Quicksilver (comics)
From Free net encyclopedia
Luis Dantas (Talk | contribs)
Heading for clarity (Other characters by the same name)
Next diff →
Current revision
Quicksilver (Pietro Maximoff) is a comic book supervillain in the Marvel Comics universe. He was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and first appeared in Uncanny X-Men (vol. 1) #4 (1964).
Quicksilver possesses the superhuman ability to run, think, and react at great speed; he has often claimed that the rest of the world seems to move and think in slow motion, which is what has led to his impatient, arrogant temper. He is able to run up vertical surfaces and across water, and can even fly for short distances by moving quickly to form a miniature tornado. Quicksilver is often considered Marvel's counterpart to DC Comics' The Flash. Quicksilver had difficulty breaking the sound barrier; however, during his short-lived series, his speed increased drastically due to his exposure to Isotope E.
Contents |
Other characters by the same name
Quality Comics published a super-speedster named Quicksilver in National Comics, during the Golden Age of comic books; when he was revived by DC Comics in the pages of The Flash, he was renamed Max Mercury to avoid trademark confusion with Marvel's long-established character.
Character history
Birth
The man who would become Magneto, revealed his mutant powers by killing the villagers who had killed his first daughter, Anya. His wife Magda fled from him in fear; unbeknownst to Magneto, Magda was pregnant with twins at the time. She arrived at Mount Wundagore, the home of the High Evolutionary, and gave birth to twins, who were named Pietro and Wanda. Magda died soon after. Madeline Joyce Frank, formerly the superhero Miss America, was also staying in the area at the time. Madeline had also recently given birth, but her child was stillborn due to the high levels of radiation in her body. At the time, Magda's midwife Bova (a cow transformed by the Evolutionary into a humanoid creature with human-level intelligence) did not know if Magda had any family, so she gave the twins to Madeline's husband, the Whizzer. Distraught, he believed that he could not raise the children himself and in turn gave the children to the gypsy Django Maximoff, who raised the twins as his own children.
The Brotherhood
When they reached adulthood, the twins discovered that they were mutants. Pietro (now called Quicksilver) discovered that he possessed the ability to act at superhuman levels of speed, while Wanda (now the Scarlet Witch) discovered that she could influence probability (at this point, causing "bad luck" by pointing her finger at someone or something). The pair were attacked by an angry mob when they displayed their powers, only to be rescued by their father, who was now the supervillain Magneto. Although none of the three knew that Magneto was the twins' father, he nevertheless recruited them into the first incarnation of his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
Pietro became intensely protective of his sister, often attacking those who threatened her, and displayed arrogant behavior towards anyone save for his sister and Magneto. The Brotherhood fought the X-Men several times, although the twins were somewhat reluctant and only remained because they felt that they owed a debt to Magneto for saving their lives. When Magneto and his lackey the Toad were abducted by the alien Stranger, the Brotherhood dissolved and the twins declared their debt to Magneto to have been paid.
Avengers
Not long after, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch were recruited by Iron Man to join the Avengers. All of the team's founding members wanted a break, leaving Iron Man to organize a new team, one which was organized of reformed supervillains: Quicksilver, the Scarlet Witch, and the archer Hawkeye and the newly found Captain America. This group, sometimes dubbed "Cap's Kooky Quartet", was soon rejoined by other founding Avengers, but the three new recruits became longtime members of the organization in its many incarnations.
The twins would eventually learn that the Whizzer had left them to be raised by Django, and believed the Whizzer to be their father for several years, even serving alongside him when he briefly joined the Avengers. Wanda became romantically involved with their teammate, the android Vision, which Pietro initially disapproved of, although he ultimately gave his blessing to their marriage.
Quicksilver himself became romantically involved with Crystal, a member of the Royal Family of the hidden race called the Inhumans. The pair eventually married and had a daughter, Luna. Upon Luna's birth, Magneto revealed to Pietro and Wanda that he was their father, having learned of this himself only recently. When he tried reaching out to them, they pushed him away, saying they couldn't forgive him for his past actions and being related wouldn't change that. Magneto would later try redeeming himself, and would later lead the X-Men when a dying Professor Xavier needed medical attention and asked him to lead the team in his absence. Seeing him try to reform, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch later tried accepting him as their father.
