I recently uncovered a trippy little piece I wrote on constructive constructions for the creatives at ARUP:

 

Evolving Cities and Culture

 

Innovation is critical to economic growth, progress, and the fate of the planet. Yet, it seems so random. But patterns emerge in the aggregate, and planners and politicians may be able to promote innovation and growth despite the overall inscrutability of this complex system.

 

One emergent pattern, spanning centuries, is that the pace of innovation is perpetually accelerating, and it is exogenous to the economy. Rather, it is the combinatorial explosion of possible innovation-pairings that creates economic growth. And that is why cities are the crucible of innovation.

 

Geoffrey West of the Santa Fe Institute argues that cities are an autocatalytic attractor and amplifier of innovation. People are more innovative and productive, on average, when they live in a city because ideas can cross-pollinate more easily. Proximity promotes propinquity and the promiscuity of what Matt Ridley calls “ideas having sex”. This positive network effect drives another positive feedback loop - by attracting the best and the brightest to flock to the salon of mind, the memeplex of modernity.

 

Cities are a structural manifestation of the long arc of evolutionary indirection, whereby the vector of improvement has risen steadily up the ladder of abstractions from chemicals to genes to systems to networks. At each step, the pace of progress has leapt forward, making the prior vectors seem glacial in comparison – rather we now see the nature of DNA and even a neuron as a static variable in modern times. Now, it’s all about the ideas - the culture and the networks of humanity. We have moved from genetic to mimetic evolution, and much like the long-spanning neuron (which took us beyond nearest neighbor and broadcast signaling among cells) ushering the Cambrian explosion of differentiated and enormous body plans, the Internet brings long-spanning links between humans, engendering an explosion in idea space, straddling isolated pools of thought.

 

And it’s just beginning. In the next 10 years, four billion minds will come online for the first time to join this global conversation (via Starlink broadband satellites).

 

But why does this drive innovation and accelerating change? Start with Brian Arthur’s observation that all new technologies are combinations of technologies that already exist. Innovation does not occur in a vacuum; it is a combination of ideas from before. In any academic field, the advances today are built on a large edifice of history. This is the foundation of progress, something that was not so evident to the casual observer before the age of science. Science tuned the process parameters for innovation, and became the best method for a culture to learn.

 

From this conceptual base, come the origin of economic growth and accelerating technological change, as the combinatorial explosion of possible idea pairings grows exponentially as new ideas come into the mix (on the order of 2^n of possible groupings per Reed’s Law). It explains the innovative power of urbanization and networked globalization. And it explains why interdisciplinary ideas are so powerfully disruptive; it is like the differential immunity of epidemiology, whereby islands of cognitive isolation (e.g., academic disciplines) are vulnerable to disruptive memes hopping across, much like South America was to smallpox from Cortés and the Conquistadors. If disruption is what you seek, cognitive island-hopping is good place to start, mining the interstices between academic disciplines.

 

So what evidence do we have of accelerating technological change? At Future Ventures, we see it in the diversity and quality of the entrepreneurial ideas arriving each year across our global offices. Scientists do not slow their thinking during recessions.

 

For a good mental model of the pace of innovation, consider Moore’s Law in the abstract – the annual doubling of compute power or data storage. As Ray Kurzweil has plotted, the smooth pace of exponential progress spans from 1890 to today, across countless innovations, technology substrates, and human dramas — with most contributors completely unaware that they were fitting to a curve.

 

Moore’s Law is a primary driver of disruptive innovation – such as the iPod usurping the Sony Walkman franchise – and it drives not only IT and communications, but also now genomics, medical imaging and the life sciences in general. As Moore’s Law crosses critical thresholds, a formerly lab science of trial and error experimentation becomes a simulation science and the pace of progress accelerates dramatically, creating opportunities for new entrants in new industries. And so the industries impacted by the latest wave of tech entrepreneurs are more diverse, and an order of magnitude larger — from automobiles and rockets to energy and chemicals.

 

At the cutting edge of computational capture is biology; we are actively reengineering the information systems of biology and creating synthetic microbes whose DNA was manufactured from bare computer code and an organic chemistry printer. But what to build? So far, we largely copy large tracts of code from nature. But the question spans across all the complex systems that we might wish to build, from cities to designer microbes, to computer intelligence.

 

As these systems transcend human comprehension, will we continue to design them or will we increasingly evolve them? As we design for evolvability, the locus of learning shifts from the artifacts themselves to the process that created them. There is no mathematical shortcut for the decomposition of a neural network or genetic program, no way to "reverse evolve" with the ease that we can reverse engineer the artifacts of purposeful design. The beauty of compounding iterative algorithms (machine learning, evolution, fractals, organic growth, art) derives from their irreducibility.

 

And what about human social systems? The corporation is a complex system that seeks to perpetually innovate. Leadership in these complex organizations shifts from direction setting to a wisdom of crowds. And this “process learning” is a bit counterintuitive to some alpha leaders: cognitive diversity is more important than ability, disagreement is more important than consensus, voting policies and team size are more important than the coherence or comprehensibility of the decisions, and tuning the parameters of communication (frequency and fanout) is more important than charisma.

 

The same could be said for urban planning. How will cities be built and iterated upon? Who will make those decisions and how? We are just starting to see the shimmering refractions of the hive mind of human culture, and now we want to redesign the hives themselves to optimize the emergent complexity within. Perhaps the best we can do is set up the grand co-evolutionary dance and listen carefully for the sociobiology of supra-human sentience.

 

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I first brainstormed about reinventing construction with Astro Teller and Sebastian Thrun when they were forming Google X and looking for the largest markets in the world that look ripe for disruption from advancing information technology and machine learning. The $10 trillion spent each year on buildings certainly qualified, and the global construction industry is growing from 13% of the entire global economy to 15% in 2020. Helix.re became the first Google X spinout, taking a data and software-driven approach to building design and optimization.

 

Picture: Shelter Drawing, by Henry Moore, 1940.

 

Shelter Women

 

Breathing roots, blanket-barked,

knot-mouthed slumberers, dead things

on the edge of sentience - gnarled ones

in the groined earth, grit-ingrained,

webbed with mycelium: we are Fates

and fated, sculptural, immovable,

hollowed out and whole - shelter women,

wombed and wombing. Waking, we glare

into ghosts of echoes, our sockets

blaring - the world above, a clatter

of blind unknowing. Buildings broken,

buses overturned, Blitz-dazed streets:

these things come to us as a dumb,

encumbered thrumming, a rattling

of plumbing. We are knitters, nursers,

blank standers, watchers of nothing,

white nocturnals warding off the morning.

 

Poem by Giles Watson, 2013. Inspired by Henry Moore's 'Shelter Drawings', 1940.

6440 North Campbell Avenue

 

Traditional American Cuisine

It's time to run away from the last run. I say run but it's more of a powerwalk. Well, maybe less a powerwalk and really it's a sit down wait for it to get so far into the distance that you can pretend it no longer exists. Sort of like those cups you have sitting on the end of your desk that should make their own way into the kitchen once they develop a suitable level of sentience.

 

So it's time now to take stock and decide what sort of year we're going to have. But we're not. Because that's not how years work. There is the illusion of intention and false resolute feeling that you will do so much yet achieve so nothing. I'm not going to judge you for that. It's what I plan on doing this year too.

 

I plan to make no plans.

 

I think we've learned that spontaneity is the way to go. Spontaneous planning. This year will be like trying to get the washing out for those brief moments between rain showers. If you see the opporchancity you go for it. Grab it like the last soft centre in a tub of chewy toffees.

 

You can do it.

 

Or not.

 

I'm not the boss of you.

A Power Miner set turned Rock Raider. And sentience added for fun.

Character Creation

 

The Silver Surfer is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character also appears in a number of movies, television, and video game adaptations. The character was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and first appeared in the comic book Fantastic Four #48, published in 1966.

 

The Silver Surfer is a humanoid alien with metallic skin who can travel through space with the aid of his surfboard-like craft. Originally a young astronomer named Norrin Radd on the planet Zenn-La, he saved his homeworld from the planet devourer, Galactus, by serving as his herald. Imbued in return with some portion of Galactus' Power Cosmic, he acquired vast power, a new body and a surfboard-like craft on which he could travel faster than light.

 

Now known as the Silver Surfer, he roamed the cosmos searching for planets for Galactus to consume. When his travels took him to Earth, he met the Fantastic Four, who helped him rediscover his nobility of spirit. Betraying Galactus, he saved Earth but was exiled there as punishment. In the alternate continuity of Earth X and Universe X, Shalla-Bal, Norrin's lover and the empress of Zenn-La, is depicted as joining him as a second Silver Surfer, both serving as the twin heralds of the second Galactus Franklin Richards.

 

In 2011, IGN ranked the Silver Surfer 41st in its "Top 100 Comic Heroes" list. The Silver Surfer was portrayed by Doug Jones and voiced by Laurence Fishburne in the 2007 film Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

 

Jack Kirby commented on the character's creation during an interview stating "My conception of the Silver Surfer was a human being from space in that particular form. He came in when everybody began surfing — I read about it in the paper. The kids in California were beginning to surf. I couldn't do an ordinary teenager surfing so I drew a surfboard with a man from outer space on it."

 

The Silver Surfer debuted as an unplanned addition to the superhero-team comic Fantastic Four #48 (March 1966). The comic's writer-editor, Stan Lee, and its penciller and co-plotter, Jack Kirby, had, by the mid-1960s, developed a collaborative technique known as the "Marvel Method": the two would discuss story ideas, Kirby working from a brief synopsis to draw the individual scenes and plot details, with Lee finally adding the dialogue and captions. When Kirby turned in his pencil art for the story, he included a new character he and Lee had not discussed.

 

As Lee recalled in 1995, "There, in the middle of the story we had so carefully worked out, was a nut on some sort of flying surfboard". He later expanded on this, recalling, "I thought, 'Jack, this time you've gone too far'". Kirby explained that the story's agreed-upon antagonist, a god-like cosmic predator of planets named Galactus, should have some sort of herald, and that he created the surfboard "because I'm tired of drawing spaceships!" Taken by the noble features of the new character, who turned on his master to help defend Earth, Lee overcame his initial skepticism and began adding characterization. The Silver Surfer soon became a key part of the unfolding story.

 

Following the Surfer's debut, Lee and Kirby brought him back as a recurring guest in Fantastic Four #55–61, 72, and 74–77 (ranging Oct. 1966 – Aug. 1968). The character made his solo debut in the backup story of Fantastic Four Annual #5 (Nov. 1967).

 

Beginning in August 1968, Lee launched the solo title The Silver Surfer. John Buscema was penciller for the first 17 issues of the series, with Kirby returning for the 18th and final issue. The first seven issues, which included anthological "Tales of the Watcher" backup stories, were 72-page (with advertising), 25-cent "giants", as opposed to the typical 36-page, 12-cent comics of the time. Thematically, the stories dealt with the Surfer's exile on Earth and the inhumanity of man as observed by this noble yet fallen hero. Though short-lived, the series became known as one of Lee's most thoughtful and introspective works.

 

Following his series' cancellation, the Surfer made sporadic appearances as a guest star or antagonist in such comic books as Thor, The Defenders, and Fantastic Four. Lee remained partial to the Surfer, even asking other writers not to use him as a general rule, and with Kirby collaborated on a seminal 1978 graphic novel starring the character, the only original story featured in the Marvel Fireside Books series.

 

After a 1982 one-shot by writer-artist John Byrne (with scripting by Stan Lee), the Surfer appeared in his second solo ongoing title in 1987.

 

Initially written by Steve Englehart, the series was to be set on Earth and one issue was completed under this premise before Marvel agreed to let Englehart remove the long-standing restriction regarding Silver Surfer being imprisoned on Earth. This first issue was shelved and a brand new first issue was written, to set up this plot twist; the original first issue would ultimately be reprinted in Marvel Fanfare #51. The series marked the first Silver Surfer stories not written by Stan Lee, a fact which Lee was openly unhappy about. He explained:

 

"After I gave up Spider-Man then someone else did Spider-Man, and someone else did the Fantastic Four and Doctor Strange and the X-Men and all of them. I felt that it was kind of nice for me to have been the only writer of the Silver Surfer, so I felt a little bit disappointed when somebody else did it. I would have liked to have been the only person. Had I known they were absolutely going to have the book done, I would have found the time to do it myself. I didn't really have time but I would have made the time, rather than have anybody else do it. ... this is not at all a criticism of Steve [Englehart] or of Marshall [Rogers, artist on the series], it's just that it's one book that I would have liked to have always done myself."

 

Englehart introduced many villains for Silver Surfer, as well as featured space politics involving Surfer's homeworld Zenn-La, which was caught in the middle of a renewed Kree–Skrull War. However, issues regarding Englehart wanting to use his Avengers character Mantis as Silver Surfer's companion, as well as editorial refusing to let him use Thanos or other concepts conceived by Jim Starlin, led Englehart to leave the book with issue #31. Starlin took over as writer with issue #34 after several fill-in issues, and incorporated Thanos, Adam Warlock, and Drax the Destroyer into the series.

 

Under Jim Starlin and later Ron Marz, the series would receive acclaim and sales boost due to Silver Surfer's involvement with Starlin's Infinity Trilogy, with George Pérez and J. M. DeMatteis also having brief writing stints on the series as well. Additional artists included Tom Grindberg, Ron Garney, and Jon J. Muth, as well as periodic guest spots by John Buscema. The title experienced great initial success which allowed Marvel to push the character into other media, including a 1990 video game, 1992 trading card set, and 1998 animated series, as well as spinning off a variety of other comics series including Cosmic Powers, Cosmic Powers Unlimited, Captain Marvel vol. 2, and Star Masters. It ran 146 issues, through 1998. The next year it was followed by the two-issue miniseries, Silver Surfer: Loftier Than Mortals.

 

A two-issue Silver Surfer miniseries (later collected as Silver Surfer: Parable), scripted by Lee and drawn by Moebius, was published through Marvel's Epic Comics imprint in 1988 and 1989. Because of inconsistencies with other stories, it has been argued that these stories actually feature an alternate Silver Surfer from a parallel Earth. This miniseries won the Eisner Award for best finite/limited series in 1989.

 

A new ongoing Silver Surfer series began in 2003, focusing on the character's alien nature and messianic allegory. It lasted 14 issues. The Surfer later appeared in an issue of Cable & Deadpool and has been reunited three times with the superhero group the Defenders. In 2006–2007, he starred in the four-issue miniseries Annihilation: Silver Surfer and co-starred in the miniseries Heralds of Galactus, both part of the Annihilation fictional crossover.

 

In 2007, the Silver Surfer starred in a four-issue miniseries Silver Surfer: Requiem by writer J. Michael Straczynski and artist Esad Ribic. The first issue was released May 30, 2007 to coincide with the character's first movie appearance. Published under the Marvel Knights imprint, Silver Surfer: Requiem portrays the character upon learning that he is dying as the silver shell he is encased in is deteriorating.

 

This was followed by the four-issue miniseries Silver Surfer: In Thy Name, by writer Simon Spurrier and artist Tan Eng Huat.

 

After an appearance in the "Planet Hulk" storyline in 2006, the Surfer was featured in its spin-off series starring the Hulk's son Skaar in 2008, both written by Greg Pak.

 

The Silver Surfer received a sixth volume, an eponymous 5-issue miniseries written by Pak, debuting in February 2011. He was also a core cast member in The Thanos Imperative (2010), Annihilators (2011), and Fear Itself: The Deep (2011). Beginning in 2011, the Silver Surfer began appearing regularly in The Mighty Thor and a new volume of Defenders, both written by Matt Fraction.

 

In March 2014, Silver Surfer volume 7 began as part of All-New Marvel NOW! by writer Dan Slott, artist Mike Allred, and colorist Laura Allred. In January 2016 Silver Surfer volume 8 began with a special 50th-anniversary edition expected release in March 2016.

 

In 2019, a 5-part mini-series titled Silver Surfer: Black was released featuring art from Tradd Moore in collaboration with writing from Donny Cates. The series is an extension of a Guardians of the Galaxy storyline in which the Surfer was sucked into a black hole and ejected into unfamiliar space territory. This run follows the Surfer as he traverses the spaceways on a journey back home.

 

Silver Surfer later plays an important role in King in Black storyline. With the help from Hugin and Munin, Surfer helps Enigma Force to enter Earth and chose Eddie Brock/Venom as a temporary Captain Universe, to aid his fellow heroes against Knull and his army.

 

Fictional Character History

 

Norrin Radd lived on the peaceful planet Zenn-La (Deneb System, Milky Way Galaxy). The Zenn-Lavians effectively eliminated the plagues commonly associated with human life on Earth, such as hunger, disease, crime, and war. The result of their quest for advancement and scientific discovery, in effect, created a Utopian society. Norrin's parents were Jartran and Elmar Radd. Jartran was a scientist, and Norrin followed in his footsteps, constantly studying. Unable to cope with what Zenn-La had become (a society that had devolved into hedonism and, in essence, become directionless), Norrin's mother Elmar committed suicide when he was very young. Norrin always blamed himself for this.

 

After his mother's passing, Norrin was nurtured by his father to become a great man. When Norrin entered manhood, his father was implicated in the theft of ideas belonging to another scientist. When Norrin confronted his father, he admitted negligence. Disgusted by his father's actions, Norrin completely withdrew from him. Depressed by his indiscretion made public and the apparent lack of support from his son, Jartran committed suicide.

 

Much like his mother and father, Norrin also dreamed of a society that had more substance. He believed that no goals were left to be achieved on Zenn-La. He was filled with discontent and often went to the museum to watch holograms of Zenn-La's past that revolved around their wars and space travel. This often troubled his girlfriend, Shalla-Bal. She believed they had all they could ever want together, but Norrin always dreamed of more.

 

One day, their peaceful existence was threatened by the presence of Galactus, the Devourer of Worlds, who subsists on the energies provided by entire planets. The Council of Scientists let Norrin use a spaceship to approach Galactus and plead on behalf of the planet. Seeing the hopeless situation of his home planet, Norrin Radd volunteered servitude to the Devourer of Worlds in order to spare Zenn-La from obliteration. Galactus accepted. Given a fraction of the Power Cosmic, and shaped by fantasies Norrin Radd entertained as a child, Galactus transformed Norrin Radd into the Silver Surfer. The Silver Surfer's main task was to find planets with the energy to satisfy Galactus's hunger.

 

Over time it became more difficult to find planets without life on them. Knowing Norrin Radd would resist taking a life, Galactus deliberately altered Norrin's mind to repress his moral compass, allowing Norrin Radd to more efficiently carry out the grim task of finding suitable planets to feed upon.

 

A decidedly introspective character plagued by the sins of his past, Norrin Radd forever seeks redemption, endeavoring to carry out justice throughout the universe.

 

The Silver Surfer’s introduction begins with the Surfer bringing Galactus to Earth. In turn, Galactus was confronted by the Fantastic Four. Ben Grimm’s girlfriend, the blind sculptress Alicia Masters, managed to reach Norrin Radd’s more human side, ultimately awakening his conscience that Galactus managed to suppress for many years. The Surfer turned on his master much to Galactus' surprise. The Surfer was easily dispatched by Galactus and Reed Richards ultimately managed to repel Galactus with the Ultimate Nullifier.

 

In reprisal for the Silver Surfer’s rebellious actions, Galactus created an energy barrier that would prevent the Silver Surfer from leaving Earth. No longer will he venture into space or be a witness to the universe's far-reaching wonders, his heart’s desire since he was a small child.

 

Trapped on Earth

 

The Surfer’s earliest contact with humanity was routinely met with fear. Entire countries reacted aggressively when the Surfer simply flew overhead, firing weapons of mass destruction at him. It seemed the Surfer would lead a life fraught with fear and rejection from Earth no matter what the circumstances. Occasionally, when he tried to help certain individuals on Earth, this too resulted in mistrust and fear. One of his worst experiences came from trying to assist Doctor Doom who tricked the Surfer and stole his cosmic powers. After his powers were returned, he had a hard time trusting any humans. He seemed a lost soul. Although they were ungrateful, the Surfer continued to protect humanity from great threats, all the while contemplating their savage and strange behavior.

 

Eventually, the Silver Surfer became a hero on Earth and began to rediscover his own very human feelings, thanks in large part to blind sculptress Alicia Masters. He fought alongside many of Earth's heroes and joined the superhero group, the Defenders. He even began to trust again and eventually formed friendships with some of earth’s heroes he worked alongside, specifically Doctor Strange. But this was only temporary - the Silver Surfer was not meant to be confined to such a small space.

 

But the Surfer longed to be free of his prison, to soar infinite space as he was meant to. The Surfer made repeated attempts to escape the impenetrable barrier Galactus placed around the planet. He once traveled through time to try to escape the insanity of Earth and did so successfully, only to find himself in a future where all civilizations had been destroyed. Faced with choices of being free in a dystopic, future Earth society or returning to Earth to live among a group of people who hated him, he chose the latter. He attempted to escape with the help of physicist Al Harper, but this failed as well. He was allowed to leave the barrier by Mephisto, only to find that Mephisto had kidnapped his love Shalla Bal therefore compelling his return to Earth once again to find her, while Mephisto reveled in his frustration.

