Drax the Destroyer

Parts of this profile are S P O I L E R S for Annihilation, Conquest and Guardians of the Galaxy events.

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Background

Powers and Abilities

Drax is the ultimate fighter and soldier. He has very high levels of superhuman strength and fighting ability. He is an experienced, resourceful, observant tactician and usually operates as an ideal, veteran special forces fighter. Drax’s presence on the battlefield can turn the tide.

He prefers to fight with a pair of knives, but will also use blasters when needed.

Drax comes across as a highly experienced adventurer, and has practical knowledge of many places, concepts, alien species, notable persons, etc.. At the very least he has regained decades of memories from the previous phases of his unlife.

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At one point Drax is seen reading the mind of a person by touching her head. Since the Destroyer fully appreciates the value of knowledge, it is possible that he has repeatedly supplemented his personal experience this way.

Though he is more competent, centred and intelligent than ever, Drax is missing a number of powers that he used to have. He no longer flies or shoot energy blasts. He is seen eating and drinking normally, though our game stats assume that he could do without.

One gets the impression that the reconstruction of his body had to stop before it was completed, thus explaining the absence of some of his traditional powers. On the other hand, he seems to now have a superhuman ability to recognise scents.

Other abilities

The Destroyer appears to have an instinctive comprehension of the battlefield. At a glance he can identify how a battle will evolve, when an attack will be launched, and even intuitively realise who the enemy commander is, if they have a distinctive style of command.

Drax also displayed an intuitive understanding of all sorts of ships and weapons, even if this is a type of technology he has never been exposed to (such as the Annihilation Wave’s crafts).

Lastly, when approaching Thanos the Destroyer becomes suffused with some sort of green cosmic flame. In this sort of “Thanos-killing mode”, the Destroyer is immensely powerful and more than a match for even the mad titan in close combat.

He also acquires some sort of ability to penetrate Thanos’ defences and ignore mental assaults, and was strong enough to rip Thanos’ heart out.

History

The being who emerged from the Destroyer’s corpse is and isn’t Drax. He is smaller, has completely different genetics, doesn’t have most of the Destroyer’s powers, and doesn’t seem to have memories from his time as a musclebound oaf.

(These differences reinforce the *non-canon* hypothesis in the previous writeup. Namely, that the persona evidenced by Drax in his “musclebound oaf” stage was a simulacrum and that the Destroyer’s real consciousness was hidden in the basement of his soul to heal).

On the other hand, this new person seems to have the full memory of the Destroyer before his death at Moondragon’s hand, and possibly of Arthur Douglas before his death. He stated “I am Arthur Douglas… as… I am Drax and… I am the Destroyer restored.”

North to the future

As he emerged from the corpse, Drax quickly assessed the situation by touching Cammi’s forehead and reading her mind. His next priority was to neutralise the threat that the powerful alien criminals posed to the nearby burg. He eliminated Lunatik and one of the Blood Brothers.

By that point Paibok, the de facto leader of the criminals, had reached the conclusion that the odds of leaving Earth were too poor. He activated the distress beacon in the shipwreck. Drax waited for Nova Corps officers to arrive — along with Cammi, who refused to leave.

The Nova Corps couldn’t prove that this Drax and Drax the Destroyer were the same person, and had to release them on Xandar.

Unbeknownst to Xandarians, this occurred on day 7 of the Annihilation.

The Annihilation Wave

As a key transportation hub and HQ of the Nova Corps, Xandar was a priority target of the Annihilation Wave. The Wave ravaged Xandar within hours. Being still at the peak of its strength, it was able to overwhelm and destroy the Nova Corps.

Drax immediately realised what was happening, and left the starport with Cammi before it exploded. They landed on the clusters — the mini-planets collectively forming Xandar — but the habitats had already been wrecked and were rapidly losing heat and pressure.

Drax quickly located the last survivor of the Nova Corps, Earthman Richard Rider. But the human was in shock as the death of his colleagues had transferred the totality of the Nova Power to him, and the artificial intelligence Worldmind was now hosted in his mind.

