Blue Marvel

For the Golden Age version of the Blue Marvel, see Marvel Boy (Robert Grayson).

Blue Marvel
Blue Marvel (on right) vs. King Hyperion from Age of Heroes #3. Art by M. C. Wyman.
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	Adam: Legend of the Blue Marvel #1 (Nov. 2008)
Created by	Kevin Grevioux (writer)
In-story information
Alter ego	Adam Bernard Brashear
Species	Human Mutate
Place of origin	Earth
Team affiliations	United States Marine Corps Mighty Avengers Ultimates
Abilities	Superhuman strength, speed, stamina, reflexes, endurance, senses, durability, intelligence and longevity Nigh-invulnerability Flight Energy, manipulation, generation, absorption and projection Trained military and hand-to-hand combatant Highly proficient engineer and physicist Molecular manipulation Light manipulation and creation Anti-matter manipulation, absorption and projection

Blue Marvel (Adam Bernard Brashear) is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The Blue Marvel debuted in Adam: Legend of the Blue Marvel #1 (Nov. 2008) and was created by actor/writer Kevin Grevioux, who originally conceived the character as a child.

Publication history

Adam Brashear debuted in the five issue Adam: Legend of the Blue Marvel mini-series created by Kevin Grevioux. A different version later appeared briefly in What If? Secret Invasion #1 (Feb. 2010).

In 2013, Blue Marvel appeared as part of Luke Cage's new team of superheroes during the Infinity crossover, in the Marvel NOW! relaunch of Mighty Avengers.

Fictional character biography

Adam Brashear is a former fullback at Cornell University as well as a veteran of the Korean War, a member of the Marine Corps with two Silver Stars. While in the Marine Corps he met Conner Sims, the friend he would later know as Anti-Man. Brashear later became the project lead on a scientific attempt to harness anti-matter through the creation of a Negative Reactor which created a bridge between the Negative Zone and the positive matter universe. This reactor would be a source of unlimited clean energy by allowing devices to tap the stable event horizon balanced between the two universes. Due to the unexpected explosion of the reactor, both Brashear and Sims were subjected to mutagenic radiation generated by the destabilized event horizon. While Sims' body dissolved into energy, Brashear became a stable "antimatter reactor" with superhuman abilities, which he used to fight crime under the superhero alias Blue Marvel.

In 1962, Adam received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President John F. Kennedy and on that same day the President asked him to retire, since it had been discovered by the public that he was an African American. As the Blue Marvel, Brashear wore a full-face helmet, but when it was damaged in a battle, his identity was revealed. There was massive controversy as the era of 1962 was too racist to accept a black superhero. Although Kennedy personally approved of Brashear's actions, the President reluctantly decided to ask Brashear to step down, and the Blue Marvel conceded. As his final mission as Blue Marvel, Brashear defeated the herald of an alien invasion armada. After the fight, he left the Medal of Freedom in the Blue Area of the Moon, where he first met Uatu the Watcher. His conversation with the Watcher was interrupted by the late arrival of the alien armada, which he defeated. The United States government used this final mission to fake his death. The government later set up S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Marlene Frazier as Brashear's monitor under the cover name Candace. Frazier eventually became his wife and the mother of their three children: sons Kevin and Max, and daughter Adrienne. Brashear later became a tenured professor of physics at the University of Maryland.

Although retired as the Blue Marvel, Brashear continued to have adventures, in the following decades, operating both alone (under the guise of 'Doc Brashear') or with his eldest son Kevin when the boy grew old enough. One adventure in 1972 saw him team up with the vampire hunter known as Blade and the dark magician Kaluu to battle shapeshifting 'Deathwalkers'.

At some point, Adam Brashear studied a mysterious being called the Infinaut who made various attempts to manifest on Earth. In the Infinaut's second manifestation in 1998, Adam and his son Kevin used an anti-matter powered rig to interrupt it. Adam discovered that if the Infinaut had manifested on Earth at his large size, he would have destroyed it.

Conner Sims, the Anti-Man, was a radical who, partly because of his history with Adam Brashear, violently hated racism (he being Caucasian) and, in his power-fueled insanity, sought to eradicate it. When Anti-Man returned and defeated the Avengers, Tony Stark (Iron Man) tracked down Brashear and with the help of Mister Fantastic they came up with a plan to stop Anti-Man. After a surprise confrontation with Sims on the moon, Brashear was left unconscious. Later an extended fight with Anti-Man resulted in Candace Brashear's death. At the conclusion of their battle, Brashear took Anti-Man up to the edge of the ionosphere and siphoned off his remaining "anti-matter energy", which caused his waveform to permanently decohere and collapse.