 

Years later, with the help of Reed Richards, he successfully escaped. His first action was to go home, to Zenn-La. When he arrived, he found the paradise of Zenn-La destroyed and the residents claiming it to be the Surfer's fault. Galactus had returned and consumed the energies after the Surfer betrayed him. When he tried to find Shalla Bal, he learned she was kidnapped by Mephisto once again. In order to save Shalla Bal he returned to Earth, only to become trapped there once again. This would not be the last time Mephisto attempted to use Shalla Bal against the Surfer and he next tried to get the Surfer to destroy S.H.I.E.L.D., but eventually failed once again.

 

Free at Last

 

With the Fantastic Four's help, he was able to escape the barrier. The Silver Surfer made peace with Galactus when he saved his current herald, Frankie Raye, from the Skrulls. Galactus lifted the barrier and the Surfer was free to roam the spaceways once again, something he had long yearned for since his confinement. He wished to never return to Earth, the home of his imprisonment, ever again.

 

Once the barrier was lifted, the Surfer immediately thought of Zenn-La and his love Shalla Bal. He returned to find that after breaking his promise to Galactus to serve him, Galactus had returned to Zenn-La and consumed its energy. But the residents managed to escape his wrath and rebuild, with the help of Shalla Bal and the Power Cosmic he had granted her when Mephisto brought her to Earth to torment the Surfer. He proposed to Shalla Bal, now the Empress of Zenn-La, but she declined. With no place to truly call home, the Surfer returned to space.

 

Surfer then was attacked by the Elders of the Universe. With the help of Mantis, he learned of their plot to kill Galactus and destroy reality. Together, the already powerful beings had gathered the Infinity Gems. He managed to stop their plot with the help of Mantis and Frankie Raye. Eternity admitted to Galactus that if not for the Surfer's help, the universe may have been destroyed. But this turned out to not be the end of the Elders' threat to Galactus, as Death would not allow the Elders Galactus consumed to die. This meant that they survived inside Galactus making him very ill. With the help of Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman, they traveled to the Magick Realm to retrieve the Infinity Gems. In-Betweener interfered and traveled back to Galactus to kill him. Instead, he sent Galactus back to Magick Realm. Silver Surfer appealed to Chaos and Master Order of what the In-Betweener had done and they freed the Elders from a very angry Galactus.

 

Alignment with the Skrulls

 

The Surfer soon found himself in the middle of the Second Kree/Skrull War. At first, he remained neutral but through a Skrull trick, he ended up joining their side. He had helped the Super Skrull to escape the Eternals and helped to restore the Skrulls shape-shifting powers. The Kree knew of the trickery, but could not simply forgive the Surfer and made him their enemy. He was uneasy with his alliance when Reptyl joined their side and the Super Skrull was killed. Empress S'byll proved to not be as treacherous as most Skrulls after all and she and the Surfer attacked Hala themselves and defeated Nenora, the Supreme Leader. A truce was made between the races and the Surfer again soared the universe alone.

 

First Meeting with Thanos

 

The Surfer then met his next threat and one of his worse enemies, Thanos. Thanos was resurrected to kill half of the universe. He proved to be a very powerful and intelligent being. He faked his death so that the Surfer would not meddle in his affairs while he sought out the Infinity Gems. Thanos has the Surfer imprisoned on Dynamo City to further preoccupy him. After his escape, he met up with Thanos who had the Infinity Gauntlet. He stole the Surfer's soul and kept it in the Soul Gem. He meets Adam Warlock in the Soul World and, with his help, is able to free himself.

 

Infinity Gauntlet

 

With Thanos now in possession of the Infinity Gauntlet, he thought himself a god. To please Death, he instantly wiped out half of all life in the universe. The Surfer traveled to Earth to gain the help of any hero he could find. He was able to gather the help of Doctor Strange, the Avengers and some of Earth's mightiest heroes. Adam Warlock exited the Soul World and was best suited to lead the heroes against this growing threat.

 

The Surfer had a special part in Warlock's plans. While Thanos was distracted by Earth's heroes and the gathered cosmic deities, the Surfer was to take the Gauntlet from Thanos. When the time came, he was noticed and failed to capture the gems from Thanos. After the gauntlet is taken by Nebula, the heroes need Thanos' help to get it from her. The Surfer will not accept this and attacks Thanos. Doctor Strange makes a dimension for them to fight in to settle it with each other. They battle medieval style with limited powers and the Surfer emerges victorious but refuses to kill Thanos. When he turns his back, Thanos attacks him and the Surfer yields. The heroes eventually gained control over the gauntlet and it went to Adam Warlock.

 

During the Infinity Gauntlet, the Surfer faces many trials and tests. In the realm of perception the Surfer was able to destroy the demons of guilt, denial and doubt he harbored throughout his lifetime. He was able to get forgiveness for his past associations with family and love. He was also able to forgive himself. The only ones to not forgive the Surfer are the millions he brought death to as Galactus' herald. The guilt for this was something the Surfer never knew since Galactus had blocked that in his mind. He had Galactus turn the guilt in his brain back on and the Surfer could almost not bear it. He overcame this. In another reality he was able to defeat the Shadow Surfer, the dark side of himself, to finally become whole.

 

Infinity War

 

When the Silver Surfer learned Galactus had traveled back to Earth he was instantly concerned. He met Galactus who was seemingly abducting Doctor Strange. He tried to stop him and Galactus pitted Nova against him. Doctor Strange stopped their battle and told the Surfer he was willing to help Galactus and that the Surfer should help as well. They were able to trace the source of energy fluctuations that Galactus was concerned about and traveled toward their origin. This is the beginning of the Infinity War.

 

The Surfer and Nova succeeded in protecting the ship. After this, the Surfer played a little part in defeating the Magus and fought with Earth's heroes against their evil counterparts, the doppelgangers. Magus was eventually defeated by Adam Warlock with the brilliant planning of Thanos.

 

The Silver Surfer learned of Galactus' dismissal of Nova in a harsh way - by being attacked by his new herald Morg. Morg soundly defeated the Surfer and left him unconscious. The Surfer knew this new herald to be unworthy of the Power Cosmic but was unable to face him alone. In addition, Galactus blocked his energy from all former heralds, making him nearly impossible to find.

 

Surfer gained the assistance of Firelord despite their previous differences. Together they found Nova and resurrected Air-Walker. They all gained the cooperation of Terrax also, after battling him. Together all the former heralds of Galactus came upon Morg. Terrax realized instantly that they together were still no match for Morg, who had recently augmented his powers further through a mystical well. He suggested the Surfer speak to Galactus. The Surfer approached Galactus, but he would not listen and became frustrated with the Surfer's constant meddling. Galactus and the Surfer fought and naturally Galactus emerged the victor. The Surfer was able to finally reach Galactus by telling him that although he could kill him and all his former heralds, someone will replace them to fight the evil that is Morg. This would go on forever. Galactus agreed to remove Morg's cosmic powers.

 

The Surfer arrived back on the battlefield to find nearly all the heralds downed by Morg's might. Nova managed to seemingly kill Morg, but it was all a sham and Morg attacked her when she turned her back. Nova died in the Surfer's arms. The Surfer was furious but before he could get to Morg they were stopped by Galactus. He removed Morg's Power Cosmic, but he still remained a powerful enemy. The heralds fought him and the Surfer still refused to help kill him, not wanting to sink to Morg's level. The Surfer tried to stop him, but Terrax kills Morg. At a loss, the Surfer said a few words and sent Nova's body into a nearby sun. He regretted that he would never see her again.

 

While the Surfer searches for Terrax, he comes across Ganymede, who believes him to be one of Tyrant's servants. After a brief battle, the Surfer convinces her that he knows nothing of this one called Tyrant. She tells the Surfer of Tyrant's threat to the universe. Fortunately, the trail the Surfer was following to Terrax also seems to be leading to Tyrant.

 

Upon arrival at Tyrant's Fortress, they are attacked by Tyrant's robotic guards, which the Surfer easily dispatches. But Tyrant has plans for them and appears and easily defeats them both. When the Surfer awakens he is attached to an energy-draining device along with Ganymede, Gladiator, Beta Ray Bill, Terrax, and to his surprise, Morg. Tyrant is siphoning their energy for himself and to power his colossal ship.

 

The next victim of Tyrant is brought in to be attached to the machine, the Surfer's friend the Jack of Hearts. Rather than be captured, Jack releases the energy in his armor and is able to free Tyrant's prisoners. They engage Tyrant, with the exception of Morg and Terrax, who fight each other. Even their combined might is not enough to stop Tyrant, who only stops the battle upon the arrival of Galactus. Galactus allows Tyrant to keep Morg in exchange for the release of the others. The Surfer asks why he would deal so lightly with Tyrant, but Galactus replies he will deal with him at a time of his choosing. The Surfer then takes the others to safety.

 

Infinity Crusade

 

When the Goddess uses the power of 30 cosmic cubes, she gains control of some heroes susceptible to her message. This begins the Infinity Crusade. She manages to brainwash the Surfer into becoming one of her Holy Guard to help create a universe without evil. At first. he is a faithful follower until she asks him to begin an attack on the remaining heroes of Earth. He refuses to fight his friends and breaks her control over him. This causes his companion and fellow member of the guard Firelord to turn on him. The Surfer does not wish to harm Firelord but he does what he must to stop the Goddess and her plot.

 

On his way to warn the heroes, he is brought by Thanos to his ship. He agrees to aide Thanos, as the Surfer is instrumental to Warlock and Thanos' plan. He is to be a diversion for the attack on Goddess' planet Paradise Omega. He attempts a dangerous mission to absorb more energy than he ever has from the Sun, becoming a living bomb. Absorbing all this power made him lose his mind and Drax helped to guide him to the moon. He is able to destroy the moon of Paradise Omega and cause the distraction.

 

The Surfer survived the blast and fell to the planets surface unconscious. He awoke being attacked by Holy Guard members Storm and Wonder Man. Once his power returned he defeated them and tried to get them to realize they followed a madwoman. They remained faithful to the Goddess, but left the Surfer without any further confrontation after he healed Wonder Man's injuries. After the defeat of the Goddess, the Surfer is relieved by her plans being foiled, but at the same time remorseful of the return of evil and violence into the universe.

 

Blood and Thunder

 

After having met Beta Ray Bill while they were both held captive by Tyrant, the Surfer flew to find him and help aid him against a crazed Thor. He found Bill beaten by Thor and stopped him from killing him. The Surfer then took on the Thunder God and fought a hard battle, but was defeated. Adam Warlock then intervened and saved the Surfer. Together they assaulted Thor, but to no avail. The Surfer and Warlock were nearly killed. Luckily, Warlock showed the ability to control the Surfer's board since they had shared each others souls during the Infinity Gauntlet.

 

They sought the aid of Dr. Strange and together they all tried to stop Thor from destroying Asgard. They eventually sought the assistance of Thanos, who helped fight Thor while the Surfer fought the Dark Valkyrie. The Surfer defeated her and Thanos was able to trap Thor in an energy field. With the help of Doctor Strange and the Infinity Watch, they were able to stop Thor's madness.

 

Down to Earth

 

The Silver Surfer once again returned to Earth to go to Rick Jones' wedding. He went to inform the Fantastic Four of Nova's death. After a scuffle with the Human Torch, he agreed to help the Four find a seismic anomaly deep in the Earth. Through the caverns under Monster Island they discovered the source, that seemed to lead them right where it wanted them. Deep in the Earth, they find Nova, alive and well. Back at Four Freedoms Plaza, tests confirm that it is indeed his former love. They leave to soar the stars together.

 

Nova leads the Surfer to many places. They discover a hidden treasure of myth together and Nova tries to convince him to accept their riches. He turns the treasure into sand when Terrax tries to take it from them. Nova then tries to convince the Surfer to take the Champion's mystical wristlets to increase his power, but instead he destroys them. When Nova is kidnapped by some slave traders, the Surfer acts to save her and finally realize his love for her. When he pledges to her to be with her, Nova changes into her true form- Mephisto. Again he uses love to try to defeat the Surfer and is now in possession of the Surfer's soul.

 

He brings the Surfer to Hell and tells him to make himself comfortable. The Surfer still has hope and tries to fight for his freedom. He is shown that his parents souls are in the possession of Mephisto, which pushes him over the top. He does something he pledged never to do and kills Mephisto. He releases his parents souls, but again finds himself alone. Mephisto, living and well, is greatly satisfied over the outcome of his manipulations.

 

The Curse of the Power Cosmic

 

After the events with Mephisto, the Surfer returned to Zenn-la for the only comfort in his life, Shalla Bal. But to his surprise she had found a new lover, the Surfer's half-brother Fennan Radd. He soon realized that his great cosmic power has only brought him sorrow and met with Galactus. He asked Galactus to remove his power, but Galactus refused, telling him he is important to the universe. The Surfer sought out other means to have his power removed.

 

In space he comes across a planet that he once helped to destroy. He becomes suicidal, planning to use every last ounce of his Power Cosmic to destroy the world and it's memory. He soon decides it would be better to go out using his powers for good and travels to the planet Lathkolas, which has advanced technologically and in the process destroyed it's own ecology. He uses his Power Cosmic to grow life on the planet as he did on Zenn-La. But he loses control of his power and advances the planet billions of years in a matter of moments. In the end, the planet and all life on it is dead. This is more than the Surfer can handle and he losses control of his emotions.

 

He begins to fight violence with violence, in the process severely beating the Super Skrull. He finally comes to his senses and travels to a planet called Tanus, that is in total anarchy, and tries to help them. Soon, a ship from Earth arrives and inside of it Doctor Doom. He makes a deal with the Surfer to take the suffering away from these people in exchange for his Power Cosmic. The Surfer agrees and Doom's machines are able to siphon all his energies, leaving him still silver, but mortal. Doom then destroys the planet, claiming the people no longer suffer. The Surfer is now powerless and is taken captive.

 

It is revealed that this is not Doctor Doom himself, but one of his Doombots that set out to get the Surfer's power right after Doom had lost the Power Cosmic the first time. The robot now plans to kill his master and the Fantastic Four, but first he plans to kill the Surfer, ejecting him into space. Legacy arrives on the scene and uses every ounce of his power to revive the Surfer. Upon his revival his powers are restored and he chases after the Doombot, siphoning his power back from it and destroying it.

 

Immediately after this, the Surfer senses his former master is in danger. He leaves Legacy behind to go to Galactus' aide. He arrives to Galactus' ship to find that Galactus and Tyrant are having their long-awaited battle. Morg has found the Ultimate Nullifier, which he is using to torture Tyrant. But the Nullifier is about to have it's energy unleashed. Galactus tells the Surfer to leave the ship before he is destroyed. The Surfer does not wish for his former master to be destroyed, but Galactus insists. The Surfer barely escapes before Galactus' ship is destroyed along with Galactus and all aboard.

 

The Star Masters

 

Upon hearing the intergalactic transmission that Quasar is responsible for the deaths of hundreds in a peaceful organization known as the Charter, he goes to investigate. He finds Beta Ray Bill and together they seek out Quasar. Once found, the Surfer can instantly tell that Quasar speaks the truth and did not commit this heinous crime. Together they become the Star Masters to find the true culprit.

 

They soon find they have two problems: the Charter's Cosmic Commandos are after Quasar and a massive asteroid is about to collide with Earth. With the Commandos being no match for the Surfer, he is able to concentrate on the asteroid. With his knowledge of the barrier Galactus erected to imprison him there, he is able to use it to destroy the asteroid. But inside lies a tiny black hole that would also destroy Earth. It is stopped by Beta Ray when he transports it out of Earth's path.

 

Two of the Commandos, Morfex and Xenith, soon ally themselves with the Surfer and the Star Masters and they continue their search for the one responsible for the deaths and the attack on Earth. When they enter the Charter's ship, known as the Hub, they are ambushed and captured. They are thrown in the Cauldron of Conversion to die, but Quasar is able to protect them.

 

After their escape, the Surfer goes to find Beta Ray Bill, who disappeared after being thrown in the Cauldron. He goes to Asgard to find Bill dead. With Odin's help, the Surfer is able to resurrect Bill, but with part of his Power Cosmic. They return to the others where Bill is able to communicate with the contents of the Cauldron. It is a sentient virus that will destroy any race that has become a part of it.

 

Through this they learn the truth and the one behind the plot is the Axi-Tun leader Lord Votan. After Quasar is cleared of his charges, they travel to Tun to detain Votan. But he is not going down without a fight, and uses his power to sap their wills and capture them. Tana Nile uses her powers to transfer the remaining will power of the Surfer and the others to Quasar, who is able to escape. Together they are able to defeat Votan.

 

Planet Hulk

 

The Surfer was next controlled for fighting in the Red King's arena on Sakaar against the Hulk (who was sent out in space by the Illuminati). The Hulk, recognizing that the Surfer was his friend, destroyed the obedience disc that controlled him. The Silver Surfer was free and used his power cosmic to destroy the other alien gladiator's obedience disc to escape the arena.

 

When Norrin offered The Hulk to take him back to earth, he declined because he wanted to liberate Sakaar from the Red King's tyranny. The Surfer sensing the destruction of Xandar assisted in relief efforts of nearby planets until summoned by his former master, Galactus.

 

Annihilation

 

During the events of Annihilation, the Silver Surfer became aware of the invasion of his universe after the destruction of Xandar. He was able to save Air-Walker from the Seekers, who were trying to capture all of Galactus' Heralds for their leader Annihilus. He met up with Firelord and Red Shift but they were soon met by Stardust. Galactus had summoned the Surfer. He left to speak with his former master.

 

Galactus told his former Herald of the recent freeing of Aegis and Tenebrous from Kyln, two of his adversaries from early in universal history. Galactus asked Surfer to stand with him as his Herald once more. The Surfer accepted and his power increased and augmented, he was quickly tested by Ravenous, agent of Annihilus. The Surfer dispatched him easily.

 

Shortly thereafter Tenebrous and Aegis ambushed Galactus and his herald, striking them both down. The Annihilation Wave arrived and picked up the pieces, taking both Galactus and the Silver Surfer prisoner. Silver Surfer was held in a stasis sphere while the Power Cosmic was drained from both him and his master through technology given to Annihilus by Thanos.

 

After killing Thanos, Drax realized that he had no one to unlock the machine that kept Galactus captive because Thanos had set the power levels on the machine to his own level so that no one could unlock it. He than discovered the Silver Surfer was also being held in stasis. He freed the Silver Surfer while hoping that the Surfer still had enough power left to outmatch Thanos' power level that was set on the machine. The Silver Surfer was severely weak at the time but he still succeeded in overpowering the machine (this may be due to his latest power increase Given to him by Galactus), this was a great accomplishment for the Silver Surfer. Galactus than decimated the Annihilation Wave.

 

After this the Surfer went to Aegis and Tenebrous in an attempt to hold them at the Crunch until Galactus arrived. He was no match for them and they quickly brought him to near death. In a risky maneuver, he surfed the energies of the Crunch and was able to kill Aegis and Tenebrous with it. Nearly dead, Galactus healed the Surfer, amazed that the Surfer could accomplish such as task. The Silver Surfer continues to serve as Galactus' Herald alongside Stardust.

 

The New Fantastic Four

 

When Stardust found an energy source to fulfill their masters hunger, the Silver Surfer used his great tracking abilities to locate the source, who was hiding it from them. The source turned out to be Epoch, the protector of cosmic awareness. But there was a problem, the Fantastic Four needed Epoch, who they believed had stolen the body of their friend, Gravity.

 

At first, the Surfer was not interested in what they had to say, but after a brief battle with the Black Panther, who had temporarily taken Mr. Fantastic's spot on the roster, he decided to listen. He offered them time to retrieve their friend, but Epoch was to be fed to his master. After speaking with the Thing, the Surfer explained that he had come to the realization that Galactus is beyond good and evil and the Surfer planned to do anything necessary to feed his master.

 

It turned out that Epoch had taken Gravity in order to resurrect him as Protector of the Universe. But Gravity would not allow Epoch to be consumed and neither would the Fantastic Four. When Black Panther arrived back to the battle, he was equipped with a device similar to Doctor Doom's that siphoned the Surfer's Power Cosmic. His hand to hand abilities were no contest for the Black Panther and he was defeated.

 

With the heralds of Galactus beaten, they still had no hope of defeating Galactus. Instead, Gravity used all the power Epoch gave him to feed Galactus, who restored the Surfer's power and agreed to spare Epoch.

 

His tracking abilities were needed once again, this time by the Fantastic Four that just battled with him. They needed him to follow the trail of the contrasepsis, the creatures that fix repairs in reality. The trail lead to Eternity's plane of existence where they found the problem and what was causing Eternity's death and the abundance of contrasepsis. The Surfer helped fight the endless hordes while Doctor Strange preformed surgery on Eternity to save him.

