BIOGRAPHY - Page 2
Decades passed and, even when the Superhuman Registration Act became the law, Adam Brashear remained in seclusion as his president ordered, teaching as a physics professor at the University of Maryland. However, circumstances conspired to bring him out of retirement. Anti-Man finally reconstituted himself and continued his efforts to unite the world through fear. Conner 
was too powerful for Iron Man and the Avengers to stop, and they only got a respite when his unstable anti-matter form dispersed temporarily. Anti-Man mentioned the Blue Marvel during his ranting, and Tony Stark followed this lead down the rabbit hole. It required his special clearance as S.H.I.E.L.D. director and some additional hacking to crack the decades’ old sealed Executive Order, but he learned what happened to Adam Brashear.
Stark reached out to the Brashears, and this contact finally prompted Candace to share the truth of their relationship with Adam after all these years. Adam had trouble accepting their entire relationship had been a lie and they parted on poor terms. At the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, Dr. 
Brashear briefed Tony Stark, Dr. Reed Richards and Dr. Hank Pym on his and Anti-Man’s powers. As they made their preparations, Conner appeared to confront Adam, and he realized Anti-Man was even more powerful now than he suspected. Anti-Man began causing chaos all over the world and his mere presence started exciting anti-matter storms in the upper atmosphere, which threatened the entire planet.
The Blue Marvel had a plan to synchronize his energies with Anti-Man by creating a makeshift particle accelerator, forcing Conner to implode. The resulting explosion could destroy the Earth, 
but Blue Marvel planned to absorb these energies and dissipate them harmlessly in space. Reed Richards thought the plan was too risky, and the Avengers fought to stop Adam when he insisted on proceeding with his plan anyway. The Blue Marvel fought one of the Avengers’ strongest rosters to a standstill, even trading blows with the Sentry until they eventually exhausted him. Adam was placed in stasis at the Baxter Building while the other heroes tried to come up with another, safer method of stopping Anti-Man.
Candace came to see her husband and they reconciled. Adam admitted that Candace’s secrecy only reminded him of his own cowardice, letting the Executive Order dictate his behavior, even when he knew it was wrong. The Brashears accepted that neither of them were perfect, but they truly loved each other regardless. Mr. Fantastic’s contingency plan to stop Anti-Man’s rampage failed, and the Avengers accepted Blue Marvel’s return to the battle with gratitude. Through his 
plan, they succeeded in destabilizing Anti-Man’s energy structure, causing him to dissipate. The Blue Marvel tried to absorb these energies as they were released, but Anti-Man continued to struggle. Candace fatefully ran out into the streets to be by her husband’s side, just as Conner triggered another chaotic wave. Adam only got to hold his wife one last time before she died from Anti-Man’s attack.
The Blue Marvel could not let friendship hold him back any longer. He renewed the attack on Anti-Man, fighting against Conner and his twisted ideals. Adam finally carried his friend out into space to disperse the last of his energies, ending the threat once and for all. With his energy depleted, there was nothing left to be seen of the Anti-Man. In the weeks that followed, Adam buried his wife and dealt with the fallout of his actions. Tony Stark was willing to rescind the Executive Order officially and offered Blue Marvel a place on the Avengers, but Adam needed time to mourn and consider his place in the world. [Adam: Legend of the Blue Marvel #1-5]
Privately, Adam felt the Avengers deserved some of the blame for his wife’s death. He also found Stark and Richards were too comfortable being the smartest men in the room to listen to dissenting opinions. Adam retired to Kadesh Base, his private laboratory at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. He hesitated to step out into the Modern Age of Heroes without understanding it 
better, but even Uatu encouraged him to act. The Blue Marvel traveled to Uzbekistan where he subbed for the Winter Guard in conflict with the extra-dimensional King Hyperion. Facing a foe as powerful and as evil as Hyperion was what Adam needed. It gave him the conviction necessary to make an active return to super-heroics. [Age of Heroes #3] Still, the Blue Marvel also continued his research into the Neutral Zone. He openly described it as a search for a new power source or pure exploration, but privately Adam still sought some sign that Kevin was still alive. [Fear Itself: The Home Front #4]
