History ComicBook / DraxTheDestroyer

[[redirect:Characters/MarvelComicsDraxTheDestroyer]]

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Drax the Destroyer is a Creator/MarvelComics character created by Jim Starlin, first appearing in ''The Invincible Iron Man'' #55 (dated February 1973).

Before becoming the Destroyer, Drax was a human man named Arthur Douglas. Along with his wife and daughter, Douglas was killed by ComicBook/{{Thanos}}, thinking his existence had been revealed to [[HumansByAnyOtherName Terrans]] who'd seen him. (He would later learn that his daughter actually survived the accident and became the [[ComicBook/TheAvengers Avenger]] known as Moondragon.)

After his death, Douglas was resurrected into a stronger body (by the Titanian god Kronos) for the sole purpose of killing Thanos, newly christened as Drax the Destroyer.

For many years following, Drax remained a staple of the cosmic Franchise/MarvelUniverse, most notably appearing in ''ComicBook/TheInfinityGauntlet'' and ''ComicBook/{{Annihilation}}''. Drax was then drafted to the new ComicBook/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy in 2008, and has more or less remained a stalwart member of the team since then, barring the occasional death.

Drax has appeared often in other media, most notably within the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse. Portrayed there by former Wrestling/{{WWE}} superstar [[Wrestling/{{Batista}} Dave "Batista" Bautista]], this version of the character is [[AdaptationDistillation vastly simplified]] from his comic book counterpart. He made his debut in 2014's ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'', reprising the role in its 2017 sequel, and then again in 2018's ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar''.

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!! Drax appears in:
[[folder: Notable Comic Books]]
* ''ComicBook/TheInfinityGauntlet'' (1991)
* ''ComicBook/{{Annihilation}}'' (2006)
* ''ComicBook/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'' (various runs):
** vol. 2 (2008 -- 2010)
** vol. 3 (2013 -- 2015)
** vol. 4 (2015 -- 2017)
** Vol. 5 (2019)
** [[ComicBook/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy2020 Vol .6]]
* ''Drax'' (2016)
* ''All-New Guardians of The Galaxy'' (2017)
* ''ComicBook/InfinityCountdown'' (2018)
* ComicBook/InfinityWars2019
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Film]]
* Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse, portrayed by [[Wrestling/{{Batista}} Dave Bautista]]
** ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'' (2014)
** ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol2'' (2017)
** ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'' (2018)
** ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' (2019)
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'' (2015 -- present), voiced by Creator/DavidSobolov
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/LEGOMarvelSuperHeroes'' (2013)
** ''VideoGame/LEGOMarvelSuperHeroes2'' (2017)
* ''VideoGame/MarvelAvengersAlliance'' (2014)
* ''VideoGame/MarvelContestOfChampions'' (2014)
* ''VideoGame/DisneyInfinity'' (2015)
* ''VideoGame/MarvelFutureFight'' (2015)
* ''VideoGame/MarvelPuzzleQuest'' (added in 2016)
* ''VideoGame/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyTheTelltaleSeries'' (2017), voiced by Brandon Paull Eells
* ''VideoGame/MarvelUltimateAlliance3TheBlackOrder'' (2019)
[[/folder]]

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!!Drax provides examples of:

* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: After becoming the Destroyer, Drax's skin became green.
* BadassPacifist: In the 2019 Guardians, he apparently started to become a pacifist. However, whatever caused it was enough that when two eldritch abominations try to mindrape him, he turn the table by showing them something that made them flee in terror.
* BaldOfAwesome: Arthur Douglas' hair was one of the things left out when he was brought back as Drax.
* TheBerserker: Especially after his resurrection, he is prone to going into berserk furies in battle, which heightens his resemblance to ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk.
* TheBigGuy: Shares this role in the Guardians with Groot, courtesy of his immense strength. During the 1990s, he was actually the guardian of the Power Gem for a time as part of the Infinity Watch.
* BrainwashedAndCrazy: Being made into a Phalanx Select during ''Annihilation: Conquest''. Drax wasn't terribly happy about that.
* CameBackWrong: When first introduced in the 1970s, Drax was fairly intelligent. However, during the early 1990s, Moondragon went evil and killed him with her PsychicPowers. When subsequently resurrected in the 1993 series "Warlock and the Infinity Watch", he still retained some degree of the brain damage inflicted by her lethal psychic attacks, which reduced him to a child-like, violent-tempered DumbMuscle character.
* CharacterCheck: During ''Guardians Infinity'', Drax mostly still acts like his post-2012 idiot characterization, but momentarily stops the fighting and tells everyone to calm down, prompting Rocket to express amazement. Then Drax angrily yells "shut your hole" at him, and goes back to being an idiot.
* TheChosenOne: He's the Avatar of Life, to serve as Thanos' position as Avatar of Death. He is compelled by the universe itself to kill Thanos.
* ComboPlatterPowers: When first introduced in the 1970s, Drax's power set consisted of: SuperStrength, SuperSpeed, SuperToughness (borderline NighInvulnerable), {{Flight}}, {{Hand Blast}}s and {{Telepathy}}. Presently, he retains only the first three powers, all to a lesser degree than he had in his original body, but has picked up a low-grade HealingFactor and [[SuperSenses a heightened sense of smell]].
* DeathIsCheap: He has died several times, but they don't tend to stick.
** Moondragon killed him when she went evil. He got resurrected.
** He dies at the end of his own series, just before ''Annihilation'', but resurrected moments later, with the addition of getting his brains back.
** Thanos supposedly kills him completely dead for real in ''The Thanos Imperative'', but in 2012 he popped up again alive and well.
** In ''Infinity Wars'', he sacrifices himself to stop the cosmic entity Devondra, but he was back up again in a year.
* DePower: Drax used to have all kinds of fancy powers. Now all he has is his knives and the fact that he won't give up. And that's all he needs.
* {{Determinator}}: During ''Annihilation'', his drive to kill Thanos ramps up into overdrive. In order to accomplish it, Drax storms through the nigh-unstoppable Annihilation Wave, with nothing more than a pair of knives, and he still makes it to Thanos.
* DualWielding: A pair of big knives.
* DumbMuscle: After his resurrection in the '90s, he was basically an overgrown child in a super-strong body. He briefly became a lot smarter when he spontaneously mutated into his current body, which is notably smaller than the one he had in the 90s, but then in the Bendis run of the Guardians, he want back to being a dim-witted brute.
* {{Expy}}: For most of the 1990s and early 2000s, he was the ComicBook/IncredibleHulk but IN SPACE. Later on, in his new body he's moved away from this.
* FacialMarkings: Drax has some that are evocative of his ally, {{ComicBook/Gamora}}. At least in his previous body, they appeared to be make-up and therefore optional.
* FlyingBrick: He was this before his current body, he had even a cape.
* GoodIsNotNice: Drax is the champion of Life, opposed to Thanos. He's also brusque, and perhaps too fond of violent and direct solutions, even before his resurrection as a brain-damaged monster.
* HiddenDepths: While he's quite fond of killing things with knives or his bare hands, he occasionally dabbles in philosophical or existential musings and retains his past life's fondness for playing jazz music. And while it doesn't come up terribly often these days, he's had a lot of experience with the cosmic higher-ups.
* HorrifyingTheHorror: As Jack Flag remarks in the final issue of ''Guardians'' vol 2, if something can unnerve a guy called ''The Destroyer'', that's not good.