 

Fall of Orbucen

 

After two stars suddenly went out without notice, the people of Orbucen realized the sign of fate: Galactus was drawing near their planet. Their worst fears materialized as the Silver Surfer arrived at the planet, scouting it for his master’s needs, not long afterward. Five days after the extinguishing of the two starts, Galactus arrived in Orbucen and begun setting up his equipment.

 

Once Richard Rider, a.k.a. Nova answering to Orbucen’s distress call arrived there, Galactus’ siphons had already penetrated the planet’s crust, a fore sign that the planet’s end drew nearer with each passing moment. In an attempt to help the people of Orbucen in every way possible, Nova assisted in the evacuation of the planet and the embarking of the population in arks, all the while stumbling upon Harrow, the shadow that life casts, a mysterious parasitic organism that filled its hosts with homicidal tendencies.

 

After containing Harrow, Nova was informed that the moment Galactus’ feeding process begun, an electromagnetic disruption reached critical level, simultaneously causing a malfunction in all the arks that would drive Orbucen’s people to safety. Knowing there was no time to repair it, Nova set course to persuade Galactus to refrain from consuming the planet, for a few hours, at least.

 

Galactus did not even notice Nova’s pleading, but the same could not be said for the Silver Surfer, who almost immediately grabbed Nova by the neck, and their battle commenced. At first, due to the Surfer’s swift attack, Nova was unaware of what hit him, but he soon regained composure and tried to reason with him; the Surfer however, showed no intention of stopping. After a relatively short fight in which Nova found himself outclassed, the duo finally landed on Orbucen again, at which point, the Surfer gave his reasoning: he did not wish his master to see him fraternizing with “lower” life forms, and took the fight away in order to speak to Nova, freely.

 

Expressing his respect for him, the Surfer advised Richard to leave the planet. Nova explained the situation with the malfunctioning arks to the Surfer, who simply locked the drive tech and made the ships operational again by merely blinking, much to Nova’s astonishment. The Surfer then once again advised Nova to drive the arks to safety and then abandon the planet, for his own good.

 

Later on, after realising Harrow had escaped and went on yet another killing spree, Nova wasted precious time attempting to stop him, and as a result the electromagnetic disruption from Galactus’ instruments became too intense for him to open a stargate, and escape. In an act of despair, Nova rushed into Galactus’ vessel from within the energy siphons. Inside the vessel, he detected once again , and located his physical body for the first time in a floorboard. After a short fight, the Surfer appeared, freed Nova from Harrow’s clutches, and revealed Harrow’s presence to Galactus’ who in return disintegrated Harrow, as a punishment. Galactus spared Nova, by teleporting him and the Surfer five light-years away from Orbucen. The Surfer bid Nova goodbye, but also advised him to refrain from crossing paths with him, or Galactus in the future, before returning to his master once again.

 

Godhunter

 

After the consummation of his home planet by Galactus, and the death of his people, Beta Ray Bill decided to pursue the Great Devourer, and put up a complex scheme in order to defeat him: seeing that his power was lilliputian in comparison to Galactus’ might, the cunning Bill decided to attempt and destroy the planets Galactus chose for consumption, in order to eventually starve him. That lead to an inevitable conflict, at first with Stardust, and, eventually with the Silver Surfer himself, whom Galactus dispatched to take care of Bill’s nuisance, after Bill destroyed a planet named I’Than IX.

 

The Surfer pursued Bill’s ship, Skuttlebutt, all the while trying to reason with Bill. Bill, finally emerging from his ship, refused to hear to the Surfer’s pleadings, and attacked him, hammering him away. The Surfer swiftly recuperated, using his trusted board in order to stun Bill, and then quickly managed to overwhelm Bill in hand to hand combat, while expressing his sadness for having to fight his old friend and comrade.

 

After persuading Bill to submit, the Surfer tried, once again, to reason with him, and explain that while he could understand Bill’s loss concerning Corbin, Galactus was a force of nature. Skuttlebutt subtly following their exchange from afar, took advantage of the Surfer’s hesitation during his conversation with Bill in order to strike and enable Bill to run away.

 

Later on, Bill crossed paths with the Surfer again, in an unexplored planet, while Bill was trying to locate Galactus once again. Bill’s initial strike was repelled by the Surfer, who, this time, refused to do more than simply speak. Hesitantly, Bill accepted to listen to him. Expanding on their earlier conversation, the Surfer outlined the events that occurred during Annihilation, and how Galactus’ power was so diminished, that it would not be long before his life would end, taking the sheer number of his pursuers into account. The Surfer also revealed that if Galactus’ existence where to end, all the life within forty-two light-years would cease to exist. Bill reluctantly accepted to permit Galactus to feed in order to sustain himself. It was at that time that the people of I’Than and their assembled fleet attacked the weakened Galactus, Surfer and Stardust, and were near-victory until Bill himself intervened and helped the Devourer complete his sustaining process revitalize himself and destroy the opposing fleet. After the event, Galactus and Bill came to a mutual understanding, and Galactus dispatched both his heralds to find him new planets to feed upon, once again.

 

Return of the Silver Savage

 

Upon learning of the Old Power of Sakaar, the Surfer travels to the planet in order to warn the residents of Galactus' coming. If Galactus were to consume the planet, he may not need to feed for millennia and billions of lives will be spared. On the planet he finds Skaar, the son of Hulk, about to destroy the world. Skaar had obtained the Old Power for himself and saw that to save Sakaar, all life must be wiped out.

 

The Surfer stops him before he can do this, and with his Power Cosmic, returns the Old Power to the planet. But to do this, the Surfer used much of his power and Skaar is able to put an obedience disc on him. The Silver Savage is now a slave of Skaar, who rides with the Red King to destroy the forces of Axeman Bone. In the battle, the Surfer still worries for innocent lives and tries to persuade Skaar to help save them, but Skaar is only interested in killing Axeman. Only then does Caiera come from the Old Power and try to stop Skaar's destructive path. She gains control over the Surfer's obedience disc and has him show Skaar what it is to be a god.

 

The Surfer fuses himself with Skaar and brings him to Galactus. Skaar, acting as herald, tries to stop Galactus from consuming Sakaar, only to watch in horror as Galactus does so anyway. The Surfer then sends Skaar back to Sakaar, explaining that this is only a vision of things to come. But Skaar still refuses to evacuate. He planned to use the Old Power and force more than Galactus can handle into him, making Galactus hungrier than ever. Realizing that showing Skaar what will happen did not change Skaar, Caiera opens a portal and sends Skaar away from the planet. There will be no evacuation, and Galactus had arrived.

 

In her last moments, Caiera is able to get some of the ancient stone ships into the sky and save as many as she can. Galactus consumes Sakaar, his hunger absent and he falls into a deep sleep. But before Skaar goes through the portal, he shoots out a beam of the Old Power into Galactus as promised, waking him and making him crave the Old Power. The Surfer tries to calm Galactus, but with a gesture he sends the Surfer across the universe, having enough power to no longer need a herald. The Surfer begins to warn other worlds with the Old Power to prepare for the coming of Galactus.

 

The "Death" of Galactus

 

Galactus eventually released the Old Power from his being and the Silver Surfer once again returned to his side as herald. On Earth, the Surfer discovered something disturbing - the corpse of Galactus buried beneath the surface. He was immediately able to trace some possible suspects - Mr. Fantastic and the other members of the Fantastic Four. The Surfer informed his master and went to the Baxter Building to speak with Richards.

 

Mr. Fantastic revealed that the Galactus he buried was from the future and was killed by the New Defenders and brought back through time to create the Galactus Engine. Using Galactus' power to save the remaining inhabitants of their world, it caused Galactus' death. In order to prevent this future death, Galactus sent the Surfer to summon more involved as they planned to go to Nu-World and question those involved.

 

The Thanos Imperative

 

Sensing the coming danger to the universe, the Surfer preceded Galactus to an area known as the Fault, a massive fissure in space caused by the War of Kings. On the other side of the Fault was a twisted, undead universe known as the Cancerverse. With help from the Magus, the inhabitants began their invasion into the universe with their goal being to remove death from the universe and rewrite reality.

 

While Galactus, the Celestials and many other abstract cosmic beings lined the edge of the Fault, the Surfer teamed up with his old friend Quasar and Nova to help assist in the defense of the universe. But things were about to get much worse, as the Cancerverse had it's own version of the extremely powerful Galactus Engine.

 

While the abstracts continued their fight at the Fault, Nova recruited a party of the universe's heaviest hitters, including the Silver Surfer, to face the evil leader of the invasion - a corrupted version of Captain Mar-Vell, known as Lord Mar-Vell. Nova Prime and the Surfer, along with Ronan, Gladiator, Beta Ray Bill and Quasar rushed Mar-Vell's location. The Surfer showed his impressive powers by easily defeating two of the most powerful members of the Revengers at the same time - Iron Man and Thor. He faced Mar-Vell himself along with Nova, but Mar-Vell blasted a hole through Surfer's board and easily defeated Nova. Their battle was eventually cut short when Mar-Vell became aware of the Avatar of Death's location. As he departed, he created a massive explosion to destroy his enemies.

 

Quasar was able to protect the other heroes from their deaths and the Surfer returned with the others to continue the battle at the Fault. When Death returned to the Cancerverse, she destroyed it's inhabitants, causing the universe to collapse on itself, thus closing the Fault. The Surfer then attended a memorial service on Hala for those who were lost in the battle.

 

Chaos War

 

Again, the universe was in danger of complete obliteration. The evil god Mikaboshi planned to destroy all of reality by defeating and taking the power of all the gods and skyfathers of the universe. Hercules, recently resurrected, formed a new God Squad. Needing more power for their team, he used his new powers to summon Galactus and the Silver Surfer. The Surfer was enraged, as Galactus was just about to feed and now he was on Earth, a planet the Surfer has saved many times. Luckily, it seemed Galactus agreed to help with this great threat and remain with the team, which included Thor, Daimon Hellstrom, Sersi and others.

 

When they faced Mikaboshi, he's power proved to be far greater than anticipated. Even the gods he controlled shared in his great power, giving Zeus the ability to topple even the mighty Galactus. The God Squad was forced to retreat.

 

The Silver Surfer was among other members of the squad that were halted in their escape and trapped between realities. All that remained - including Hellstorm, Sersi, and Venus - were all in between mortal and god, which the Surfer deemed no coincidence. They ended up in Takamagahara, the land of the Japanese gods, where Mikaboshi had originally been trapped. They began to form a plan to trap him once again, but he sent his minions and opened the gate to his former prison, releasing the evil inside.

 

The team was nearly trapped in nothingness, but the Surfer resisted and helped the other members to resist as well. Again, their power was not enough and they were forced to retreat, the Panther God of Wakanda seemingly sacrificing himself to help them escape.

 

Back on Earth

 

After the events of Chaos war, Silver Surfer takes Galactus to Sol (our sun) to feed and rejuvenate, thus removing one billion years out of the sun's life span. He visits Earth and observes the usual chaos while contemplating his role in events passed and his inability to feel human emotions. Flying over Mexico, he witnesses a couple about to get shot down by military men for stealing money. He intervenes, subduing the men and healing the woman from the brink of death but is unable to save the man. The O.A.S first contact squad of the Mexican military are alerted of his presence and send Suzi Endo to initiate a diplomatic greeting. However, the High Evolutionary arrives and attacks the Surfer, leeching him of his precious Power Cosmic. Left powerless and fragile in his human state, the Surfer is taken into custody by the Mexican government and is put under the care of Suzi Endo. He awakens strapped to machines, nearly driving him mad as he is used to flying free amongst the stars, but Suzi creates a diversion and the Surfer escapes from his bonds.

 

They escape the facility on a land-skimmer and briefly share a kiss as Norrin remembers his usual emotions towards Shalla Bal given Endo's remarkable resemblance to her. They find the High Evolutionary who has taken one of Galactus' Star Spheres and has begun terraforming the desert into a lush jungle before they can enter it. They find themselves threatened by the ever-expanding jungle which threatens to kill those inside it. Norrin is reminded of his early days as the Silver Surfer and the way pre-sentient life on a planet seemed to bond to each other and gain sentience when faced with danger. He shares another kiss with Endo and tells her it is his job to stop the madness the High Evolutionary has started and his to do alone. She convinces him that she can help and arranges a diversion to get them on the ship. Once inside Endo tries to find a way to the High Evolutionary but is somehow imbued with the remaining portion of his power cosmic.

 

The High Evolutionary appears and tells Norrin how all his life he has brought death and destruction under a supposedly right cause. He then shows- with the appearance of the old man who has been saved and renewed after receiving a portion of his power- how his Power Cosmic can be used to create and restore life instead of tear it down. He requests the aid of a herald to aid him in his cause - bring life to dead worlds. Norrin declines but to his surprise he sees the invitation was not directed to him but to Suzi. She accepts.

 

Norrin did not trust her judgement. He felt the Power Cosmic was his burden to bare. With this he rams Suzi out of the star ship to the jungle below in a fall that is sure to kill them both. Luckily, she makes use of her new powers and develops wings and lands them in the jungle where the other survivors are. She tells him the Suzi he knew is no more and joins the High Evolutionary as they move to the moon. Frustrated, Norrin takes his anger out on a pack of mutant wolves that recently appeared and convinces the rest of the survivors to flee. He is rescued by the Future Foundation and the Mexican military who destroy the jungle with help from Sue Storm. They use a Future Foundation craft to go to the moon where High Evolutionary has begun wide-scale terraforming on the moon.

 

In space, Reed devises a plan to separate the newly bonded Power Cosmic from Suzi back to Norrin. The plan works and most of the Power Cosmic is given to Norrin. He is once again transformed to the Silver Surfer and confronts Suzi ... with a kiss. Somehow, his powers have been restored but his emotions remain intact. Unused to these emotions, he nearly turns on his friends who are trying to stop Suzi and the Evolutionary from their task, which will surely do great damage to the Earth.

 

When Galactus awakens from his rejuvenation, he plans to feed on the Moon. Realizing that his duty will always be that of Galactus' herald, he is forced to chose between those emotions and continuing to serve cosmic consonance. He chooses the latter, taking the remaining Power Cosmic from Suzi and departing with his master. He leaves behind a single flower for her and Reed tells her that as long as he has known him, the Silver Surfer has never been as happy as he was when he was with her.

 

The Annihilators

 

The Surfer joins a group of "cosmic police," the Annihilators. Their plan is to fight cosmic-level threats to the galaxy. It is surprising that Galactus would let his Herald go gallivanting off on his own adventures when he is supposed to be looking for planets for the Devourer to eat, but in any case, he fights with them in their first adventure against Klobok, a Skrull seeking to bring the Dire Wraiths back from Limbo. During this mission, Silver Surfer combined his energy manipulation powers with those of Quasar and Ronan to fuse 2 stars.

 

It is unclear whether this story arc occurs before or after the High Evolutionary storyline. In any case, it must be before the Galactus Seed, since he is not shown to be weakened even when he is fighting at such a great distance from Asgard. It must also be before the Annihilators: Earthfall series, since he is apparently no longer part of the group at that time, presumably because during Earthfall, he is tethered to the World Tree.

 

Powers and Abilities

 

In order for Norrin Radd to perform his duty as his herald, Galactus gives Norrin Radd a fraction of his cosmic powers. Possessing him with the Power Cosmic, which is the core from which his other abilities manifest from, Silver Surfer can manipulate the 4 fundamental forces of the universe (electromagnetism, gravity, strong nuclear force and weak nuclear force), by varying degrees. He is one of the most powerful Heralds of Galactus, and the most powerful member of the Annihilators. Tyrant once said that Silver Surfer was the most powerful member of a group that included Gladiator, Beta Ray Bill, Terrax and Morg, and Ikonn considered him an Alpha plus-level threat, just like Beta Ray Bill, Gladiator and Quasar.

 

Invulnerability

 

The Silver Surfer's skin is nearly impossible to penetrate, capable of withstanding extreme pressures and temperatures. He can travel through the core of a star and even through black holes without injury or disorientation. He has also been able to withstand punches from She-Hulk without any damage or pain, as well as attacks from the likes of Thor, Hulk, Beta Ray Bill, Namor, Wonder Man, Vision, the Thing, Drax, Korg, Abomination, Champion, Durok, Blastaar, Ravenous, Nova Prime, Quasar, Firelord, Terrax, Morg, Ronan, Super-Skrull, Cable with his powers fully unleashed, Iron Man and Human Torch well enough.

 

Regeneration

 

The Silver Surfer can regenerate parts of himself with the Power Cosmic, including his board, at will.

 

Super Strength

 

The Power Cosmic gives the Silver Surfer incredible strength. At a baseline, the Silver Surfer can lift/press more than 40 tons. He has frequently exhibited the ability to significantly boost his physical prowess, and enhance his strength to levels enabling him to fight the most powerful beings in the universe including Thor, the Hulk, Thanos and Beta Ray Bill.

 

Phasing

 

The Surfer has the ability to phase through solid objects though not turn outright intangible. This is done through his use of matter manipulation on solid objects/barriers or using his ability to travel through self-made spatial portals.

 

Stamina

 

The Silver Surfer does not need to breathe and can survive in any environmental condition (miles underwater, the heart of a star, the rigors of outer space, etc.). He does not need to eat or drink to sustain himself but he sometimes does to chose to do so. The Surfer rarely needs rest and can go for years without tiring.

 

Energy Absorption

 

The Surfer's skin is designed to absorb various energies from beta particles to any energy wavelength on the electro-magnetic spectrum (from infrared energy to visibile light, to quantum radiation). He is constantly being charged from hundreds of nearby stars and energies from distant galaxies. He can change this absorption into reflection if he chooses. The Surfer has also absorbed so much energy from a sun before, that he turned into a living bomb.

 

Blast Power

 

The Surfer can absorb and tap into ambient cosmic energy into his body at will and allowing him to use these energies at different forces. The Surfer could also channel energy through his hands also known as energy beams that can destroy a planet. He can use various energies for offensive purposes as well. He can create large blasts or beams down to the subatomic level.

 

Energy Manipulation

 

The Surfer can use energy to create force fields and shields. He can solidify energy to imprison enemies. He can manipulate the energies around him to make space travel possible for beings around him that can not survive in space. He can also control gravity.

 

Matter Control

 

The Silver Surfer can rearrange matter to create other objects of importance by rearranging molecules. He can also change the state of matter, such as changing solids into gas. Matter Transmutation helps the Surfer escape traps and prisons and can also be used to make an enemies weapons inactive.

 

Super Speed

 

The Silver Surfer's board allows him to move at rates of velocity far beyond that of lightspeed. He has even demonstrated the ability to enter the time stream at his own volition and ability.

 

Flight

 

The Silver Surfer flies through the atmosphere of any planet, as well as through the rigors of outer space. He is capable of complex aerobatic manueverability, while also being able to turn, stop and accelerate without any loss of control. He typically uses his surfboard, but has been occassionally observed to fly without the use of it.

  

⚡ Happy 🎯 Heroclix 💫 Friday! 👽

_____________________________

 

A year of the shows and performers of the Bijou Planks Theater.

 

Secret Identity: Norrin Radd

 

Publisher: Marvel

 

First Appearance: The Fantastic Four #48 (March 1966)

 

Created by: Stan Lee (writer)

Jack Kirby (artist)

 

The Silver Surfer has been seen:

 

Gladiating with The Hulk in BP 218 Day 100!

www.flickr.com/photos/paprihaven/27495953978/

 

Hitting the beach in BP 2020 Day 230!

www.flickr.com/photos/paprihaven/50238933872/

  

My face and hair are done, sandals and casual summer ensemble are on, and it's time to hit the streets and sidewalks of New Jersey and hope that my walk, my talk, my gestures and most importantly my confidence in emulating a middle aged suburban woman will bring me hours of inner peace and the tingling sensations from living as an old girl. Gee, I said that all in one sentience. If you think I am too wordy in a caption, you should hear how much I can talk without taking a breathe. When my spiritual female rules my life, I am a "Chatty Kathy". LOL

Hormonal sentience, first described by Robert A. Freitas Jr., describes the information processing rate in plants, which are mostly based on hormones instead of neurons like in all major animals (except sponges). Plants can to some degree communicate with each other and there are even examples of one-way-communication with animals.

 

Acacia trees produce tannin to defend themselves when they are grazed upon by animals. The airborne scent of the tannin is picked up by other acacia trees, which then start to produce tannin themselves as a protection from the nearby animals. When attacked by caterpillars, some plants can release chemical signals to attract parasitic wasps that attack the caterpillars.