After concerting with the Worldmind, Drax told Rider that he would be his mentor and teach him to cope with the pressure of the Nova Power. They then allied to leave the Xandar system, and made a jump to Nycos Aristedes. There, Nova allied with fellow Earth hero Quasar (Wendell Vaughn) to help with evacuating the locals before the Annihilation Wave reached them.

Upon observing the incoming Wave, Drax deduced that its commander was Annihilus. He recommended a headshot strategy to Nova and Quasar. If Annihilus fell, the entire insectile army would be completely disorganised.

The strategy was sound but Annihilus was too powerful, and killed Quasar. However, Nova threw the Annihilation Wave into disarray long enough for the refugees to reach the stargate he had opened. Drax fished the unconscious Nova out of space, and they retreated.

Shocked by the battle, Nova asked Drax to train him so he could destroy his enemies.

The Annihilation War

During the early months of the Annihilation War, Drax retrained the powerful Rider to turn him into a grown-up and a warrior. Nova became the commander-in-chief of the United Front, a rag-tag fighting force made up of partisans and the remnants of military forces that had opposed the Annihilation Wave.

The deadly Drax was one of Rider’s generals and point men. They frequently fought together on the front lines. The other core officers of the Front were :

• Peter Quill, the coordinator and analyst.
• Gamora, who headed the black ops teams.
• Ronan the Accuser, who gradually took command of the Kree troops forming the backbone of the Front.

Drax also continued acting as Cammi’s friend and guardian.

After 6 months of brutal fighting and numerous bloody defeats, the United Front made its first successful stand on Daedalus Five. It stalled the Annihilation Wave. However, by that point Thanos had more or less allied with Annihilus.

Seeing the threat that the Destroyer posed, he had Drax’s daughter Moondragon taken hostage. He also provided special teleportation technology to the Annihilation Wave. They used it to drop their elite fighting force the Negative Zone Centurions straight onto the United Front troops, bypassing all defensive perimeters.

In the fray, Drax seemingly killed the Delinquent (formerly the Infant Terrible). But the United Front was reduced to practically nothing within hours. Drax stayed on the ground to buy time for those few evacuation vessels that could be prepared – and specifically the one with Cammi aboard.

He delayed the attackers long enough, but was thought killed when the Annihilation Wave blew Daedalus Five up.

Destroying death

Drax survived, presumably by commandeering an Annihilation Wave ship. With Cammi evacuated and the United Front destroyed, Drax focused on what had been his target all along — Thanos. The Destroyer worked his bloody path up the chain of command of the Wave, and become the second person to kill one of its Queens.

With Queen Extirpia dead, Drax learned Thanos’ location. He was on the space station where the mad titan and the Annihilation Wave had weaponised a captured Galactus.

Drax boarded the station, and started burning with a strange fire as his anti-Thanos mode activated. Slashing his way through the troops aboard, the Destroyer reached Thanos and ripped his heart out.

Thanks to his hostage Moondragon, Thanos had just learned that Annihilus’s actual plan was to eradicate all life, both in the positive matter universe and the Negative Zone. Though the plan might have appealed to him in the past, Thanos had changed.

The mad titan was thus busy neutralising the weaponised Galactus to defeat Annihilus’ plan when Drax killed him.

Destroyer of worlds

Everything seemed lost — Thanos was the only one with the raw power to disarm the mechanisms holding Galactus and priming him to destroy the multiverse.

After Moondragon explained that to him, Drax had her telepathically scramble all minds aboard the station, supporting his exhausted daughter so she could endure the effort. He then rescued the imprisoned Silver Surfer, and beseeched Galactus to take Moondragon to safety.

Drax then helped the Surfer discharge his remaining energies into the backdoor that Thanos had built in the Galactus-restraining system, unlocking it.

Galactus was free.

The enraged god ravaged the main Annihilation Wave armies and several solar systems with a deluge of cosmic energy, ending the Annihilation War. Apparently grateful, he teleported Moondragon and Drax many light-years away before he unleashed his anger.

Conquest

With Thanos dead, the Destroyer disappeared in the post-war chaos – possibly looking for Cammi.

