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The Blue Marvel
Blue Marvel
Blue Marvel
"One of my old enemies is back and the Avengers need my help... That's what heroes do."
Alter Ego: Adam Bernard Brashear
Team Affiliations: Mighty Avengers, Ultimates, Defenders, Illuminati
First Appearance: Adam: Legend of the Blue Marvel #1 (January 2009)
"I'd do whatever is right, wherever and whenever it needs to be done — and I wouldn't care what anyone thinks. Not anymore."
Adam is a veteran of the Korean War who gained tremendous power from an experiment with anti-matter gone wrong. For several years after the war, he protected America as the masked superhero known as the Blue Marvel, until his helmet was damaged during a battle and the country found out he was black. Wary of inflaming racial tensions, the President asked Adam to quietly retire, and he agreed to do so.Adam stayed underground until the modern day, sharing several secret adventures with his eldest son Kevin and not bothering to use a superhero identity at all. Kevin was eventually sucked into an alternate plane of existence that Adam called the Neutral Zone; Adam and his second son, Max, spent many years trying to figure out how to reach and save Kevin to no avail.
During Tony Stark's tenure as the director of SHIELD, Adam's arch-enemy Anti-Man resurfaced. In an attempt to figure out where he'd come from, Tony declassified the story of the Blue Marvel and got back in touch with Adam, who had retired to teach physics at the University of Maryland. In the ensuing struggle, Adam's wife Candace was killed and Adam, in accordance with her wishes, resumed his activities as the Blue Marvel, albeit without a mask or a secret identity to speak of.
Adam continued to operate out of an underwater base near the Marianas Trench, working mostly outside the United States and continuing his personal research. During the Infinity crossover, he helped to protect New York alongside Luke Cage's hastily-formed Avengers team, and despite some friction with Luke, continued to work alongside him until the events of Secret Wars.
In the modern Marvel Universe, Adam is a member of the The Ultimates, working proactively to keep the world and universe safe. His son Max, a.k.a. Doctor Positron, worked at Roberto da Costa's "Avengers Idea Mechanics", and his daughter Adrienne has a position at the super-science laboratory Project Pegasus.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: The opening scene of an issue of Ultimates has him being amazingly embarrassing to his son, Kevin, when they're in the middle of an adventure, as Adam tries to use 90s slang.
- Antagonistic Offspring: His second son, Max, is pissed at him, blaming him for what happened to his brother. They do eventually reconcile.
- Antimatter: His powers were the result of an accident when he was working on a negative reactor which would harness anti-matter by creating a bridge between the negative zone and the positive matter universe.
- Arch-Enemy: Doctor Evald Skorpion, a nihilistic Mad Scientist. Their last encounter ended with a portal Evald had created sucking Adam's son into the Neutral Zone, while it vaporised Evald. His legacy was continued in the form of the terrorist organisation W.E.S.P.E. (in a further note of irony, Adam's son Max worked with them trying to recover Kevin).
- Badass Teacher: A nominally-retired superhero and a college professor.
- Blue Is Heroic: As his name implies, all of his costumes are blue.
- The Cape: Despite his issues and poor luck, he's likely one of the most moral heroes in the Marvel Universe... something that often puts him at odds with the others.
- Combo Platter Powers: One of a handful of Superman-level superheroes in the Marvel Universe. Adam can fly at high speeds, survive in hard vacuum, is a super-scientist, is virtually invulnerable, ages slowly, doesn't need to sleep, can project destructive blasts, and has limited control of anti-matter particles.
- Cool Old Guy: Though he looks like he's in his late 40's, he's actually around his mid to late 80's.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: He took out Ultimate Hulk (who, in the interest of accuracy, we should note is not quite as strong as regular Hulk) with one punch.
- Does Not Like Magic: Implied in when he appears in Doctor Doom's solo maxiseries.H.E.R.B.I.E.: Known associates of Doom in the area: Morgan Le Fay.
Adam: Right. Sorcery. I avoid that kind of nonsense. - Flying Brick: Has most of the basic powers including flight, super toughness, and of course super strength.
- Formula with a Twist: As per
Word of God, this character was created based on the question: "What if Superman had been a Black guy?" - Happily Married: Until shortly before her death, Adam and Candace were happily married for several decades.
