Tempus (Marvel)



Tempus is a mystical giant villain from Marvel Comics. Tempus is often depicted as the right-hand minion of Immortus. He claims to have existed in his own dimension called "chronal continuum," a world existing outside the time we know but paralleling our own since the beginning of eternity. The burden of his existence has given him a desire to cause his own death at the expense of the universe. Immortus, however, claims to have created Tempus himself, crafting him from the very ether of Limbo.

History
In his first story, Tempus manipulated Willie Lumpkin into entering the Baxter Building where the time machine of Doctor Doom was being kept by the Fantastic Four. Willie was sent on a journey to various points in time, causing time paradoxes as he went. Tempus hoped that the paradoxes would cause an end to the universe. The Fantastic Four returned from space to find an Earth with vast differences than the one they had left. There were no cities in this alternate Earth, only wilderness and the only humans were primitive hunters. Uatu the Watcher explained that history had been tampered with and sent the Four back in time to set things right. Reed and Johnny found themselves in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), having to rescue George Washington from British captivity. Willie had accidentally scared Washington's horse which threw the officer down. Washington had been unconscious when arrested. Ben and Medusa found themselves in 1928 Chicago having to rescue Willie from gangsters. Willie had been giving them stock market tips from the advantage point of four decades in their future. With both missions successful, the Four and Willie were transported to Tempus' dimension. He proved to be a tough opponent for any of the Four until Mr. Fantastic restrained him by wrapping his body around him allowing the Thing to drop Tempus and the impact shattering him. The five time-travelers safely returned to the Earth of their own time.

When the thunder god Thor attempted to travel through time to investigate the history of the Celestials, he ended up in Immortus' Limbo where the Ruler of Limbo stole Mjolnir. Thor agreed to an alliance with the Space Phantom to get his hammer back. The two had to get past Tempus to reach Immortus. Tempus attacked the Asgardian with a club but Thor wrestled control of it. Thor proceeded to use the clab to knock out Tempus.

Years later during the Avengers Forever story, Immortus summoned Tempus to attack Rick Jones. Tempus started draining the life force out of Jones, but Kang arrived and slashed Tempus to pieces. Kang and Immortus were locked in conflict at the time and Jones was an ally of Kang. Tempus was briefly seen by Immortus during his confrontation with Kang. Tempus later faced Hawkeye who used Pym Particle to grow to the size of a giant and strike him, which caused Tempus to fall over and shattered into pieces.

Tempus' most recent appearance was when Immortus summoned him to fight the Annihilators (Beat Ray Bill, Gladiator, Ikon, Quasar, Ronan the Accuser and Silver Surfer) traveled to Wraithworld, which was located in Limbo, to investigate to save the Dire Wraiths on the barren world. Immortus had been using the Dire Wraiths as his goons and tried to prevent the Annihilators from succeeding by sending out his Army of the Ages led by Tempus. During the fight, Quasar blew off one of Tempus' arms, though Quasar knew it would eventually grow back. However, when Quasar appealed to Immortus, Immortus realized Quasar's importance to future events. So, Immortus called off his forces including Tempus and allowed the Annihilators to pull Wraithworld out of Limbo. Tempus' current status is unknown.

Powers and abilities
Tempus possesses vast strength allowing to fight foes as strong as Thor and the Fantastic Four. He can increase his strength by growing in size to the point where it exceeds 1000 tons. Tempus also possesses incredible durability. Attacks from multiple Avengers didn't faze him. Like his strength, his durability increases by growing in size.

Tempus is able to manipulate time to make his enemies age into weak elderly people upon touching them or blasting them with beams from his eyes. However, near-immortal beings like Thor are immune to this power. His enemies return to normal when he stops touching or blasting. Tempus can also create timestorms, which cause beings to relieve painful events in their lives. As a being made of temporal energies, Tempus could be used by Immortus as a means to transport large armies from across time to attack his enemies with.

If Tempus is ever injured, he is able to recover from injuries at a fast rate. He can also regrow missing limbs. Due to his temporal nature, he can never truly be killed.

Tempus can rapidly increase his size by absorbing temporal energy greatly increasing his strength and durability. By absorbing the temporal energies of dead members of the Council of Kangs, Tempus was able to grow from the size of a figurine to a giant in a short amount of time