A similar phenomenon can be found not only between plants and animals, but also between fungus and animals. There exists some sort of communication between a fungus garden and workers of the leaf-cutting ant Atta sexdens rubropilosa. If the garden is fed with plants that are poisonous for the fungus, it signals this to the ants, which then will avoid fertilizing the fungus garden with any more of the poisonous plant.The Venus flytrap, during a 1- to 20-second sensitivity interval, counts two stimuli before snapping shut on its insect prey, a processing peak of 1 bit/s. Mass is 10-100 grams, so the flytrap's SQ is about +1. Plants generally take hours to respond to stimuli though, so vegetative SQs (Sentience Quotient) tend to cluster around -2.In theory even an organism with a hormonal system instead of a nervous system could be intelligent in some degree, but it would be an extremely slow brain, to say the least.And yet, at least higher plants are able to produce electrical signals, even if they do not use them in the same way animals do. František Baluška from the University of Bonn in Germany is one of the authorities on plant neurobiology.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormonal_sentience

 

Plants do not have a brain or neuronal network, but reactions within signalling pathways may provide a biochemical basis for learning and memory in addition to computation and problem solving.Controversially, the brain is used as a metaphor in plant intelligence to provide an integrated view of signalling.Plants respond to environmental stimuli by movement and changes in morphology. They communicate while actively competing for resources. In addition, plants accurately compute their circumstances, use sophisticated cost–benefit analysis and take tightly controlled actions to mitigate and control diverse environmental stressors. Plants are also capable of discriminating positive and negative experiences and of "learning" (registering memories) from their past experiences. Plants use this information to update their behaviour in order to survive present and future challenges of their environment.Plant physiology studies the role of signalling, communication, and behaviour to integrate data obtained at the genetic, molecular, biochemical, and cellular levels with the physiology, development, and behaviour of individual organisms, plant ecosystems, and evolution. The neurobiological view sees plants as information-processing organisms with rather complex processes of communication occurring throughout the individual plant organism. It studies how environmental information is gathered, processed, integrated and shared (sensory plant biology) to enable these adaptive and coordinated responses (plant behaviour); and how sensory perceptions and behavioural events are 'remembered' in order to allow predictions of future activities upon the basis of past experiences. Plants, it is claimed by some plant physiologists, are as sophisticated in behaviour as animals but this sophistication has been masked by the time scales of plants' response to stimuli, many orders of magnitude slower than animals'.It has been argued that although plants are capable of adaptation, it should not be called intelligence, as plant neurobiologists are relying primarily on metaphors and analogies to argue that complex responses in plants can only be produced by intelligence.[32]"A bacterium can monitor its environment and instigate developmental processes appropriate to the prevailing circumstances, but is that intelligence? Such simple adaptation behaviour might be bacterial intelligence but is clearly not animal intelligence." However, plant intelligence fits a definition of intelligence proposed by David Stenhouse in a book about evolution and animal intelligence where he described it as "adaptively variable behaviour during the lifetime of the individual".Critics of the concept have also argued that a plant cannot have goals once it is past the development stage of plantlet because, as a modular organism, each module seeks its own survival goals and the resultant whole organism behavior is not centrally controlled.[33] This view, however, necessarily accommodates the possibility that a tree is a collection of individually intelligent modules cooperating with, competing with and influencing each other, thus determining organism level behavior from the base up. The development into a larger organism whose modules must deal with different environmental conditions and challenges is not universal across plant species either, as smaller organisms might be subject to the same conditions across their bodies, at least, when the below and above ground parts are considered separately. Moreover, the claim that central control of development is completely absent from plants is readily falsified by apical dominance.Charles Darwin studied the movement of plants and in 1880 published a book The Power of Movement in Plants. In the book he concludes:It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the tip of the radicle thus endowed [..] acts like the brain of one of the lower animals; the brain being situated within the anterior end of the body, receiving impressions from the sense-organs, and directing the several movements.In philosophy, there are few studies of the implications of plant perception. Michael Marder put forth a phenomenology of plant life based on the physiology of plant perception.Paco Calvo Garzon offers a philosophical take on plant perception based on the cognitive sciences and the computational modeling of consciousness.Comparison to neurobiology:.A plant's sensory and response system has been compared to the neurobiological processes of animals. Plant neurobiology, an unfamiliar misnomer, concerns mostly the sensory adaptive behaviour of plants and plant electrophysiology. Indian scientist J. C. Bose is credited as the first person to research and talk about neurobiology of plants. Many plant scientists and neuroscientists, however, view this as inaccurate, because plants do not have neurons.The ideas behind plant neurobiology were criticised in a 2007 article published in Trends in Plant Science by Amedeo Alpi and other scientists, including such eminent plant biologists as Gerd Jürgens, Ben Scheres, and Chris Sommerville. The breadth of fields of plant science represented by these researchers reflects the fact that the vast majority of the plant science research community reject plant neurobiology. Their main arguments are that:"Plant neurobiology does not add to our understanding of plant physiology, plant cell biology or signaling".

"There is no evidence for structures such as neurons, synapses or a brain in plants".The common occurrence of plasmodesmata in plants which "poses a problem for signaling from an electrophysiological point of view" since extensive electrical coupling would preclude the need for any cell-to-cell transport of a ‘neurotransmitter-like’ compounds.The authors call for an end to "superficial analogies and questionable extrapolations" if the concept of "plant neurobiology" is to benefit the research community.There were several responses to the criticism clarifying that the term "plant neurobiology" is a metaphor and metaphors have proved useful on several previous occasions.[37][38] Plant ecophysiology describes this phenomenon.Parallels in other taxa. As described above in the case of a plant, similar mechanisms exist in a bacterial cell, a choanoflagellate, a fungal hypha, or a sponge, among the many other examples. All of these individual organisms of the respective taxa, despite being devoid of a brain or nervous system, are capable of sensing their immediate and momentary environment and responding accordingly. In the case of single-celled life, the sensory pathways are even more primitive in the sense that they take place on the surface of a single cell, as opposed to a network of many cells.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_perception_(physiology)

  

Recent surprising similarities between plant cells and neuronsPlant cells and neurons share several similarities, including non-centrosomal microtubules, motile post-Golgi organelles, separated both spatially/structurally and functionally from the Golgi apparatus and involved in vesicular endocytic recycling, as well as cell-cell adhesion domains based on the actin/myosin cytoskeleton which serve for cell-cell communication. Tip-growing plant cells such as root hairs and pollen tubes also resemble neurons extending their axons. Recently, surprising discoveries have been made with respect to the molecular basis of neurodegenerative disorders known as Hereditary Spastic Paraplegias and tip-growth of root hairs. All these advances are briefly discussed in the context of other similarities between plant cells and neurons.There are very prominent similarities between tip-growing plant cells and the extending axons of neurons. However, recent advances reveal that these visible similarities stretch beyond the tip-growing plant cells and include plant tissue cells generating action potentials3 and accomplishing vesicle trafficking and recycling, typically at actin/myosin enriched cell-cell adhesion domains resembling neuronal synapses. Moreover, plant cells and neurons are similar from the cellular perspective, when most of their microtubules and Golgi apparatus organelles are not associated with the perinuclear centrosomes.In plant cells, Golgi stacks and Trans-Golgi Networks (TGNs) are motile organelles extending through the whole plant cells. Similarly in neurons centrosome-independent cortical microtubules are abundant in axons. They transport, among other cargo, so-called Golgi Outposts—which correspond to the TGNs of plant cells toward neuronal synapses. In both plant cells and neurons, TGNs act as independent organelles separated both spatially/structurally and functionally from the Golgi apparatus.Intriguingly, similarly as in neurons, also the TGN of plant cells is the inherent part of the endosomal/vesicular recycling pathways, supporting the dynamic and communicative nature of plant synapses.Plant action potentials (electric spikes) run in an axial direction, along the longitudinal axis of any plant organ, and the highest spike activity was scored in the transition zone of the root apex in maize.Hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP) represents a heterogeneous group of genetic neurodegenerative disorders affecting the longest neurons of the human body, extending from the brain along the spinal cord /down to the legs.21 In the HSP disorders, axons of these long neurons degenerate causing problems in controlling leg muscles. One of the major genes in which mutation results in the HSP is Atlastin. Recent study has reported that Atlastin is homologous to the RHD3 protein of Arabidopsis.RHD3 protein is essential for proper growth and development of root hairs in Arabidopsis.Moreover, RHD3 is also important for the proper arrangement of root cell files which underlies the direction of root growth.In order to maintain their ordered cell files, root apex cross-walls (plant root synapses) perform active vesicle recycling. Both Arabidopsis RHD3 and Drosophila Atlastin are important for shaping tubular ER networks.RHD3 is also known to be required for the proper arrangement of the actin cytoskeleton and cell wall maintenance via vesicle trafficking.Moreover, similarly as Atlastin in neurons,RHD3 is important for the GA morphogenesis in plant cells too Importantly, both RHD3 and Atlastin are implicated in membrane tubulation and vesiculation whereas rhd3 mutant line emerges to be less active in endocytic internalization of FM endocytic tracer.Drosophila Atlastin regulates the stability of muscle microtubules and is required for both the axonal maintenance and synapse development. All this suggest that Arabidopsis emerges as an attractive and useful model object for investigations of mechanisms underlying HSP disorders in humans.Glutamate is one of the best understood and the most widespread excitatory .neurotransmitter which is perceived via glutamate receptors at brain synapses in animals and humans. These neuronal receptors have, in fact, deep evolutionary origin in prokaryotic bacteria, and are present also in plants., Importantly, the plant glutamate receptors have all the features of neuronal ones, and glutamate induces plant action potentials., All this strongly suggest that glutamate serves in neurotransmitter-like cell-cell communication in plants too. Interestingly in this respect, especially the root apices are target of the neuronal-like activity of glutamate in plants, with effects on cell development, root growth, morphogenesis, and behavior. The transition zone cells, localized between the apical meristem and basal cell elongation zone, respond to glutamate with rapid depolarization of the plasma membrane and this response is blocked by a specific antagonist of ionotropic glutamate receptors, 2-amino-5-phosphonopentanoate.Cells of the transition zone, also known as the distal elongation zone or the basal meristem, are crucial for root primordia priming,and exogenous glutamate is known to decrease primary root growth and increase lateral root proliferation.Beta-N-methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA) is a neurotoxic amino acid, derived from cycads, which is well-known to act as agonists and antagonists of mammalian glutamate receptors. BMAA inhibits root growth, cotyledon opening, and it stimulates elongation of light-grown hypocotyls in Arabidopsis.BMAA affects growth of Arabidopsis organs at very low concentrations, and these BMAA-induced effects are reversed by the addition of glutamate.This is consistent with a scenario wherein BMAA acts to block plant-specific glutamate receptors.Similarly to glutamate, aluminium also induces very rapid plasma membrane depolarization specifically in cells of the root apex transition zone. Moreover, glutamate and aluminium both induce rapid and strong calcium spikes with unique signatures in cells of the transition zone.These root cells represent the primary target for the aluminium toxicity in plants, whereas aluminium is not toxic to root cells which have already entered the rapid elongation region.Similarly, although aluminium is not so toxic in most plant cells, neuronal-like tip-growing root hairs and pollen tubes1,2 are sensitive to aluminium similarly as are the transition zone cells. In these latter cells, aluminium is specifically internalized via endocytosis. Internalized endocytic aluminium interferes with vesicle trafficking/recycling and endocytosis, inhibiting the PIN2-driven basipetal auxin transport in the transition zone of root apices.Aluminium targets specifically the auxinsecreting plant synapses and affects the polar auxin-transport-based root cell patterning. Moreover, aluminium affects also nitric oxide (NO) production which is highest in cells of the the distal portion of the transition zone. Importantly, the rapidly elongating root cells are not sensitive towards aluminium and neither is there internalization of aluminium into rapidly elongating root cells. In support of the endocytosis of aluminium being the primary process linked to the aluminium toxicity in root cells, endocytosis of aluminium and its toxicity is lowered in the Arabidopsis mutant over-expressing the DnaJ domain protein auxillin which regulates the clathrin-based endocytosis.In animals and humans, neuronal cells are extremely sensitive towards aluminium which is internalized via endocytosis specifically in these cells. Aluminium was found to be enriched in lysosomes, similarly like Alzheimer’s amyloid β-peptide plaque depositions. These are also internalized from cell surface and aluminium was reported to inhibit their degradation.In conclusion, in both transition zone root cells and neurons, endocytosis of aluminium emerges as relevant to its high biotoxicity. In plants, the aluminium toxicity is the most important limiting factor for crop production in acid soil environments worldwide. Further studies on these cells might give us crucial clues not only for plant biology and agriculture but also for our still limited understanding of the Alzheimer disease. In line with the original proposal of Charles and Francis Darwin, root apices of plants represent neuronal/anterior pole of plant bodies

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2884105/

A robotic samurai created by a rogue Matoran scientist to hunt Toa. After gaining sentience, he now works alongside them.

Sandoval News Co - El Paso

Tucson News Co - Tucson

Whittier, Alaska, USA

ID:05 codename "Lemon Lime" history log:

 

11.4.2451 - Discovered during underground exploration. Object has humanoid form, found unresponsive/dormant.

11.7.2451 - Excavated, transferred to secure facility for research.

11.8.2451 - Cleaning revealed yellow and green outer plating, vastly complex mechanical system on interior.

11.9.2451 - Object tagged as 05 and code-named "Lemon Lime."

11.11.2451 - Experts suggest object's structure is reminiscent of mech designs circa. 2200. However, object has no apparent control center for a pilot.

11.12.2451 - Experts detect several new interior components with unknown function.

11.16.2451 - Object activates spontaneously.

11.17.2451 - Object responds to human communication by waving with left hand.

12.20.2451 - Numerous tests conclude object is capable of high level problem solving. Object sentience is debated among experts.

12.25.2451 - Researcher waves back to object. Object speaks.

 

Final Analysis -

Object ID:05 is a modified mech capable of free thought, problem solving, and learning due to additional components with previously undiscovered technology. Object displays curiosity and communicates verbally at times. Object is not considered a threat but requires further observation.

 

---

 

Entry to Brickset's Character Building Competition.

First Appearance - Detective Comics #583 (Feb 1988)

 

Arnold Wesker is a ventriloquist with multiple personalities. His puppet is a gangster named Scarface. Under the puppet's psychological influence, Wesker is a dangerous and ruthless criminal and crime boss. It has been implied that the Ventriloquist suffers from multiple personality disorder. Wesker was originally a timid orphan whose deep repression erupted into a barroom brawl, resulting in him being sent to Blackgate Prison. There he encountered the ventriloquist dummy Scarface and promptly murdered the man who'd carved the dummy. The two are now inseparable, directing a series of criminal activities. While most believe that Scarface is a tool by Wesker is simply acting out a dark side to his personality, the Ventriloquist sees himself as a reluctant lackey who is forced to do Scarface's bidding.

 

Scarface became the vehicle through which Wesker could express all of his years of bottled up rage. It was clear early on however, that Scarface was the dominant partner in their relationship, and Wesker always maintained a subservient and obedient countenance. Wesker let Scarface do the dirty work, including robbery and murder. He became dominated by Scarface, who barked orders at him and degraded him with verbal abuse. Wesker was also unable to enunciate the letter "B" while throwing his voice, and replaced them with the letter "G" instead. For example, Scarface often calls Batman "Gatman."

 

It has never been clear whether Scarface was actually just an aspect of Wesker’s Multiple Personality Disorder, or if he had actually somehow gained sentience. There have been several instances where Scarface has functioned independently of a human controller, but this may also be a reflection of the controller's mental state at the given moment. On occasion, Scarface has been animate during times when Wesker was asleep or unconscious, or not even present at all. (from batman.wikia.com)

(Pen, markers, and color pencils on paper) (BEST VIEWED LARGE)

 

A randomly-edited selection of approximately 700 of my pictures may be viewed by clicking on the link below:

www.flickr.com/groups/psychedelicart/pool/43237970@N00/

 

Please click here to read my "autobiography":

thewordsofjdyf333.blogspot.com/

 

And my "profile" page may be viewed by clicking on this link:

www.flickr.com/people/jdyf333/

 

("Psychiatrist Hans Prinzhorn's book, THE ARTISTRY OF THE MENTALLY ILL, [1922] stirred up Europe's avant-garde, not least because many paintings in his collection resembled the most advanced Cubist and Surrealist works."

 

"Where schizophrenia was involved...ornate designs...(and)...repetitive geometric shapes...filled every inch of the canvases."

 

"...apparent paranoia, and confusion of animate and inanimate objects...is common among schizophrenics as well as users of hallucinogens."

 

"When Hitler's Nazis came to power, they used the similarity between psychotic and modernist art to justify their persecution of avant-garde artists, depicting both...as 'degenerate products of diseased minds.'"

 

---From a review [in WILSON QUARTERLY, Summer 1986] of an article "The Artistry of Psychotics," in AMERICAN SCIENTIST, January 1986)

  

ANIMATE vs. INANIMATE:

 

(HT: I've read that your first LSD trip in 1963 changed your whole worldview. You realized that even inanimate objects seem to possess individuality, consciousness. And that, in turn, is why, in your fiction, you've playfully made characters out of, for instance, a spoon, a dirty sock, and a can of pork and beans in Skinny Legs and All. Can you explain a little more about the revelatory trip you took that day?

 

TR: I don't want to give the impression that I hold daily conversations with my household appliances, although my toaster is as old as Drew Barrymore and almost as talented. However, guided by the acid genie, my consciousness did, back in '63, enter -- literally enter -- into a daisy, and that little adventure permanently altered my reality orientations, particularly when it comes to the usual lines of distinction between animate and inanimate. The crown of the daisy is a perfect logarithmic helix. My eyes followed that spiral, around and around, until -- pop! -- I actually went into the flower. What was it like in there? It was a subterranean cathedral made out of mathematics and honey, and occupied -- this is the amazing part -- by an almost palpable intelligence.

 

You can't talk about something like that without sounding like a lunatic, but let me confess that when I learned that every daisy in every field possesses an identity just as strong as my own, it radically changed my life. Now, a man-made bean can is hardly a living plant, but what I've come to appreciate about inanimate objects, aside from their utilitarian beauty, is the whisper of the Infinite in each and every one of them. I'd better shut up now before the woo-woo alarms go off.

 

---From an interview with author Tom Robbins ["Even Cowgirls Get the Blues", "Still Life with Woodpecker", "Jitterbug Perfume", etc., etc.] Published in HIGHTIMES magazine in early 2000)

  

Cambridge-educated Peter Russell has a degree in theoretical physics and is the author of ten books, including "The Brain Book" and "The Global Brain". Recently he wrote "...there is a trace of sentience...in molecules..."

(The above quote is from an article "What the Atom Felt" by Anneli Rufus, in the East Bay Express newspaper published in Oakland, California on 11.25. 2009)

  

Several prominent "underground" chemists, most notably the famous LSD chemist Owsley, stated that the LSD molecule seems to be like a virus, because quite a few of the people who ingest it and have profound experiences on it become very interested in making LSD.

 

(If an LSD molecule is "sentient", and if, like a virus, an LSD molecule has the ability to reproduce itself, a person might reasonably conclude that it may be possible that LSD is, in some way, "alive"???)

For A Luxurious Vacation

 

The Finest Hotel Under the Happy Arizona Sun

 

Nick C. Hall, Mgr.

www.vegankit.com

www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1qxJPzjObI

 

Love is the strongest sentience we are able to have... If there is only the slightest hint for love - don't let it drown in daily struggling...

 

© All rights reserved .

 

Santa Catalina Mountains in background - portion of Old City Tucson wall in foreground

 

cactus garden and Presidio wall fragment on east side of building; Catalinas to the north

 

the building today:

 

visitsouthernarizona.com/

  

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnJHIph4KeE

1601 Grand Avenue

U.S. 60-70 1/2 mile west of underpass

www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/the-texanist-no-saguaro-...

 

David Courtney - The Texanist - January 2019

 

postmarked 1945

A Power Miner set turned Rock Raider. And sentience added for fun.

Winter's Wake bit.ly/1QWy6w7

Done in Ai, Finalized in Phostoshop and Photoscape X

 

Technomancer-Class Mecharcane

 

The Runecode Series

 

A close-up portrait of Vael’Zaryth, a mechanized demonic entity born from the collision of ancient arcane sorcery and forbidden technology. His face is a haunting fusion of man and machine — chiseled, regal features wrapped in intricate layers of dark metallic armor, etched with cryptic runes and circuit-like veins.

 

Glowing purple eyes, unnaturally vivid, pierce through the viewer with a quiet fury — alive with forbidden knowledge. His stare is cold, calculating, yet intelligent, almost noble in its intimidation. His facial structure remains humanoid — high cheekbones, defined jawline, and tightly drawn lips — but it is augmented, hardened by centuries of evolution through arcane machinery.

 

Two massive, coiled obsidian horns, embedded with shimmering crimson glyphs, twist from his forehead and pulse with faint energy — relics of demonic ancestry and machine-born resurrection. The textured armor across his face is not merely for defense; it is ceremonial, each plate engraved with an ancient programming language lost to time.