At Kadesh Base, Uatu made an ominous appearance to “subtly” hint at Adam that his presence was required elsewhere. The Blue Marvel registered an alien invasion at Times Square led by the forces of Thanos. By the time he arrived, the situation had only escalated with a dimensional manifestation of Shuma-Gorath joining the party. An ad hoc group of heroes were already on the scene, but their most powerful volunteer was injured. Monica Rambeau, formerly Captain Marvel and Avengers chairwoman, was “poisoned” in her energy form by anti-photons. Using his own gifts to monitor her condition at the quark level, Adam infused Monica with fresh photons to purge her infection and boost her powers. The surgery was a success, and those present came together and defeated Shuma-Gorath. Luke Cage saw an opportunity and recruited these heroes as the nucleus of a new Mighty Avengers organization. [Mighty Avengers (2nd series) #2-3]
The Mighty Avengers was a non-profit volunteer group, and so Adam Brashear put up some of the initial capital to get the organization afloat at the old Gem Theatre. While the Blue Marvel was supportive of these new Avengers and on call, he also kept his attention on global emergencies. With fewer super-heroes active outside of America, the Blue Marvel wanted to be available to aid other countries when needed. Through his work with the Neutral Zone, Adam developed an interest in portal technology, maintaining a Portal Room in Kadesh Base, connecting to stationary points in cities around the globe. He also fashioned a series of remote-flying portal drones in international or friendly waters to quickly teleport from Kadesh Base to any drone and rapidly arrive at crisis sites. He was known to be friendly with Hauptmann Deutschland of Germany and the Triumph Division of the Philippines. [Mighty Avengers (2nd series) #4-5]
Adam Brashear and Luke Cage were cordial enough at first, with Adam helping the Cage-Jones’s move and attending their housewarming. When the two men stopped the super-heroism long enough to talk over a beer, however, they found a significant divide between their respective ways of thinking. Adam was still a traditional law & order type who looked down on Cage’s criminal past. Yes, Luke went to prison for a crime he didn’t commit, but there were many crimes he was never tried for during his time with the Bloods. Meanwhile, Luke was among those who did not respect the Blue Marvel’s decision to abide by Kennedy’s order and quit. He felt Adam could have 
changed the course of history for African Americans if he stood tall and refused to budge. Adam, of course, feared the other extreme in what a paranoid country a few months shy of the Cuban Missile Crisis would have done to a super-powered black man who wouldn’t be controlled. A crisis in Taiwan called Adam away before he and his “team leader” could say more that they might regret. [Mighty Avengers (2nd series) #6]
When the White Tiger temporarily lost control of her patron, the Tiger God, the Mighty Avengers used Kadesh Base as a holding facility. Luke and Adam had the chance to mend fences, with Luke apologizing and Adam admitting over the years he had held the same recriminations about his decision to stand down. Before they could speak further, the base detected W.E.S.P.E. technology attempting to access the Neutral Zone. This alarmed Adam, so the Blue Marvel requested Spectrum and She-Hulk’s aid in assaulting the W.E.S.P.E. volcano lair. After the initial foray with aerial killbots, the mysterious Dr. Positron allowed the Mighty Avengers into his abode. Positron used an opaque energy field to contain Dr. Brashear’s teammates before revealing his identity: Doctor Max Brashear, Adam’s second born.
Adam and Max’s relationship never recovered after Kevin’s disappearance, and the final wedge between them came when Candace died on the Blue Marvel’s watch. As Dr. Positron, Max had no loyalties to W.E.S.P.E. but he needed the money they gave away for unscrupulous and unregulated scientific research. Max revealed he used the geothermal core of his volcano lair to punch a hole into the Neutral Zone in an effort to bring back his brother. Unfortunately, this “brute 
force” method was something Adam already tried. Kevin began to emerge from the volcano portal, dilated through time, enormous in size, and composed entirely of anti-matter. Kevin’s distorted form was physically unstable outside the Neutral Zone and would annihilate itself and any matter in the surrounding… solar system… If he came through fully. With the neutronium radiation involved, the Blue Marvel couldn’t do it himself, so he released Spectrum and She-Hulk and told them to force his son back into exile. It was necessary, but Max would never believe that. [Mighty Avengers (2nd series) #8-9]
Adam suffered further losses when he found out through Reed Richards that Uatu the Watcher had been murdered. He went to the moon to grieve for his friend and met Uatu’s mate, Ulana. It frustrated him that, even under the current circumstances, Ulana could not “interfere” enough to tell him who murdered the Watcher. The Blue Marvel was ready to swear an oath to bring Uatu’s killer to justice, but that wasn’t Ulana’s preference. Instead, she introduced Adam to her child with Uatu, recently born. She explained that it was traditionally the father who helped a young Watcher fully grow, using choice pulses of anti-matter to facilitate the process. Given Adam’s abilities and his friendship with Uatu, Ulana hoped he could serve as “godfather” to the baby in these important days. Adam understood that this was far more important than vengeance, and he spent time in the coming weeks on the Blue Area of the Moon, nursing the child’s unique energy needs. [Original Sin crossover, Mighty Avengers (2nd series) #10]
