Maelstrom (comics)
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Maelstrom is a Marvel Comics supervillain, and an arch-enemy of Quasar. He first appeared in Marvel Two-in-One #71, and was created by Mark Gruenwald.
[edit] Character Biography
Maelstrom is a superhuman villain and the enemy of Quasar, the Deviants, the Inhumans, the Eternals, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and the Great Lakes Avengers. He has vast energy manipulation powers and is extremely intelligent. He is not human, is at least 100 years old, and is mentally unstable.
Maelstrom is the only known Deviant-Inhuman hybrid, aside from his own son Ransak. Maelstrom's father, Phaeder, was exiled from the Inhuman city of Attilan for daring to suggest the possibility of cloning. Phaeder took up residence in a Deviant city, where he mated with a Deviant named Morga who gave birth to Maelstrom. Maelstrom was put in the Deviants's slave pits while his mother was killed. He was eventually rescued by his father, and together, they planned to take their revenge on both the Deviants and the Inhumans.
Maelstrom, under his father's tutoring, soon grew into one of the world's most brilliant geneticists. In order to obtain more data, he gave advanced technology and information to several supervillains in exchange for their sharing their results with him. Maelstrom has thus indirectly been the cause of many horrible acts perpetrated by these villains, such as the resurrection of Nazi mastermind the Red Skull, the Evolutionary War, Spider-Man's Clone Saga, and any evil act perpetrated by Magneto after his youth was restored and his powers multiplied.
He engaged in several acts of villainy before being rendered discorporate (one of these crimes resulted in his father's death). Encountering the similarly discorporate Titanian Eternal Kronos, he learned of the existence of Oblivion. Slaying one of the M-bodies of Anomaly to gain power, and claiming the role of the cosmic entity Anomaly for himself, he attempted, with Oblivion's aid, to collapse the universe into a single anomalous point, where nothing but he and Oblivion would remain. If he had he been successful, Maelstrom would have been sole ruler of the anomalous point and could have created a new universe with all beings, even Oblivion, under him. Fortunately, his plans did not come to fruition.
He was finally destroyed by Quasar. Quasar's costume and powers had been augmented by Origin, which caught Maelstrom off-guard. In their battle this broke his concentration causing Maelstrom's own power to consume him. He was later revived by his minions, but upon learning he had a son Ransak and that he had nearly killed him, the shame caused him to literally shrink himself out of sight.
Maelstrom recently returned to full size and seemingly gained new powers, such as firing "proto-nature energy" bolts. With the Avengers having been recently disassembled, only the Great Lakes Avengers stood in his way as he stole some valuable technological equipment. They were no match for his power, and he easily defeated them all, killing Dinah Soar in the process.
As his experimental equipment had reached a critical stage and necessitated his direct observation, he hired a team of mercenaries to procure more sophisticated equipment. Apparently, all of the competent mercenaries were not available so he hired Batroc's brigade. The mercenaries ran into the Great Lakes Avengers who tried to stop them, which resulted in the death of another Great Lakes Avenger, Grasshopper.
The surviving Great Lakes Avengers rallied to stop Maelstrom as he set his plan in motion, which would destroy the universe and leave him as the sole survivor. Although still no match for his power, Mr. Immortal was able to trick him into believing that this would simply result in a permanent case of the loneliness that afflicted him much of his life and that suicide would show him the answer. Mr. Immortal then shot himself in the head. Not knowing Mr. Immortal's power, Maelstrom somehow saw the logic in this, and then blew his own head off with a proto-energy bolt. He has returned from far more destructive deaths, so this may not yet be his final end. Doorman (who had, by that point, come back from the dead and taken over Deathurge's role as an avatar of death) was seen dragging his soul off to the afterlife, but in Marvel, even that has been returned from.
[edit] Powers and abilities
Maelstrom may be one of the most powerful villains in the Marvel Universe. He can manipulate vast amounts of energy, and can use this power to absorb the force of attacks and fire very powerful bolts of destructive plasma or form protective force fields. Maelstrom can also use his energy to grow and shrink to indefinite sizes.
Maelstrom's unique hybrid DNA gives him an uncertain measure of superhuman strength, and he has learned how to increase his strength levels by absorbing and conserving kinetic energy. If he had a perpetual source of kinetic energy, Maelstrom's strength could be potentially unlimited; on one occasion, he tapped into the kinetic energy of the entire planet Earth. His mastery of kinetic energy also allows him to take blows from even the strongest opponents and, instead of suffering injury, use the kinetic energy in the blow to power himself up; conventional fighting tactics are completely useless against him.
Maelstrom is also a genius in several areas of science, particularly biology and genetics, and he is familiar with scientific knowledge and technology centuries ahead of current conventional science.