 

Crimson and purple micro-lights pulse along his skin and circuitry, like blood surging through an artificial circulatory system. Fiber-optic veins glow beneath his synthetic dermis, and molten rivulets of ember-red tech flicker across his jaw and neck. Small rotary joints, embedded gear clusters, and ancient dials are subtly built into his temple and cheek, ticking silently in arcane rhythm.

 

The background is saturated in violet mist, with flickering sparks drifting like embers from a collapsing star. The atmosphere hums with energy — not just power, but sentience — as if the being himself is a walking interface between realms. Every detail, from the carbon-scored horn textures to the soft, glowing cracks in his armor, reinforces that Vael’Zaryth is not just alive… but awakened.

Repose in the Beautiful Gardens of Arizona Inn

Among the galaxies, there are billions of planets and stars, among them, only a few million that support life. The inhabitants name this planet; Spectra.

 

The species that evolved into sentience was spread throughout the planet by a drastic geological event. This resulted in the isolated and continued evolution of new forms of previously similar species. Eventually, this resulted in over thirty species of sentient species inhabiting a planet far larger than any lesser planet; I.E. Earth. Eventually the barriers that created these species were broken due to natural weathering. The different colored species all adapted to their endemic environments were suddenly thrown into the mix together. At first, wars broke out and chaos reigned, but over a million years, give or take a few hundred thousands years, the dust settled and most of these genetically dissimilar species became one and unified. In the aftermath, the smartest and bravest of these factions crafted a way in which a war amongst the species would never again break out; The Archwielder Program.

 

Each species on this planet, that are related, have different colors due to the different environments that they adapted to over the millennia. Not only do they have different colors, but each individual has their own unique genetic ability. This planet is not like most planets. It was created by another race of mysterious beings that were able to fuse mechanical, biological, and cybernetic material together. This is how the beings of this world have abilities that would seem “supernatural” to an ignorant mind. These beings are inexplicably linked to their environments and because of this they have control over their environments.

 

The Archwielder Program was instituted by the survivors of the Millennial Wars the leading heads of which include; lieutenant Dextrix (Who was one of the elite guards for royalty and led the Golden Sect), Captain Dreadnaught(A rogue that took control of the rebellion), and Admiral Aurora(Who took charge of her own brigade of peacekeepers to keep the streets clean during the war).

 

The Archwielder Program’s initiative was to create a system in which individuals were sorted into the field that the individual excelled in or found interest in. These individuals were gathered into groups of the same species and then sent out across the planet to keep the peace in any way that they could in the environment they were most suited for.

 

The Districts of the planet are artificial by name alone but have been divided by the sloppy hand of nature itself. These districts include;

 

Stone District: Brown, Tan, Black, and Purple species reside hear.

 

Water District: Various shades of Blue reside hear.

 

Fire District: Various shades of red, orange, and yellow reside hear.

 

Electricity District: Various shades of yellow and green reside hear.

 

Flora District: Various shades of Green reside hear.

 

Radon District: Various shades of Phosphorescence reside hear.

 

Ice District: Various shades of white, blue, and transparents reside hear.

 

The unusual abilities of the members of each of these species include;

 

Red: Pyromancy, Magmanacy, etc.

 

Orange: Photokinesis, Levitation, Etc.

 

Yellow: Heliokinesis, Electrokinesis, etc.

 

Green: Aerokinesis, Air mimicry, etc.

 

Lime: Acidokinesis, Radiokinesis, etc.

 

Blue: Hydrokinesis, etc.

 

Purple: Crystallokinesis, etc.

 

Violet: Telekinesis, etc.

 

Brown: Ferrokinesis, Geokinesis, etc,

 

White: Cryokinesis, Umbrakinesis, etc.

 

Black: Necromancy, Geomancy, Levitation, etc.

 

Neons: Plasmakinesis, Dynamokinesis, etc.

 

Individuals within a specific species can also generate different abilities due to genetic variability granted from parental mating. When individuals of different species mate their offspring may have more of one parent’s abilities and color or a mixture creating a hybrid of abilities, or creation of new abilities altogether.

 

The ranks within the system include;

 

Scout: lowest ranking individual, new recruit learning in the academy, signified by three buttons of their respective color.

 

Gladiator: More experienced individual, knows their way around, signified by custom made holster of their respective make.

 

Warrior: At least 5 years of experience can defend themselves and knows which profession they are going into, signified by custom markings of their respective color.

 

Wielder: At least 10 years of experience, has near-complete control of their natural ability, signified by twin black straps over shoulders with respective make and color.

 

Lieutenant: At least 30 years of experience, has complete control of their natural ability, signified by ceremonial necklace of respective color and make.

 

Captain: At least 50 years of experience, has not only complete control of their natural abilities but has near-complete understanding of their role in the program, signified by armband of respective make and color.

 

Admiral: At least 100 years of experience, has complete and utter control of their ability to an extreme, is an expert in their field, signified by custom weapon of their respective color and design.

 

Archwielder: At least 200 years of experience, has such a complete understanding of their abilities and role within existence that they can only be challenged of an equally experienced individual, signified by lack of a weapon and evolution of facial mask/helmet of respective color and make.

 

The groups of individuals tasked with keeping quadrants/districts safe and free of unnecessary violence are known as Garrisons. These Garrisons are rotated semi-annually and the participants are also rotated to avoid creation of racial/genetic divisions amongst the students. The Garrisons that exist include;

 

The Lightning Garrison (Full Charge)

 

The Magma Garrison (Spicy Sauce)

 

The Bezerker Garrison (The Bludgeoners)

 

The Firecracker Garrison (Lit Fuses)

 

The Hydra Garrison (Ebb and Flow)

 

The Flora Garrison (Peace on Earth)

 

The Fauna Garrison (Tooth and Claw)

 

The Phota Garrison (Best and Brightest)

 

The Terra Garrison (The Crusties)

 

The Dust Devil Garrison (The Dust Devils)

  

one of the charming cottages where guests enjoy real ranch living in comfortable attractive surroundings

 

Ray Manley Commercial Photography

NGD_GD01 / "Genesis"

 

When you're as famous - or infamous - as the Nyrah Ghosts, whose engineering prowess produced the Fohrok and the Ghostblaster, it's only a matter of time before over-ambitious customers think money can make the impossible possible.

 

The Order of Mata-Nui, a returning customer, once placed a pretty tall order - an autonomous army made up of machines which, unlike the dull Vahki, can think for themselves, reason, and even learn by editing their own programming.

 

The weapon builders constructed a highly advanced machine, but struggled with the programming. They eventually devised a "drone-chain" concept, where the units would be networked and added to the network sequentially, and each new drone would learn from the experiences of the one before it. Unfortunately the system proved too complex, and the Ghosts failed in making it work. After several missed deadlines, the Order retracted the project, and instead bought 600 crates of Zamor launchers.

 

However, one among the Nyrah, who was more motivated by academic achievement than profit decided to continue developing the idea. The first unit, the "genesis drone" of the chain, was already build, so he decided to created a self-enclosed system requiring no further units. Eventually he succeeded, and the drone was given an adaptive program capable of dynamically rewriting itself. The unit was given a strict ethical subroutine, disallowing harm to be done against any innocents and a strong simulated sense of justice. Finally, the creator gave the unit a purpose - to observe and study living biomechanical beings to alter his program accordingly and achieve sentience - be become "alive".

 

By now, Genesis developed to a point where he's chosen a name for himself, and added certain beings to his list of high priority (something these beings insist on calling "friendship").

 

During his travels, he's helped several Matoran communities who didn't have their own Toa protectors, and strives to once have his deeds recognized with an honorary Toa title.

 

---

 

The build process for Genesis was spawned by an idea that came to mind while building another MOC, and I ended up tossing this guy together in a few hours as opposed to the usual ~1 month build period. There is plenty to improve on him, and when I get the time, I will.

 

The idea was grabbing a set from just before Bionicle G1 - a Roborider - and something just after Bionicle G1 - Hero Factory - and mashing them together with the goal of getting a result that is Bionicle-y.

"Maria Hill: What does S.H.I.E.L.D. stand for, Agent Ward?

Grant Ward: Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.

Maria Hill: And what does that mean to you?

Grant Ward: It means someone really wanted our initials to spell out "S.H.I.E.L.D."

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series

 

S.H.I.E.L.D.'s introduction in the Strange Tales featuring "Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D." occurred during a trend for action series about secret international intelligence agencies with catchy acronyms, such as television's The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which Stan Lee stated in a 2014 interview, was the basis for him to create the organization.

 

Colonel Fury (initially the lead character of Marvel Comics' World War II series Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos) was reimagined as a slightly older character with an eyepatch (which he lacked in his wartime adventures) and appointed head of the organization. Some characters from the Sgt. Fury series reappeared as agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., most notably Timothy "Dum-Dum" Dugan, Fury's bowler hat-wearing aide-de-camp.

 

Its most persistent enemy is Hydra, a criminal organization founded (after some retcon) by Baron Wolfgang von Strucker.

 

S.H.I.E.L.D. was presented as an extant, full-blown entity in its first appearance, with Tony Stark in charge of the Special Weaponry section and Fury seeing "some of the most famous joes from every nation" (then "half the leaders of the free world" a page later) at a meeting of the Supreme International Council.

 

Much was revealed over the years to fill in its labyrinthine organizational history. Stan Lee wrote each story, abetted by artist Kirby's co-plotting or full plotting, through Strange Tales #152 (January 1967), except for two issues, one scripted by Kirby himself (#148) and one by Dennis O'Neil (#149).

 

Following an issue scripted by Roy Thomas (#153), and one co-written by Thomas and new series artist Jim Steranko,* came the sole-writer debut of soon-to-become industry legend Steranko—who had begun on the feature as a penciller-inker of Kirby layouts in #151 (December 1966), taken over the every-other-issue "Nick Fury" cover art with #153 two months later, and full writing with #155 (April 1967).

 

Steranko quickly established the feature as one of comics history's most groundbreaking, innovative, and acclaimed. Ron Goulart wrote,

 

"Even the dullest of readers could sense that something new was happening. … Which each passing issue Steranko's efforts became more and more innovative. Entire pages would be devoted to photocollages of drawings [that] ignored panel boundaries and instead worked together on planes of depth. The first pages … became incredible production numbers similar in design to the San Francisco rock concert poster of the period."

 

Larry Hama said Steranko "combined the figurative dynamism of Jack Kirby with modern design concepts. The graphic influences of Peter Max, Op Art, and Andy Warhol were embedded into the design of the pages — and the pages were designed as a whole, not just as a series of panels. All this, executed in a crisp, hard-edged style, seething with drama and anatomical tension".

 

The series won 1967 and 1968 Alley Awards and was inducted in the latter year to the awards' Hall of Fame. Steranko himself was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2006.

 

The 12-page feature ran through Strange Tales #168 (sharing that "split book" with the occult feature "Doctor Strange" each issue), after which it was spun off onto its own series of the same title, running 15 issues (June 1968–Nov. 1969), followed by three all-reprint issues beginning a year later (Nov. 1970–March 1971). Steranko wrote and drew issues #1–3 and #5, and drew the covers of #1–7.

 

New S.H.I.E.L.D. stories would not appear for nearly two decades after the first solo title. A six-issue miniseries, Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. (June–November 1988) was followed by Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (vol. 2). This second series lasted 47 issues (September 1989–May 1993); its pivotal story arc was "the Deltite Affair", in which many S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were replaced with Life Model Decoy androids in a takeover attempt.

 

A year after that series ended, the one-shot Fury (May 1994) retconned the events of those previous two series, recasting them as a series of staged events designed to distract Fury from the resurrection plans of Hydra head von Strucker. The following year, writer Howard Chaykin and penciler Corky Lehmkuhl produced the four-issue miniseries Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. (April–July 1995).

 

Various publications have additionally focused on Nick Fury's solo adventures, such as the graphic novels and one-shots Wolverine/Nick Fury: The Scorpio Connection (1989), Wolverine/Nick Fury: Scorpio Rising (October 1994), Fury/Black Widow: Death Duty and Captain America and Nick Fury: Blood Truce (both February 1995), and Captain America and Nick Fury: The Otherworld War (October 2001).

 

Origin

 

S.H.I.E.L.D. was formed by Nick Fury, in the period after World War II. However, he figured the U.S. government wouldn't want a group like that, so he disbanded it. Later, though, after a terrorist attack, he noticed that a group like S.H.I.E.L.D. could really have helped and prevented the disaster. So he reformed it.

 

Meanwhile, the United Nations had already taken S.H.I.E.L.D. and restarted it, having Colonel Rick Stoner becoming the first Director of the organization. Fury immediately joined and rose to the top. The Nations had reformed it in response to a HYDRA attack, and once Fury was leading it, it flourished.

 

Creation

 

S.H.I.E.L.D. made their first appearance in Strange Tales #135. They were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

 

Team Evolution

 

S.H.I.E.L.D. (Strategic Hazard Intervention, Espionage and Logistics Directorate) or Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law Enforcement Division (see Iron Man #227) is a group affiliated with the U.N that deals with superhuman threats. It is an intelligence and anti-terrorism group similar to the FBI, only it is an international corporation that spans all the world. It acts like the police force.

 

S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are armed and work well, much more effective then standard police. They fight terrorists as well as super humans. S.H.I.E.L.D. also has been responsible for the starting of spin-off groups like S.W.O.R.D. and S.T.R.I.K.E. S.H.I.E.L.D. has agents that also are higher level, that often are super humans.

 

Captain America, Spider-Woman, and Iron Man all have operated as S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. S.H.I.E.L.D. keeps ties to the superhuman community, too-they often call on the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and Captain America.

 

S.H.I.E.L.D. has superhuman agents in the past-two teams were formed in an effort to make a S.H.I.E.L.D. superhuman team. The first team consisted of Marvel Man, Texas Twister, the Vamp, and Blue Streak.

 

However, it quickly failed, and another team in the same vein also failed. The Psi-Division of S.H.I.E.L.D. is a group of psychics or telepaths that deal with psionic menaces. This is only one of the groups of super humans that work in S.H.I.E.L.D. for the greater good.

 

All S.H.I.E.L.D. members have a certain level, based on their importance. A normal S.H.I.E.L.D. agent will have a Level One-which means he can pass through Level One areas and has clearance.

 

A sergeant might have Level Two, which means he has Level Two and One clearance. The Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. has a Level Nine clearance. Level Ten means the most important person in the world-no one currently possesses a Level Ten clearance. Not even the President, or Nick Fury.

 

S.H.I.E.L.D. has many bases around the world. Many are on land-most notably S.H.I.E.L.D. Central, which is located in New York City. There are also many shelters that are secretly placed around the world.

 

Fury has used one, as has the Secret Avengers when they needed a base during the events of Civil War. However, their most famous and important base is the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier.

 

Helicarrier

 

The Helicarrier is an aircraft that is constantly in the air. It is large enough to hold an aircraft carrier. It is the mobile headquarters of S.H.I.E.L.D. and is extremely protected. The Helicarrier has held an entire squadron of jet fighters and a nuclear ballistic missile.

 

There is one major Helicarrier, which is the one that is most important and used. There are also many smaller Helicarriers, however, which all serve as bases too.

 

The Helicarrier has an extremely high level of security-even if someone managed to get on without clearance, guards and extremely powerful security technology would have them gone in a second.

 

The Helicarrier was first proposed by Stark Industries, and was designed by Tony Stark, Forge, and Mr. Fantastic.

 

S.H.I.E.L.D. operated as a covert, military/intelligence agency at the time, and members of it had already appeared. S.H.I.E.L.D. already fought HYDRA then-the evil group had plots like the aforementioned "Overkill Horn".

 

A.I.M. made its first appearance, and individual villains such as Red Skull also popped up and needed to be stopped by S.H.I.E.L.D..

 

At this time, Godzilla came, and the Godzilla Squad was formed to take the monster down. S.H.I.E.L.D. had tough periods during this time. Several lifelike robots got so smart that they became able to think and make choices-they became sentient beings.

 

They had a grudge against S.H.I.E.L.D. for making them follow orders all the time before they had intelligence-so they drugged important S.H.I.E.L.D. members and took their place within the organization.

 

Several of these were Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine, Jimmy Woo, and Jasper Sitwell, among others. However, the valiant Fury managed to take them down.

 

Fury's Influence

 

Most of the reason that S.H.I.E.L.D. was so effective started with Fury.** He started the group and put good, effective agents in place. He was extremely popular in and out of S.H.I.E.L.D. and had strong ties with the hero community. Without him, many "pessimists" and intellectuals theorized that S.H.I.E.L.D. would fall, and fall hard.

 

Unfortunately, they were right. S.H.I.E.L.D. ran into disastrous times. As aforementioned, Nick Fury did a mission in Latveria to stop them from attacking the U.S. However, it was totally unauthorized, and Fury was forced to resign from S.H.I.E.L.D. Warrants went out for his arrest.

 

The new head of S.H.I.E.L.D. was Maria Hill-who proved to be incompetent at the position. The President of the U.S. was a driving force behind Hill's election-for two reasons.

 

Hill was an American, so the President expected her to be loyal first and foremost to the U.S. even though S.H.I.E.L.D. was a United Nations facility. Also, many men and women had been members of S.H.I.E.L.D. for a long time, and they would have been much better as the head of S.H.I.E.L.D.. However, they were "too loyal to Fury", so Hill got the job to keep the Fury loyalists out.

 

S.H.I.E.L.D. took a downward turn. Fury's work as the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. was extremely effective, and an insane amount of work had kept corruption out of the huge organization.

 

Unfortunately, Hill wasn't as good as Fury at it, and S.H.I.E.L.D. became corrupt and weak. Crimes were committed. Criminals were "stockpiled" in prison. Worst of all, the Avengers discovered that someone was mining the anti-metal in the Savage Land using slave labor-and S.H.I.E.L.D. was the prime suspect.

 

Subdivisions

 

S.H.I.E.L.D. also has many subdivisions and other groups based off it. Two other groups have been formed from S.H.I.E.L.D.:

S.W.O.R.D. and S.T.R.I.K.E.

 

S.W.O.R.D. stands for Sentient World Observation and Response Department. As you can easily guess, S.W.O.R.D. works with extraterrestrials. It stops extraterrestrial threats, keeps tabs on powerful aliens, etc. They are not a subdivision of S.H.I.E.L.D. but are actually a separate, yet similar group that simply works with S.H.I.E.L.D.

 

However, they are closely affiliated with both S.H.I.E.L.D. and the United Nations. S.W.O.R.D. encountered Ord, an alien who was convinced that a mutant from Earth was destined to destroy his planet.

 

He attempted to attack Earth to kill all the mutants but S.W.O.R.D. and the X-Men stopped him, effectively stopping an interplanetary war. The leader of S.W.O.R.D. is Abigail Brand, a tough, effective leader who stopped many crises and is extremely valuable to S.H.I.E.L.D.

 

She was a Fury loyalist and respected him a lot and greatly dislikes Maria Hill. As for Tony Stark, he has not encountered S.W.O.R.D. or Brand yet. S.W.O.R.D. is currently trying to stop another war with a planet called Breakworld.

 

Since S.H.I.E.L.D. is loyal to the United Nations two countries have created their own answer to S.H.I.E.L.D. that works within their country and their country alone. The first to appear was the British version of S.H.I.E.L.D., S.T.R.I.K.E. (Special Tactical Reserve for International Key Emergencies).

 

S.T.R.I.K.E. was British, but one of their early leaders, Tod Radcliffe, was revealed to be a traitor that worked for the Red Skull. The next leader was Lance Hunter. They worked closely with Captain Britain.

 

However, Vixen (Captain Britain's enemy) took them over and S.T.R.I.K.E. was disbanded. The most prominent person to work for S.T.R.I.K.E. was Betsy Braddock, who had psychic powers. After leaving S.T.R.I.K.E.. she joined the X-Men as the heroine Psylocke.

 

S.A.F.E. is the United States answer to S.H.I.E.L.D. The name stands for Strategic Action For Emergencies. S.A.F.E. is nearly identical to S.H.I.E.L.D., except they are only in the U.S. They have fought many enemies, including Doctor Doom and Baron Heinrich Zemo. The leader is Sean Morgan, a competent leader and good soldier. Joshua Ballard is the most prolific agent, and he's extremely helpful-he's the Dum Dum Dugan of S.A.F.E..

 

Along with these agencies, other small groups have been formed including Euromind and Starcore.

 

Another group that has continually showed up over the years is the Cape Killers. They were never an official S.H.I.E.L.D. group, but S.H.I.E.L.D. agents did make up it's ranks.

 

The term Cape Killers was given to any group of soldiers trained to hunt, subdue and in worst case scenario kill meta humans. The Cape Killers have had such members as Agent Abrams, Agent Cleery, Dum Dum Dugan, & Special Agent Marquez, and her partner Agent McAllister.