Afterward, Brashear returned as a full-time superhero in Age of Heroes #3. After a discussion with Uatu the Watcher, he traveled to Uzbekistan to help the Winter Guard subdue the extra-dimensional King Hyperion.

During the Fear Itself storyline, Blue Marvel was exploring the Negative Zone when he returned and discovered a submarine lodged in Kadesh, his undersea base. (Blue Marvel was the first person to discover and enter into the Negative Zone). Both the Chinese and American forces blamed the other, and they seemed on the brink of war. Blue Marvel managed to save his anti-matter samples from being exposed to water, and relations between the Chinese and Americans returned to normal. Blue Marvel wondered where the submarine came from, and he soon discovered that the sea dragon guarding the Serpent's undersea prison was responsible for sending the submarine into his base.

During the Infinity storyline, Uatu visited Blue Marvel in his Undersea Science Fortress which he had previously modified. Blue Marvel talked with Uatu about his family life and how he could have taken up the opportunity to join the Avengers. After a one-sided conversation, Blue Marvel took up his costume and flew through Shuma-Gorath's head during its fight with Luke Cage's team. He was able to heal Spectrum (who had been incapacitated by Proxima Midnight's spear) and boost her powers temporarily. Subsequently, Blue Marvel was among those Luke Cage declared to be part of his Mighty Avengers.

During the "Last Days" part of the 2015 Secret Wars storyline, Blue Marvel was seen with the Mighty Avengers where they fight the Illuminati. After the battle, Blue Marvel tells Mister Fantastic and Black Panther that he is angry they never consulted the other heroes on this, saying they could have prevented all this if they had all worked together.

As part of the 2015 All-New, All-Different Marvel initiative, Blue Marvel appeared as a member of the Ultimates. Blue Marvel's first mission with the Ultimates involved retrieving the incubator that Galactus was brought out of prematurely. Once they put him back into it, he fully emerged as a lifebringer. While in Exo-Space with the Ultimates within their ship the Aboena, Blue Marvel finds that his old enemy Anti-Man has reassembled there. As Blue Marvel wanted to kill Anti-Man where he deemed him too dangerous, he also discovered that his son Kevin was also in Exo-Space who persuaded his father to spare him. Blue Marvel does and has Anti-Man brought onto the Aboena so that he and the Ultimates can fix him.

During the 2016 Civil War II storyline, the precognitive Ulysses Cain experiences a vision that warns Blue Marvel about the impending arrival of the inter-dimensional traveler Infinaut on Earth, which will endanger the planet. This warning gives sufficient time for Blue Marvel, Giant-Man, and the Ultimates to devise a Pym Particle accelerator with which they can shrink Infinaut down to human size, at which point Infinaut greets the heroes.

During the God Butcher storyline, Blue Marvel and the Mighty Avengers, along with the rest of humanity, have been killed by Loki. Blue Marvel's reanimated corpse appears as part of a legion of undead heroes sent against Old King Thor by the God of Mischief, but are ultimately defeated by The God of Thunder.

Powers and Abilities

Anti-Matter Energy Absorption seems to be the main source of Blue Marvel's power. This source of power is the energy released from anti-matter which derives from the inter-dimensional universe called the Negative Zone.