* HulkSpeak: In the '90s, as a result of his brain damage.
* ImplacableMan: If he wants to kill someone, he will kill them, and not even Galactus can stop him.
* ItsPersonal: Thanos killed Arthur Douglas and his wife just for witnessing him. It stopped being personal a long time ago, when Drax stopped seeing himself as Arthur Douglas.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Maybe not gold, but a precious metal, definitely.
* ManChild: As a result of [[CameBackWrong retaining psy-fried neurons when resurrected]], Drax acted like a child in the body of a hulking superhuman during the 1990s. He began growing out of this eventually, but never did fully recover.
* TheMentor: Briefly served as one for Richard Rider in ''Annihilation'', helping him keep a lid on all the Nova Force he had inside him, with the additional caveat that if Rich started going nuts, Drax would destroy him.
* MurderIsTheBestSolution: He believes there are very few problems that cannot be solved by killing somebody. Or, when there may be Skrull infiltrators on Knowhere, by killing ''everybody''.
* MySignificanceSenseIsTingling: In his original incarnation, one of Drax's powers was {{Telepathy}} which he could use to track Thanos across vast distances. After his second reincarnation, Drax loses his telepathy but possessed the ability to either sense Thanos or other beings who have been in recent contact with Thanos, alongside a precognitive ability to sense when beings will be in contact with Thanos in the near future.
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: The Destroyer.
* OneManArmy: He's called the Destroyer, and it shows. When chasing Thanos, he ploughed his way through the Annihilation Wave to reach him.
* PapaWolf: Even if he is estranged from them, and emotionally distant when he is there, don't hurt Cammi or Moondragon.
* TheRedBaron: "The Destroyer".
* RedGreenContrast: He has red tattoos on his green skin.
* ResurrectiveImmortality: But only as long as Thanos is alive. If Thanos is on this side of the great divide, then so is Drax. No ifs, ands, or buts. Once, when he had been dead for over six years, just the act of Thanos coming back to life [[EnforcedTrope was enough to wake Drax back up]].
* ReverseGrip: Drax's preferred method of DualWielding.
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: It was basically his raison d'être until he finally managed to kill Thanos in ComicBook/{{Annihilation}}.
* TheStoic: This was his primary character trait during his original depiction in the 1970s.
* SuperSenses: He can smell whether Thanos is alive or not.
* ThatManIsDead: Arthur Douglas was killed by Thanos years ago. Drax is actually surprised when an act of MindRape awakens what little was left of his former self.
* TheseusShipParadox: Come 2020, between his various deaths and resurrections and the involvement of the Soul Stone, Drax has some existential angst over whether he's the same Drax, or a new version, and whether he owes anything to his "prior" selves.
* ThirdPersonPerson: When he's dumb, Drax speaks like this.
* TookALevelInJerkass: During ''The Thanos Imperative'', thanks to a mix of Thanos' resurrection, and being in the Cancerverse. Since he's compelled to kill Thanos, and is the chosen avatar life, being in a place where life rules the roost starts overriding him, driving him into a berserk need to utterly kill Thanos, regardless of the situation.
* TouchTelepathy: [[ForgotAboutHisPowers It isn't used very often]], but Drax has displayed this on occasion.
* UnexplainedRecovery: Thanos killed him dead in ''ComicBook/TheThanosImperative'', leaving nothing behind, and come ''Avengers Assemble'', he's back without a single comment. It took several years before an explanation was given, and that explanation was... he just came back to life. To be fair, [[ResurrectiveImmortality he has a habit of doing that]].
* WalkingShirtlessScene: His look between ''Annihilation'' and ''The Thanos Imperative''.
* WasOnceAMan: Before being revived by Chronos.
* XtremeKoolLetterz: His name is spelled with an X and in a fashion that puts the vocal emphasis on said X.
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Before becoming the Destroyer, Drax was a human man named Arthur Douglas. Along with his wife and daughter, Douglas was killed by ComicBook/{{Thanos}}, thing his existence had been revealed to [[HumansByAnyOtherName Terrans]] who'd seen him. (He would later learn that his daughter actually survived the accident and became the [[ComicBook/TheAvengers Avenger]] known as Moondragon.)