 

Members

 

Nick Fury

 

The most prominent, important, and effective member of S.H.I.E.L.D. is the man who runs it all, Nick Fury. Fury was born in New York City in 1921, to decorated World War I pilot Jack Fury. He and his friend Red Hargrove lusted after adventure-so they joined the U.S. Army in World War II.

 

Nick was an adept soldier, and he was given command of the First Attack Squad-nicknamed the Howling Commandos. The Howling Commandos were extremely effective-and Fury quickly became a decorated war hero.

 

After the war, Fury was hit by a land mine and badly injured. The government decided to test a new formula on him-that would heal him and greatly retard his aging. This was called the Infinity Formula.

 

It worked-Fury was restored to full strength and is still in his physical prime today. He eventually joined the CIA and became a CIA agent in Korea, also interacting with the Fantastic Four.

 

Tony Stark hired him to be the second commander of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Fury excelled at the job. Under his leadership, S.H.I.E.L.D. grew and grew until it is now one of the most powerful organizations in the world. Fury led S.H.I.E.L.D. for over forty years, working tirelessly and keeping it powerful and secret.

 

However, Fury recently discovered that Latveria, led by the evil Doctor Doom, was planning to attack America. He immediately had S.H.I.E.L.D. launch a covert assault on the country, effectively stopping the massive attack that would have taken place.

 

A year later, Latveria attacked back, and thousands were killed. Fury was blamed-and Luke Cage was injured. Captain America was angered at Fury. Eventually, this culminated in Fury being fired as commander of S.H.I.E.L.D.. A warrant was put out for his arrest, and Maria Hill took his place as the head of S.H.I.E.L.D.

 

Hill still leads S.H.I.E.L.D. and Fury is still in hiding. He keeps control over parts of S.H.I.E.L.D. and lent a base to the Secret Avengers during Civil War.

 

Nick Fury is infused with the Infinity Formula, meaning he barely ages at all. He is an soldier, with lots of experience as both a warrior and a leader. He is a master tactician and strategist, and is very good with all sorts of weapons.

 

He wields great political power as the head of S.H.I.E.L.D., and is a very good hand-to-hand combatant.

 

Nick Fury is not the only S.H.I.E.L.D. agent-not by a long shot. Many of the other important S.H.I.E.L.D. members date back from Fury's old team-the Howling Commandos.

 

Dum Dum Dugan

 

Dum Dum Dugan (Timothy Aloysius Cadwallader Dugan) was working as a circus strongman before he enlisted in World War II.

 

He was put in the Howling Commandos, a new division led by Nick Fury. He was extremely valuable to the team-he was so strong that he was able to save them from many things that should have killed them.

 

He was a great marksman, strongman, and leader, and he became Fury's second-in-command. When the war ended, Fury invited Dugan into S.H.I.E.L.D. as his second-in-command. Dugan has easily been the second-most-important person to S.H.I.E.L.D.

 

His missions have included tracking down and killing a radioactive monster ( Godzilla, in the Godzilla Squad) and various independent missions to take super villains (often with Squirrel Girl).

 

For a long time, he worked maintaining security on the Helicarrier, and working for Fury whenever needed. When Fury was replaced by Maria Hill, he was her second-in-command and was put in charge of mutant affairs.

 

This involved conflicts with Wolverine, who he had a mysterious contact with. Eventually, he tried to resign from S.H.I.E.L.D. when Tony Stark took control. He was rejected-he was too important to S.H.I.E.L.D. to quit. He was recently shot in the chest by Daken, but he survived, and is currently in the hospital.

 

Gabriel Jones

 

Gabriel Jones was a young man living in New York City when a little thing called World War II popped up. Jones joined the army, and realized that he was naturally a great soldier and leader. He was put into the elite Howling Commandos and proved invaluable to the team.

 

After the war was over, Jones served on the Godzilla Squad with other former Howling Commandos (not Fury), and later joined S.H.I.E.L.D.

 

He ran out missions with or without other agents for S.H.I.E.L.D. until he retired, due to the events in the miniseries "Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D.." He remains retired today, living the quiet, peaceful life. He sure deserves that. He also has the honor of being the first African-American in the Howling Commandos.

 

Sharon Carter aka Agent 13

 

Agent 13 (also known as Sharon Carter), is one of the most important members of S.H.I.E.L.D.. As a young girl, Sharon loved hearing stories of her older sister Peggy, who was a World War 1 flying ace and freedom fighter. Peggy had worked with Captain America, and the two fell in love.

 

However, Cap never learned her name, and he then froze in suspended animation. Sharon was a good fighter and loved justice, so she joined S.H.I.E.L.D. under the code-name "Agent 13" and ran out several missions for them.

 

She kept crossing paths with Cap, who had been resurrected and they eventually fell in love. Cap wanted her to quit as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, but she refused. Eventually, her death was faked so she could be sent off on a top-secret mission. The mission failed, and she was presumed dead. Cap was never informed that her death was faked the first time.

 

However, he eventually found her, and she rejoined S.H.I.E.L.D.. She now works as a high-level agent, reporting directly to Hill for missions. Recently, she was given a hypnotic suggestion by Dr. Faustus to help kill Captain America, and under hypnotism, shot him in the stomach after Crossbones, a sniper and Red Skull's henchman, shot him.

 

Other important S.H.I.E.L.D. agents include Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine, Clay Quartermain, Jimmy Woo, and Jasper Sitwell.

 

HYDRA***

 

Since S.H.I.E.L.D. is a major force and such a huge, powerful organization, it bound to have many enemies. Most of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s enemies are big groups-and the most powerful, fearsome, and deadly one of them all is HYDRA.

 

HYDRA is S.H.I.E.L.D.'s archenemy. The motto of the group is "Cut off one of our heads, and two more will take it's place!" This is a reference to the Ancient Greek monster called the hydra, which fought Hercules and had the same ability.

 

HYDRA is a terrorist group dedicated to taking over the world and destroying S.H.I.E.L.D., which has foiled them many a time.

 

HYDRA has actually been around for centuries. The group goes all the way back to Imperial Japan, which only sought to rule Japan. This all changed in the 1900s when Wolfgang Von Strucker joined the group. Strucker was insane, deluded, and powerful-and he quickly rose to the top of the group.

 

He steered it away from Japan and decided on a new goal-rule the world! When he got to the top, he changed his name and got a title-he became Baron Strucker.

 

HYDRA was originally very open, not quiet, and S.H.I.E.L.D. was actually specifically formed to fight it (as you will read later). HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D. became enemies-constantly warring to take each other down. HYDRA made several daring moves.

 

Strucker invented the "Overkill Horn", which would detonate all nuclear explosives worldwide. Later came the biological "Death-Spore Bomb". Both plots were foiled by S.H.I.E.L.D., and the latter resulted in Strucker's death.

 

After Baron Strucker died, HYDRA split into many mini-groups, or "heads" of HYDRA. Some of these were East Coast HYDRA, Las Vegas HYDRA, New York HYDRA, and Germany HYDRA. These factions also genetically created super agents for HYDRA, resulting in the creation of many villains.

 

However, this backfired when the great hero Spider-Woman was created by HYDRA related. Eventually Strucker was revived, and he reunited HYDRA. They continued their war against S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Earth.

 

HYDRA later planned a massive attack on the U.S-they smuggled nuclear missile into America and was going to launch a bio nuclear assault on a major aquifer.

 

They also tried to brainwash an army of heroes and villains (including Elektra and Northstar). Both times, they were foiled by S.H.I.E.L.D. and the New Avengers (including Spider-Woman, who they created).

 

HYDRA is still extremely dangerous, and cannot be stopped easily. The only reason they don't currently rule the world is because of the heroic efforts of S.H.I.E.L.D..

 

The HYDRA Agent is similar to the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. He is extremely well-trained-only the elite become agents. They carry a large variety of weapons and are trained especially in stealth.

 

HYDRA Agents often get missions to detonate, destroy, beat up, or burn things, and they are superb fighters. Some Agents of HYDRA have been Red Skull, Spider-Woman, Kingpin, and many others.

 

A.I.M.

 

Although HYDRA is easily S.H.I.E.L.D.'s greatest enemy, it is by no means the only one. One of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s other enemies is A.I.M.

 

A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics) was created as a subdivision of HYDRA, by Baron Strucker. A.I.M.'s purpose was to create new technological wonders for HYDRA to use against S.H.I.E.L.D. and to take over the world.

 

It is a group of scientists, industrialists, and technological geniuses, and originally, they provided and designed weapons, defenses, and huge assault mechanisms for HYDRA. However, HYDRA suffered a huge defeat from the U.S and Japan Armies, so A.I.M. broke off into it's own group.

 

Like HYDRA, A.I.M.'s goal is to rule the Earth. However, unlike HYDRA, who wants to do it by force, A.I.M. seeks domination by technological means. They have created huge weapons and marvels before, and share one trait with HYDRA-they are dedicated to destroying S.H.I.E.L.D.. A.I.M. was led by the Scientist Supreme, an evil, shadowy figure where very little about him is known by S.H.I.E.L.D..

 

The Cosmic Cube was an intensely powerful item as it could literally alter reality to the user's whim. Red Skull once stole it and wreaked havoc with it, but that was later.

 

The Cube was created by the scientists at A.I.M., who sought to use it to rule the world. However, the Cube actually evolved into a new creature, Kubik, and A.I.M. no longer controls it. In this vein, A.I.M. created the Super-Adaptoid, which could exactly mimic the powers and appearance of other superheroes and villains.

 

Although it was immensely powerful, the Adaptoid contained a sliver of the Cosmic Cube that gave it its power. When the Cube became Kubik, it wanted the shard back, so it easily destroyed the creature and regained the sliver.

 

A.I.M. also created M.O.D.O.K. (Mobile Organism Designed Only for Killing). M.O.D.O.K. was originally one of AIM's own scientists, and he took control of A.I.M. and improved it, continuing the fight to rule the world and destroy S.H.I.E.L.D..

 

M.O.D.O.K. still is in charge of A.I.M. Along with A.I.M., some of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s enemies are Zodiac and Godzilla.

 

Zodiac

 

Zodiac is a criminal organization that was created using S.H.I.E.L.D. technology. Each member is another sign of the Zodiac, and they are dedicated to world domination. Although the Zodiac mostly fights the Avengers, they often collide with S.H.I.E.L.D. in their efforts to have the world ruled by their criminal organization.

 

Godzilla

 

Godzilla***** was a radioactive monster that rose out of the waters of Tokyo, Japan. S.H.I.E.L.D. immediately responded to the crisis, and formed the Godzilla Squad out of some of its members.

 

The Squad was led by Dum Dum Dugan (who never fully recovered from the experience), and its mission was to take down Godzilla.

 

Godzilla caused lots of property damage around Asia and North America before it was finally driven back into the sea. Obviously, this is based on the Japanese movie in real life of the same name-minus the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

 

Major Story Arcs

 

Civil War

 

The Civil War started when the New Warriors (consisting of Robbie Baldwin, Namorita, Microbe, and Night Thrasher) went on a basic mission to catch four criminals in an old house.

 

They included Speedfreek and an old Captain Marvel villain- Nitro. These villains had escaped from The Raft when Electro broke them out. The New Warriors easily defeated the villains-but Nitro was escaping.

 

Namorita stopped him, but he let off an explosion, destroying Stamford and murdering 600 people.

 

Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man,**** proposed the Superhuman Registration Act, where all super humans would have to register their powers and identities. They'd basically be cops. Maria Hill, who was the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. supported the Act, and eventually it was passed.

 

Many super humans disagreed with the Act, the most important and prolific being Captain America. S.H.I.E.L.D. was enlisted by the U.S. government to take down Cap and his anti-registration hero team, the Secret Avengers.

 

New S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents, nicknamed cape-killers, went after anti-reg heroes. S.H.I.E.L.D. was led by Maria Hill, and was fully pro-reg. Iron Man worked closely with S.H.I.E.L.D. also-he revealed his identity as Tony Stark.

 

Many battles were fought. Eventually, Tony Stark's pro-registration side-and S.H.I.E.L.D. won. However, Maria Hill found out why she had been made the head of S.H.I.E.L.D., as aforementioned-to keep more effective "Fury loyalists" out and be loyal to the U.S. She was not supposed to be effective, and she wasn't.

 

Dismayed, she turned leadership of S.H.I.E.L.D. over to the man she thought deserved it most-Tony Stark. Stark, also Iron Man, is currently the leader and head of S.H.I.E.L.D..

 

H.A.M.M.E.R.

 

In the fallout of Secret Invasion Norman Osborn is granted the keys to the whole world and closes down S.H.I.E.L.D. and replaces it with his own special forces known as H.A.M.M.E.R. He also replaces all of the organization's Stark Tech (which had been compromised during the Secret Invasion) with technology and weapons created by Oscorp.

 

Nick Fury also discovers a dark secret about who as been pulling S.H.I.E.L.D.'s strings the whole time he was an agent in Secret Warriors #1.

 

Weapons and Equipment

 

LMDs

 

S.H.I.E.L.D. has a lot of technology, important technology that is often used. Perhaps the most important is the LMD- Life Model Decoy.

 

The Life Model Decoy is an android that is absolutely indistinguishable from whoever it impersonates. Fingerprints, DNA, hair, speech, thought patterns (for telepaths), anything, the Decoy is exactly the same. However, it is an android.

 

LMDs are used to duplicate people and take their place if they are going to be assassinated or there is a strong chance of an attack. LMDs have been used in place of personnel since the beginning of the organization, including Jessica Drew.

 

Most often, they have been used as a substitute for Nick Fury, who has had at least five LMDs destroyed in attempts to have him killed. These robots are a lot of the reason that many key S.H.I.E.L.D. members are still alive.

 

The Zodiac, a criminal organization, was created using stolen S.H.I.E.L.D. LMDs. Also, LMDs have gained sentience a few times. The Deltites were a group of LMDs that gained sentience and tried to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D.. They were narrowly defeated by Nick Fury.

 

Red Ronin

 

S.H.I.E.L.D. also has used robot exoskeletons and gargantuan robots to achieve its ends. Red Ronin is the most important of those. Red Ronin was a huge, super powerful robot that was used by the Godzilla Squad.

 

The robot was destroyed by Godzilla before he was driven into the sea. It was rebuilt, but was hijacked by a mad scientist who was trying to start World War Three. It was stopped by the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. regained the remains.

 

It has been stolen and used for evil many times, by Dr. Doom, The Hand, and Henry Gyrich. Each time, the robot has been defeated and rebuilt (by heroes like Wasp and Hulk)-only to be stolen again. Red Ronin is currently possessed and used by the evil villain The Fixer-it appears that the cycle is still going.

 

The Helicarrier

 

Of course, the most prolific technology created and used by S.H.I.E.L.D. is the Helicarrier.

 

The Helicarrier is outfitted with weapons, security, and is constantly filled with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who are extremely effective and good fighters.

 

The Helicarrier is always being attacked by villains, and they are barely ever successful. A smaller version of the Helicarrier, the Behemoth, is often used by S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents on missions, including by the Squad and by Dum Dum Dugan.

 

The Behemoth is similar to the Helicarrier, only there is less weapons, technology, and it isn't as fast or powerful.

 

As for other technology, S.H.I.E.L.D. has access to an infinite amount of military-level tech. Tools, weapons, anything that's used, S.H.I.E.L.D. can get.

 

Anything from pistols to nuclear weapons is easily attainable. Fighter jets are often used by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents when it is necessary for their mission.

  

⚡ Happy 🎯 Heroclix 💫 Friday! 👽

_____________________________

A year of the shows and performers of the Bijou Planks Theater.

 

Secret Identity: N/A

 

Publisher: Marvel

 

First appearance: Strange Tales #135 (August 1965)

 

Created by: Stan Lee (writer)

Jack Kirby (artist)

 

* Steranko art

www.flickr.com/photos/paprihaven/48269254846/

 

** Nick Fury identity crisis

www.flickr.com/photos/paprihaven/53250989962/

 

*** Baron von Strucker and Hydra

www.flickr.com/photos/paprihaven/51932058251/

 

**** Tony Stark, Iron Man

www.flickr.com/photos/paprihaven/52817252977/

 

***** Godzilla

www.flickr.com/photos/paprihaven/25055625828/

The eyes of Kahuna reveal an unmistakable sentience.

Baboon at the Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge Zoological Park, Crestview, FL

 

505 W. Miracle Mile

 

www.flickr.com/photos/edge_and_corner_wear/23607423103/in...

 

www.montereycourtaz.com/

thinking about 'Universal Sentience' and the secret life of iron, that ghost in the machine, or A.I. even...

 

"And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out."

_Luke 19:40

 

He always loved that biblical verse, though he wasn't religious, or for that matter did not believe in God at all.

 

He loved, and respected, the idea of the rocks, stones, pebbles, or sand crying out, of the train crying out even, as it disgorged its indigestible, yet sustaining, effluvia, those of us known as passengers.

 

By his reckoning, there was some wisdom there, in that verse.

 

He couldn't help but wonder if it would still be considered anthropomorphism when it was a Giant Silverfish attributing silverfish characteristics to everything around him/her/them, like humans do.

 

He wondered if rocks anthropomorphised similarly. He suspected they might.

 

He wasn't really sad, more contemplative. Train journeys seemed to do that to him.

 

It occurred to him that if dust could breed, wood could sing, and rocks could cry out, atoms could Dervish dance even, then life might be in a constant state of celebrating itself.

 

He liked sitting still whilst watching life rush past outside this iron beast.

 

It was Sunday again, another week had flown by, that infinite record of 'young' becoming beautifully, and infinitely, 'old'.

 

Begin again, that blinding unstoppableness, begin relentlessly even, he thought, as if just wanting it could spur it into being.

postmarked Yuma, Arizona 1953

3 miles south on U.S. Route No. 1, "In the heart of Jacksonville's finest motor courts."

Done in Ai, Finalized in Photoshop

 

Emerging from the mist-veiled wilds stands the Emberplume Warden — a towering avian sentinel draped in layers of shimmering crimson and obsidian feathers. Its face is a cracked bone mask of a bird of prey, adorned with a beak as sharp as its stare. Fiery orange eyes burn with ancient sentience beneath a headdress of flaring plumage, reminiscent of wildfire trapped in motion. Gold ornaments and enchanted trinkets hang from its chest and wrists, their designs echoing lost empires and celestial alignments. Its taloned hands, ink-black and clawed, hang ready to channel curses or summon storms. The surrounding forest bends with reverence or fear, cloaked in a green haze that parts in the Warden’s path. Every detail speaks of ritual, power, and an oath bound by blood and flame.

Todd's chocolate treats are quite popular at the office.

 

My friend Todd has eaten a lot of ants, and offered the fine suggestion that insects rank pretty low on the vegetarian karmic hierarchy of edible life forms. He regards sentience on a continuum. Low-neuron count organisms operating off reflexes might garner less respect than organisms capable of thought, or organisms with a centralized brain capable of feeling pain. The idea haunts me as I think of the obvious inevitability of synthetic meat...

 

And Todd sent me this study: Energy-efficient food production to reduce global warming and ecodegradation: The use of edible insects

 

“The authors highlight the relatively stronger sustainability of animal protein production by way of insect farming because, pound to pound, the production of insect protein takes much less land and energy than the more widely consumed forms of animal protein. It is estimated that over a thousand insect species are already a part of human diet and the nutrition offered by several of the species matches or surpasses that which is contained in traditional non-vegetarian foods. The paper also deals with the relevance of entomophagy as a potentially more ecologically compatible and sustainable source of animal protein than the red and the white meat on which most of the world presently depends. In the emerging global pattern based on an expanding share of renewable energy sources, entomophagy fits in as a renewable source of food energy for the future.”

 

— Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 15 (9): 4357–4360. December 2011

A shirt, why not.

 

Pointless? Yes. Regrettably so? Probably tomorrow.

Herrscherr of Sentience - Genshin Impact

Each of us submitted an essay on innovation and growth in advance for the Gruter Institute Conference on Growth. I’ll append mine below.

 

(photo by John Chisholm. More below).

 

Discussion ensued over lunch, and one of my favorite authors, Matt Ridley wrote a summary for the WSJ “Why Can't Things Get Better Faster (or Slower)?”

 

------------------------------------

Innovation and Growth — Evolving Cities and Culture

By Steve Jurvetson

 

Innovation is critical to economic growth, progress, and the fate of the planet. Yet, it seems so random. But patterns emerge in the aggregate, and planners and politicians may be able to promote innovation and growth despite the overall inscrutability of this complex system. To tap the wisdom of crowds, we should shift the locus of learning from products to process. Leadership is not spotting the next growth industry, but tuning the parameters of human communication.

 

One emergent pattern, spanning centuries, is that the pace of innovation is perpetually accelerating, and it is exogenous to the economy. Rather, it is the combinatorial explosion of possible innovation-pairings that creates economic growth. And that is why cities are the crucible of innovation.