X-Factor
Quicksilver eventually learned that his wife had had an affair with another man, and the couple became estranged. Much later, he joined the U.S. government-sponsored superhero team X-Factor. During this period of their estrangement, Crystal was herself a member of the Avengers and was romantically involved with still another man: her teammate Dane Whitman, the Black Knight.
When Luna was kidnapped by the mutant terrorist Fabian Cortez and his Magneto-worshipping Acolytes, the Avengers, X-Factor and the X-Men teamed up to stop him from killing her and to end the civil war that he had sparked in the island nation of Genosha. Although Pietro and Crystal were reunited after rescuing Luna, he learned of her relationship with Whitman and again left her, resigning from X-Factor as well.
Knights of Wundagore
When the Avengers, including Crystal, were presumed deceased following the battle with the psychic entity Onslaught, Quicksilver took Luna and joined the High Evolutionary's Knights of Wundagore. He assisted them in fighting off Exodus and the Acolytes. Crystal and the other "casualties" of Onslaught were eventually revealed to have survived, but once she was reunited with her husband, Crystal returned to live with the Inhumans with Luna.
The High Evolutionary later used the experimental Isotope E to augment Quicksilver's powers to allow him to move at greater supersonic speeds. Following the defeat of the Acolytes by the Knights of Wundagore and the new Heroes for Hire team, Quicksilver rejoined the Avengers alongside his sister.
House of M
Wanda suffered a mental breakdown over the loss of her children and started to warp reality in order to recreate them, inadvertently resulting in random attacks on the Avengers. The Avengers confronted the mentally unstable Wanda, and Doctor Strange put her in a coma.
Magneto rescued Wanda and asked his friend Professor Xavier to help her. Xavier agreed to try, but was unable to help her. Worried, he arranged a meeting for the X-Men and the Avengers to decide what should be done. Some of the members said that the only option was to kill Wanda. Quicksilver rushed to Magneto and told him that the two groups were planning on killing Wanda.
When an ashamed Magneto admitted that he didn't know what to do anymore, and that the groups may be right, Quicksilver convinced Wanda that she could undo her wrongs by using her powers to turn the world into a world of peace. Using her powers, Wanda warped reality into the House of M, a world where mutants were the majority, humans the minority, and Magneto the ruler.
A young mutant named Layla Miller was able to use her mutant abilities to restore several of the heroes' memories. They headed over to Genosha to attack Magneto, believing him to be the one responsible for the change. During the battle between Magneto's forces and the others, Layla was able to restore Magneto's memories as well.
Enraged, Magneto confronted Quicksilver, angry that Quicksilver had done all of this in his name. Quicksilver told Magneto that he would have let Wanda die, but Magneto replied that he had only used him and Wanda. Furious, Magneto crushed a Sentinel over Quicksilver, killing him.
Wanda revived her brother, telling Magneto that Quicksilver had only wanted him to be happy, and that Magneto had ruined them, choosing the mutants over his own children. Saying "No more mutants", Wanda changed the world back to its original form and caused ninety-one percent of the mutant population to lose their powers, leaving the mutant race on the brink of extinction.
Son of M
Quicksilver was one of the many mutants to lose his powers. He has now fallen into depression over his betrayal of mutantkind.
When an angry Spider-Man confronted Quicksilver (angry with the fact that he still has memories of being married to Gwen Stacy and having a child together from the House of M reality), Quicksilver jumped off a roof, seriously injuring himself and possibly breaking his spine. Crystal, whom Quicksilver had tried to contact earlier, teleported in to find her ex-husband lying hurt, and attacked Spider-Man, until Quicksilver told her that he had jumped off the roof. Crystal teleported him to the Inhumans for medical attention, believing he had become suicidal upon the loss of his powers and unaware of his true connection to the events.
