BLUE MARVEL: Page 4 of 4

BIOGRAPHY - Page 4

Being stationed with Alpha Flight put the Blue Marvel in a precarious position once the Chitauri invasion began. Another reality’s Steve Rogers, who was secretly loyal to Hydra, had infiltrated this dimension. He manipulated Captain Marvel into championing a planetary defense shield program, then trapped her, the Ultimates and many more of Earth’s heavy hitters outside the shield. A Chitauri queen cocoon on the planet below ensured the space invaders continued to come in waves seeking their queen, trapping the Alpha Flight station between the shield and the Chitauri in a relentless siege. [Secret Empire #0] Blue Marvel and the Ultimates tried reaching out to Galactus for aid, but the Lifebringer was still weak and recovering from his recent corruption by the First Firmament’s agents. [Ultimates 2 (2nd series) #7-9]

The First Firmament manipulated the scientists called the Maker and the High Evolutionary into trying to bolster Eternity by dissolving the multiverse, making Eternity stronger as a whole rather than fractured. However, this unity also made the Eighth Cosmos more easily digested by the First, who was accustomed to singular existence. Galactus and his own Eternity Watch failed to stop the Aspirants’ part of the plan, and he desperately contacted and directed the Ultimates to the Maker’s lab on Counter-Earth. The Maker, the Ultimate Reed Richards, summoned versions of his universe’s original Ultimates to oppose the Blue Marvel and his team. After a brief skirmish, both Ultimates realized the Maker was flawed, and they worked together to reverse his process. Eternity not only reasserted himself, but he grew strong enough to summon the “Ultimate Ultimates,” the surviving personifications of the Second to Seventh Cosmos. These living multiverses captured the First Firmament and took him beyond the far shores, securing the peaceful stability of the Eighth Cosmos for the nonce. [Ultimates 2 #100]

While the Ultimates disbanded again, Adam Brashear remained active as a fringe science expert and friend to the superhuman community. He provided the X-Men with shielding for their Blackbird on a trip into the Negative Zone. [X-Men: Gold #17] He coordinated with Monica and Professor Toni Ho to analyze a systems degradation in Vision’s synthezoid body. [Avengers: No Road Home #1] The Blue Marvel also proved willing to enter the field of battle when necessary. He coordinated the super-science efforts G.I.R.L. and R.E.S.C.U.E., along with an international force of heroes when the goddess Nyx stole light from the universe. Naturally, he was also prepared when his old foes Doctor Skorpion the resurrected Neohedron and the Technocracy made another resurgence. [Avengers: No Road Home #9-10]

Adam and Monica’s relationship began to falter during this time, though. In the same adventure against Nyx, much of Monica’s power was drained away and she was no longer an immortal being of living light. She feared she was no longer compatible with a living anti-matter reactor like Adam, but he assured her they would still find time for each other. [Avengers: No Road Home #10] Adam joined a new group of fringe investigators known as the Three X’s with Jimmy Woo and Night Thrasher, but Monica wound up with a Strikeforce magically inhibited from discussing with other people what brought them together. [Marvel Comics #1000, Strikeforce #1] Adam admitted he was worried about their relationship as they grew further apart. [Incoming!]

The Blue Marvel supported the Antlion facility on the moon, engineered to help remove carbon emissions from Earth’s atmosphere and deposit them into a singularity, greatly reducing the effects of climate change. Doctor Doom spoke out vigorously against the project, but many assumed his ego was bruised that he wasn’t consulted on Reed Richards’ brainchild. When Latverian rockets struck the moon and a team of Latverian terrorists cleaned up and murdered nearly 3,000 scientists, all hands pointed at Doom. When Doctor Doom escaped custody, the Fantastic Four’s robot H.E.R.B.I.E. made contact with the Blue Marvel and requested his aid in capturing Doom. Given the circumstances and the death of several friends at Antlion, Adam agreed.

Doom was eventually cleared of all charges as a conspiracy was discovered whereby operatives of neighboring Symkaria framed Doom so they could conquer Latveria as a puppet kingdom. Instead, Doom did the same to them in retribution. The Antlion singularity had begun to grow out of control as a result of the initial attack. Doctor Doom posited that the Blue Marvel could reverse the expansion of the singularity from the inside through the controlled release of negative energy. Adam had some initial success, but he also passed through to the far end of the wormhole, finding another Earth dealing with their own singularity problem. He met the local humanitarian Victor von Doom, who gave up his ego to achieve truly great things as a beloved World Minister and family man. The Doom of Earth-616 followed upon Adam’s work and closed the wormhole but ended up blasted through it to the other side by a miscalculation. Doctor Doom felt so slighted in the presence of World Minister Doom that he used the Ultimate Nullifier to annihilate that entire reality in a fit of pique. Adam barely survived as Doom transported them back to their universe, horrified by the consequences of one man’s fragile ego. [Doctor Doom #2-10]