 

Geoffrey West of the Santa Fe Institute argues that cities are an autocatalytic attractor and amplifier of innovation. People are more innovative and productive, on average, when they live in a city because ideas can cross-pollinate more easily. Proximity promotes propinquity and the promiscuity of what Matt Ridley calls “ideas having sex”. This positive network effect drives another positive feedback loop - by attracting the best and the brightest to flock to the salon of mind, the memeplex of modernity.

 

Cities are a structural manifestation of the long arc of evolutionary indirection, whereby the vector of improvement has risen steadily up the ladder of abstractions from chemicals to genes to systems to networks. At each step, the pace of progress has leapt forward, making the prior vectors seem glacial in comparison – rather we now see the nature of DNA and even a neuron as a static variable in modern times. Now, it’s all about the ideas - the culture and the networks of humanity. We have moved from genetic to mimetic evolution, and much like the long-spanning neuron (which took us beyond nearest neighbor and broadcast signaling among cells) ushering the Cambrian explosion of differentiated and enormous body plans, the Internet brings long-spanning links between humans, engendering an explosion in idea space, straddling isolated pools of thought.

 

And it’s just beginning. In the next 10 years, three billion minds will come online for the first time to join this global conversation (Diamandis).

 

But why does this drive innovation and accelerating change? Start with Brian Arthur’s observation that all new technologies are combinations of technologies that already exist. Innovation does not occur in a vacuum; it is a combination of ideas from before. In any academic field, the advances today are built on a large edifice of history. This is the foundation of progress, something that was not so evident to the casual observer before the age of science. Science tuned the process parameters for innovation, and became the best method for a culture to learn.

 

From this conceptual base, come the origin of economic growth and accelerating technological change, as the combinatorial explosion of possible idea pairings grows exponentially as new ideas come into the mix (on the order of 2^n of possible groupings per Reed’s Law). It explains the innovative power of urbanization and networked globalization. And it explains why interdisciplinary ideas are so powerfully disruptive; it is like the differential immunity of epidemiology, whereby islands of cognitive isolation (e.g., academic disciplines) are vulnerable to disruptive memes hopping across, much like South America was to smallpox from Cortés and the Conquistadors. If disruption is what you seek, cognitive island-hopping is good place to start, mining the interstices between academic disciplines.

 

So what evidence do we have of accelerating technological change? At DFJ, we see it in the diversity and quality of the entrepreneurial ideas arriving each year across our global offices. Scientists do not slow their thinking during recessions. For a good mental model of the pace of innovation, consider Moore’s Law in the abstract – the annual doubling of compute power or data storage. As Ray Kurzweil has plotted, the smooth pace of exponential progress spans from 1890 to 2012, across countless innovations, technology substrates, and human dramas — with most contributors completely unaware that they were fitting to a curve.

 

Moore’s Law is a primary driver of disruptive innovation – such as the iPod usurping the Sony Walkman franchise – and it drives not only IT and communications, but also now genomics, medical imaging and the life sciences in general. As Moore’s Law crosses critical thresholds, a formerly lab science of trial and error experimentation becomes a simulation science and the pace of progress accelerates dramatically, creating opportunities for new entrants in new industries. And so the industries impacted by the latest wave of tech entrepreneurs are more diverse, and an order of magnitude larger — from automobiles and rockets to energy and chemicals.

 

At the cutting edge of computational capture is biology; we are actively reengineering the information systems of biology and creating synthetic microbes whose DNA was manufactured from bare computer code and an organic chemistry printer. But what to build? So far, we largely copy large tracts of code from nature. But the question spans across all the complex systems that we might wish to build, from cities to designer microbes, to computer intelligence.

 

As these systems transcend human comprehension, will we continue to design them or will we increasingly evolve them? As we design for evolvability, the locus of learning shifts from the artifacts themselves to the process that created them. There is no mathematical shortcut for the decomposition of a neural network or genetic program, no way to "reverse evolve" with the ease that we can reverse engineer the artifacts of purposeful design. The beauty of compounding iterative algorithms (evolution, fractals, organic growth, art) derives from their irreducibility. (My Google Tech Talk goes into some detail on the dichotomy of design and evolution).

 

The corporation is a complex system that seeks to perpetually innovate. Leadership in these complex organizations shifts from direction setting to a wisdom of crowds. And the process learning is a bit counterintuitive to some alpha leaders: cognitive diversity is more important than ability, disagreement is more important than consensus, voting policies and team size are more important than the coherence or comprehensibility of the decisions, and tuning the parameters of communication (frequency and fanout) is more important than charisma.

 

The same could be said for urban planning. How will cities be built and iterated upon? Who will make those decisions and how? We are just starting to see the shimmering refractions of the hive mind of human culture, and now we want to redesign the hives themselves to optimize the emergent complexity within. Perhaps the best we can do is set up the grand co-evolutionary dance, and listen carefully for the sociobiology of supra-human sentience.

Flora claims the new doll's prerogative, which is to try on all the clothes and swipe everything that looks good on her. Here she puts the HOP in a House of Pinku trapeze dress.

Originally, Spectre was a Factory drone tasked with protecting the Hero Factory machines. It accidentally got caught in the core implant machine, and it forced a Hero core onto it's chest. The core gave it sentience, and it liked it. The drone is not as capable as a Hero, so the Factory officials wanted to remove the core from the drone, deeming it as a waste. Spectre didn't want to lose it's new sense of life, so it defected from the factory. Now it likes to call itself a him.

The deer of the northland. I feel a great love for these beautiful fellow creatures.

They are almost the last survivors of the ice-age megafauna which thived across Beringia before restless bands of humans from Eurasia discovered the Americas some 15,000 years ago.

Finding continents swarming with wild creatures which had no experience of the large-brained, tool making hominids, they seem to have initiated a blitzkrieg mass extinction of these animals which were already, on that far away day, stressed by one of our planet's truly dramatic episodes of climate change. The caribou survived then, but they are not faring so well with the current incarnation of homo technologicus .... Seen in that light, they should be cared for as a part of our heritage, but more than whatever they may be, to us .... They are themselves a brilliant part of Gaia, a world which revels in the production of myriad life forms most beautiful, a world adrift in a cosmic sea wherein it now seems that such islands of life may well be vanishingly rare. In their own right, they deserve to be cherished on that basis alone.

Humans gaze skyward looking for company, whether of gods or aliens, but the slowly opening eyes of science have reveaedl an inestimably vast universe where the distances between remote shoals of life are likely so far apart, that for all practical purposes, we are on our own. If we don't begin to appreciate the uniqueness, importance and sentience of our fellow wayfarers, we may awake one day to find ourselves very lonely indeed.

1602 Miracle Mile Strip

 

postmarked 1967

Aquaman is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by Paul Norris and Mort Weisinger, the character debuted in More Fun Comics #73 (November 1941).

 

Initially a backup feature in DC's anthology titles, Aquaman later starred in several volumes of a solo comic book series. During the late 1950s and 1960s superhero-revival period known as the Silver Age, he was a founding member of the Justice League.

 

In the 1990s Modern Age, writers interpreted Aquaman's character more seriously, with storylines depicting the weight of his role as king of Atlantis.

 

The son of a human lighthouse-keeper and the queen of Atlantis, Aquaman is the alias of Arthur Curry, who also goes by the Atlantean name Orin.

 

Others to use the title of Aquaman include a short-lived human successor, Joseph Curry; his protégé Jackson Hyde; and the mysterious Adam Waterman, who was briefly active during World War II.

 

Aquaman's comic books are filled with colourful undersea characters and a rich supporting cast, including his mentor Vulko, his powerful wife Mera, and various sidekicks such as Aqualad, Aquagirl, and Dolphin.

 

Aquaman stories tend to blend high fantasy and science fiction. His villains include his archenemy Black Manta and his own half-brother Ocean Master, among others.

 

The character's original 1960s animated appearances left a lasting impression, making Aquaman widely recognized in popular culture and one of the world's most recognized superheroes.

 

Jokes about his wholesome, weak portrayal in Super Friends and perceived feeble powers and abilities have been staples of comedy programs and stand-up routines, leading DC at several times to attempt to make the character edgier or more powerful in the comic books.

 

Modern comic book depictions have attempted to reconcile these various aspects of his public perception, with many versions often casting Aquaman as serious and brooding, weighed down by his public reputation, his responsibilities as king, and the complex world of Atlantean politics.

 

Aquaman has been featured in several adaptations, first appearing in animated form in the 1967 The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure and then in the related Super Friends program.

 

Since then he has appeared in various animated productions, including prominent roles in the 2000s series Justice League and Justice League Unlimited and Batman: The Brave and the Bold, as well as several DC Universe Animated Original Movies.

 

Actor Alan Ritchson also portrayed the character in the live action television show Smallville.

 

In the DC Extended Universe, actor Jason Momoa portrays the character in the films Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Justice League and its director's cut Zack Snyder's Justice League, Aquaman, the HBO Max series Peacemaker, The Flash, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.]

 

Publication history

 

Aquaman's appearances began in More Fun Comics #73 in 1941 and continued until issue #107, after which all superhero stories were replaced with humor features. At this time, in 1946, Aquaman was transferred to Adventure Comics with issue #103 along with the other superhero features from More Fun Comics.

 

Aquaman would continue to feature in Adventure Comics for the next 15 years, being one of the few DC superheroes to appear continuously throughout the 1950s.

 

In 1961, Aquaman starred in a four-issue run in the anthology series Showcase in issues #30–33. These Showcase issues are notable as Aquaman's first cover appearances in any comic.

 

Simultaneously, the Aquaman backup feature ended in Adventure Comics with issue #284 and was transferred to Detective Comics with issue #293.

 

Soon thereafter, the first Aquaman solo series began, with the first issue cover-dated February 1962. The same month, the backup feature in Detective Comics ended with issue #300.

 

Simultaneously with the solo series, an Aquaman backup feature was also published in World's Finest #125–139 (cover-dated May 1962 to February 1964). The solo series Aquaman would last 56 issues in its initial run until 1971.

 

After a three-year hiatus, Aquaman returned as a backup feature in Adventure Comics for issues #435–437 before becoming the main feature in issues #441–452.

 

This run transitioned into a revival of the Aquaman solo series in 1977, resuming the initial run's numbering at #57; however, the series ended after just seven issues with #63 in 1978.

 

Aquaman once again returned to Adventure Comics as part of the Dollar Comics revamp of the series, appearing in issues #460–466 over 1978–1979.

 

When this ended, Aquaman appeared in three issues of World's Finest Comics (#262–264) and then returned to Adventure Comics as the first feature for four more issues (#475–#478) and as a back up in issues #491-500.

 

The feature found a new home as a backup in Action Comics for 14 issues (#517–521; #527–530; #536–540), which would be the end of Aquaman's Pre-Crisis solo appearances.

 

Aquaman's first Post-Crisis appearance was in the four-issue miniseries Aquaman (vol. 2) in 1986, which gave the character a new blue costume which did not reappear in any later series.

 

In 1988 the character starred in the one-shot Aquaman #1, followed by the Legend of Aquaman Special one-shot issue in 1989.

 

This was followed by the five-issue miniseries Aquaman (vol. 3). A new ongoing series, Aquaman (vol. 4), began in 1991, but was cancelled after 13 issues.

 

The character was reinvented in the 1993–1994 miniseries Aquaman: Time and Tide, which provided a revamped origin for Aquaman. This was followed by a new ongoing series, Aquaman (vol. 5), which lasted until 2001 with 75 issues altogether, making it the longest-running Aquaman solo series to date.

 

Aquaman (vol. 6) was launched in 2003, following on from the Obsidian Age storyline in JLA. In the wake of the DC event miniseries Infinite Crisis and DC's "One Year Later" relaunch, the series was renamed Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis with issue #40 until the final issue (#57); these 18 issues starred a brand new, younger Aquaman named Arthur Joseph Curry.

 

There were no more solo Aquaman publications in Post-Crisis continuity, although the original Aquaman did feature as a main character in the limited series Brightest Day.

 

The New 52 continuity reboot in September 2011 saw the beginning of the ongoing series Aquaman (vol. 7). A spin-off team title, Aquaman and the Others, also ran for 11 issues from 2014 to 2015.

 

Aquaman vol. 7 lasted for the entirety of the New 52 era of DC, ending with issue #52 in 2016 as part of the line-wide relaunch DC Rebirth.

 

The New 52 volume was immediately followed by the one-shot issue Aquaman: Rebirth, preceding the launch of the current ongoing series Aquaman (vol. 8), which ended with issue #66.

 

Upon cancellation of Aquaman vol. 8, Aquaman did not have titled release until a digital only series titled Aquaman: Deep Dives released in 2020.

 

Throughout 2022 Aquaman appeared in both Aquaman: The Becoming, and Aquamen which saw Aquaman train Jackson Hyde/Aqualad to take over his mantle.

 

However by the end of 2022 it seemed DC was moving away from this decision as they began publishing regular Aquaman team-up stories again. These included the seven issue series Aquaman/Green Arrow: Deep Target and the three issue Aquaman/The Flash: Voidsong.

 

In August 2022, Aquaman received a three issue mini-series called Aquaman: Andromeda under DC’s adult audience comic series DC Black Label. This was the last Aquaman titled publication until the upcoming Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Special #1 one-shot in October of 2023.

 

Fictional character biography

 

Golden Age

 

Aquaman's first origin story was presented in flashback from his debut in More Fun Comics #73 (November 1941), narrated by the character himself:

 

"The story must start with my father, a famous undersea explorer—if I spoke his name, you would recognize it. My mother died when I was a baby, and he turned to his work of solving the ocean's secrets. His greatest discovery was an ancient city, in the depths where no other diver had ever penetrated.

 

My father believed it was the lost kingdom of Atlantis. He made himself a water-tight home in one of the palaces and lived there, studying the records and devices of the race's marvelous wisdom. From the books and records, he learned ways of teaching me to live under the ocean, drawing oxygen from the water and using all the power of the sea to make me wonderfully strong and swift.

 

By training and a hundred scientific secrets, I became what you see—a human being who lives and thrives under the water."

 

In his early Golden Age appearances, Aquaman can breathe underwater and control fish and other underwater life for up to an hour.

 

Initially, he was depicted as speaking to sea creatures "in their own language" rather than telepathically and only when they were close enough to hear him (within a 20 yards (18 m) radius).

 

Aquaman's adventures took place all across the world and his base was "a wrecked fishing boat kept underwater," in which he also lived.

 

During his wartime adventures, most of Aquaman's foes were Nazi U-boat commanders and various Axis villains from when he once worked with the All-Star Squadron.

 

The rest of his adventures in the 1940s and 1950s had him dealing with several sea-based criminals, including modern-day pirates such as his longtime archenemy Black Jack, as well as various threats to aquatic life, shipping lanes, and sailors.

 

Aquaman's last appearance in More Fun Comics was in issue #106, before being moved along with Superboy and Green Arrow to Adventure Comics, starting with issue #103 in 1946.

 

In "The New Golden Age" #1 (2022), writer Geoff Johns restores a variation of the Golden Age Aquaman to DC continuity.

 

This version's profile tells the story of an Aquaman who was the predecessor of Arthur Curry. This Aquaman was the unnamed son of two well-respected scientists who studied what they believed to be the underwater ruins of Atlantis (in reality an abandoned Atlantean scientific outpost), where they lived in an underwater lab.

 

This unique environment seemed to slowly alter their young son's physiology. The boy learned how to breathe in the water, developed incredible strength, and formed a bond with sea life while training some of them to aid him in his underwater heroic activities.

 

In 1941, he first appeared to the surface world as Aquaman. While he turned down the offer to join the Justice Society of America when he encountered Green Lantern, he was briefly a member of the All-Star Squadron.

 

In 1947, Aquaman left the sea where he sought to live on the land using the alias of "Adam Waterman". He retreated back to the ocean soon after for reasons unknown. This Aquaman disappeared from the public eye in the 1950s.

 

At the end of the "Flashpoint Beyond" limited series, this version of Aquaman was among "The Thirteen" characters "removed from time" seen in the custody of the Time Masters.

 

The capsules containing this Aquaman and those with him were found to have failed and they have been pulled back to the 1940s, restoring them to DC's history in modern-day stories.

 

Silver Age

 

Aquaman's adventures continued to be published in Adventure Comics through the 1940s and 1950s, as one of the few superheroes to last through the 1950s in continuous publication.

 

Starting in the late 1950s new elements to Aquaman's backstory were introduced, with various new supporting characters added and several adjustments made to the character, his origins, his power and persona.

 

The first of these elements was the story "Aquaman's Undersea Partner" in Adventure Comics #229 (October 1956), where his octopus sidekick Topo was first introduced.

 

This and subsequent elements were later removed or altered from the Aquaman character after the establishment of DC's multiverse in the 1960s, attributed to the Aquaman of Earth-One.

 

The Silver Age Aquaman made his first appearance in Adventure Comics #260 (May 1959). In it and subsequent Silver Age comics, it was revealed that this Aquaman was Arthur Curry, the son of lighthouse keeper Tom Curry and Atlanna, a water-breathing outcast from the lost underwater city of Atlantis.

 

Due to his heritage, Aquaman discovered as a youth that he possessed various superhuman abilities, including the powers of surviving underwater, communication with sea life and tremendous swimming prowess.

 

Eventually, Arthur decided to use his talents to become the defender of the Earth's oceans. It was later revealed that in his youth Arthur had adventured as Aquaboy and, on one occasion, met Superboy, Earth's only other publicly active superpowered hero at the time. When Arthur grew up, he called himself "Aquaman".

 

It was later revealed that after Atlanna's death, Tom Curry met and married an ordinary human woman and had a son named Orm Curry,

 

Aquaman's half-brother. Orm grew up as a troubled youth in the shadow of his brother, who constantly bailed him out of trouble with the law. He grew to hate Aquaman not only for the powers that he could never possess, but also because he believed that their father would always favor Aquaman.

 

Orm disappeared after becoming an amnesiac and would resurface years later as Aquaman's nemesis the Ocean Master.

 

Aquaman's ability to talk with fish eventually expanded to full-fledged telepathic communication with sea creatures even from great distances.

 

He also retroactively developed a specific weakness akin to Superman's vulnerability to kryptonite or Green Lantern's vulnerability to the color yellow: Aquaman had to come into contact with water at least once per hour or he would die. Prior to this, Aquaman could exist both in and out of water indefinitely.

 

In Aquaman #18 (December 1964), Aquaman married Mera in the first superhero wedding depicted in a comic book.

 

Aquaman was included in the Justice League of America comic book series, appearing with the team in their very first adventure, and was also a founding member of the team. Aquaman took part in most of the 1960s adventures of the superhero team.

 

Aquaman's supporting cast and rogues gallery soon began to grow with the addition of Aqualad, an outcast, orphaned youth from an Atlantean colony whom Aquaman took in and began to mentor. Aquaman later discovered the submerged fictional city of New Venice, which became Aquaman's base of operations for a time.

 

Aquaman is recognized as the son of Atlanna and is later voted to be the King after the death of the former regent, who had no heirs. By this time, Aquaman had met Mera, a queen from a water-based dimension, and married her shortly after he became king.[24] They soon have a son, Arthur, Jr. (nicknamed "Aquababy").

 

The 1960s series introduced other such archenemies as the Ocean Master (Aquaman's amnesiac half-brother Orm), Black Manta, the Fisherman, the Scavenger, and the terrorist organization known as O.G.R.E.

 

Other recurring members of the Aquaman cast introduced in this series include the well-meaning but annoying Qwsp (a water sprite); Dr. Vulko, a trustworthy Atlantean scientist who became Aquaman's royal advisor and whom Aquaman eventually appoints to be king after leaving the throne himself; and Tula (known as "Aquagirl"), an Atlantean princess who was Aqualad's primary love interest.

 

In the mid-1980s, after his own feature's demise, Aquaman is briefly made the leader of the Justice League of America.

 

In a storyline in Justice League of America #228–230, an invasion of Earth by a race of Martians occurs at a time when the core members are missing.

 

Aquaman is thus forced to defend Earth with a League much depleted in power and capability, and he takes it upon himself to disband the Justice League altogether in Justice League of America Annual #2 (1984), thereafter reforming it with new bylaws requiring members to give full participation to the League's cases.

 

With the help of veteran Justice League members the Martian Manhunter, Zatanna, and the Elongated Man, Aquaman recruits and trains four new and untried members: Gypsy, Vibe, Vixen, and Steel. Arthur also relocates the team's headquarters to a reinforced bunker in Detroit, Michigan after the destruction of the JLA's satellite headquarters during the Martian invasion.

 

Aquaman's participation in this new version of the Justice League ended in #243 (October 1985), when he resigned to work on his marriage with Mera.

 

Modern Age

 

After the 1985 miniseries Crisis on Infinite Earths, several short miniseries were produced in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, beginning with 1986's four-issue miniseries Aquaman (February–May 1986), written by Neal Pozner and featuring Aquaman in a new, largely deep-sea blue "camouflage" costume.