- Hero Antagonist: Christopher Cantwell uses Adam this way in his Doctor Doom and Thanos solo titles.
- Hero of Another Story: In Mighty Avengers, it's made clear that, being a Superman Expy, he's busy a lot of the time. When investigating Doctor Positron's secret lair, he just remarks it's the third secret volcano lair he's dealt with that week. Infact, Adam has had a long life full of strange adventures, including among other things fighting the sentient Y2K virus.
- Kryptonite Factor: Neutronium, also known by some as Iso-8, an unstable element from outside conventional reality, is one of the few things that can actually hurt him.
- Lamarck Was Right: Averted. Adam has three children with Candace/Marlene: Kevin, Max, and Adrienne. While all three of his kids are extremely intelligent, and Max is a straight-up Mad Scientist, none of them inherited any of Adam's powers. Adam does theorize at one point that proximity to him may have slowed down his family members' aging process, as Candace/Marlene was just as slow to age as he was.
- That said, New Avengers shows a potential grandkid of his as inheriting his powers, becoming a legacy version of Ms. Marvel.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Adam's theory that proximity to him slowed his wife's aging is a Watsonian explanation for how Comic-Book Time keeps a character's supporting cast around the same age as them, even if it's regularly established that they'll be outlived.
- May–December Romance: During Ultimates, he and Monica Rambeau start a relationship, Adam having at least fifty years on Monica.
- Military Superhero: Adam was a member of the Marine Corps when he fought in Korea.
- My Greatest Failure: His son Kevin is trapped in the neutral zone, and he's incapable of doing anything to save him. Eventually, it turns out Kevin changed in his time out there, and meaning he couldn't come home if he wanted to.
- The Needless: He doesn't need to eat or sleep, though he notes after Candace's death that he wouldn't be doing much of the latter anyway.
- Older Than They Look: Adam's powers slow his aging, meaning he looks no older than his early fifties. His wife, Candace/Marlene, was perhaps an even more dramatic case of this, not looking any older than 35 prior to her death, when she could have been at least 75. To explain this, Adam later speculates that proximity to him slowed her ageing process.
- Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Has a wide knowledge of a lot of sciences. But then, he has had several decades to study them.
- Politically Correct History: Averted in his backstory: the moment it was revealed that the Blue Marvel was actually a black man, the U.S. Government (and President John F. Kennedy himself) asked Brashear to retire immediately.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech:Adam: I don't think you understand me, Reed. I wasn't spouting some airy platitude to make you feel better just now. I was telling you, to your face, that this is your fault.
- Remember the New Guy?:
- The 2009 Adam miniseries retroactively acquaints Adam with the Watcher and with Namor. His original superheroic career is explained as being extremely brief, to the point where many modern superheroes don't remember him at all. He was a legend in the African-American community, however, to the point where Luke Cage chews him out over his retirement in Mighty Avengers.
- This gets a Lampshade Hanging during The Ultimates (2015), when Galactus gives a lecture on Comic-Book Time, and as he addresses how the past can change, he directly speaks to Adam. Adam has no idea what he means, but is unsettled all the same.
- Required Secondary Powers: His powers come from being a "living anti-matter reactor", but his actual body is still composed of normal matter. Fortunately for him (and everything around him), he's also immune to the effects of the anti-matter he generates.
- Retired Badass: He was forced out of business by the U.S. government in the 60s, but took up adventuring on the quiet after a few decades, until his son's accident and his wife's passing. It took Thanos' invasion for him to get back into business again.
- Superman Stays Out of Gotham: He was doing his own superheroics when the Fantastic Four were just starting out. An issue of Mighty Avengers even shows what he was doing when Galactus first came to Earth - dealing with his own problems (and confident Uatu knew what he was doing)).
- Superman Substitute: He's got the right powers, the right costume, and the right personality. Even his creator basically said he was "What if Superman was a black guy in the 60s?" Answer: the U.S. Government was thankful for him saving the world again and again, but the moment it was revealed that he was black, they asked him to retire.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
- He and Luke Cage headbutt a little. Luke is resentful of Adam for retiring when he could've been an important symbol for African-Americans, and Adam isn't too fond of Luke's criminal past. They do at least get over it (and in fairness, Luke tends to headbutt with everyone).
