- Mister Immortal
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Mr. Immortal 
Publication information Publisher Marvel Comics First appearance Avengers West Coast (Vol. 2) #46 (July 1989) Created by John Byrne In-story information Alter ego Craig Hollis Species Human Mutant Team affiliations Great Lakes Avengers Abilities Immortality via returning from death Mr. Immortal (Craig Hollis) is a comic book character, a mutant superhero in Marvel Comics' main shared universe. He is the leader of the Great Lakes Avengers and first appeared in the pages of the Avengers West Coast in 1989.
Contents
Fictional character biography
Profile
Mr. Immortal is the leader and founder of the Great Lakes Avengers, a regional offshoot of the Avengers made up of heroes with abilities far less powerful and consequential than their better-known peers. Their base of operations is Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which appears to be their shared birthplace.
Mr. Immortal possesses the superhuman ability of immortality. Before her untimely death, his teammate and sometimes lover Dinah Soar was the only one able to calm him down when he was revived, as he was prone to fits of rage upon returning to life. This unique ability has always given him the courage to try daring, reckless life-endangering stunts and he is quite ready to sacrifice himself for the rest of the team. It has also left him in frequent states of depression by having to watch his loved ones die around him. He discovered his ability after attempting suicide several times. He is quoted as saying, "All you're threatening me with is death. And dying's what I do best!"
Boyhood friendship
His immortality is something he has had to cope with since the start of his life, as the cosmic entity Deathurge regularly appeared to him. Deathurge first appeared before Craig shortly after his birth and the untimely death of his mother. His mother made Deathurge promise that he would look after Craig, and he has done so ever since in his own unique way. Craig would dub Deathurge, "D'urge", and the two became the best of friends. His father believed Deathurge to be an imaginary friend, but Deathurge was quite real, and constantly urging Craig to endanger his life by, for example, playing in traffic. Each attempt at the boy's first death was averted and Craig wrote it off as: "Just playin' with D'urge, daddy."
On Craig's 8th birthday, Deathurge had once again goaded Craig into a daring stunt, first setting his house on fire, and then telling Craig to hide under the house, while it was burning down. Craig was ultimately saved by the firemen, but he was forced to see Deathurge take his father to the afterlife. Deathurge stopped visiting Craig afterwards, and Craig was moved into a new home.[volume & issue needed]
A new life
His new father, a Mr. O'Doughan, was an abusive man, but Craig persevered, in large part thanks to the daughter the O'Doughans already had, a girl named Terri. She became his first real friend, and this would ultimately develop into love. The couple moved out and Craig had to work long and hard, but he kept going until the day Terri committed suicide, leaving only a suicide note on the table.
Once more Deathurge appeared, revealing that he was in fact real. Grief-stricken, Craig begged Deathurge to take him as well as Terri, but Deathurge refused and departed again. Craig wanted to kill himself as well, and his first suicide attempt was jumping off a building, only to find he had survived. Every successive suicide attempt (from dynamite to drowning) failed as well, and to his surprise, Craig found out he couldn't die.[volume & issue needed]
Mr. Immortal and the GLA
Seeing the amazing potential of having superpowers, Craig found his calling and decided that he would become a superhero. He then took the identity of Mr. Immortal. On his first outing as a superhero, trying to foil a bank robbery, Craig was shot and left for dead. He decided it might be best to form a team, so his abilities could actually be useful.
Response to the ad he then placed could be called relatively successful, as the Great Lakes Avengers were formed, with its founding members Mr. Immortal, Flatman, Doorman, Big Bertha, Dinah Soar and Leather Boy.[1] They would come into contact with the West Coast Avengers, where they were even able to convince Hawkeye and Mockingbird to join them. They fought the occasional supervillain, but mostly spent their time playing cards.[volume & issue needed]
Over that time, Craig would develop a loving relationship with Dinah Soar, as he was also the only one who could understand her language. It turned out that Craig and Dinah were soul-mates and he was her ageless-love, as she herself also possessed a degree of immortality.[volume & issue needed]
Craig was close to calling the GLA quits, when the real Avengers were disassembled and Craig happily rejoiced that they were now the real Avengers. In their following outing against Maelstrom, Dinah Soar was killed, and Deathurge appeared to take her away to the afterlife. The former friendship between him and Deathurge was now truly over.[volume & issue needed]
Mr. Immortal would meet Deathurge again at Dinah Soar's funeral, where Deathurge expressed his regret, showing that he had truly come to love Craig as something of a son. Craig himself was enraged at Deathurge, having taken away all that Craig had ever cared about, so he attacked Deathurge, but received only a sound thrashing.[volume & issue needed]
