The Beyonder is a fictional character in comic books published by Marvel Comics. He first appeared in Secret Wars vol. 1 #1 (May 1984), and was created by Jim Shooter and Mike Zeck. He reappears in Secret Wars II #1 (July 1985), which was created by Jim Shooter and Al Milgrom.

Publication history

The Beyonder was a controversial character among creators. Creators felt that Jim Shooter had abused his role as editor-in-chief, and forced the use of the omnipotent character upon other writers and editors. Some critics felt the crossovers didn't always mesh well with the main book. One of the most vocal critics was John Byrne.

Apparently, Steve Englehart wanted to tie in the Beyonder to older characters known as the Beyonders (first mentioned in the team-up comic Marvel Two-in-One #63, beings powerful enough to collect planets) for his "Secret Wars III' story in Fantastic Four #318-319. According to Englehart, an editor hated the character and ordered the Beyonder "removed" from the Marvel Universe. Englehart did as asked but has stated that he tried to exile the character with dignity. The character was subjected to a retcon making him less potent than originally determined, and explanations of his omnipotence have been written off as the more powerful beings "playing along" to ease the Beyonder's transition into self-awareness. It was explained in Secret Wars III that the Beyonder was in fact a Cosmic Cube. During the first Secret War, the Beyonder claimed to be the embodiment of an entire universe. As he became self-aware, he recognized himself as the only person in his universe. Secret Wars III revealed that the Beyonder is in fact a wayward Cosmic Cube, at one time inhabiting his own "dimension" because there was no matrix to hold his energy. The Beyonder took his name from the powerful Beyonders who were manipulating his destiny.

Fictional character biography

Secret Wars

The Beyonder is the sum total of a pocket dimension called the Beyond-Realm or simply "Beyond", hence the name "Beyonder". This dimension is accidentally accessed by nebbish lab technician Owen Reece. Part of the energy from the dimension escapes and imbues Reece with near-infinite powers, which he wields as the villainous Molecule Man - potentially one of the most powerful villains in the Marvel Universe. The remaining energy of the pocket dimension apparently gains sentience and curiosity. Using its vast powers, the Beyonder creates a planet called "Battleworld" out of pieces of various planets (one such piece being a suburb of Denver) and abducts a number of superheroes and supervillains from Earth so that he can observe the never-ending battle between good and evil that rages within humanity at large.

In initially explaining the nature of the experiment to the involuntary participants, the entity identifies itself only as "I am from beyond." The name "Beyonder" is quickly applied by Galactus and adopted by all others present. Galactus, sensing that the Beyonder could alleviate his perpetual hunger, immediately and aggressively charges into the Beyond-Realm through a dimensional rift, followed by Doctor Doom, who seeks power for his own purposes. Both are repelled, but the information gathered by Doom later enables him to use the body of the sound-based villain Klaw as a medium to steal the energies of Galactus' Worldship and then the power of the Beyonder itself. With the Beyonder's power, Doom constructs a 200-mile high tower of golden stone as temporary quarters, and then states that he has given up his ambitions for conquest, instead simply being content with freeing his mother's soul from Mephisto. The Beyonder's consciousness then possesses Klaw's damaged mind and manipulates Doom into unconsciously squandering his power against the superheroes, distracting him enough for the Beyonder to steal his power back.

This story formed the basis of the first Secret Wars twelve-issue limited series. The series sold incredibly well, with circulation reaching up to 750,000 copies per issue, numbers reminiscent of the height of comic book sales during the Golden Age of the 1940s.

Secret Wars II

Due to the high sales of the first series, a second Secret Wars series, the nine-issue Secret Wars II miniseries, was published. This series crossed over into almost every comic that Marvel was publishing at the time.

Intrigued by what he has witnessed during the first Secret Wars, the Beyonder comes to Earth to walk among humans and study them and learn of human desire firsthand. He creates a human body for himself; originally, this body resembles an amalgam of parts of various super-beings. He then changes it to be a duplicate of Captain America. He also transforms a human into Thundersword. The Beyonder later patterns his hairstyle and wardrobe after Michael Jackson's look as Captain EO.

At first, the Beyonder has a complete lack of understanding of human biology and society, which leads to numerous difficult situations, some serious and some humorous. For instance, he needs to learn by example the difference between edible objects and non-edible ones, and needs to be toilet-trained by Spider-Man. When he learns about the monetary system from a homeless woman and Luke Cage, the Hero for Hire, he transforms the Manhattan Heroes for Hire office building into gold as thanks for their assistance. He later comes under the influence of a criminal named Vinnie and becomes the head of a criminal cartel; he then uses mind control to assume control over the entire Earth, only to relinquish control when he grows restless and frustrated with the lack of free will that the world now displays. He then transforms the elf Algrim into Kurse. The Beyonder has a brief love affair with the musician Dazzler, and, when pondering his place and needs in the universe, accidentally inspires a cult of meditation. His body is destroyed, or nearly destroyed, several times over, although each time he repairs it with his powers.