For many years following, Drax remained a staple of the cosmic Franchise/MarvelUniverse, most notably appearing in ''ComicBook/TheInfinityGauntlet'' and ''ComicBook/{{Annihilation}}''. Despite his death in the latter, Drax was then drafted to the new ComicBook/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy in 2008, and has more or less remained a stalwart member of the team since then.

* BadassPacifist: In the new run, he apparently started to become a pacifist. However, whatever caused it was enough that when two eldritch abominations try to mindrape him, he turn the table by showing them something that made them flee in terror.

* TheBigGuy: Shares this role with Groot, courtesy of his immense strength. During the 1990s, he was actually the guardian of the Power Gem for a time as part of the Infinity Watch.

* DumbMuscle: After his resurrection in the '90s, he was basically an overgrown child in a super-strong body. He briefly became a lot smarter when he spontaneously mutated into his current body, which is notably smaller than the one he had in the 90s, but then in the most recent series, he want back to being a dim-witted brute.

* HiddenDepths: While he's quite fond of killing things with knives or his bare hands, he occasionally dabbles in philosophical or existential musings and retains his past life's fondness for playing jazz music.

* WalkingShirtlessScene: In his most recent form.

* UnexplainedRecovery: Thanos killed him dead in ''ComicBook/TheThanosImperative'', leaving nothing behind, and come ''Avengers Assemble'', he's back without a single comment. It took several years before an explanation was given, and that explanation was... he just came back to life. To be fair, [[DeathIsCheap he has a habit of doing that]].

After his death, Douglas was resurrected into a stronger body (by the Titanian god Kratos) for the sole purpose of killing Thanos, newly christened as Drax the Destroyer.

* Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse (2014 -- present), portrayed by [[Wrestling/{{Batista}} Dave Bautista]]:

* ''VideoGame/LEGOMarvelSuperHeroes2'' (2017)

** ''Film/{{Avengers 4}}'' (2019)

Before becoming the Destroyer, Drax was a human man named Arthur Douglas. Along with his wife and daughter, Douglas was killed by ComicBook/{{Thanos}}, thing his existence had been revealed to [[HumansByAnyOtherName Terrans]] who'd seen him. (He would later learn that his daughter actually survived the accident and became the ComicBook/{{Avenger|s}} known as Moondragon.)

'''Drax the Destroyer''' is a Creator/MarvelComics character created by Jim Starlin, first appearing in ''The Invincible Iron Man'' #55 (dated February 1973).

For many years following, Drax remained a staple of the cosmic MarvelUniverse, most notably appearing in ''ComicBook/TheInfinityGauntlet'' and ''ComicBook/{{Annihilation}}''. Despite his death in the latter, Drax was then drafted to the new ComicBook/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy in 2008, and has more or less remained a stalwart member of the team since then.

!! Draz provides examples of:

* CameBackWrong: When first introduced in the 1970s, Drax was fairly intelligent. However, during the early 1990s, Moondragon went evil and killed him with her PsychicPowers. When subsequently resurrected in the 1993 series "Warlock And The Infinity Watch", he still retained some degree of the brain damage inflicted by her lethal psychic attacks, which reduced him to a child-like, violent tempered DumbMuscle character.
* CharacterCheck: During ''Guardians Infinity'', Drack mostly still acts like his post-2012 idiot characterization, but momentarily stops the fighting and tells everyone to calm down, prompting Rocket to express amazement. Then Drack angrily yells "shut your hole" at him, and goes back to being an idiot.

* DumbMuscle: After his resurrection in the 90s, he was basically an overgrown child in a super-strong body. He briefly became a lot smarter when he spontaneously mutated into his current body, which is notably smaller than the one he had in the 90s, but then in the most recent series, he want back to being a dim-witted brute.

* HulkSpeak: In the 90's, as a result of his brain damage.

** BadassPacifist: In the new run, he apparently started to become a pacifist. However whatever cause it was enough that when two eldritch abomination try to mindrape him, he turn the table by showing them something that made them flee in terror.

* UnexplainedRecovery: Thanos killed him dead in ComicBook/TheThanosImperative, leaving nothing behind, and come Avengers Assemble, he's back without a single comment. It took several years before an explanation was given, and that explanation was... he just came back to life.
** To be fair, [[DeathIsCheap he has a habit of doing that]].

* ''Drax'' vol. 1 (2016)