- With T'Challa, on the Ultimates. Adam previously expressed dislike for T'Challa's autocratic tendencies, and this gets worse when the subject of Connor Sims comes up, as T'Challa thinks he should be executed as a danger, while Adam (who has more reason to be angry than the King of Wakanda) would rather see he got a fair trial.
- Underwater Base: Kadesh, Adam's "science fortress" at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. He cut a deal with Namor in order to build it there.
- We Used to Be Friends: Adam served in Korea with Connor Sims, saving the man's life on his first day on duty. They then gained their superpowers in the same lab accident (Connor was serving as security), and Adam risked his life to recover Connor from the Neutral Zone afterward. Then his powers caused him to Go Mad from the Revelation, and the two spent years fighting. And then during Connor's last rampage, he killed Candace.
- Worf Had the Flu: In Hickman's Avengers, Adam and the rest of the Mighty Avengers are used as little more than muscle against a team they should easily be able to mop the floor with. Captain America and the Mighty Avengers explains they were holding back because they didn't actually agree with Steve Rogers or the Illuminati.
Family
Candace Brashear / Marlene Frazier
Candace Brashear
Real Name: Marlene Frazier
Notable Aliases: Agent 314
First Appearance: Adam: Legend of the Blue Marvel #2 (February, 2009)
Marlene Frazier was originally a government agent assigned to spy on Dr. Brashear. Eventually she fell in love with him and they married. She changed her name to Candace Brashear, and they had three children.- In Love with the Mark: Assigned to spy on Adam, but ended up falling in love with him instead.
- Killed Off for Real: She was Collateral Damage during a battle between Blue Marvel and Anti-Man.
- Older Than They Look: Chronologically she was in her late 70s or early 80s. However, being in close proximity to Adam slowed her aging to the point where she didn't look a day over 40.
Kevin Brashear
Kevin Brashear
Notable Aliases: Doc Brashear Jr.
First Appearance: Mighty Avengers (Vol. 2) #9 (April, 2014)
The first born son of Adam and Candace Brashear.- Came Back Wrong: Kevin Brashear was sucked into an alternate dimension in the late 1990s, and by the time his little brother Max figured out how to reach him, Kevin had adapted to the point where he can no longer survive on Earth. In fact, if he spends any longer than a few seconds on Earth, it'll cause a cataclysmic explosion due to his body now being comprised largely of anti-matter. Later on, though, he turns out to have adjusted amazingly well.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: During Captain America and the Mighty Avengers, he drags the Quantrell-Beyonder off for a talk. This is a being that had just shrugged off Monica and Adam's spirited attempts to pound him.
- Remember the New Guy?: Kevin was introduced by Al Ewing in Mighty Avengers and isn't mentioned at all in the original Adam miniseries.
- Shout-Out: His evolved form looks amazingly like Doctor Manhattan. The difference is Kevin's nowhere near as apathetic as Dr. Osterman.
- What the Hell, Hero?: During Adam and Connor Sim's reunion in Ultimates, Adam is ready to kill him until Kevin shows up to scold Adam into sparing him.
Max Brashear
Max Brashear
Alter Ego: Dr. Max Brashear
Notable Aliases: Doctor Positron, Iron Fist
First Appearance: Mighty Avengers (Vol. 2) #8 (March, 2014)
The second son of Adam and Candace Brashear, Max and his father had a falling out after Max's older brother Kevin became trapped in the Negative Zone. Max would subsequently oppose his father as Doctor Positron. Eventually, Max reformed and reconciled with his father.- All for Nothing: He turned to mad science because he blamed his dad for Kevin's fate, but by the time he's able to do it, it turns out he can't come back to Earth ever.
- Labcoat of Science and Medicine: Part of his outfit as Doctor Positron.
- Reformed, but Not Tamed: During his time with A.I.M. under Roberto da Costa's leadership. Max is still a science nut, he's just not evil.