Some months later, the Phalanx took over the Kree Empire. They converted Gamora into one of their elite agents, the Select. She turned Nova into a Select, and the pair found and converted Drax.

However, Nova impossibly shook off the Select conditioning. The Phalanx sent Select Gamora and Select Drax, its two best killers, after him. But Nova breached the impenetrable force field surrounding their territory. The two Selects gave chase and where still after Rider when he reached Knowhere, on the edge of the universe.

Security was too tight for them to attack there. But they remained on his trail as he reached Kvch — homeworld of the Technarchy, the ancestors of the Phalanx.

On Kvch, the Phalanx virus controlling Drax and Gamora exploded and formed a structure summoning a Tetrarch. The coming of a Tetrarch is normally a planet-ending event. But Nova had already made an ally – a young Tetrarch who had been mentored by Warlock (formerly of the New Mutants) after he was infected by Warlock’s mutant techno-virus.

The youth infected the Technarch who answered the beacon. It turned the immense creature bristling with life force stolen on countless worlds into an ally. This life energy could be used to save people infected by the Phalanx, and the Technarch started with Gamora, Drax and Nova.

Freed and owing the Phalanx a whole lot of destroyin’, Drax was one of the powerful warriors who stormed Hala to break the reign of the Phalanx and their secret master. The effort was successful and what remained of the population was freed. However, Drax learned that his daughter had died during her successful quest to awaken Adam Warlock and have him save the universe.

The Guardians of the Galaxy

By that point the Milky Way and nearby galaxies couldn’t take much more abuse. Furthermore, Adam Warlock warned that space-time was unravelling due to the mass death during the Annihilation and the Conquest.

Peter Quill decided to create a proactive team of champions to close these rifts, and prevent any third crisis that would finish everyone off. Not having much to do since Thanos was dead, Drax agreed to join – with the help of a subtle telepathic push from Quill’s mentat , Mantis.

The team eventually called themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy. The Guardians proceeded to close several fissures in time-space before these could expand and inflict untold damage. As the Guardians headquartered in Knowhere, Drax also used the teleportation facilities there to continue looking for Cammi, though he did not tell anyone.

The new Quasar (Phyla-Vell) was on the team, and had helped convince Drax to join. Drax considered that the nice and naïve Phyla was too soft, but she doggedly offered her friendship. Apparently, she felt that Moondragon would have wanted her to care her father. Drax initially kept her at arm’s length, but eventually accepted Phyla as a friend.

Skrulls Krisis

During a suspected Skrull infiltration of Knowhere, Drax struck out on his own, since any of his comrades might be a Skrull. While he stalked possible infiltrators, he overheard Quill and Mantis discussing the telepathic push used to assemble the Guardians despite their generally difficult personalities.

Drax’s stony-faced, tight-lipped behaviour drew suspicion. Part of the Knowhere security decided that he was a Skrull. However the Destroyer defeated all patrols sent after him. Drax planted Badoon synapse mines throughout Knowhere then detonated them all, killing everyone aboard.

Having shielded himself, he then took a reading (Skrulls reverting to their normal form when killed) while the effects of the synapse mines faded and everyone recovered after a brief period of brain death.

As it turned out, the Skrulls were just an underground railroad of conscientious objectors. They were fleeing the war their more militaristic brethren had declared on Earth. Thus, the only real damage caused by the incident was when Drax told the rest of the team about the telepathic push.

The Destroyer was furious about it, and so were most of the others. The Guardians disintegrated and Quill scrambled to replenish the ranks with new operatives.

Daughter

Drax left with Phyla to continue looking for Cammi. As they consulted with a soothsayer, there was a misunderstanding and they were told that Moondragon could be brought back from death. They requested advice from Mentor on Titan, who sent them on a quest in the afterlife.

In the realm of the cosmic entity Oblivion, Drax and Phylla clashed with ghosts, regrets, Mælstrom and the Dragon of the Moon. They also allied with Quasar (Wendell Vaughn).

Phyla made a pact with the Dragon, agreeing to anything to save Moondragon and renouncing her Quasar name and power bands. As she and Drax got Moondragon out Phyla, now a champion of death, renamed herself Martyr.

