Collector

The Collector’s thing is… collecting things. He first appeared in comics in 1966 and clashed with many characters, especially the Avengers.

The Game Stats section covers the objects and creatures he has used, so you might want to have a glance even if you don’t usually read Game Stats sections.

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Background

Powers and Abilities

The Collector is capable of manipulating cosmic energy in a number of ways. However, until relatively recently he hadn’t had much practice with them for a while. Thus, he was fairly rusty in their use prior to his death.

He can:

• Unleash blasts of energy.
• Manipulate the matter in his surroundings (such as ripping up floors mentally to attack his enemies).
• Transmute beings into their base life forms (as he did with the Brethren. In DC Heroes RPG terms, reat as a use of Matter Manipulation).
• Manipulate his own physical form, transforming into a more physically powerful alien form, which he may then grow to further heights.
• Deploy precognitive abilities, although these are limited to large, universe-threatening events. They also are vague, requiring meditation for him to gain any meaningful information from.

Like the other Elders, he is extremely long-lived, and, since the Grandmaster got them barred from Death’s realm, he can’t actually die. All Elders are also sensitive to cosmic events taking place.

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Notes

• Since the extent of his cosmic powers hasn’t been fully revealed, I’ve just listed the abilities he’s exhibited, but he likely has more than these.
• In Amazing Spider-Man #503, other Elders of the Universe are shown to have a degree of cosmic awareness. So I’ve assumed that all of them would have it.
• While his elderly humanoid form was claimed to be a charade, and his more physically powerful alien for was his true one, his wife and daughter appear more like his earlier form. So I’ve assumed the more alien form (which he uses for a few appearances before returning to his more familiar appearance) is the false one, empowered by his cosmic powers.

History

One of the oldest living beings in the universe, the Collector’s origin is lost to time. He has existed since not long after sentient life first developed in the wake of the Big Bang, probably coming from one of the earliest such races.

He became familiar with the other Elders of the Universe over time, but the Grandmaster is the only one he seems particularly close to.

The Collector spent his first couple of billion years on a tranquil world with his wife and daughter. When his daughter finally left them, his wife lost her will to continue and died. This left the Collector alone and lost.

Meditating on what to do with his life, he had a vision that a being of great power would arise determined to destroy all life. Tanleer devoted himself to collecting living beings and artefacts from across the universe, so that he could protect them from this threat.

The collection

Building himself a starship, the Collector travelled the universe. He sampled the finest achievements of every inhabited world, and converted a number of uninhabited worlds into museums for his collection. Over the aeons he has filled ten such worlds.

His first known museum on Earth was a subterranean complex in Canada. There he held a number of giant monsters, including Droom, Fin Fang Foom, Gargantus, Goom, Grogg, Groot, Grottu, Rommbu, Taboo, Tragg, and Van Doom’s Monster.

An attack on the complex by rival monster tamer, the Mole Man, released the creatures. They went on a rampage, although most were subsequently captured by various super-heroes.

Deciding to collect one of Earth’s super-hero teams, the Collector chose the Avengers. Using his Obligation Potion to recruit the super-villain Beetle, the Collector initially dispatched him on an unsuccessful mission to capture Hawkeye.

With this failure, the Collector himself captured the Wasp. He then sent a message to the Avengers telling them where to find his collection.

The Avengers

They arrived at his mountain base, and were quickly captured. The Collector was upset that Giant Man didn’t seem to be among the captives, denying him the set of Wasp and Giant Man. He was surprised when Hank Pym (calling himself Goliath and in a new costume) grew in his container, breaking the Avengers free of their prison.

Fleeing them while using his collection and the Beetle to cover his escape, the Avengers nevertheless managed to corner him. They forced him to use his Temporal Assimilator to allow him and the Beetle to escape to another time period, abandoning his collection.

Returning a while later, he was based aboard a large flying ship. Still intent on capturing the Avengers, he drew the attention of Thor, appearing peaceful and offering him a drink. The drink contained his Obligation Potion, laced with Asgardian herbs, which allowed him to dominate his target.

Capturing a few of the Avengers on his own, he then dispatched Thor to capture Iron Man. While he oversaw Thor, his current captives freed themselves, and a fight ensued.

The Collector sent his Giant Robotoid after them. However, a stray blast destroyed the device which controlled the Robotoid, which then went berserk. His ship too badly damaged by the rampage, the Collector escaped by using his Temporal Assimilator, again abandoning a collection.