Craig was able to return the favor when Deathurge appeared to take away Monkey Joe and appeared in the form of a squirrel, leaving him in a vulnerable state. It was then that Deathurge revealed to Craig what his destiny was: to outlive everyone as the one true immortal, and then learn the grand secret that will reveal itself at the end of things. Craig wasn't an average Homo s. superior mutant, but rather, Homo s. supreme: a being that has evolved past death itself; therefore, he was the ultimate human. Deathurge, by taking away some of his loved ones, tried to prepare Craig, so that he could truly live to that destiny, and the villain Maelstrom was at the point that he could very well take that purpose away, ending the universe, in its entirety, prematurely and usurping Craig's destiny for himself. Learning his role as Homo s. supreme in the grand scheme of things gave Mr. Immortal a new incentive to live and he set out to stop Maelstrom and save the universe.[volume & issue needed]
The GLA stormed Maelstrom's base, and it was ultimately Mr. Immortal who was able to save the universe, although at the cost of his friend Doorman (although Doorman would be instantly resurrected as Deathurge's replacement). Coming close to Maelstrom, Mr. Immortal was able to play on his feelings, that ultimately Maelstrom would be the one left alone, and that was the grand secret of things. Horrified by the thought, Maelstrom wanted a way out, and Mr. Immortal offered him one: suicide.[volume & issue needed]
Not knowing that Mr. Immortal would be able to come back from the injury, Maelstrom killed himself like Craig had done, and Craig was able to push the button that stopped the machine Maelstrom had created to achieve the destruction of the universe. The GLA saved everybody, but gained no recognition and were even forced to drop the Avengers name, but the group persevered, becoming the GLX (Great Lakes X-Men).[volume & issue needed]
Civil War/The Initiative
All of the Great Lakes Champions have registered with the United States government as required by the Super-human Registration Act, as revealed when the mercenary Deadpool mistakenly attempted to apprehend them for violating the Act, only to be defeated by the GLC and informed that they had already registered.[2]
Craig has been identified as one of the 142 registered superheroes that appear on the cover of the comic book Avengers: The Initiative #1.[3]
Deadpool refuses to leave the GLC's home, injuring those who try to kick him out. Mr. Immortal helps kick Deadpool out by simply living far into the future; there he encounters a time traveling Squirrel Girl and convinces her she needs to return to the past and evict Deadpool. Squirrel Girl comes back and does exactly that.[4]
Powers and abilities
Mr. Immortal is immortal. Once he reaches the point of death, he regenerates from any and all injuries, often returning to life almost immediately. When non-fatally injured, he heals at a normal human rate; those injuries will rapidly heal the next time he dies, however. He has recovered from being shot, stabbed, drowned, crushed, exploded, poisoned, decapitated, irradiated and incinerated. Upon reviving, he is often extremely enraged due to the pain of death; before her death, Dina Soar's voice could bring him out of this state. He has also apparently stopped aging.
Deathurge once explained to Mr. Immortal that he is a mutant, but not Homo sapiens superior, the traditional Marvel mutant who has simply taken the next step in evolution, but rather a man who has evolved past death itself, and is therefore H. sapiens supreme. He has been told that he will be around until the end of the universe itself, to be revealed at the end its final secret.
As seen during certain fights (such as in Avengers West Coast #46 and Great Lakes Avengers #4), Mr. Immortal appears to have a certain degree of acrobatic skills that seems to be unrelated to his H. sapiens supreme powers. He had at least a little training by Hawkeye & Mockingbird during the short period when they were members of the "Great Lakes Avengers".
List of deaths
Mr. Immortal has been "killed" numerous times, each time walking away unscathed in the end. A list of these incidents contains:
- Automatic gunfire to the chest[5]
- Hurling himself from high buildings[5][6]
- Radiation exposure[7]
- Crushing by Terminus[8]
- Burning by the Human Torch[9]
- Flying building debris, courtesy of Graviton[10]
- Gunshot, decapitation and explosion by Deadpool[11]
- Dynamite explosion[6]
- Drowning[6]
- Consuming gallons of lethal substances[6]
- Gunshot to the head[6]
- Energy blast, courtesy of Maelstrom[6]
- Self-impaling on giant novelty scissors[12][13]
- Getting his neck snapped[14]
- Getting impaled by rods[13][14]
- Self-inflicted gunshot to head[15]
- Bear trap, cannon, chainsaw, piranhas, ferrets, spear, and python left as trap for teammate Tippy-Toe[13]
- Decapitation by Deadpool[16][17]
- Shuriken from Deadpool[17]
- What he claims as alcohol poisoning from drunkenness inducer[17]
- Television remote control driven into his head by Deadpool[17]
See also
References
- ^ G.L.A. #2
- ^ Cable & Deadpool #30
- ^ Avengers: The Initiative #1 Character Map
- ^ Deadpool/GLI Summer Fun Spectacular
- ^ a b Avengers West Coast #46
- ^ a b c d e f Great Lakes Avengers #1
- ^ Avengers West Coast #49
- ^ Avengers Annual #19
- ^ Avengers West Coast #64
- ^ Thunderbolts vol. 1 #17
- ^ Deadpool vol. 3 #10-11
- ^ Great Lakes Avengers #2
- ^ a b c GLX-Mas
- ^ a b Great Lakes Avengers #3
- ^ Great Lakes Avengers #4
- ^ Cable and Deadpool #30
- ^ a b c d Deadpool/GLI: Summer Fun Spectacular
External links
Categories:- Comics characters introduced in 1989
- Fictional characters from Wisconsin
- Marvel Comics immortals
- Marvel Comics mutants
- Marvel Comics superheroes
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