Adrienne Brashear
Adrienne Brashear
First Appearance: Ultimates (Vol. 3) #7 (May, 2016)
The youngest child, and only daughter, of Adam and Candace Brashear.- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: She and the rest of the staff at Project: P.E.G.A.S.U.S. decided to tinker with some Iso-8. The Shi'ar get wind of this, and through them Thanos gets wind of it, resulting in the events that kick off Civil War II. And it could've been so much worse, as U.S. Avengers reveals in another timeline, Thanos used that Iso-8 to slaughter pretty much every hero in America.
Allies
Uatu the Watcher
Uatu the Watcher
First Appearance: Fantastic Four #13 (April 1963)
"Whatever transpires, I will remain true to my charge, and observe all that occurs."
An ancient, long-lived extraterrestrial who is tasked with observing the Earth and its solar system, though he is also barred from interfering in human history. Uatu first meets Adam after the latter meditates on the Earth's moon after being forcibly retired by the United States government. An unlikely friendship forms between the two of them.Enemies
Anti-Man
Anti-Man
Alter Ego: Conner Simms
First Appearance: Adam: Legend of the Blue Marvel #1 (November, 2008)
"A pity your blindness cannot see the gift I'm about to bring to mankind— a oneness not seen since man walked in the garden of paradise!"
Arch-nemesis and best friend of Adam Brashear, also known as the Blue Marvel. His power is unstable so he can only exist in our world for brief periods of time. Anti-Man was made into Galactus's first Herald of Life.- Cassandra Truth: He could never get anyone to believe him about the First Firmament.
- Combo Platter Powers: Connor was capable of wiping the floor with one of the most powerful squads of Avengers ever formed.
- Cool Helmet: His horned helmet that obscures his eyes.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Gave his life to restore Galactus after Logos tried to corrupt him into an unstoppable devourer.
- Retcon: Initially, his motivation was simple insanity. Ultimates changes it so that his powers made him see outside reality, and the First Firmament set him up by messing with everyone's perceptions.
- We Used to Be Friends: The two were army buddies. Connor got his powers dragging Adam out of the same exploding device that gave Adam his powers, but then he went insane. Accidentally killing Candace in their last fight turned Adam against him completely.Adam: Goodbye, Conner. I don't hate you — I pity you.
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: He has the same powerset as Adam with the added ability of cosmic perception that gave him disturbing but inconsistent visions. Adam attempted to stabilize them by building his helmet, but this also amplified them into a form of clairvoyant cosmic awareness that made his behavior even more worse because he was reacting to crises that haven't happened yet.
Evald Skorpion
Evald Skorpion
Notable Aliases: Neohedron
First Appearance: Mighty Avengers (Vol. 2) #9 (April 2014)
A nihilistic mad scientist, and Adam's foremost enemy. Their final encounter would end with Evald managing to strike a very personal blow against Adam.
- Bald of Evil: A bald, nihilistic, and evil mad scientist.
- Came Back Wrong: In the opening of New Avengers (2015), The Maker reconstitutes what was left of Evald's body in the form of a gorilla/scorpion hybrid with an elongated gemstone for a head called "Neohedron".
- Captain Ersatz: If Adam is Superman, Evald would be his Lex Luthor.
- Posthumous Character: Dead by the modern day, having died the day Galactus first came to Earth. His legacy continues on in the terrorist organization W.H.I.S.P.E.R.
- Remember the New Guy?: Adam's foremost enemy, but not mentioned in Adam's introductory series.
Galactus
Galactus
Alter Ego: Galan of Taa
Notable Aliases: Ashta, Destroyer of Worlds, Deathbringer, Lifebringer
First Appearance: Fantastic Four #48 (March 1966)
"Of all the creatures in the vastness of the universe, there is none like me. I was present at the birth of the Universe, and I shall be there at its end. Though I ravage worlds to live, I bear no malice toward any living thing. I simply do what I must to survive."
One of the most powerful beings in existence, Galactus is a gigantic cosmic entity that consumes planets to preserve his life force. He has threatened Earth numerous times, with his first visit to the planet coinciding with the final battle between Blue Marvel and Dr. Skorpion. Galactus and the Blue Marvel first came into conflict when Adam joined the Ultimates.See his own page.
