Taranith Gelstal

Taranith Gelstal was an alien invader from Marvel comics, a false-deity and an enemy of the Fantastic Four.

History
Approximately thirty "sun-cycles" ago (the way time is measured on Mantracora) in the Negative Zone, an alien crashed on the planet Mantracora. It found a world of primitive barbarism, and none of the technology it would need to repair its ship. The creature found that the natives worshipped a being known as Taranith Gelstal. Realizing that Gelstal held a position of power and influence, the alien slew Gelstal and usurped his role, designing an exoskeleton to manipulate the human sized form.

For the next period of years, the alien, as Taranith, would periodically choose two natives of Mantracora to serve ascend into Taranith's citadel and join his brotherhood. In reality, the alien would choose the natives with the most powerful minds, lead them deep into the bowels of its citadel, drug them, and hook them up to a machine that would drain their minds of its energy. Their bodies stayed alive while the machine continually drained them of their psionic energy. The alien drained this energy into a power battery, hoping to one day gain sufficient power to allow its starship to escape Mantracora.

The Fantastic Four, while exploring the Negative Zone, traveled to the planet of Mantracora, and came to the city ruled by Taranith in order to investigate the unusual energies in its Keep. Taranith invited Reed and Sue Richards into the Keep to join him in a feast, while his agents captured the Human Torch and the Thing. Reed and Sue were drugged, and the alien brought Reed to its machine and drained his mind into its battery. Gaining sufficient power, the ship broke free from the base of the Keep, just as the other members of the FF revived broke free. It revealed that Reed's mind was forever lost, and they were trapped on its ship.

The alien had not encountered for the level of power of Reed's mind, and his consciousness reasserted itself and enabled him to take control of the ship. The alien, realizing it was foiled, fled into an escape pod and exited the ship. However, after years of inactivity, the pod was improperly maintained. It overheated and exploded, apparently killing the alien.

Reed used a cybernetic link-up to remotely control his physical form while his mind was trapped in the ship. He piloted the ship to the Distortion Zone, enabling the FF to return to Earth, despite Annihilus' destruction of their portal. The energies of the distortion zone enabled Reed to return his mind to his body as he passed through to Earth.

Abilities
Taranith possessed some level of telepathy and could communicate with and even manipulate others to some extent.

It was a unique type of life of an unnamed race and could scale solid walls as well as duplicate human speech with effort.

The alien was a brilliant and devious inventor, manipulating the people of Mantracora into believing it was their god for many years.

It created a machine able to drain psionic energy into a battery to power a starship and had a group of loyal followers who kept a look out for minds suitable for hits needs.

Its ship possessed anti-gravity drives and also possessed access to mind-numbing drugs.

The alien wore an exoskeleton and helmet to appear as the roughly humanoid Taranith Gelstal.