User blog:Mattia Garavini/Pure Evil proposal: Walker (Marvel)



For this proposal, let's celebrate Christmas with a one-shot cosmic baddie so nasty it required the team-up of Captain Marvel, Thanos and Thor to stop him, the Death God Walker from Peter David's run on Captain Marvel.

What's the work?
During the 1960s, writer Stan Lee noticed that the name's trademark from the Fawcett Comics character was available again, and decided that Marvel should own it (Marvel Comics, Captain Marvel... makes sense, right?). So he created a new superhero named that, one quite different from the previous ones. The new character first appeared in "Marvel Super-Heroes" #12 (December, 1967). Given the value of the name to DC and the utter obscurity of the Marvel version of the character (at least nowadays; he was big back in the 70's), you'd think Marvel would cash in and make a mint selling the name back to DC at an enormous profit... except for the fact that he's called "Captain Marvel" and they're called "Marvel Comics" and you just can't let that kind of synchronicity slip away from you.

This "Captain Marvel" was an alien (from the Kree, a race that looked exactly like humans except for blue-skinned ethnicity that rules them.) His name actually was Mar-Vell and he was a captain in the Kree army. He came to Earth as part of mission to investigate Earth's space technology achievements (later justified by saying that Earth was located near a strategically important space warp.) Mar-Vell is sent to Earth while being monitored from orbit by the rest of his crew, which included his girlfriend Una and his superior, Colonel Yon-Rogg. Mar-Vell discovers he's the exact lookalike of an American senator, who has just been murdered, so he takes over his identity to further his mission.

However, it turns out that Yon-Rogg secretly hated Mar-Vell, mostly because he wanted Una for himself. So he tries to have Mar-Vell killed. This forces Marvel (who has Super Strength due to coming from a planet with higher gravity) to fight openly while wearing his Kree uniform, which caused people to mistake him for a new superhero called "Captain Marvel". He also became a target of a larger power struggle within the Kree government.

The betrayal from his own people (and the eventual death of Una) leads Mar-Vell to adopt Earth (and the name Captain Marvel) as his own. He had a brief relationship with Carol Danvers, a NASA security agent, who later becomes a superhero herself (and eventually takes on the mantle of Captain Marvel). He gains new powers from an Earth scientist, and later, from The Supreme Intelligence, a supercomputer who is the Kree's true ruler. He also gained his more famous, red-and-blue costume from it. For a period of time, Marvel found himself accidentally "merged" with teenage singer Rick Jones (the same kid who was involved in the Incredible Hulk's origin) so that only one of them could exist in the universe, with the other one stuck in the dimension called the Negative Zone until the one on Earth struck together his "nega-band" bracelets, causing them to switch places. (Writer Roy Thomas has admitted that this was done as a nod to the original Captain Marvel, who was a child who could turn into an adult superhero.) It was later revealed that this was The Plan of the Supreme Intelligence, who was really a magnificent bastard whose ultimate goal was to jumpstart the evolutionary potential of the Kree race via Rick Jones's genes. Eventually, Marvel finds a way to bring back Rick from the Zone and they resume their lives.

The "Captain Marvel" series lasted for 62 issues (May, 1968-May, 1979). Tragically, Mar-vell didn't live long after his series was cancelled. In a very rare case of a comic book character being killed for good, he died from a cancer he got from exposure to an experimental compound of nerve gas during his battle with the supervillain Nitro. His death was covered in The Death Of Captain Marvel (Marvel Graphic Novel #1, April 1982, written and illustrated by Jim Starlin), and Mar-Vell's death is universally considered one of the most touching, well-written and dignified in the history of comics.

In "Silver Surfer Annual" #6 (1993), a new character, calling himself "Legacy" was introduced. Created by Ron Marz and Ron Lim. He was Genis-Vell, the son of Mar-Vell, created via cloning by Mar-Vell's last lover, Elysius, one of the Eternals of Titan (Saturn's largest moon.) He would later take over his father's identity and become the new Captain Marvel, and starred in his own series focused on the misadventures of Genis and Rick Jones. He is best known for having gone insane (from being unable to master the same Cosmic Awareness power as his father) and becoming both a hero and a menace until his death.

Genis appared in "Captain Marvel" vol. 3 (1995-1996), vol. 4 (1999-2002), and vol. 5 (2002-2004). For a total of 66 issues, most of them written by Peter David. He then appeared as a member of the Thunderbolts. He was killed in "Thunderbolts" #100 (May, 2006).

Who is he and what he has done?
Walker is a death god native to another galaxy and a former rival to Thanos turned enemy of Death herself after the entity rejected his "gift''. He is arguably one of the most powerful villains in the Marvel universe despite his very few appearances. He appears in the Captain Marvel series starring Genis-Vell and Rick Jones.

Walker, or He Who Walks Beyond Life and Death Like a Colossus, from the May 2001 and June 2001 issues, was a death god of a distant galaxy who, seeking to impress Mistress Death, murdered every soul in his galaxy and entrapped them within him, in horrible torment. When Death was repulsed and turned from Walker, he decided to murder her and take her place out of spite, hunting her to Earth where he attempts to get her attention by killing people close to the current host of death, Marlo Chandler, even resorting to torture to draw her out. When Genis-Vell joined forces with Thanos himself and the mighty Thor to stop him and Death refuses to show herself at first, Walker reveals he will happily take the Earth apart "molecule by molecule", willing to annihilate everything in his path solely for being spurned by the object of his obsession. He also murders an army of viking warriors loyal to Thor out of spite for the heroes and gets a kick out of turning Rick Jones into a feeble old man to provoke Marlo/Death.

But this proved to be his undoing, as Thanos well knew, Death was not only a taker of life, but also Marlo and attacked Walker, freeing all the souls trapped inside him and promising to cause the former Death-God an eternity of torment. Death restored Marlo's life, and promptly returned to her realm.

Mitigating factors
Absolutely none known

Heinous standards
Trapping billions of souls from his galaxy in eternal torment (including maybe his worshippers) as a gift for Death and then threatening to kill and usurp her as the ultimate entity of death in the universe after she rejected that gift. Forcing Captain Marvel, Thor and Thanos (who was in his neutral anti-hero phase at the time) to team up to stop him. And threatening to slowly and painfully destroy the Earth if Death doesn't show up makes him a truly heinous evil god despite appearing only in that two part story.

Final verdict
A quite easy keep.