Halflife (comics)

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Half-Life I
Publisher Marvel Comics
First appearance West Coast Avengers #12 (September, 1986)
Created by Steve Englehart and Al Milgrom
Characteristics
Alter ego unrevealed
Affiliations Captain Atlas, Doctor Minerva, Graviton, Quantum, Zzzzax
Abilities Radiation immunity, ability to cause living matter to rapidly age/decay

There are two fictional characters in the Marvel Universe that are named Halflife with two distinct origins. They are detailed separately below.

Contents

[edit] Halflife I

Halflife I is a Marvel Comics supervillain. She first appeared in West Coast Avengers #12 (1986).

[edit] Character biography

Half-Life I is a humanoid extraterrestrial with the ability to age any living being via physical contact. She has green skin with black hair and gray temples. Half-Life annihilated the entire population of her home world, and was summoned to the planet Earth by the maniacal Graviton to assist him in conquering the Earth.

In the story of her first appearance, she was part of a team assembled by Graviton to resemble the Unified Field Theory. Half-Life represented the Weak force, Quantum represented the Strong force, while Zzaax represented Electromagnetism. Graviton himself represented gravity.

She is currently incarcerated in The Vault (a prison facility for supervillains).

[edit] Powers and abilities

Half-Life is an extraterrestrial with the ability to age any living being, through touching, halfway through their full life span (one would presume "remaining" lifespan, thus stealing half of their life). Multiple contacts with Half-Life result in death for the victim. However, the aging effect she has is not immediately permanent and if she is knocked out fast enough (within a few minutes) her victims will revert to their normal age. She can also use this power to dissolve inorganic material. She is immune to most forms of heat and radiation.

[edit] Half-Life II

The second character in the Marvel universe to take the name Half-Life was a gamma-irradiated fiend and enemy of the Hulk. He first appeared in The Incredible Hulk (2nd series) #334. He was a lackey of the Leader. His real name was Tony Masterson.

Half-Life II was a vampire-like creature who drained life energy from living beings in order to sustain himself. In his natural state, he looked like a zombie, but when he absorbed a life he would temporarily appear young and handsome. He was even able to absorb the Hulk's superhuman strength. The Hulk still managed to defeat the creature by outsmarting it.

Through keen powers of observation, the Grey Hulk noticed that Half-Life was mentally ill and had ambivalent feelings about needing to kill innocent people to sustain his existence. The Hulk then used psychology to convince Tony Masterson to kill himself.

[edit] Appearances in other media

[edit] Video games

The second Half-Life was also featured in the Hulk video game for the PlayStation 2, Gamecube and Xbox. This incarnation was the first level boss, and looked different from his comic incarnation: looking more like a bald-headed, vampire-like creature rather than the green-skinned zombie of the comics. In the game, Hulk must defeat Half-Life II by throwing heavy objects at the vampire, because Half-Life II can drain Hulk's strength through his three-fingered hands. Hulk believes he has killed Half-Life II after gaining knowledge that Alcatraz is holding a hostage. Hulk throws the vampire into the water surrounding the prison, although Half-Life II manages to swim to an underground set of tunnels, run by Hulk's nemesis, The Leader, where the brainy foe is creating mutants. Half-Life II is later fought by the Hulk, simulatenously with Madman, later on in the game, when Hulk storms the Leader's complex. Half-Life II may have been killed when the cavern's ceiling collapsed and destroyed everything in the complex, although it is far more likely that Half-Life II reached a transportation device to instantly transport out of the cavern.

[edit] References