Le Freak, c’est chic

Kidnapping Tony Stark’s assistant Pepper Hogan, the Collector threatened her life unless Iron Man provided him with the Freak. The Freak was actually Pepper’s husband Happy Hogan, although Happy himself was unaware of this.

Iron Man tracked down the Collector’s base, but Pepper was captive in a tube which would disintegrate her if he tried to free her, or if he engaged the Collector in battle. Meanwhile the Collector had captured Happy Hogan himself. He was now preparing to experiment on him to find out how to release the Freak.

Iron Man offered a trade, volunteering to acquire a suitable substitute. The Collector agreed. He took them to the Dark Dimension, where he sent Iron Man to recover the Solar Sword. Iron Man returned with the weapon, the only thing holding back the dark forces in the dimension.

The Collector tried to betray them, keeping the Sword and trying to take Iron Man and his friends captive. However he found the Sword too powerful when they returned to their native dimension. Iron Man thus managed to overcome him, returning the Sword to the Dark Dimension in time to turn back the dark forces.

Trick or treat

Still intent on capturing the Avengers, the Collector began concentrating on Rutland, Vermont. The local Halloween celebrations usually ended up drawing some superhuman activity. While planning to capture whichever super-hero turned up as bait to draw the Avengers, he adapted his plan when the Avengers themselves turned up.

Abducting celebration host Tom Fagan, the Collector took his place. He drew some of the Avengers away while the others searched for the threat which had been sensed in the area.

Using the Coats of Hercules he managed to subdue some of the Avengers, taking them back to his temporary base to await the others. He was caught off guard when the real Tom Fagan, freed by the other Avengers, turned up with party-goers.

Not wanting to waste his collection on civilians, the Collector chose to flee, only to be confronted by the freed Avengers. He released a swarm of vampire bats on Rutland, warning that he’d only send them away if allowed to flee. The Avengers found another way to dispatch them, and the Collector was again beaten.

Scary monsters

He was next heard from in the Everglades, when a subject managed to escape from his collection. He dispatched some pirates from his collection to hunt the escapee down, but they ran afoul of the Hulk. The Collector used the newly enslaved Man-Thing to battle the Hulk, while he dealt with his human-looking escapee, reverting him into his earlier form, the Glob.

With both the Glob and the Man-Thing under his control, the Hulk was subdued, and added to his collection. Unconscious, the Hulk reverted to Banner when on board the Collector’s ship, and so freed himself.

The Collector soon found him, and offered Banner a cure to the Hulk, the Elixir of Life. In exchange, the Collector wanted his company, so that he could have someone to converse with, since his obsession had left him lonely. Banner, having seen the numerous people held against their wills in the collection, refused, and the Hulk destroyed the Elixir.

As the Collector tried to repair the damage the three monsters caused to the ship, the Hulk helped the captives escape the ship. However most were centuries or millennia old, and, removed from the protection the Collector’s technologies afforded them against aging, quickly withered into dust.

Meanwhile, the Glob had hunted down the Collector where he was trying to repair the ship. However, the Collector survived the encounter.

Another cosmic threat arises

When the threat he had foresaw, Thanos, was defeated, the Collector had a vision of another such threat, Korvac. This time the Collector decided to send his daughter Carina to spy on him. Carina married Korvac and fell in love with him, but kept him distracted enough that the Collector was able to capture most of the Avengers, intending to use them against Korvac.

The few remaining Avengers found his base, and teleported there to face him. All but Hawkeye were subdued, but the archer managed to irritate the Collector into using his long dormant cosmic powers, although he was so rusty in their use that Hawkeye managed to get the drop on him.

The Avengers freed, the Collector was about to warn them of the true threat they faced, when Korvac became aware of him, and killed him from afar. Carina also died a short while later.

Vikings and Canadians

The Grandmaster soon challenged Death to a contest, with the prize being resurrection of his brother. Using Earth’s super-heroes as pawns, the Grandmaster won the contest, only to learn that the device he’d played for had an additional cost: a life force of equal value. The Grandmaster gave his own life to gain the Collector’s resurrection.

Resurrected, the Collector had another vision, this time of Surtur destroying Asgard. He resumed his quest to collect things to ensure their survival. Detecting a Plodex on Earth, he captured Marrina, to go with his collection of Plodex seedlings from other planets. He also took Spider-Man, who had caught his attention.

However, this drew the attention of Marrina’s team mates in Alpha Flight, and they attacked him in his ship. The fight got beyond his control, damaging the ship, and he prepared to flee, but the Alphan Puck knocked the Temporal Assimilator from his hands.