During a period following the death of Doctor Strange, the Blue Marvel was approached by a “spell in progress.” Strange had recently cast a spell to summon a team of Defenders when Eternity and the Eighth Cosmos were threatened, and the open-ended nature of the spell meant it could summon new Defenders for future perils to the multiverse. Adam balked at the idea of being drafted against his will like this, but the synchronicity of the spell already began gathering these Defenders at Kadesh Base, including America Chavez, Tigra and a surprising duo of Taaia (mother of Galactus from the Sixth Cosmos) and Loki, a time traveler plucked from after the end of the Seventh Cosmos but before the ignition of the Eighth. Through the guidance of the Eternity Mask, they were charged with seeing the face of the Enigma to come, Eternity’s ascendant foe.

Their voyage brought the Defenders to the remnants of the Second Cosmos before the Omega Council of the Ivory Kings, better known as the Beyonders. Adam was already quite familiar with their origins and antics. The Beyonders were created by the original Celestials after the initial defeat of the First Firmament, just as Rodstvow was a creation of the Aspirants loyal to the Firmament. Adam had also fought a rogue Debaser unit, the Beyond Corporation, just before the Beyonders destroyed the Seventh Cosmos with the Incursion crisis. Here, the Blue Marvel learned the end of the Seventh was a “controlled demolition,” intended by the Beyonders to prevent the rise of the Dominion that threatened Eternity now. However, THE Beyonder (who orchestrated the first Secret Wars on Battleworld) hinted there was more for them to learn by passing through the Council’s Concordance Engines to reach even higher planes of existence.

The Defenders’ journey took them beyond the Beyonders to the White Hot Room. Adam showcased his power and intelligence as a leading figure in the Defenders. He proved strong enough to destroy a Beyonder and battle the Phoenix Force temporarily while in the Room, while also reasoning out that other forces might derive from the White Hot Room. His encouragement led Tigra to commune with the Tiger God (based on his observations of White Tiger’s bond), and the distraction of cosmic cat vs. bird let the Defenders journey onwards into the Abyss. They fought off a crisis of infinity possibilities forced upon them by the fallen reality-shaper called Glorian, and caught the attention of the Never-Queen. The Queen was the sentience of the Fourth Cosmos who journeyed further into Mystery, and she delivered the Defenders to the ultimate birthplace of godhood and all that is… the House of Ideas.

The Defenders entered the House of Ideas and met the One-Above-All, the creator of all aspects of their reality and the realities which came before it. Adam Brashear listened to the One-Above-All define itself as essentially God, thought for a moment, and declared that he didn’t agree. The One-Above-All seemed offended at first and unleashed a horde of monsters to swarm the Defenders. As they fought, Adam clarified that he recognized the One as a “primal creative force,” the highest power that mortals could hope to reach, but THEIR limits didn’t necessarily mean the One was “Above-ALL.” To paraphrase Juvenal, “Who creates the creators?” The One-Above-All was amused by the mystery Adam proposed and granted the Defenders a glimpse at the Enigma to come, the crown above all things which represented Eternity’s nemesis. With their mission complete (for now), the Defenders returned to recognizable levels of reality, awaiting the next call of Eternity. [Defenders: Beyond #1-5]

Adam and Monica were still together for a time after she joined the Thunderbolts and he was busy with the Defenders. [Thunderbolts (4th series) #3] However, it seemed their relationship did ultimately end for reasons unexplained. The Blue Marvel and Taaia remained active at Kadesh Base as Defenders on-call for Eternity, seeking more information on the Enigma. [Resurrection of Magneto #1] Disturbingly, Adam Brashear recently appeared with a new incarnation of the Illuminati, the secret band of wise men he often denounced in the past for their arrogance at making cosmic decisions without oversight. The Blue Marvel and the Illuminati made a deal with Death herself in exchange for information about a future threat to Eternity… thereby making cosmic decisions in secret and without oversight. [Thanos (4th series) #1-4]

The Blue Marvel is a dichotomy of a man. On the one hand, he is a mild-mannered scientist and borderline recluse who is happy just tending to his research. On the other hand, he is a man who looked God in the eye and told him he didn’t exist. The decisions he chooses to make (or not make) remained as impactful today as they were in 1962.