Fin Fang Foom

From Free net encyclopedia

Template:Superherobox Fin Fang Foom is a fictional alien dragon in the Marvel Comics universe, who has served as an ally to various other monsters and an antagonist who has opposed a number of superheroes. He first appeared in Strange Tales volume 1 #89 (October 1961).

Contents

[edit]

Character biography

Although once believed by legend to be a native of the Valley of the Sleeping Dragon in China, Fin Fang Foom - which, roughly translated, means "He Whose Limbs Shatter Mountains and Whose Back Scrapes the Sun" - is an alien being from the world of Kakaranathara (also known as Maklu IV) in the Maklu system of the Greater Magellanic Cloud. Resembling a humanoid Chinese dragon, Foom and several other like-minded members of his race departed their peaceful homeworld with the intention of conquering other planets. Landing their craft, of which Foom was the navigator, in ancient China, the crew used their natural shape-shifting powers to mimic human form, intending to enter human society and bide their time before beginning their conquest. Foom was the exception, elected to serve as a "back-up" in case something went wrong, and was placed in a tomb and given a herb that would send him into a deep slumber, so that he might sleep while his fellows entered man's world.

Fin Fang Foom was somehow briefly awakened in the 8th Century, and returned to sleep through a second application of the herb. He consequently entered into Chinese legend, and a group of humans guarded his tomb, passing the job onto their descendants. And so, Foom slept until the year 1961, when he was deliberatley awakened by teenager Chen Liuchow, whose homeland was under threat from the Communist Chinese. Luichow taunted Foom with the threat of the herb, goading the dragon into chasing him, and led him straight into the Commnunist camp, which Foom decimated. Liuchow subsequently led him back into his tomb, where the herb returned Foom to his sleep.

At some point, the sleeping Fin Fan Foom was captured by the Elder of the Universe known as the Collector, and imprisoned in his subterranean collection of monsters. When the Mole Man attacked the facility, Foom and the other monsters were liberated and later rounded up by the recently-formed Fantastic Four and deposited on Monster Isle. However, as the island had no real security measures, and being more intelligent than his fellows and possessing no desire to serve the Mole Man, who used the island as his base, Foom departed and returned to his hibernation. Again, however, outside force acted upon him, as the madman called Doctor Vault mentally controlled Foom and had him attack It the Living Colossus. Resiting the control, Foom instead helped It fend off an invasion of Earth by the alien race called the Stonians, saving the planet for his own race to later conquer. Vault's mind control briefly forced Foom to battle It, and Foom overpowered his opponent with martial arts before freeing his mind and returning to his tomb yet again.

Years later, Fin Fang Foom was again roused from his slumber when his body was possessed by the demon Aan Taanu. Combating the group of occult adventurers (including an older Chen Liuchow, now a professor) known as the Legion of the Night in New York, Taanu was exorcised from Foom's body by his opponents, and the confused Foom once again escaped to his resting place.

At some point in the past, the Makulans' starship had been ransacked by the man who would become the supervillain called the Mandarin, whose signature rings of power were, in fact, artifacts from Makulan's ship. The Mandarin was directed to the Valley of the Sleeping Dragon by the starship captain, in the human guise of Chen Hsu, and found and awoke Fin Fang Foom, using him to threaten the Chinese government. Iron Man confronted the villains and was defeated, but when the remaining dozen other Makulans shed their human forms to begin their conquest, the Mandarin realised he was being used, and combined the power of his rings with Iron Man's armor, yielding a small nuclear blast which wiped the dragons out.

This was not, however, the end of Fin Fang Foom. Though his body was destroyed, his spirit enduring, surviving by bonding itself to a small dragon statue which was stolen from a curio shop by teenager Billy Yuan at Foom's mental urging. Using Yuan's body as a conduit for his power, Foom summoned thousands of lizards from the sewers beneath New York, merging them with Billy's body to recreate his own form. Iron Man was successfully able to defeat him, however, with some help from the last remnants of Billy's mind within Foom's own, and he was taken into the custody of Sunset Bain. Legal complications resulted in Foom being exiled to Monster Isle once again, where he and several other monsters briefly battled the dimensionally-displaced Justice League of America.