On a train to New York, Beyonder meets the mutant Tabitha Smith, also known as Boom Boom. Thinking he is a mutant, Boom Boom accompanies him. The Beyonder abandons her but returns and takes her to Xavier's school. At the school, Tabitha is terrified when the teams of the X-Men and the New Mutants fight the Beyonder. The Beyonder takes her to a planet where the Celestials are located. There, threatening to destroy the universe, the Beyonder fights and seemingly defeats a number of Celestials. However, that planet had not been truly the Celestials' headquarters, and the Celestials had allowed the Beyonder to "defeat" them, presumably in order to observe him in action. This, however, is part of the retcon. Fearful of the battle taking place between the Beyonder and the Celestials, Tabitha demands to be returned to Earth. Back on Earth, Boom Boom alerts the Avengers about the Beyonder. Summoning the Beyonder, Boom Boom thereby leads him into an ambush by the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and other costumed champions. The Beyonder, who had regarded Boom Boom as his only friend, allows the Avengers to defeat him, but then leaves. Boom Boom leaves during the battle.

He then acts in an attempt to "preserve life" throughout the universe by seemingly eliminating and then resurrecting the manifestation of Death. Throughout the course of the series, the demon Mephisto seeks to steal his powers or to destroy him to win the favor of Death. Mephisto sends an army of supervillains to attack the Beyonder, who is saved by the Thing. The Beyonder then fights the Puma.

The Beyonder then feels the futility of all his efforts and decides to destroy the entire multiverse. He starts by killing the New Mutants. He then battles Phoenix.

The Beyonder reconsiders destroying the multiverse, and resurrects the New Mutants. The Beyonder tries to create for himself a mortal human infant body that can retain his omnipotence. Although he is on the verge of succeeding, he is killed in the process by the Molecule Man. The Beyonder's near-limitless power is returned to the now-empty "Beyond-Realm", where it forms a Big Bang and created a new universe.

Deadpool Team-up

Long after the Secret Wars II crossover had ended, a Deadpool special featured the "Secret Wars II continues in this issue" corner tag that was used during that original storyline. In this issue, a younger, less-experienced Deadpool is hired by the Kingpin to kill the Beyonder. The flashback sequence ends with Deadpool chasing him into a portal with a footnote saying "to be continued in Secret Wars III." This storyline has yet to be followed up on.

Kosmos & Maker

The tale of the Beyonder continues several years later when it is revealed that the energy which comprises the Beyonder and the energy that gives the Molecule Man his powers needs to be combined in order to create the basis for a mentally stable, mature, nigh-omnipotent being to be born. The Beyonder then merges with the Molecule Man. This being, called Kosmos, expels the Molecule Man from its form, and returns him to Earth. Kosmos takes on a female form and is tutored by Kubik, touring the universe with him. When the Molecule Man's lover, Volcana, leaves him, Owen Reece gets angry, extracts the Beyonder from Kosmos, and proceeds to attack him until Kubik intervenes.

At some unknown point, Kosmos goes mad and assumes a mortal form, now calling itself the Maker. After the Maker destroys a Shi'ar colony, the Imperial Guard manage to imprison it in the interstellar prison called the Kyln. The Maker's madness takes control of several inmates, but is finally subdued by the nihilist Thanos and several of his allies among the prisoners. Thanos confronts the Maker and psychically shuts down its mind, instructing the Shi'ar that the body should be kept alive, brain-dead, or the Beyonder essence would go free again.

Apparently, Thanos had encountered the Beyonder in the past, but this has never been explained, as Thanos was dead at the time of Secret Wars II. Thanos' flashback showed Thanos as a youngster.

Beyond! and Annihilation

The Beyonder apparently returned in the series named after him, Beyond! This being was called The Beyonder in the second issue. This "Beyonder" is once again in command of the patchwork Battleworld, where it is revealed that he has been collecting various superhumans and pitting them in combat with one another. Eventually, the pool of heroes and villains featured in the mini-series discovers that this Beyonder is actually the Stranger, who has been conducting studies of super-humanity through re-creations of the original Secret War.

In the "Annihilation" crossover, the former Herald of Galactus, the Fallen One, now under the control of Thanos, is sent to investigate the aftermath of the Kyln's destruction by the Annihilation Wave and ascertain the Beyonder's fate. The Fallen One soon finds the lifeless form of Kosmos in the rubble; however, given the strange nature of her existence as a Cosmic Cube, as well as the fact that she had been killed once before in Secret Wars II without apparent ill effect (the Cosmic Cube energy that was the original Beyonder simply filling up an empty pocket dimension where it was shunted to and starting life anew), it is uncertain at this time if she has truly died, or instead has been set free as Thanos predicted.

New Avengers: The Illuminati

In New Avengers: The Illuminati #3, featuring a re-telling of past events, Charles Xavier reveals that in the original Secret War, he had initially planned to use his powers to make everyone fall asleep and thus buy him and Reed Richards time to formulate an escape plan, but feared the Beyonder's wrath. However, he immediately sensed a strange mental presence and attempted to mind-scan the Beyonder, revealing him as one of the Inhumans previously ruled over by fellow Illuminati member Black Bolt. The apparent secret behind the Beyonder's seemingly godlike abilities was also deduced by Xavier, who recognized that the Beyonder had been a mutant Inhuman, like Xavier and his own team of X-Men, and the exposure of his mutant genes to Terrigen Mists had created an unprecedented reaction, bestowing upon him more amazing power and knowledge than all other Inhumans of his time.