The Collector thus was forced to deal with Alpha Flight and Spider-Man for his freedom. He had to lose them from his collection, but managed to salvage most of his ship and contents.

Return of the Grandmaster

The Collector was soon contacted by the Grandmaster from the realm of Death. From there he planned another contest to ensure his own resurrection. The Grandmaster arranged for the death of the Avengers. Meanwhile the Collector contacted the West Coast Avengers, and convinced them the only way to help the other Avengers was to travel to Death’s realm themselves.

They agreed, drinking a poison from Collector’s collection which even killed Wonder Man and the Silver Surfer. The Grandmaster won, and as part of his agreement with the Collector, he arranged the resurrection of his wife, Matani. However she returned with no more desire to live than she’d had previously, and so willed herself dead again moments later.

Another result of Grandmaster winning his way out of Death’s realm was that Death banned all the Elders, making them all unable to die.

The Galactus plot

Utilising this, the Grandmaster gathered all the Elders and formulated a plan to kill Galactus, prompting the end of the universe. They would survive, emerging from the resultant big bang into the next universe with powers similar to those wielded by Galactus in the current universe.

They gathered the Soul Gems (Infinity Gems), although their efforts were hampered by the Silver Surfer and Mantis, who had learned of their plans. With the gems gathered, and the Silver Surfer apparently disposed of, they drew Galactus to them. They launched their attack, almost succeeding in killing him, until the Silver Surfer returned, stopping them.

The energies unleashed caused a black hole which swallowed a few of the Elders, while the Collector and some of the others were consumed by a vengeful Galactus.

Unable to die, however, they merely gave Galactus severe indigestion. When the lost Elders managed to escape the black hole with the In-Betweener, the Collector and the other Elders were freed from Galactus. Soon realising the In-Betweener was the greater threat, they reluctantly used the Soul Gems to help beat him, fleeing soon after.

A deeper shade of soul gem

The Collector kept one of the Soul Gems, which he added to his collection, but was unable to understand how it worked. Thanos soon came looking to trade for it, offering the Elder Runner, de-aged by one of the other Soul Gems, in trade.

(During the encounter with Thanos, it’s stated that the pair have met before, on apparently amicable terms, which seems odd since Thanos was the original reason he started collecting.)

The Collector accepted the deal, but the de-aging on the Runner proved temporary. The Runner proceeded to beat on the Collector for trying to add him to his collection.

The Brethren, part 1

Again looking to capture residents of Earth, he arranged for some of his more dangerous specimens, the Brethren, to apparently escape captivity as his ship crashed on Earth’s moon.

The Brethren were a bacterial life form which had been evolved into humanoid form by the Celestials. For ages they had followed the Celestials, invading and eliminating worlds their masters deemed unworthy.

Eventually the Celestials abandoned them, and the Brethren continued a path of destruction of their own choosing, becoming increasingly infamous. Seeing them as a threat to civilizations he might want to collect from, the Collector had long ago captured them, imprisoning them in one of the miniaturized habitats on his ship.

The freed Brethren proved unstoppable, even by the Avengers. They soon set up a beachhead on Earth, while the apparently dazed and senile Collector ’guided‘ the Avengers exploration of their former habitat to gain clues as to the Brethren’s nature.

The Brethren, part 2

Finally tiring of the game, as the Brethren appeared slow to carry out his plan, the Collector dropped the façade of senility. He even dropped the old man look he regularly adopted, revealing what he claimed was his true form. The Collector then devolved the Brethren into their bacterial form.

The only untransformed Brethren were Thane Ector and his Fool. With help from the Eternal Sersi, they helped the Brethren form a Uni-Mind, which was able to beat, and apparently destroy, the Collector.

He survived, being unable to die, but let the Brethren think he had died. The Collector even played dead when the Uni-Mind later passed his ship in space, allowing them to release valuable parts of his collection. One such was a dangerous virus which caused insanity in its victims.

He recruited a suspicious Silver Surfer to recover it for him, while also hiring the Collection Agency to recover the host and kill the Surfer. The Surfer survived their attempt on his life, accepting the virus into himself, but by the time he reached the Collector, the virus had affected him.

He had, however managed to overcome it, burning it out in the process, leaving the Collector nothing to re-imprison.

More interactions with Earth

The Collector supplied a Nega Bomb to the Kree terrorists led by Admiral Galen Kor. They sought revenge on Earth and the Avengers for the destruction of their empire. The Collector soon ended this relationship when the Kree proved ineffectual.