 

The series was well received and a follow-up limited series was in the works, but was eventually cancelled due to creative problems.

 

This series also expanded on several details of the Silver Age Aquaman's origin as well as Aquaman's relationship with his half-brother, the Ocean Master, whose origin was retold in more complete detail.

 

The series also added mystical elements to Aquaman's mythology and reinvented the Ocean Master as a sorcerer. Aquaman reappeared in his blue costume in Aquaman Special #1 (1988).

 

In late 1988, the character appeared in the Invasion! storyline, guest-starring with the Doom Patrol and once again wearing his trademark orange and green costume.

 

In 1989, the Legend of Aquaman Special (officially titled as Aquaman Special #1 in the comic's legal indicia, the second Special in back-to-back years) rewrote Aquaman's mythos and origin while still keeping most of his Silver Age history intact. The special was written by writer Robert Loren Fleming with plots/breakdown art by Keith Giffen and full pencil art by artist Curt Swan.

 

This origin story of the Modern Age recounts that Aquaman is born as Orin to Queen Atlanna and the mysterious wizard Atlan in the sunken Atlantean city of Poseidonis.

 

As a baby, Orin was abandoned to die on Mercy Reef (which is above sea level at low tide, causing fatal air exposure to Atlanteans) because of his blond hair, which was seen by the superstitious Atlanteans as a sign of a curse they called "the Mark of Kordax."

 

The only individual who spoke up on Orin's behalf was Vulko, a scientist who had no patience for myth or superstition. While his pleas fell on deaf ears, Vulko would later become a close friend and advisor to the young Orin.

 

As a feral child who raised himself in the wilds of the ocean with only sea creatures to keep him company, Orin was found and taken in by a lighthouse keeper named Arthur Curry who named Orin "Arthur Curry" after himself.

 

One day, a young Arthur returns home and finds that his adoptive father has disappeared, so he sets off on his own. In his early teens, Orin ventures to Alaska, where he meets and falls in love with an Inupiaq girl named Kako.

 

It is also here that he first earned the hatred of Orm, the future Ocean Master, who was later revealed to be Arthur's half-brother by Atlan and an Inupiaq woman.

 

As detailed in the five-issue miniseries Aquaman (June–October 1989) (by the same creative team of the 1989 special of Robert Loren Fleming, Keith Giffen, and Curt Swan), which continued a few of the themes from the Legend of Aquaman Special, Mera is eventually driven insane by grief over the death of her son, Arthur, Jr., and is committed to an asylum in Poseidonis.

 

Shortly afterwards, a jellyfish-esque alien force conquers Atlantis. Arthur is forced to save the city, but is hampered by an escaped Mera, who personally blames Arthur for the death of their son. In a fit of rage, Mera leaves Earth for her homeworld of Xebel in another dimension.

 

The publication of writer Peter David's The Atlantis Chronicles #1–7 (March–September 1990), which tells the story of Atlantis from antediluvian times to Aquaman's birth, introduced the ancient Atlantean characters Orin (after whom Aquaman was named) and Atlan (who was revealed to be Aquaman's father).

 

Another Aquaman ongoing series with creative team Shaun McLaughlin and Ken Hooper (#1–13) thereafter ran from December 1991 to December 1992, which portrayed Aquaman reluctantly deciding to remain in Poseidonis as its protector once again.

 

For a time, Arthur served as Atlantis' representative to the United Nations, but always found himself thrust back into the superhero role.

 

Becoming more and more of a workaholic and solitary figure, Aquaman eventually returned to the oceans and soon becomes tangled up in another attempt by Black Manta to destroy Atlantis by dragging it into a war with a surface nation.

 

Peter David returned to the character in another miniseries, Aquaman: Time and Tide, a 1993–1994 four-issue miniseries which further explained Aquaman's origins, as he finally learns all about the history of his people through the Atlantis Chronicles, which are presented as historical texts passed down and updated through the centuries.

 

Aquaman learns that his birth name was Orin and that he and his enemy the Ocean Master share the same father, "an ancient Atlantean wizard" named Atlan.

 

This revelation sends Orin into a bout of rage and depression, setting the stage for later confrontations between the two, as it is said in the Chronicles that "two brothers will also battle for control of Atlantis".

 

This is in contrast to the Silver Age Aquaman, who had always known that the Ocean Master was his half-brother Orm, although Orm's amnesia prevented him from remembering this fact for some time.

 

This series is credited by Kevin Melrose of Comic Book Resources with helping the character reach the height of his modern-era popularity.

 

Aquaman starred in his own series again with the publication of Aquaman (vol. 5) #1 (August 1994), initially scripted by Peter David, following up on his 1993 Time and Tide miniseries.

 

This series was the longest-running for the character, lasting until its 75th issue. David left the series after issue #46 (July 1998) after working on it for nearly four years.

 

David began by giving Aquaman an entirely new look, forsaking his former clean-cut appearance.

 

Following his discoveries reading the Atlantis Chronicles during Time and Tide, Aquaman withdraws from the world for a time. Garth finds him weeks later, with his hair and beard grown long, brooding in his cave.

 

Aquaman loses his left hand when the madman Charybdis, attempting to force Arthur to show him how he can harness Arthur's ability to communicate with sea life, sticks Arthur's hand into a piranha-infested pool.

 

This loss causes Aquaman to become somewhat unhinged and he begins having prophetic dreams, and then, feeling in need of a "symbol", attaches a harpoon spearhead to his left arm in place of his missing hand.

 

His classic orange shirt is shredded in a battle with Lobo, but rather than replace it, he instead goes shirtless for a while before donning a gladiatorial manica.

 

After the destruction of the harpoon, Aquaman has it replaced by a cybernetic prosthetic harpoon from S.T.A.R. Labs with a retractable reel that he can fully control.

 

A major storyline, culminating in #25, concerns the Five Lost Cities of Atlantis.

 

Facing an unearthly invading species linked to the origin of the Atlanteans, Aquaman has to search out and unite the lost cities.

 

This storyline established Arthur as a Warrior King and a major political power, ruling largely undisputed over all the Atlantean cities.

 

The remainder of Peter David's run focused on Orin coming to terms with his genetic heritage and his role as king. During this time he discovers the remnants of a sentient alien ship beneath Poseidonis and is able to take control of it, returning Poseidonis to the surface and bringing Atlantis into greater contact with the outside world.

 

The cultural changes this brings about, including increased tourism, as well as his conflicting duties as superhero and king, bring him into increasing tension with the political powers in his city.

 

After a brief stint by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, David was replaced as writer by Erik Larsen with issue #50 (Dec. 1998) and again by Dan Jurgens in issue #63 (January 2000). The series ended with issue #75 (January 2001).

 

During this time Aquaman's wife Mera returns, once again sane, from the otherworldly dimension where she had been trapped and Aquaman narrowly averts a coup d'état orchestrated by his son Koryak and his advisor Vulko.

 

Arthur's second harpoon is also destroyed, this time in a battle with Noble, King of the Lurkers.

 

Aquaman replaces it with a golden prosthetic hand developed by Atlantean scientists which can change shape at his command, thus retaining the powers of the former harpoon while also being more all-purpose.

 

After a brief war with an island nation, Aquaman expands Atlantis' surface influence by annexing the country to Atlantis.

 

Aquaman had no regular series of his own from 2001 to 2003, but his plot went through several developments via his cameo appearances in multiple other titles.

 

Aquaman was a founding member of the reformed JLA and remained an active, if sometimes reluctant member of that team, until the "Our Worlds at War" storyline in 2001 (shortly after the cancellation of Aquaman vol. 5), during which Aquaman and the city of Poseidonis disappear during a battle between Aquaman and an Imperiex probe.

 

The Justice League eventually found out that the city was still there, just magically shielded, but in ruins and apparently uninhabited.

 

These Atlanteans were trapped in the ancient past, sent there by Tempest (Aqualad) as a last measure when it appeared that the city would be destroyed by the probe.

 

There, however, they were enslaved by their own Atlantean ancestors, led by a powerful sorceress named Gamemnae, and Aquaman himself was transformed into living water and imprisoned in an ornamental pool.

 

Over time, this civilization had collapsed until only Gamemnae herself, now immensely powerful, inhabited the ruins.

 

After a few months of their own time, but fully 15 years for the Atlanteans, the JLA free Aquaman in "The Obsidian Age" storyline in JLA. Although the original League is killed by Gamemnae, their souls are contained by the magician Manitou Raven to use in a spell to contain Gamemnae in Atlantis until the present day, when he is able to revive them.

 

Aquaman is freed from his imprisonment in the pool and Zatanna enhances his abilities so that he can now control the entire ocean as a powerful water wraith.

 

With this power, Aquaman is able to sever Gamemnae's connection to the city by sinking it under the sea again.

 

While he fights Gamemnae, the League members return the modern Atlanteans to the present, where they begin rebuilding the city, which is once again at the bottom of the sea.

 

A sixth Aquaman series began shortly afterward, initially written by Rick Veitch, who sought to take Aquaman in a more mystical direction. Subsequent writers who contributed to the series include John Ostrander, Will Pfeifer, Tad Williams, and John Arcudi.

 

This series ran 57 issues, starting in December 2002 (cover-dated February 2003). Initially focusing on Aquaman's efforts to survive after he was exiled from Atlantis and the ocean, the theme of the storyline changed when Aquaman became involved after a sizeable portion of San Diego sunk into the ocean.

 

Over the next few months, it was discovered that the sinking was the work of a scientist who had acquired a sample of Aquaman's DNA.

 

Believing that the human race as it currently existed would destroy Earth, he had sunk the city while also using the DNA sample he took from Aquaman to convert most of the residents into water-breathers.

 

Aquaman goes on to establish himself as the protector of 'Sub Diego', aided by new Aquagirl Lorena Marquez, despite such problems as the human residents' poor reaction to being trapped underwater and the Ocean Master's attempt to rewrite history so that he is Aquaman while Orin is the Ocean Master.

 

Starting with #40 (May 2006), following the events of the Infinite Crisis storyline, the series was renamed Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis which ended with issue #57 (October 2007). These issues featured a new, younger Aquaman named Arthur Joseph Curry.

 

Following the "One Year Later" storyline (starting with Aquaman (vol. 6) #40 (May 2006)), the series was renamed Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis and taken in an entirely different direction by writer Kurt Busiek.

 

In this version, Aquaman is missing and presumed dead following the events of Infinite Crisis. A young man with aquatic powers by the name of Arthur Joseph Curry is summoned by the mysterious Dweller in the Depths to take up the mantle of Aquaman, but it gradually emerges that the Dweller himself is Aquaman, having lost much of his memory and been strangely mutated, while gaining magical powers.

 

These changes were explained later during the "missing year" between Infinite Crisis and One Year Later depicted in the weekly series 52, where Aquaman makes a brief appearance at the memorial for Superboy.

 

Sometime later Ralph Dibny, seemingly accompanied by Doctor Fate's helmet, meets a bearded, long-haired and amnesic Orin in the ruins of Atlantis. The helmet portends that "if he lives... if he lives... it is as a victim of the magicks of legend and the power of the sea."

 

During Infinite Crisis, Orin makes a deal with the gods of the sea in a desperate bid to gain the power to save the lives of several Sub Diego inhabitants who had lost the ability to live in water.

 

Using the bones of his severed left hand in a magical ritual, the sea gods give Orin the power to raise Sub Diego onto dry land. However, as a side effect of this, Orin mutates into the "Dweller of the Depths" and loses his memories.

 

The fate the Dweller foresees for Arthur Joseph Curry once they meet is revealed to really only be a confused memory of the Dweller's own past as Aquaman.

 

In the midst of trying to help his successor, Arthur Joseph, the Dweller (Orin) is murdered by Narwhal.

 

Upon the receipt of Orin's body, members of the Justice League of America, including Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, and the Flash, examine the body in Atlantis and wish the best for Mera and the new Aquaman.

 

Orin seemingly reappears in Atlantis during the 2008 Final Crisis storyline to fend off the forces of Darkseid, but this Aquaman is revealed to be from another Earth in the multiverse.

 

The appearance of this Aquaman is later perceived by Hal Jordan and Barry Allen to be an unsubstantiated rumor, however, since this person was never seen nor heard from again.

 

Sometime between his death and the beginning of the 2008–09 Blackest Night storyline, Orin's body is moved and buried on land at Mercy Reef alongside Tom Curry in accordance with his final wishes.

 

In Blackest Night #1 (July 2009), Garth returns to Atlantis and tells Orin's wife Mera that he is angry at the notion of Aquaman's body being buried on land.

 

Mera relays to Tempest that Orin felt safe on land and that this is indeed what Arthur wanted. Sometime later, a black power ring is seen entering Orin's grave, bidding him to rise from the dead.

 

Aquaman's corpse rises, along with those of Tula and the Dolphin as revenant members of the Black Lantern Corps, and demands that Mera reunite with him in death, offering her a chance to see her son again.

 

Garth is killed and joins the Black Lanterns himself. Mera rejects Aquaman's corpse before fleeing. In the climax of the miniseries, Aquaman is among those resurrected by The White Lantern Entity and is reunited with Mera.

 

The Black Lantern Ring helps reconstruct Orin's body and when he is resurrected, his hand is restored as well.

 

During the "Brightest Day" storyline, Aquaman and Mera spend the night together in the lighthouse of Amnesty Bay, but in the morning Mera finds Arthur on the dock looking at the sea and wondering why he was revived. They later intercept a pirate vessel, but Aquaman finds that he can now only call on dead sea life to help him.

 

While cleaning up an oil spill, Aquaman and Mera are attacked by soldiers from Mera's homeworld, led by the Siren, and Mera reveals that the Siren was sent to kill him.

 

Mera also hints that, despite the long-lasting exile of her people, Xebel's soldiers had been enemies of Black Manta himself from a distant time, even preceding the first public appearance of Aquaman.

 

She also states that, despite Mera's original mission being a solo one, the Siren is now backed by an entire Death Squad of elite Xebel soldiers acting at the orders of the acting princess and also later reveals that the Siren is her younger sister.

 

Aquaman is instructed by the White Lantern Entity to find Jackson Hyde before a second, unidentified group does.

 

Mera states that she knows who Hyde is and after she tells Aquaman, he leaves and rescues Jackson from a Xebel attack.

 

It is revealed that Aquaman's Silver Age origin has been re-established and he is once again the half-human son of Tom Curry and an Atlantean queen.

 

The Entity subsequently reduces Aquaman to what appears to be white water. Aquaman is revealed to be one of the Elementals, transformed by the Entity to become the element of water and protect the Star City forest from the Dark Avatar, the Black Lantern version of the Swamp Thing.

 

After the Dark Avatar is defeated, the Swamp Thing returns Aquaman to normal. Afterward, Aquaman is reunited with Mera, at which point he discovers that the Xebels' weapons were made of Atlantean technology.

 

Powers and abilities

 

Marine Telepathy

 

Aquaman's most widely recognized power is the ability to communicate with marine life, which he can summon from great distances. This was originally described in the stories as an ability to actually speak with fish (in a similar manner to Dr. Dolittle's ability to speak to animals).

 

This portrayal of his powers was later retconned into the ability to communicate with them telepathically. He once stated that this power more relied on encouraging and compelling the subject rather than full control, citing piranha as a species he has trouble commanding under any circumstances due to their ruthlessness and hunger.

 

In the New 52 onwards, Aquaman's telepathy abilities changed; acknowledging that most marine life does not possess enough intelligence to carry on a meaningful telepathic communication, Aquaman is now stated to simply add compulsions and needs in the mindset of aquatic life, compelling them to do his bidding by a subtle altering of their cerebellum.

 

It is later revealed during Drowned Earth event that Arthur's ability to speak with the ocean comes from a metaphysical energy known as the Life Force, a vast ocean of genesistic power which enables him to connect with any and all forms of sentience within the cosmos, even from across realities.

 

Through it, Arthur could also use its power to revert lost forms and assert varying consciousnesses within, like making the human shell of Mother Salt's monster daughter, the Cailleach, subservient to her human host's will; even restoring the true forms and divine powers of long-forgotten ocean gods while calling out to them through his aquatelepathy.

 

Physical abilities

 

The character has a number of other superhuman powers, most of which derive from the fact that he is adapted to live and thrive in the harshest of underwater environments.

 

He has the ability to breathe underwater and possesses a superhuman physique strong enough to withstand attacks from superhuman opponents and resist machine gun fire.

 

Aquaman frequently displays feats of super-Atlantean (the average Atlantean can lift/press approximately two tons) and superhuman strength. While not on par with Superman and Wonder Woman, he has proven capable of leaps up to six miles.

 

He can swim at extremely high speeds, capable of reaching speeds of 3,000 meters per second (10,800 km [roughly 6,700 miles] per hour) and can swim up Niagara Falls. He can see in near total darkness and has enhanced hearing, granting limited sonar.

 

Although Aquaman can remain underwater indefinitely without suffering any ill effects, he grows weak if he remains on land for extended periods.

 

Originally, when Batman invented Aquaman's water suit, he was able to walk on land for an indefinite amount of time and was no longer vulnerable to a "dehumidifier".

 

This weakness was later removed from continuity in 2011, establishing that he grew up on land before learning of his Atlantean heritage, but he still runs the risk of dying by dehydration within incredibly hostile environments, such as deserts.

 

Aquaman had also been bestowed an ability he never showcased before, given to him by an old Sea Monarch, granting him the ability of unaided flight using his own power.

 

Other powers and abilities

 

While typically able to mostly telepathically commune with marine animals, Aquaman has at times demonstrated the ability to affect any being that lives upon the sea (e.g., sea eagles), or even any being evolved from marine life (e.g., humans and some aliens).

 

Pre-Flashpoint Aquaman has had an ill-defined level of telekinetic capability he would use every so often. It's very, very rarely touched upon and the only times he ever used it few and far between; often applying these abilities as a focus for team battles to strengthen combo attacks with other supers.

 

At various times in his life, Aquaman has been transformed into a purely oceanic entity with power over all the seas of the world; this was usually temporary, as he would often revert to normal afterwards.

 

Weapons and equipment

 

Trident of Neptune

 

Before The New 52, the Trident, granted by Poseidon to the rightful ruler and protector of the seas, was indestructible and a very powerful melee weapon, which Aquaman wielded with unmatched skill.

 

Apart from its power as a melee weapon, the Trident also had the power to manipulate water, fire bolts of powerful energy and act as a focus to amplify the magical power of others, most notably Tempest.

 

In the New 52, the Trident of Neptune (also called Atlan's Trident or the Trident of Atlan) is a weapon in which is part of a collection of seven very powerful Atlantean magical items, forged by the first king of Atlantis who calls himself 'The Dead King'.

 

Initially thought to be the most powerful weapon of the set, with the possible exception of the recently discovered seventh item, the Trident is completely indestructible and able to hurt even the most powerful of opponents, such as the evil New God Darkseid.

 

In one instance, the Trident was shown glowing with magical power when Black Manta used the rest of the items to discover the hidden seventh one. Sometimes when Arthur utilizes the Trident of Neptune's supernatural powers, his eyes glow with arcane power and this further strengthens his abilities as well as giving him various arcane energy-based capabilities.

 

Trident of Poseidon

 

In the New 52 onwards, the trident in which is usually the favored weapon of Poseidon was given to Aquaman by the sea god. Poseidon's trident has displayed the power to summon tsunamis and deluges, and call down thunder and lightning, project and control ice, move landmasses, and grant the ability for Aquaman to teleport himself across global and even interplanetary distances using water as a medium. It can also transform into a gladius (a type of sword used by ancient Roman gladiators) and back into a trident at will.

 

Prosthetic hand

 

After the loss of his left hand, Aquaman initially replaced it with a cybernetic retractable hook, then a liquid metal hand. The mechanical hand was replaced by a magical hand made out of water. His biological hand was restored when the character was resurrected in Blackest Night #8.

 

Waterbearer Hand

 

A magical hand made out of water, it was given to him by the Lady of the Lake, which granted Aquaman numerous abilities. These included: the ability to instantly dehydrate to death anyone he touched, shoot jets of scalding or freezing water from it, healing abilities, the ability to create portals into mystical dimensions that could act as spontaneous transport, control and negate magic, manipulate almost any body of water he sets his focus on and the capability to communicate with the Lady of the Lake.

 

⚡ Happy 🎯 Heroclix 💫 Friday! 👽

_____________________________

A year of the shows and performers of the Bijou Planks Theater.

 

Secret Identity: Arthur Curry

 

Publisher: DC

 

First appearance: More Fun Comics #73 (November 1941)

 

Created by: Mort Weisinger

(writer)

Paul Norris

(artist)

 

Aquaman has been spotted once on the Bijou Planks:

 

BP 2021 Day 32!

www.flickr.com/photos/paprihaven/50899831182/

 

And also at The Booth:

www.flickr.com/photos/paprihaven/29521983198/

 

And also in the Paprihaven story!

www.flickr.com/photos/paprihaven/50826857451/