Caiera

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caption=Caiera.
Art by Carlo Pagulayan.
character_name=Caiera
publisher=Marvel Comics
debut="Incredible Hulk" v3 #92, (April 2006)
creators=Greg Pak
Carlo Pagulayan
real_name=Caiera
species =
homeworld = Sakaar
alliances= Warbound Shadow Guard
aliases= Lieutenant, Caiera the Oldstrong
supports =
powers=superhuman strength, limited invulnerability|

Caiera is a character in the Marvel Comics Universe, created during the "Planet Hulk" storyline. She first appeared in "Incredible Hulk" v3 #92 (April 2006), and was created by Greg Pak and Carlo Pagulayan.

Fictional character biography

Caiera is a member of planet Sakaar's native race. When she was thirteen years old, she was kidnapped by the Red King. At the time she was still in training and hadn't earned her marks (rites of passage resembling tattoos which are given by her people to those who show great strength in battle). But the elders of her people knew that she had the old "Shadow Strength", which seemingly is some sort of legendary physical ability. The Spikes were sent to attack her people, infecting everyone in her village. Caiera was forced to slay her own father after he was no longer in control of himself. The elders told her to run, but Caiera refused, choosing instead to remain and fight, as she had surmised it was a good day to die. The Red King, still a boy at the time, ordered his guards to kill the Spikes and convinced Caiera to join his side. He had his guards throw a dart into Caiera's body, marking her as his slave but still granted Caiera the rank of Lieutenant of his army.

Years went by, and Caiera remained the Red King's slave. The Hulk's arrival on Sakaar was the first of many events that would bring about her freedom, however. After a brief time as one of the Red King's gladiators, the Hulk rebelled against the Red King's power and armies. Though Caiera and the Hulk at first fought on several occasions, Caiera sought her chance to redeem and escape. Caiera fought alongside the Hulk against her former master, and she and the Hulk become lovers. After the Hulk killed the Red King in battle, he took over the alien planet and became its new ruler. Not long afterward, he asked Caiera to become his queen rather than his bodyguard. She accepted and, after a short ceremony (where she was introduced to Bruce Banner for the first time, asking the Hulk to bear his soul to her as she bared hers to him) they were wed.

Death

She revealed that she was carrying the Hulk's child ["Incredible Hulk" vol. 2 #104] , but she and (seemingly) her unborn child were killed ["Incredible Hulk" vol. 2 #105] as a result of the devastating explosion of the warp core of the shuttle that brought Hulk to Saakar. Caiera's death, the deaths of millions of innocent people and the resulting chaos that ravaged most of Saakar's surface with violent volcanic eruptions galvanizes Hulk to return to Earth to exact vengeance on the Illuminati. Later, Hulk & Caiera's son, Skaar, was seen rising from the ruins of Saakar ["World War Hulk" #5] . She seems to have left series of mental messages that or still partly lives on in her son through out the first three issues of Skaar as an overseer over her son.

Powers and abilities

Caiera possessed abilities that were derived from the planet itself, she could transform her body into stone and become incredibly resistant and strong, to an extent that she battled the Hulk to a standstill whereas his own strength and fighting skills since had already dramatically increased. She also was an expert fighter and tactician.

Other versions

What If? Planet Hulk

In an issue of the What If? comic series called "What If Caiera survived the explosion instead of Hulk," Caiera is saved from death when the Hulk tosses her into the atmosphere to save her instead of the ship (and dies in the process, being caught at the center of the ship's power core at point-blank range).

Angered at the loss of her husband, Caiera takes the entirety of her planet's energies into herself, vastly increasing her power; in this What If??, instead of the Hulk going to Earth to avenge her death she goes to Earth to avenge his.

In the course of the narrative, she uses her powers to take on and defeat Black Bolt, using a slave disc on him in turn to vaporize the approaching Doctor Strange and Sentry by overriding his control of his body and forcing him to speak.

In rapid succession, she takes on and kills Mister Fantastic and decapitates Iron Man, but as she prepares to take the energies of Earth (and destroy part of its crust in the process), she is talked out of killing more innocent people than she already has by her Counselor.

As the story draws to a close, 21 years have passed and the Earth's remaining heroes are controlled by more of the slave discs and obey her every whim as Queen of the planet.

Her son informs her that a gigantic statue of the Hulk has finally been completed, and as a final act she climbs to the top of the immense statue, sits down in its outstretched hand, and irrevocably turns her flesh and blood into insensate stone for the last time.

References