Stranger (comics)

The Stranger is a fictional cosmic entity that appears in the Marvel Universe. The Stranger first appears in Uncanny X-Men vol. 1, #11 (May 1965), and was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Fictional character biography

The Stranger first visits Earth out of curiosity, and after an encounter with the mutant X-Men departs, taking the supervillain Magneto and his servant Toad off-world for further study. ^[1] Almost nothing is learned about the entity's motivations, which would become his trademark. The Stranger then becomes convinced that mankind is dangerous and sets out to destroy the Earth, but is dissuaded from this course of action by Bruce Banner and his alter-ego the Hulk, ^[2] and later the cosmic being the Silver Surfer. ^[3] The Stranger returns several years later to aid the Fantastic Four against the villain the Overmind, ^[4] He is later impersonated by the Toad who battles the superhero team the Avengers. ^[5] The true Stranger encounters the Kree warrior Captain Marvel ^[6] and later Spider-Man and the Gardener when trying to obtain the Soul Gem from the corpse of Adam Warlock. The Stranger, does, however, recover the Reality Gem. ^[7] The Stranger then aids superhero team the Champions to contain a Null-Life bomb he left on Earth during the first encounter with the Silver Surfer. ^[8] After enlisting the aid of the Thing and the Hulk to fight against the threat of the Olympian god Pluto, ^[9] the Stranger is not seen for some time. The Silver Surfer eventually encounters the Stranger once again, and the entity the Living Tribunal reveals that the Stranger could have represented his fourth face (each face signifies a different entity), but the Stranger refused. ^[10] The only other fact known about the Stranger is that he acquires sentient beings - unwillingly - from across the universe for his collection on "Labworld." Past specimens have included the sentient island Krakoa, Magneto and the Toad, and the villains the Abomination and Mercurio the 4-D Man. The hero Quasar later frees many of the specimens. ^[11] The Stranger recently posed as the entity The Beyonder and captured several heroes and villains who were then manipulated into fighting each other for the purpose of study. ^[12]

Powers and abilities

The Stranger has the ability to channel and manipulate indeterminable amounts of cosmic energy. He appears to be capable of using cosmic energy and psionic powers for virtually anything, with feats including size shifting, ^[13] molecular manipulation, ^[14] space travel, ^[15] intangibility, ^[16] energy projection ^[17] and even assembling a planet from universal matter. ^[18]

References

External links

• The Stranger on the Marvel Universe Character Bio Wiki