After treatment by an Inhuman healer, Quicksilver woke up and was reunited with his daughter Luna. Deciding that he can not stand life as a human, Pietro asked Black Bolt for permission to undergo Terrigenesis. Quicksilver's request was denied since he is of human blood, and Terrigenesis is reserved only for those of pure Inhuman stock to decrease the chance of a detrimental mutation.
Luna introduced Quicksilver to a "communicator" who tells Pietro much about the process of Terrigenesis, leading to Quicksilver breaking into the sacred Terragen Caves and knocking out a guard so he could dive into the misty waters of the Terragen Cave. Quicksilver returned to his room, thinking that the exposure had no effect on him, only to be greeted by an older looking Quicksilver.
The older Quicksilver explained the nature of his new powers, and of the plan that has come to pass. Quicksilver began working with his older selves to set forward a plan to take the Terrigen Crystals back to Earth and restore the mutant population. He set about gaining Luna's loyalties, and promises to bring her to Earth with him, as well as learn of Lockjaw's loyalties to Luna. Eventually, Quicksilver managed to get a container full of Terrigen Crystals to the past, and used Lockjaw to take him and Luna back to his apartment in New York.
Luna instructed Lockjaw not to let Crystal find them before he heads back to the Inhumans. Quicksilver explains the basis of his plan concerning the Terrigen Crystals, and told her he was going to give back her birthright and exposed her to his Terrigen Mist, giving her the ability to "see" souls and emotions. After gaining some funds by jumping to the future and using winning lottery numbers, he then travled to Genosha and convinced Callisto to sample some of the Terrigen Mist herself, which promptly restored her heightened senses to the ultimate degree. Quicksilver told Callisto to gather up the remaining de-powered mutants so that he could restore their powers. Callisto went to find other depowered mutants, and it began to rain, which caused her intense pain, as each rain drop felt like a hot burning needle. Each sense was amped to levels not able for her to withstand, such as feeling her fingernails grow or listening to millions of insects underneath the ground. However, Magneto came across her, and confronted her about who had done this to her, and he was told that it was his son's doing.
Powers and abilities
With his original powers, his entire body was highly adapted to the rigors of high-speed running. His cardiovascular and respiratory systems were many times more efficient than those of normal humans. He metabolized about 95% of the caloric energy he consumed, whereas a normal human only uses about 25%.
The chemical processes of Quicksilver's musculature were so enhanced that his body did not generate fatigue poisons, the normal by-products of locomotion, which force the body to rest. Rather, his body constantly expelled waste products during his accelerated respiration through exhalation. His joints were smoother and lubricated more efficiently than those of a normal human. His tendons had the tensile strength of spring steel. His bones contained unknown materials significantly more durable than calcium to withstand the shock of his feet touching the ground at speeds of over 100 miles per hour.
His practical reaction was about 5 times faster than that of a normal human, and the speed at which his brain processed information was heightened to a level commensurate to his bodily speed, enabling him to perceive his surroundings while traveling at high velocities. His lachrymose fluids were more viscous than normal, thus preventing rapid evaporation of his eyeball fluids under the influence of high velocity wind.
He had been timed at speeds of 175 miles per hour, about 3 times faster than the fastest known land animal, the cheetah. He had sufficient resources to allow him to maintain this speed for about four hours, at which point he had to either slow down or stop to rest. Quicksilver has used his powers of acceleration to perform various feats. He has plucked an arrow out of the air from a standing start, after it had already left the bow and traveled about 20 feet. He has dodged machine gun fire, but presumably he was able to see the path of the bullets change as his assailant was attempting to track him with a burst.
He has created cyclone-like gusts of wind, which are able to knock a man off his feet, by racing around in a ten-foot diameter circle. With a 500-foot approach to gain momentum, Quicksilver could run approximately 300 feet up the side of a surface with a 90-degree inclination (such as a building) before gravity overtakes him. With a 100-foot approach to gain momentum, he can run across a body of water for approximately 1000 feet before beginning to sink.