After working with Blade and James Lucas’s son Luke, Adam could hardly be surprised when the original Mighty Avengers resurfaced along with the Deathwalkers. The lost Talisman of Kamar-Taj had been found, and the Blue Marvel soon found his new team working with Kaluu, Constance Molina and the other survivors of that 1972 adventure. The Avengers discovered the Deathwalkers underneath St. Patrick’s Cathedral, ready to complete their blood sacrifice to become Deathwalker Prime. The Mighty Avengers followed suit, merging temporarily into the Avenger Prime to defeat their adversary. [Mighty Avengers (2nd series) #12-14]
Merging souls with each other as Avenger Prime brought the team closer together. The kids White Tiger and Power Man immediately embraced and began dating after the gestalt split apart. Evidence points to the Blue Marvel and his team leader, Monica Rambeau, more quietly starting their relationship around then, too. Around this time, the Mighty Avengers were forced to face off with an inverted Tony Stark, looking to consolidate control over the “Avengers” brand. Even an evil 
Iron Man knew the Blue Marvel’s greatest weakness: he couldn’t be everywhere. In order to get their most powerful member off the playing field, Iron Man triggered an Ultimo drone to attack Greece, knowing Adam would have to respond. Unfortunately for Stark, the Blue Marvel dealt with Ultimo faster than his inverted Avengers could best Monica’s team, leading Adam to rejoin his teammates and force the corrupted heroes to retreat. [Captain America and the Mighty Avengers #1-3]
The Blue Marvel continued his explorations of the Neutral Zone, looking for ways to mine neutronium safely or bring Kevin home alive. One day, he and Spider-Man were in the middle of conducting tests on Monica’s expanding powers when Dr. Positron paid a visit. Max had located Kevin’s position in the Neutral Zone again and, instead of running off half-cocked, he came to his father this time so they could work together in saving him. Before they could start, an Avengers alert came through from the void of space. Adam darted through his portal to the Blue Area of the 
Moon and found Luke Cage and Jessica Jones adrift in space, somehow deposited there from New York and dying of exposure. Their encounter with Jason Quantrell of the Cortex Corporation, Monica’s history and even a voice recording Max took from Kevin warned them of the return of the Beyond Corporation, a “debaser unit” from the nigh-omnipotent omega beings known as the Beyonders. [Captain America and the Mighty Avengers #5-6]
Jason Quantrell had attempted to bootleg and patent Brashear’s portal technology with W.E.S.P.E., only to accidentally invite the Beyond Corporation into his body. While Monica occupied him, Blue Marvel, Positron and Spider-Man located the Skorpion Gate in Cortex headquarters. Together, using the technology that first cost them Kevin, Adam and Max Brashear opened a stable gateway into the Neutral Zone. An equally stable and powerful Kevin Brashear 
stepped through, in control of his faculties and newfound powers, charged with the anti-matter energies of the Neutral Zone. Kevin had a moment to reconnect with his father and brother before grabbing the Beyond Corporation’s host and taking him back Outside of reality. Kevin could not return home, not now, not forever, but there was hope in the Brashear family again for the first time in a long while. [Captain America and the Mighty Avengers #7]
The Beyond Corporation was not the only member of his species active, however. The Beyonders, as the Ivory Kings, intended the destruction of the entire multiverse for reasons of their own. Reed Richards and his Illuminati had been working to stop the systemic collapse of the multiverse for months but kept the information to themselves to avoid a panic. They even wiped Captain America’s mind to keep him from interfering with their more extreme plans. When he remembered, Cap commandeered S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers to hunt down the Illuminati, even as the multiverse counted down its final days. The Blue Marvel and the Mighty Avengers nominally sided with S.H.I.E.L.D. against the Illuminati, but they saw how fruitless this in-fighting truly was. After peace was reached, the Blue Marvel and Spectrum pulled Richards and Black Panther aside to chide them on their unbelievable arrogance, assuming they were the only people who could save the multiverse. They remained unmoved, convinced their amazing intelligences 
gave them cause to act for everyone. The Blue Marvel and Dr. Positron ticked down their final minutes trying to find a solution to the multiversal collapsed but, in the end, everything died. [Time Runs Out, Captain America and the Mighty Avengers #8-9]