This revelation leads to a confrontation with the Beyonder during the events of the second Secret War, wherein Black Bolt expresses his extreme displeasure toward the Beyonder's activities. When encountered, the Beyonder is dwelling in a simulacrum of Manhattan Island on Ceres, a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt. The scene playing out is one from the Secret Wars II series (the destruction of Power Man and Iron Fist's headquarters). At the 2007 Philadelphia Comic-Con, writer Brian Michael Bendis admitted the asteroid scene was deliberately vague, allowing readers to draw their own connections to Secret Wars II. He also claimed he did not receive enough credit for maintaining the character's 1987 jheri curl.

The story itself is deliberately ambiguous; Black Bolt, for example, does not remember the mutant Inhuman who vanished, making it possible the Beyonder arranged all this as a mind game. The story's connection to modern continuity is unclear: the scene depicted on the asteroid is one which remains in continuity, as does the revelation of the Beyonder as a Cosmic Cube in Secret Wars II.

Powers and abilities

Although not native to this dimension, the Beyonder was one of the most powerful beings ever to exist in the Marvel Universe. In the original Secret Wars storyline, he was the be-all and end-all of his universe that took corporeal form to better understand the nature of human beings. After his creator, Jim Shooter, left Marvel, writer-editor Tom DeFalco, displeased with Shooter's tenure at Marvel, re-tooled the Beyonder and altered his origin. He was no longer omnipotent as many initially believed, being an incomplete Cosmic Cube, with less raw power and the same limitations of a complete cube. Nonetheless, he possessed vast psionic abilities allowing him to manipulate matter and energy at a cosmic level beyond all but only the most powerful of cosmic entities. He once destroyed a galaxy on a whim to meet his needs during the first Secret Wars, although Molecule Man later recreated the stars in it, while transporting the city of Denver and the Super-Villains back to Earth. When the latter extracted the Beyonder from Kosmos, their battle took place in more than three dimensions, and threatened vast portions of reality. In Kosmos' 'Maker' incarnation, she was stated as capable of reversing The Crunch itself, essentially collapsing the entire universe. The Beyonder could endow himself with a corporeal form of practically limitless strength and endurance. He had the potential to reach near omniscience as well, but he died before his mind could reach maturity.

In other media

The Beyonder makes an appearance in the Spider-Man cartoon during the early 90's. However, his appearance in the cartoon greatly differs from his normal comics, featuring the brief "super hero" costume the Beyonder wore in Secret Wars II along with a new haircut and a goatee as opposed to having a clean-shaven face with a disco outfit. He is also more of a neutral force than a villain.

The Beyonder first appeared in the episode "Arrival" of Season 5, the first chapter of that Secret Wars in the series. The Beyonder worked with Madame Web to prepare Spider-Man for the Secret Wars, supposedly to see whether good was more powerful than evil. During this time, Doctor Doom actually managed to steal the Beyonder's powers in "Doom" (the third and last chapter to the Secret Wars), but he was defeated, and it was implied that he had planned the whole ordeal out before it began. The Beyonder had all the heroes Spider-Man had summoned to assist him forget their actions, and sent them home. Spider-Man, however, was needed for something bigger, so he was the only one whose memory was untouched. It was revealed that the evil Spider-Carnage had destroyed the entire multiverse with a giant bomb. However, when the destruction reached the Beyonder's own reality, he used all of his powers to roll back time. Though it tested him to the extreme, he sent his servant, Madame Web, into the past to train Spider-Men from many different realities to find out which one would be worthy enough to lead the others against Spider-Carnage.

Other versions

Guardians of the Galaxy

In the Earth-691 timeline, the Beyonder provides Vance Astro of the Guardians of the Galaxy with a costume resembling a Symbiote.

Mutant X

In this alternate Earth, the Beyonder allies with Dracula, to wage war on Earth's forces and to confront the entity known as the 'Goblyn Queen'. This battle ends up threatening all realities.

Parodies

In the Spider-Ham universe, "The Bee-Yonder" briefly appears to give Spider-Ham a version of the black uniform, stating that the familiar red-and-blue uniform was out of style.

Mister Mxyzptlk parodied the Beyonder in his first appearance in current continuity by assuming a form and identity that was similar in clothing and appearance to the Beyonder. He called himself "Ben Deroy", an anagram of "Beyonder." When asked by Lois Lane where he came from, he answers by saying, "Oh...here and there. Yonder, let's say. Yes. Yonder."

References

See also

• Secret Wars
• Secret Wars II
• Kosmos
• Kubik
• Shaper of Worlds
• Cosmic entities (Marvel Comics)
• Marvel Universe
• Multiverse

External links

• http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix4/beyondersw.htm