Marvel's Elders of the Universe Are Undergoing Some Major Changes

WARNING: The following article contains minor spoilers for recent issues of The Avengers and Infinity Countdown.

While the original Elders of the Universe-- The Collector, The Stranger and Ego -- were created in the '60s by Stan Lee with artists Don Heck and Jack Kirby, there have been a handful of new Elders created in almost every decade since then. But even though some of these cosmic entities have existed for 40 or 50 years, they haven’t had much character development since they debuted. They've been killed off and resurrected several times, but that's about the extent of their personal growth.

Well, the creators behind Avengers: No Surrender and Infinity Countdown are looking to change all that. Gerry Duggan, Jim Zub, Al Ewing, Mark Waid and a legion of artists have begun to dig a little deeper into the pasts and futures of everybody’s favorite band of tunnel-visioned immortals, and it's been a hell of a lot of fun so far.

While The Elders have been involved in Marvel’s cosmic escapades for decades, it was Benicio del Toro playing The Collector in the first Guardians of the Galaxy film that introduced the world at large to these powerful aliens. When Howard the Duck got a miniseries in 2015 and The Collector made a cameo, it was clear Marvel was trying to capitalize on the film’s success. Then, when it was announced Jeff Goldblum would play The Grandmaster in Thor: Ragnarok (2017), even casual fans wanted to know more about these eccentric demigods. Thus, Marvel has made sure to include The Elders in a number of comic book storylines in the last couple of years, most notably the Contest of Champions miniseries that ran from 2015-2016.

Fast forward to 2018, and The Elders are at the heart of both of Marvel’s current big storylines. Further, the creators telling these stories have finally built out their personalities a little more. In the pages of Avengers: No Surrender, the Earth is being used as a gameboard for The Grandmaster aka En Dwi Gast yet again. In the first few issues, his competitor was kept in the shadows to conceal the character’s identity. Initially, readers were led to believe it may be Kang the Conqueror, as his game against Gast is referenced early on. However, it turns out his challenger is just that -- a newly introduced Elder going by the title The Challenger.

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In a fun bit of retconning, we’re told that when these immortals first picked their all-important hobbies (e.g.: The Runner runs; The Trader trades, etc.), there were two gamesmen: Gast, and the original Grandmaster. The stakes for each game they played ramped up until the two frenemies/brothers were playing for their very existence. The loser of the final game would languish in nothingness until the end of reality. Gast won the bout and took his comrade’s title once he had been exiled. Eons later, the destruction and reforming of the multiverse in Secret Wars created an opening for the original Grandmaster to find his way back. He took the new title The Challenger and demanded a rematch with the same consequences.

Each player has chosen a team to compete to find powerful artifacts called pyramoids, scattered around the world. Gast went with a new version of the Lethal Legion, while The Challenger selected The Black Order. It seemed like an uneven match up as The Black Order were only six warriors up against the Lethal Legions’ seven, but then The Challenger activated his surprise ace-in-the-hole, the Immortal Hulk. Gast also had a card up his sleeve, as the mysterious Voyager was revealed to be his daughter(!), who had been manipulating the game from within. As of the latest issue in the arc, Avengers #685, the competitors each had a pyramoid point, with only one left on the board.

Considering that what qualifies The Elder of the Universe to be in their exclusive club is being the last of an extremely ancient species, the Voyager revelation is a pretty big deal. Be that as it may, Gast isn’t the first Elder to have a child. The Collector, aka Taneleer Tivan, has a daughter named Carina since a run of Avengers comics in the late-‘70s. She is almost as long-lived and as powerful as her dad and is therefore also considered an Elder. So, it is likely Voyager will be classified as one as well.

Infinity Countdown, kicked off with the Infinity Countdown Prime one-shot at the end of February. In this prelude, the Elder of the Universe known as The Contemplator recounts where all the Infinity Gems are to the Magus, an evil version of Adam Warlock. Only at the end of the comic do we learn that Magus has decapitated The Contemplator and forced his living head to locate the Soul Gem, which is on Ego.

With the orange jewel in hand, Magus breaks into a classic villain spiel -- cut short when Pymtron (Hank Pym + Ultron) appears out of nowhere and punches right through his chest, claiming the powerful gem for himself. The human/AI hybrid then attempts to recruit The Contemplator’s disembodied head, but The Elder turns him down. So, the cyborg proceeds to disintegrate the cranium with an energy blast. Even though that would seem to mark the end of this cosmic being, The Elders cannot enter death’s domain. Meaning he is likely just in some temporary limbo.

Infinity Countdown #1 is split between Drax and the Nova Corps protecting a giant-sized Power Stone on the planetoid Xitaung, and the rest of the Guardians teamed with Ant-Man and Nova battling The Gardener (aka Ord Zyonz) on a world named Telferina. The Elder with a green thumb had seemingly gone mad and was empowering the planet’s flora to destroy the civilization that had covered its surface. Basically, an army of angry Groots were levelling cities and the Guardians were the last line of defence. While their direct attack on The Gardener was admirable, it was only Groot reasoning with him that stopped his rampage.

You see, Zyonz is Groot’s creator and he is the only one, other than Rocket, that understands his speech. Groot also realizes his “father” is under the influence of some substance and uses a network of roots to absorb the toxin. Once he is back to his old self, he explains that Loki had poisoned him and thanks Groot by returning him to his former glory, which not only includes increased size and more powers, but also the ability to speak in full sentences. Whoa!

Neither No Surrender or Infinity Countdown is finished yet, so we expect we will see more Elders and more changes to their stories soon enough. But regardless of what comes next, 2018 has already shaken up their status quo sufficiently.