Due to numerous portents of another great war, the Guardians reunited for the greater good. Splitting into two teams, they attempted to parlay or otherwise prevent a devastating conflict between the Shi’ar and the Kree.

Description

The red patterns on Drax’s body were there when he emerged from his previous incarnation, so they are presumably part of his skin rather than some sort of tattoo. The visual similarities with Kratos in the God of War video game are strong, and one gets the feeling that he was also partially visually based on Vin Diesel playing his Riddick character.

Personality

Drax is a veteran warrior, a stone-cold survivor and the ultimate commando. He’s extraordinarily intense, serious and observant. There is a distinct military slant and attitude to his manner, which does not quite match his known biography.

(One made-up hypothesis is that Arthur Douglas served in an elite US military unit during World War Two, such as the 101^st Rangers. This is completely unsupported, No-Prize winning material, but it works, contradicts nothing and is useful when role-playing him).

The gruff Destroyer speaks in short, matter-of-fact sentences and sentences fragments, like a hero in an old American war movie. However his speech also has a sarcastic, cynical cast to it and an understated sense of dark humour.

He occasionally makes threats that sound like he’s joking… except whether he is actually joking is never clear.

The highly goal-oriented Destroyer is always in complete control of situations. He always knows what he’s doing, and while he rarely smiles there’s often a sort of slight smirk in his tone. He’s definitely a sisuka, as I’m sure the teeming millions amongst our Finnish audience will agree.

Drax has stated that he never lied, and that seems to be true. In fact, he does have a tendency to bluntly state the truth.

Drax is a particularly private person — except maybe with Cammi, since he cannot hide much from her anyway. He becomes curt whenever the discussion is driven toward his interests and feelings. He never speaks about his private pursuits.

He also has a strong tendency to only ever really count on himself. The Destroyer is strongly driven to protect Cammi and Moondragon, though he only ever admitted that to Phyla. When it comes to the safety of those two, Drax can become agitated and more emotional.

Like many people who speak Kree, Drax often uses the adjective das’t, the Kree equivalent of “damn”. He also adopted the slang shlag (equivalent of “bitch” — “son of a shlag”).

Quotes

Drax : “Remind me again, Cammi. Why am I putting up with you ?”
Cammi: “I own you. The Skrull guy gave you to me.”

Cammi: “He’s talking to himself again.”
Drax: “Yeah. He keeps that up, I might have to kill him.”
Cammi: “For his own good ?”
Drax: “Of course.”

(While Drax is still denying he’s Drax the Destroyer)
Drax: “I can help you. Focus. Self-control. These are skills I can teach you.”
Nova: “You can ?”
Drax: “I have destroyed. A lot. That takes focus and self-control. So, yes.”
Nova: “But you’re not, per se, a [capital-D] ’Destroyer‘ ?”
Drax: “Perish the thought.”

“You opened a stargate. We jumped out. You didn’t lose control. You’re not useless after all.”

“Don’t waste time [taking] people [to safety]. Get ready to fight. There is no safety.”

Drax: “Helping out helps *me* out. Nightmare’s coming. We gotta stand together. This is war. You know what we need ?”
Nova: “Destroyers ?”
Drax: “Yeah. Destroyers. We gotta get ready to fight. You’re too busy complaining.”

(About Annihilus) “I don’t have time to read you his resume. Just trust me. He didn’t get the name because of his quilting skills.”

“Thanos is my reason for being. His destruction is my destiny.”

(To Galactus) “I do this, Devourer, you see to my daughter’s safety.”

(To Phyla-Vell, over Moondragon’s grave) “I’m a liability, girl. A stone-cold killer. No one ever keeps my company for long. Not even my own flesh and blood.”

“I’m a destroyer. I was made to destroy death.”

“I don’t have any [doubts and regrets]. I learned to let go of remorse years ago.”

(As Moondragon has just been brought back from death by Drax and Phyla)
Moondragon, hugging Drax : “Father. You came for me.”
Drax, hugging back : “You’re my kid. What else could I do ?”

By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: Marvel Universe.

Helper(s): Darci.