Powers

• Anti-Matter Energy Absorption Physiology: Theoretically, it seems to be the main source of Blue Marvel's power. This source of power is the energy released from anti-matter which derives from the dimension called the Negative Zone. Anti-matter is the same as normal matter except that the sub-atomic particles are the opposite charge. Therefore, anti-matter and normal matter cannot coexist without exploding. CERN was the first to synthesize particles of anti-matter on Earth in 1995, keeping them in a magnetically charged vacuum to keep it from coming in contact with normal matter. Nuclear fission releases energy with 1.5% efficiency; anti-matter releases energy with 100% efficiency. One gram of anti-matter contains the same energy as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. One droplet could power New York City for a full day. Adam Brashear is the first human anti-matter generator and reactor. The experiment he gained his powers from renders his form unaffected from anti-matter. Blue Marvel was considered to be an Alpha Level Threat by Captain America (Sam Wilson) and Tony Stark.
  • Alpha Human Physiology / Transcendent Mortal/Human Physiology / Transcendent Superior Human Physiology
    • Superhuman Condition
      • Supernatural Body
        • Superhuman Strength: Blue Marvel possesses vast superhuman strength. He has been observed moving a meteor the size of Arkansas and routinely lifting and flying an aircraft carrier a considerable distance with ease. The uppermost limits of Blue Marvel's strength is unknown, but it is in the same ballpark as Hulk, Sentry and Thor. Blue Marvel possesses vast levels of superhuman strength, capable of lifting excess 100 tons. He was seen as capable of effortlessly lifting the 1960 era's American warship Enterprise  which weighs over 93,000 tons. The Blue Marvel is capable of greater feats of strength as when he effortlessly moved a meteor "easily the size of Arkansas." The Watcher states that Adam is capable of splitting the Moon into two with a blow, which indicates that he can be easily considered as planet destroyer. He was able to directly engage Iron Man, Ares, Wonder Man, and Ms. Marvel in combat at the same time and casually overpower them. He is strong enough to push the Sentry to the limits of his strength and knock him into Earth's orbit with a single punch. He even managed to ultimately defeat in physical combat the powerful King Hyperion, who had slaughtered numerous other incarnations of Blue Marvel as well as heroes of multiple worlds (including Hercules, and Thor of his own Earth, as well as the Sentries, Hulks, Thors, and Eternals of other worlds). When he and the Ultimates confronted their Earth-1610 counterparts he was able to defeat their Hulk with just one punch.
          • Strength Combat
          • Supernatural Strike
          • Enhanced Lifting
          • Powerhouse Physiology
          • Ergokinetic Strength
          • Megaton Punch
        • Superhuman speed: Blue Marvel is capable of moving vastly faster than any normal human being, & he is able to move fast enough to keep up with the Sentry who can move at lightspeed.
          • Power Momentum
        • Superhuman stamina
        • Superhuman reflexes
        • Superhuman endurance
        • Superhuman senses
        • Superhuman durability
      • Enhanced Mental Perception / Hyper-Cosmic Awareness: Blue Marvel possesses the ability to sense & comprehend things on levels that far exceed human capabilities. He can perceive different sensory spectra beyond the regular norm. Superior Spider-Man once likened him to being his own Electron Microscope, enabling him to see into Spectrum's damaged energy form in order to repair what Proxima had done. Later he would expand his consciousness further through one of his inventions to find out about the imprisonment of conceptual existence.
        • Super Vision
      • Superhuman Physique
        • Almighty Homo-Sapien
      • Energy Enhanced Physiology
    • Nigh-Invulnerability: Blue Marvel possesses nigh-invulnerability and durability, being capable of withstanding tremendous impact forces, exposure to temperature and pressure extremes, and powerful energy blasts without sustaining injury. He has withstood a nuclear detonation without any apparent physical trauma and is capable of surviving in the vacuum of space unaided. Because his character hasn’t been expanded on much he could very well have similar invincibility to that of Superman or Thor. The Blue Marvel has survived a hydrogen bomb (with the explosion of 10 megatons [10 million tons] of TNT) blowing up in his hands unfazed. He was capable of withstanding blows from a large collection of superhumans made up of Ms. Marvel, Ares, Iron Man, Wonder Man, and Sentry unharmed. Blue Marvel can also breathe and survive in space. He can also survive in a nuclear explosion without being harmed.
      • Vacuum Adaptation
      • Self-Sustenance: Blue Marvel is self-sustaining, meaning that he doesn't need food or water or oxygen which allows him to go underwater or into deep-space for long periods of time with no issue.
    • Anti-Matter Manipulation: Blue Marvel can absorb and generate vast amounts of anti-matter energy for various effects.
      • Personal Anti-Energy / Anti-Energy Physiology
        • Anti-Energy Attacks
          • Anti-Energy Generation
        • Anti-Energy Defense
        • Anti-Energy Constructs
          • Anti-Energy Solidification
        • Anti-Energy Aura
        • Anti-Energy Combat
        • Anti-Energy Power Link
      • Concussive Force Bolts: Blue Marvel can release anti-matter energy from his hands as bolts of concussive force.
        • Hand Blasts
          • Finger Blasts
      • Stun Bolts: Blue Marvel can project low-energy of anti-matter bolts that render human beings unconscious.
      • Energy Pulse: Blue Marvel can release all of his body's anti-matter energy as a massive omnidirectional pulse of devastating power.
      • Forcefield: Blue Marvel can use his energy to create durable forcefields, as seen in his battle with King Hyperion.
      • Anti-matter absorption and projection
        • Antimatter Attacks
          • Antimatter Blast
        • Optic Blasts
      • Antiparticle Manipulation
        • Antiparticle Attacks
          • Antiparticle Blast
        • Antiparticle Combat
      • Antimatter Combat
      • Antimatter Shield Construction
      • Antimatter Stabilization
    • Flight: Blue Marvel flies by manipulation of gravitons, manipulation of magnetic fields, control of his absolute molecular movement, and utilizing his superhuman speed. Blue Marvel can easily attain escape velocity (or escape speed, which is about 34 times the speed of sound) and fly far beyond supersonic speeds, but it is not known if he can achieve speeds beyond the speed of light.
      • Spatial Flight: He has been seen flying into space unaided under his own power.
    • Matter Manipulation: Adam can also manipulate material bonds as well as he can control and manipulate anti-material and energy. Able to do so from the molecular to particle levels as he was capable of producing new particles to repair the damages to Spectrum's light form.
      • Energy Manipulation: Blue Marvel was able to re-arrange the photons in Spectrum (Monica Rambeau)'s body to stop the anti-photons from destroying her body and made her stronger and more powerful, strong enough to take down a tiny shadow of Shuma-Gorath.
        • Energy generation: Blue Marvel has the ability to generate and control negative matter energy based on antimatter. This is a very powerful energy source, one gram of antimatter is equal to an atomic bomb and blue marvel can expel millions of tons of antimatter with relative ease. He can manipulate this energy for various effects, including creating energy constructs.
          • Quintessence Force
          • Energy Shied Construction
        • Energy absorption and projection
          • Energy Beam Emission
        • Personal Energy
      • Light manipulation and creation
        • Bioluminescence: Brashear/Blue Marvel has exhibited the ability to emit light from his body.
      • Transmutation
      • Particle Manipulation
        • Dimensional Particle Manipulation
      • Matterlock Manipulation; via the Negative Zone
    • Molecular Manipulation: Blue Marvel evidently is able to affect matter at a molecular level with a great degree of precision and control, as he did when he not only healed Monica Rambeau, but further boosted her electromagnetic abilities. It is not known if this ability is limited to electromagnetic particles only, or if the Blue Marvel is able to affect all matter, allowing him to alter an object's molecular composition or transmute elements.
      • List of Molecular Abilities
    • Longevity: Blue Marvel ages much slower and lives much longer than normal human beings.
    • Superpowered Physiology
      • Transcendent Meta Physiology
      • Universal Power Link
        • Universal Force Empowerment
      • Anti-Energy Empowerment
      • Superhero
      • Superpowered Being
      • Mutated Human Physiology
    • Regenerative Healing Factor
    • Advanced Longevity

Abilities

• Trained combatant: He has been trained by the US Marines in armed and unarmed combat.
  • Trained military and hand-to-hand combatant
• Super-Genius Intelligence: Adam Brashear is a genius in the field of theoretical physics and has made extraordinary strides in the study of antimatter. According to Reed Richards, Adam's intellect matches that of Doctor Doom.
  • Highly proficient engineer and physicist
• Athlete: Brashear is also a highly talented football player though he is out of practice.

Physical Strength

Class 100+, Adam is capable of lifting far in excess of 100 tons easily. He is stated to be in the same league as the Sentry, Hulk, and Thor. Namor also stated that the only other beings who have hit him as hard as Blue Marvel were Hulk and Thor.

Weaknesses

• Neutronium: Blue Marvel appears to be only weak against this substance from the Neutral Zone.
• Magic:
• High-Energy Radiation

Paraphernalia

Equipment

• Blue Marvel's Suit
• Anti-Neutronium Armor
• Blue Marvel's staff & helmet

Facility

• Kadesh

According to Brashear he is a stable "antimatter reactor", but from his broader explanation what he appears to do is channel exotic particles generated by a stable event horizon caused by the interaction of opposing positive matter and negative matter (Negative Zone) universes. Because Brashear has retained his abilities all this time, it would seem that either the specific generative reaction, that granted him his powers continues at an unseen or subatomic level in the facility where he first gained his abilities, or exotic particles generated by the experiment somehow became quantum entangled with Brashear.

Brashear holds a PhD in Theoretical Physics and a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering from Cornell University. He maintains a massive undersea headquarters in the Marianas Trench at a location known only to Namor the Sub-Mariner. Brashear normally wears gauntlets on both arms that channel and augment his vast powers. Blue Marvel is able to create portals from technology that he invented that far exceeds any technology currently on earth. Blue Marvel's main weakness is Neutronium, a substance from the Exo-Space.

In other media

Video games

• Blue Marvel appears in Marvel: Avengers Alliance.
• Blue Marvel appears as a playable character in Lego Marvel's Avengers and Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2.
• Blue Marvel is a playable character in Marvel: Future Fight.

Albums

• Blue Marvel appears on the cover of the 10th Anniversary LP of Sufjan Stevens's Illinois.

External links

• Blue Marvel biography at World of Black Heroes
• Blue Marvel at Marvel.com
• Adam Brashear (Earth-616) at Marvel Database Project
• Blue Marvel at Comicvine
• Blue Marvel (Adam Brashear) at the Comic Book DB
• Blue Marvel from Wikipedia
• Blue Marvel from Heroes Wikia
• Blue Marvel from Lego Marvel and DC Superheroes Wikia