Wildcard (comics)

Wildcard (John Crenella) is a fictional character, a superhero in the Marvel Universe, member of the Strikeforce: Morituri. The character was created by Peter B. Gillis and Brent Anderson.

Publication history

Wildcard was created by writer Peter B. Gillis and artist Brent Anderson and debuted in Strikeforce: Morituri #13 (December 1987), joining the cast of the book, although he was dead by the end of the issue, having the shortest stint of any member of Strikeforce: Morituri.

Fictional character biography

John Crenella was a simple young man from Orange, New Jersey, who worked in his father's clothing store. His life was turned upside down, when his father was captured by the evil alien race known as the Horde and was added to their slaves. Reeling with hatred, Crenella longed to assist the Earth in its ongoing war against the alien invaders. After taking the test which proved he was genetically compatible to undertake the so-called "Morituri process", a scientific process which could grant him superhuman powers to be used in the battlefield against the Horde, Crenella decided to volunteer for it. Crenella was not daunted by the terrible price paid by all the recipients of the Morituri process: a fatal and still inescepable flaw in the process which ensures that all recipients die within a year of receiving it, their organism eventually rejecting their newly inserted metabolism with lethal results.

Through the process, Crenella developed the ability to copy the superhuman powers of others, provided they were near him and only if they were also Morituri. Crenella also gained the codename "Wildcard". Together with other Morituri, he graduated as part of the third generation of Morituri. Their first mission assigned was the capture of their senior members, the veteran Morituri, which were suspected to have gone renegade and now faced charges of misconduct. Despite their reservations, the freshmen Morituri engaged in battle their senior members. During the fight, however, the deadly Morituri effect caught up with Wildcard only weeks after he had received the full Morituri treatment. In panic, the dying Wildcard reached out to teammate Blackthorn and inadvertently copied her power, eventually dying the death she was meant to die in the future due to the Morituri effect, namely, melting.^[1]

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