Presence (Marvel Comics)

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Publication information
The Presence
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Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	Defenders #52 (Oct 1977)
Created by	David Anthony Kraft and Keith Giffen
In story information
Alter ego	Sergei Krylov
Abilities	energy blasts flight manipulation of nuclear energy

Sergei Krylov is a fictional character in the Marvel Comics Universe. As a younger man, Sergei was a Russian nuclear physicist. His twin children, Nikolai Krylenko and Laynia Petrovna were taken from birth by the Soviet government to be trained as soliders, after their mutant natures manifested.

Sergei eventually became one of the most influential men behind the scenes of the Soviet government. However, despite being a scientific genius, he was also quite mad. He caused a Chernobyl-like nuclear disaster using cobalt radiation baths and a nuclear blast, which transformed Tania Belinsky into his super-powered thrall as the second Red Guardian (she now calls herself Starlight). The nuclear energy transformed Sergei into a superhuman being as well, and he could now generate nuclear energy within his own body for various uses. Sergi began calling himself "The Presence".

The government now wanted the threat of the Presence eliminated. His own children had been trained by the government as super-powered soldiers and, unaware of their true relationship, were sent to kill him. They learned that he was their father and turned against the Soviet regime. They became agents on their own, fighting for the good of the people, and sometimes working with their father.

In order to save the Soviet Union from the dangerous, spreading radiation of the so-called Forbidden Zone, an irradiated Soviet wasteland, the Presence and the Red Guardian absorbed all the radiation into themselves and left for outer space, where they claimed they would transform themselves into inert matter.^[1]

Vanguard was ultimately killed in a battle while he and Darkstar were aiding the cosmic hero Quasar. Darkstar blamed Quasar for her brother's death and fled back to Russia. When she encountered her father, Darkstar shared her feelings with him, and the Presence forced Quasar to flee Earth on the threat of killing Quasar's loved ones. Sergei visited his son's memorial and sought to revive him by shifting his atoms to microscopically enter Vanguard's body. There he discovered a trace of Vanguard's mutant energy remained, keeping him faintly alive. The Presence managed to use this energy to resurrect his son, but nearly exhausted his own power, and was cast adrift in the subatomic reality he had entered.

While in subatomic exile, The Presence discovered new aspects of his power and atomic particles, and, when he had sufficiently regenerated, resumed his normal size and returned to the Forbidden Zone. There, he embarked on a plan to unite all of the former Soviet Union by transforming its people into a race of zombie-like radioactive beings living under a communal mind. He managed to convert several Siberian scientists, Vanguard and the rest of the Winter Guard, and the Avengers, who investigated the disturbance, leaving only Thor and the seemingly-immortal Firebird to stand against him. As Thor threatened to kill the Presence, Starlight, as the Presence's companion, ultimately offered their surrender and used her own power to revive those who had been transformed and remand herself and the Presence to Russian custody; she didn't share his vision, but their powers meant that they would only ever have each other for company, and so she wished to keep him alive. In the final struggle of the Kang War, the Presence and Starlight aided in the struggle to destroy Kang the Conqueror's Damocles Base space station, with Starlight blackmailing the Presence for assistance by threatening to leave him if he attempted anything more than simply doing his job and subsequently returning to his cell.