within the Makulan ship itself, and was discovered by the Mandarin when he uncovered it. Taking the ten jewels which powered the ship, the Mandarin battled Foom, but neither opponent could best the other, and they entered into an uneasy truce, with the Mandarin calling on Foom during his campaigns against Iron Man when he needed him (throughout the retelling of the Mandarin's origin, the dragon he battles is coloured brown, instead of Foom's traditional green, but must be assumed to be Foom for the relationship between the two in the rest of the series to make sense). In this series, Fin Fang Foom was voiced by Neil Ross.
- The Mandarin also had two mechanical dragons created, perhaps hoping to replace Foom's power in his army, but Foom knew of this and, when the Mandarin called on his aid one time too many, demanded the dragons be turned over to him as payment for his services. Later still, the comic story of Foom's crew and their world conquest plot was adapted into the cartoon with a similar outcome - as the dragons tried to open a portal to their homeworld, Iron Man linked his armor with the Mandarin's rings, and the restultant blast wiped the reptiles out.
[edit] Video games
- Fin Fang Foom appears as a boss in the role-playing video game Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. He is the first true boss in the game. (Although Scorpion, Bullseye, Winter Soldier and Radioactive Man appear before Fin Fang Foom, they are "mini-bosses".) Fin Fang Foom attacks the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, attempting to destroy the flying aircraft carrier. The players must use Marvel Super-heroes to shoot Fin Fang Foom out of the sky with a laser gun turret, causing him to land on the deck of the Helicarrier where he is vulnerable to attack. He breathes fire at the heroes and when he is not flying he will swipe his claws at the heroes and create shockwaves that will knock the heroes off their feet by pounding his fists on the deck. The players must also contend with the attacks of Dr. Doom's robotic minions all the while.
[edit] References
- Marvel Monsters: "From the Files of Ulysses Bloodstone and the Monter Hunters" - published by Marvel Comics, Nov 2005 (collected in Marvel Monsters, 224 pages, February 2006, hardcover ISBN 0-7851-2141-2, paperback ISBN 0-7851-1893-4)
- Fin Fang Foom's profile at the Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe
