Drax the Destroyer

Drax the Destroyer (Arthur Douglas) is a fictional character from the Marvel Comics universe.

Fictional character biography

Creation and early life

Arthur Douglas, a real estate agent and sometime musician, was born in Burbank, California. Arthur and his wife Yvette, and their daughter Heather are driving across the Mojave Desert from Las Vegas to Los Angeles when a spaceship carrying the mad Titan Thanos passes overhead on a surveillance mission to Earth. Wishing to keep his existence a secret, Thanos destroys the automobile in case its passengers observed his ship. Thanos lands to make certain they are dead and, satisfied, he leaves. Unknown to the Titan, his father, Mentor, had been monitoring his activities on Earth. Mentor discovers that Heather Douglas is still alive and takes her back to Titan. She later returns to Earth as Moondragon.

Mentor determines that the threat of his son Thanos can no longer be ignored and decides to create a being of sufficient power to defeat Thanos. Enlisting the aid of his father Chronos, who millennia before had become a discorporate wraith, Mentor has Chronos seize the astral form (living consciousness) of Arthur Douglas before it can completely flee the mortal plane. Chronos and Mentor then fashion a humanoid body from immutable soil, grant it superhuman powers, and empower it with Douglas' spirit. Thus, the being who becomes known as Drax the Destroyer is created.

Mentor blocks all of Drax's memories of his old life, instilling in him a monomaniacal hate for and an obsession to destroy Thanos. He seeks out Thanos, and with Iron Man, he battles Thanos and the Blood Brothers. He battles Thanos some time later. For years, Drax serves as Thanos's nemesis, thwarting certain of the Titan's plans, but never finally crushing Thanos himself. Thanos hired legions of alien mercenaries just to keep Drax away from him.

Finally, in Thanos's campaign to possess the Cosmic Cube, Drax, in the company of the Avengers, Captain Marvel, Starfox and Moondragon, battle Thanos. It is revealed how the spirit of Arthur Douglas was resurrected in a new body and given a mission to destroy Thanos, and he then sees Thanos destroyed. Suddenly lacking a reason for existence, Drax soon battles Captain Marvel, who had robbed him of his purpose, to vent his frustrations. Drax then wanders space in grim contemplation, searching for a resurrected Thanos. By the time he learns that Thanos had managed to rematerialize himself, Thanos has once again been destroyed in battle with Captain Mar-Vell, the Avengers, and Adam Warlock. Alongside Captain Mar-Vell, Drax battles ISAAC, Stellarax, Lord Gaea, Elysius, and Chaos.

Sometime later, Drax is possessed by an alien entity and battles Thor and his daughter Moondragon. When he recovers, Moondragon invites him to join her in her journey through space in search of knowledge. Drax accepts the offer, and the two travel aboard Moondragon's personal starship, Sensia. Eventually, they come upon the planet Ba-Banis, in the Ba system, a world of humanoid aliens caught in a vast civil war. Moondragon uses her mental powers to quell the conflict and then decides to set herself up as the world's goddess. Drax recognizes that her ambitions are ignoble and so sends their ship to Earth with a holographic distress message. The Avengers respond and discover Moondragon's world of mentally enforced tranquility. Freed by the Avengers from his daughter's mental domination, Drax advances toward her, seeking to end her menace. In order to stop him, Moondragon mentally forces Drax's life essence to vacate his artificial body. Later, after subduing Moondragon and returning to Earth, the Avengers place Drax's body inside the Sensia and send it into space programmed to self destruct. Without Drax's spirit inside it, Drax's body is destroyed when the Sensia exploded.

Infinity Watch

Several years later, when Thanos is resurrected by Mistress Death, Chronos reanimates the Destroyer on Titan to again combat his mad grandson, and grants him with even greater physical power. However, Chronos does not consider the effects of Drax's death, and the Destroyer's mind retains the damage done by Moondragon. Alongside a multitude of other heroes, Drax helped battle Thanos and Nebula for possession of the Infinity Gauntlet. Despite the setback of the damage taken from his death, and following Thanos' defeat and the subsequent breakup of the Infinity Gauntlet, Drax is chosen by Adam Warlock to safeguard the Power Gem as part of the Infinity Watch. During his time on the team, it is feared he would regain his memories and attempt to slay Moondragon for what she had done to him. Drax rarely shows any signs of violence towards his friends. He is portrayed as gentle, sometimes even playing the saxophone.

Drax takes part in the Infinity Crusade and Infinity War, but mostly as muscle, doing little more than beating adversaries into submission.

Eventually, due to internal strife, the Watch fragments and go their separate ways. Afterward, Drax returns to Titan with Moondragon, who successfully petitions Chronos to restore Drax's mind to its former acuity at the cost of some physical power. Thus, Drax is restored to his original condition.

Drax is then accused of the murder of Elysius and several others. However, he is cleared when Warlock, Gamora, Pip the Troll, and Genis-Vell discover that the creature Syphon is manipulating Drax.

Following this event, Drax's condition begins to change. His mass and strength climb back to previous levels, and his mind becomes clouded. Finally, he seeks out Moondragon, which leads to an altercation with Genis-Vell, the son of Mar-Vell. In the course of this struggle, Drax is transported to the Microverse with Genis, where, for a time, he finds acceptance and happiness on the planet K'ai.

Reborn

Drax is later seen on a ship with Paibok, Lunatik, and the Blood Brothers. They are to have been transported to an intergalactic prison, but the ship crashes on Earth under mysterious circumstances. Drax attacks the others to keep them from harming innocent lives. His intelligence comes back to him at random intervals during his fight with the other prisoner. (As stated by writer Peter David, Drax's intelligence/power levels have been in a state of flux since at least 1996, his strength diminishing whenever his intelligence grew, and vice versa.) While on Earth and at a low-point of intelligence, he wanders through Alaska and mistakes a young girl named Cammi for his daughter. As he slowly wanders through the countryside he encounters Paibok yet again. Paibok ruthlessly murders him, yet Drax emerges with a new body with a higher intelligence and possibly other unknown abilities. This "new" Drax kills Lunatik and one of the Blood Brothers. The mini-series ends with Drax and Cammi back on a prison ship.

Annihilation

Drax plays a role in the 2006 Annihilation crossover storyline, written by Keith Giffen. Surviving Annihilus' attack on the intergalactic prison known as the Kyln, Drax and Cammi team up with the last member of the Xandarian Nova Corps, Richard Rider. Together they fight against the advancing Annihilation Wave. Drax teaches Nova the power of concentration so that he may contain the entire Nova force. Moreover, Nova asks Drax to teach him an important lesson: How to destroy.

During a doomed battle between the Annihilation Wave and the United Front on Daedalus 5, Drax stays behind to fight off the invaders while Nova and the rest of the group (including Cammi) finish the evacuation. Drax fights his way to one of the Annihilation Wave's ships in his quest for Thanos. He finds the Titan attempting to release Galactus from his prison on Annihilus' mother ship. Before Thanos can release Galactus using his unique energy signature, Drax breaks through Thanos' defensive shield and punches a hole through the Titan's chest. Drax then realizes that they could "trick" the security system into shutting off by using the Silver Surfer, which succeeds. Once Galactus is freed, he teleports Moondragon and Drax to a far-off planet to spare them from his wrath on the Annihilation Wave. Afterwards, Moondragon says Drax just "disappeared", with it heavily implied she was covering for him.

Cammi is later seen, alive, allied with one of Thanos' powerful, miniature assistants.

Annihilation: Conquest

During the Phalanx's invasion of the Kree home-world following the Annihilation War, Drax was assimilated as a "select" of the hive mind. They dispatch him along with Gamora to apprehend Nova after he flees the planet.

Following Annihilation: Conquest, he joins the new Guardians of the Galaxy.

Powers and abilities

Arthur Douglas was given superhuman powers due to his recreation as the artificial lifeform Drax by Mentor and Chronos. Drax's powers at this point included super strength, tremendous resilience, flight, and the ability to project concussive blasts of cosmic energy from his hands, and has the ability to survive, and travel, at high speeds in outer space as well hyperspace and without air, food, or water. Drax also possessed the ability to sense the presence of Thanos across vast distances.

When Drax was later resurrected, his physical might increased, but he suffered severe mental disability in his new incarnation. Instead of his ability to sense Thanos across vast distances, he now possessed the ability to sense when beings have been in recent contact with Thanos, and a precognitive ability to sense when beings will be in contact with Thanos in the near future.

Drax's strength has been compared with that of the merged incarnation of the Hulk, but lacking the latter's rage-fueled potential. He had bright green skin, and almost always wore a purple skullcap.

As of the 2006 "Annihilation" mini-series, Drax has again "died" and undergone a "rebirth," appearing to have lost some of his strength and resilience, as well as his ability to fly and shoot energy blasts. However, his intellect has returned to its original level, and he has taken a liking to using knives in battle. He has also appeared for the first time without his usual purple uniform and skullcap, and gained scarlet tattoos instead. In addition, he has gained a sidekick of sorts, a young earth girl named Cammi whom he seems determined to protect at all costs. As a result of the Annihilation wave, he has also become a mentor to Nova, the sole remaining member of the Nova Corps.

In issue #4 of "Annihilation," Drax displayed an ability heretofore unseen in any of his previous incarnations; while in close proximity to Thanos's body, his own body emitted a strange, form-fitting aura; shortly thereafter, he punched straight through the Mad Titan's chest with a single blow. Given the tremendous displays of Thanos's durability over the years and his ability to withstand the blows of stronger opponents, it can only be assumed that the energy field that Drax manifested was designed for that purpose.

Other media

Drax appeared in an episode of the Silver Surfer animated series voiced by Norm Spencer. He is seen as an android and a companion of Mentor, brother of Thanos. Though Eros is a brother of Thanos, Mentor became the brother due to a typographical error in the script.