After exposure to the Terrigen Mists, Pietro now has the power to vibrate his atoms so quickly he travels forward in time. His molecular speed that he generates displaces him out of the mainstream time/space so that he is able to propel himself into the future. He can leap from an hour to up to twelve days, and remain for several minutes to several hours before being recalled to his present time once his body tires, or he can return at will before his time is up. As he returns from his trip, he returns the exact moment he left so as to appear that he has been gone for half a nano-second. He is able to bring inorganic objects from the future back to his correct time, although it has yet been shown what would happen if he attempted to bring organic objects with him. These new powers are having an affect on his physical health. Each time he meets up with his future self (if indeed the person he meets is his future self), the future self looks more and more haggard.
Ultimate Quicksilver
In the Ultimate Marvel storyline Quicksilver is a member of his father Magneto's Brotherhood. It seems that this version of Quicksilver has undergone near continuous emotional abuse by Magneto which culminated in Quicksilver stealing Magneto's psi-shielded helmet during Magneto's attack on Washington.
This action allowed Professor X to enter Magneto's mind and defeat him. After Magneto's defeat, Quicksilver became the new leader of the Brotherhood; as the leader he instituted a ceasefire and focused more on improving the Brotherhood's public relations. These actions led to a large portion of the Brotherhood abandoning him however, for a more violent agenda. When Magneto returned, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch fled to the Ultimates for protection. Magneto attacked the Triskelion, the Ultimates HQ, and wounded Quicksilver, shooting out both his kneecaps.
Due to his enhanced metabolism, he was up within 2 months, though he still walks with a slight limp. Quicksilver was key in the Ultimates' mission to capture Thor by jumping more than fifty feet into the sky to pull off Thor's belt and thus deprive him of his powers. Quicksilver and his twin sister, The Scarlet Witch, are often depicted touching each other intimately and engaging in activities with romantic overtones (e.g., a gondola ride in which Quicksilver reads love poetry to his sister), which has led to fan speculation that the two share an incestuous relationship.
Ultimate Quicksilver also seems to be much faster than his regular Marvel counterpart (seeing as in The Ultimates 2 isssue five he was clocked in at speeds of six hundred miles per hour and getting faster. Some of his feats include running from the Savage Land (an island in the South Pacific) to Washington D.C., presumably in less than two hours, evacuating the top floors of the Triskelion without the evacuees realizing it until they were outside, then running from the Triskalion to downtown New York and disassembling and attacking rocketmen. Template:-
Appearances in other media
Quicksilver appeared in Data East's 1991 arcade game, Captain America and the Avengers, as a supporting character.
In the animated television series X-Men: Evolution Quicksilver (voiced by Richard Ian Cox) had a prominent role as the manipulator and driving force of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, composed of himself, Avalanche, Blob, Toad and later his sister Wanda, the Scarlet Witch, who was one of the few people who could scare him. In this series, Quicksilver was aware that Magneto was his father from the beginning, even acting as Magneto's liaison to the Brotherhood when Mystique was in control.
At the end of the series, Quicksilver and the Brotherhood temporarily teamed up against Apocalypse, with Pietro and Wanda confronting their father, who was possessed. They saved him, and Magneto made up with his children. This version of Quicksilver is noteworthy for being outwardly similar to the original Quicksilver, though with darker motivations. Ironically, Quicksilver is the character among the teenaged Brotherhood who can truly be considered a villain (the role of 'conflicted villain' was instead given to Avalanche, who was hinted to become a hero sometime after the show's end).
Quicksilver also guest starred in a couple of episodes of the X-Men Animated Series. His most noticeable appearance is in the Season 4 story "Family Ties" where along with his sister, the Scarlet Witch, they look for their long lost father and discover that it is Magneto.
A character possibly based on Quicksilver was seen in the first X-Men movie, as one of the students at the Mansion. He appears in two scenes, running across the water of an ornamental pond. However, the character has no dialogue and is never named, so this identification is tentative at best. The character did not reappear in X2. However, the name "Pietro Maximoff" appears on a computer screen with a list of other mutants, including Remy LeBeau (Gambit) and Wanda Maximoff.fr:Vif-Argent (Vengeurs) pt:Mercúrio (HQ) fi:Elohopea (sarjakuvahahmo) sv:Quicksilver (seriefigur)