Shortly after this, Thor was heard to claim that the Hall of Bones on Asgard was crafted from the skeleton of Fin Fang Foom, who he professed to have slain. Whether or not this is an accurate account is in question, as Foom turned up alive and well soon after - Thor's foe, the Midgard Serpent once adopted Foom's form, so confusion may stem from that. Having spent some time rethinking his role in the world, Foom had become a follower of Buddhism, and, with the rest of his crew gone, decided to reform. He willfully entered into a rehabilitation program, which saw himself and three other monsters - the robot Elektro, the giant ape Gorgilla and the alien Googam - shrunk down to human size, hypnotically stripped of their powers, and allowed to enter human society. Taking up a job as head chef in a Chinese restaurant within the Baxter Building, he teamed up with the other monsters to defeat the size-changing warlord Tim Boo Baa.

[edit]

Nextwave

Most recently, Fin Fang Foom appears in the comic book Nextwave written by Warren Ellis. The book, which takes quite a bit of liberties with the established histories of the characters from their normal milieu, calls Foom the offspring of a female lizard who "did the bad thing with suggestively-shaped piles of nuclear waste". He is desperate to have sex, but tragically "has absolutely no genitals whatsoever". This leaves him in a state of extreme agitation. The fact that a giant dragon wears purple underpants, as Foom has since his debut, is a source of comedy in the series.

The team of superheroes in Nextwave encounters the dragon while investigating a dig being conducted by the sinister Beyond Corporation© in Abcess, North Dakota. The dig unearths the angry and horny dragon, who will eat the nearby town unless the team can stop him. In the end, android Nextwave member Aaron Stack reluctantly stops Fin Fang Foom by throwing himself down the dragon's throat and eviscerating him from within. Foom collapses and apparently dies after coughing up his own heart and stating in an oddly tearful and poignant fashion that his heart was broken. This version of Fin Fang Foom seemed less intelligent than the previously established version, in particular referring to himself in third person ("Fin Fang Foom's eyes hurt really a lot") and generally behaving much like the savage, childlike incarnation of the Hulk.

[edit]

Powers and abilities

Fin Fang Foom possesses vast superhuman strength; the upward limit of what he can lift exceeds 100 tons. He has the ability to fly via his wings, and can spew an intensely destructive acid mist resembling flames from his mouth for distances as far away from himself as 300 feet. He also has incredible resistance to injury and cannot be injured by conventional weaponry. He can regenerate from extremely severe wounds. He is extraordinarily long-lived, having survived for a number of centuries. He once displayed the ability to take the form of a vast number of normal-sized lizards. He is also highly intelligent, despite appearing to be a dumb beast. Foom has shown the ability to communicate telepathically. He also is a master of a fighting style which resembles martial arts of Earth.

[edit]

In other media

Fin Fang Foom was a recurring villain in the Iron Man animated television series which ran from 1994-1995. The cartoon was essentially quite true to the comics in telling Foom's story, except for some small details - here, rather than be placed in a tomb, he hibernated within the Makulan ship itself, and was discovered by the Mandarin when he uncovered it. Taking the ten jewels which powered the ship, the Mandarin battled Foom, but neither opponent could best the other, and they entered into an uneasy truce, with the Mandarin calling on Foom during his campaigns against Iron Man when he needed him (throughout the retelling of the Mandarin's origin, the dragon he battles is coloured brown, instead of Foom's traditional green, but must be assumed to be Foom for the relationship between the two in the rest of the series to make sense).

The Mandarin also had two mechanical dragons created, perhaps hoping to replace Foom's power in his army, but Foom knew of this and, when the Mandarin called on his aid one time too many, demanded the dragons be turned over to him as payment for his services. Later still, the comic story of Foom's crew and their world conquest plot was adapted into the cartoon with a similar outcome - as the dragons tried to open a portal to their homeworld, Iron Man linked his armor with the Mandarin's rings, and the restultant blast wiped the reptiles out.

In this series, Fin Fang Foom was voiced by Neil Ross.

[edit]

References

Retrieved from "http://www.netipedia.com/index.php/Fin_Fang_Foom"