Hearing of an egg containing a hybrid Human-Skrull, the child of the Human Torch and Lyja the Lazerfist, the Collector travelled to Earth to collect it. Teleporting into the Fantastic Four’s headquarters, he used a Drakion Destructoid to keep its parents occupied while he examined the egg. When he realised it was not what had been advertised, he left.

One of his collection worlds, considered a prison world by many of his collection, kept safe the residents of worlds destroyed by Galactus. It was protected by powerful shields which kept it hidden. But when Galactus happened to be near, one of the residents managed to escape searching for someone to free them.

Returning with Wolverine, the pair managed to turn off the power. They were unaware of Galactus’s presence and the danger posed. Galactus was drawn to the planet, and an evacuation was required, again reducing the Collector’s collection, as a number died or escaped.

Vicious games

Learning of the plans of the entity Enmity, and its agent Unum, the Collector gathered together some of Unum’s targets:

• She-Hulk.
• Jazinda.
• Invisible Woman.
• Storm.
• Thundra.
• Valkyrie.
• Lyja the Lazerfist.
• Gamora.
• Mantis.
• Quasar (Phyla-Vell).

Unum caught up to them, but She-Hulk eventually managed to turn her against Enmity. The Collector returned his “guests” to their original locations.

Accepting a bet with the Grandmaster, the Collector assembled a group of Offenders (Red Hulk, Tiger Shark, Baron Mordo, and Terrax) to battle the Grandmaster’s Defenders (Hulk, Namor, Dr. Strange, and the Silver Surfer).

The Red Hulk won, killing most of the other competitors on both sides in the process, but, enraged by the Grandmaster restoring them to life, supposedly killed the unkillable Grandmaster. The Collector departed with his brother’s allegedly dead body.

Personality

Sometimes a cackling madman, obsessed with collecting, and willing to exterminate races to gain the last few members of a species.

At other times he’s an enigmatic alien, who appears to be acting in the best interests of the universe, albeit from a detached viewpoint, and has even helped heroes battle serious threats to the universe.

While protective of his collections, he has little hesitation in abandoning them should his own life be in danger, or trading parts of them away for more valuable items.

His protectiveness towards his collections doesn’t seem to include any particular regard for living specimens as individuals. This point of view seems to colour his perception of most beings, apart from the other Elders (and even then he’s shown a willingness to accept some of them as part of his collection).

He’s often distant, viewing everyone he meets as a potential acquisition.

Since the threat Thanos initially posed passed, the Collector appears to have become erratic in his goals and methods. He has adopted a series of new prophetic dreams as reasons to continue collecting (Korvac, Surtur conquering Asgard) or even helping superheroes against serious galactic threats.

On the other hand, he’s also initiated plans to wipe out most life on Earth to make collecting the survivors easier. His goals, and mental stability, appear to shift constantly. It can be hard to know what his goals are in any given situation.

Quotes

“Of course ! Forgive me for not introducing myself ! I am — The Collector ! I have spent a lifetime secretly collecting the greatest prizes of all !”

“You are all the same size ! Where is Giant-Man ?? I must have him — to complete my collection ! I need both the Wasp and Giant-Man to have a full set !”

“This is why nothing can defeat the Collector ! The weapons of all the ages are mine !”

“Have you forgotten that you are my property — my objet d’art ? As much as the gleaming trophies about me !”

“I should have force-fed you my obedience potion — but I preferred to see you caged in your defiance !”

“You will not recognize me, Hulk — for we have never met — but those you have been fighting here belong to me — as all things worth having belong to — the Collector !”

“Guests ! Collectible guests ! I shall loose my Boxers on them — while I slip into something less comfortable !”

“I have travelled far — and at considerable bother — to claim an artefact so unusual, so intriguing, that it can only be appreciated by — the Collector !”

DC Universe History

Contemporaries of, or possibly even older than, the Guardians, the Elders appear to have some kind of an agreement with them whereby they stay out of each others business. As a result, the Collector was unable to acquire a Green Lantern Ring for his collection until the Corps was disbanded and the Guardians believed dead.

He’d taken steps to keep it hidden even before the Guardians returned, and has yet to be confronted on the issue. Of course now he’s trying to acquire a full set of Rings.

He died during the first Crisis, the danger which had originally caused him to begin his obsession. Since his resurrection he’s prophesied the other Crises which have occurred, although has yet to see any comparable dangers since the Final Crisis passed.

He continues collecting, expecting another vision will appear to him.

By Gareth Lewis.

Source of Character: Marvel Comics.

Helper(s): Animal stats on WORG, Marvel.com , The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z, Darci, capita_senyera.

Writeup completed on the 6^th of Febuary, 2010.