Gamora

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Background

Powers and Abilities

After Gamora, Warlock and Pip emerged from the Soulworld to come back to reality, Warlock created new bodies for everyone. Those were much stronger than before, and in Gamora’s case apparently much faster. When she sparred with Thanos, she seemed almost as good as Captain Mar-Vell.

Gamora can hurt even such massively durable beings as She-Hulk, Rogue, Rage, the Thing and even Wonder Man or Maxam by hitting weak points (in game terms Martial Artist (EV) and Sharpness). She occasionally can take a superhuman amount of punishment from blunt attacks, up to and including the Invisible Woman’s force fields (Martial Artist (RV)).

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It is implied that she can lift and perhaps throw main battle tanks. She definitely can wreck them with her bare hands.

Gamora goes through a superhumanly extensive daily workout. While the full routine is unrevealed, it starts with a five-mile swim.

Gamora has an healing factor , which was presumably added by Thanos when he rebuilt her and was made even stronger in her Bambi Long body. She fully recovered within hours from being stabbed in the abdomen by Wolverine’s claws, among others.

Though she is a fearsome combatant, Gamora is generally out of her depth in Adam Warlock’s adventures, as are Pip and to a smaller extent several other Infinity Watch members. However, despite being comparatively undergunned, Gamora will happily engage anything short of Galactus in hand-to-hand combat.

Green gear

Gamora has caches of money in several galaxies. They are sufficient to buy a spaceship with cash whenever she needs one.

The Time Gem is apparently set within her belt, over the small of her back. However, Gamora never wanted to use its cosmic power. She gets the occasional precognitive vision from the Gem, but doesn’t want to and has not control over what she sees or when. The visions tend to be brief images – more like a very distracting flash.

Whilst carrying the Gem, Gamora tends to intuitively realise the role that people around her will play (such as becoming very jealous of Maya before she alchemically seduced Adam). But she can’t tell the difference between this prescience and her own emotions.

She also occasionally just happens to have made the right preparations for the situation at hand, such as bringing an axe just in case. In a tabletop RPG context, the GM might occasionally give her player minor advice inspired by the Gem.

Weapons

Gamora seems to have a dagger secreted somewhere on her person, which she usually produces when she intends to murder someone. Whether this is Godslayer or just a super-durable dagger is unreveal. Gamora will also occasionally arm herself with a larger melee weapon if she feels like it and expects to be killing stuff.

Gamora also occasionally produces a throwing knife or shuriken from nowhere… or she just picks a fist-sized rock to hurl.

At one point, Gamora backstabs the thanosi called X with another dagger. This weapon was perhaps patterned after Godslayer since it penetrates the creature’s back to the hilt, and it was likely procured on Sanctuary II. The blade was ’tipped with enough poison to drop a pack of wolvertons” though that proved inefficient against a thanosi.

This weapon is normally left behind in the wound, to let the poison seep in.

Late during this era, while Adam Warlock is recuperating in his cocoon, Gamora starts packing guns, named Betsy and Rosy. Betsy is a compact energy pistol carried in a thigh holster. Rosy is an energy carbine kept in her luggage, and produced when she expects severe trouble.

According to Gamora, Rosy could kill anything a Skrull scout ship could throw at her, except maybe the Super-Skrull. Rosy was apparently lost after fighting the thanosi called Armor.

History

(This section starts where the one in the previous profile ended.).

Years later, the Silver Surfer and Drax the Destroyer entered Soulworld. They brought news of Thanos’s Infinity Gems plot. Gamora reluctantly directed them toward the spire where Warlock was meditating.

The mentally diminished Drax decided to destroy Soulworld, but Gamora fought him long enough for Warlock to arrive and take Drax down. Adam then agreed to leave paradise and return to the real world when he would be needed.

Back to life, back to reality

After Thanos completed the all-powerful Infinity Gauntlet, Warlock projected his soul to Earth. Gamora and Pip decided to come with him. Their souls entered the bodies of three persons who had just died in a car crash. Gamora possessed the corpse of one Bambi Long.

Warlock used his powers to repair the zombie bodies, gradually turning them into enhanced duplicates of their original bodies.

However, as the bodies were still fixing themselves, Thanos deleted 50% of the universe’s population from existence – including Gamora.

These missing persons were restored when Nebula seized the Infinity Gauntlet and reversed the actions of Thanos. Adam Warlock soon prevailed and claimed the Gauntlet, repairing the damage caused in turn by Nebula and teleporting Gamora and Pip to his side. The trio then briefly visited Thanos, who had covertly escaped and retired as a simple farmer.

Assembling the Watch

Adam Warlock was left in possession of the Gauntlet with all six gems. Realising that temptation was corrupting him, Gamora and Pip requested Dr. Strange’s help. The magician helped Warlock pull himself back together. Altered by the experience, Adam lost interest in being Gamora’s lover.

The Living Tribunal then decreed that the Gems were to be entrusted to six different guardians. Warlock picked Moondragon (Mind Gem), Drax (Power Gem), Gamora (Time Gem), Pip (Space Gem) and himself (Soul Gem). The Reality Gem secretly given to Thanos.

Gamora didn’t want custody of the Time Gem and protested against Adam’s oddball choices. But since his altered rationality stemmed from union with the cosmos she assumed that he knew best and grudgingly played along.

Within days most guardians were captured by Man-Beast, an old foe of Adam Warlock. Warlock intervened, but it was obvious that it would be prudent for the five known guardians to operate as a group rather than remain separated and vulnerable. The assembled Infinity Watch rebased on Monster Island at the suggestion of the isle’s master, the Mole Man.

In, out, in

As the Infinity Watch was setting up its quarters, the Magus launched his newest cosmic plan. He knocked out Eternity, had the Dimension of Manifestations create demonic doppelgängers of his foes, and launched the Infinity War .

During the War, a mistaken fight between major Earth super-heroes and the full Infinity Watch. Gamora thus clashed with such powerful fighters as Rogue or the She-Hulk during . Soon after that, she was pressed into Galactus’s service to revive Eternity – thus saving the universe. However, the Infinity War left Warlock comatose.

Gamora stubbornly remained by Adam’s side as the Watch dispersed. During this vigil she had a vision of a man (later identified as Maxam) standing over a seemingly dead Adam Warlock.

The Watch resumes ticking

A UN military company came to Monster Island to investigate. Gamora tried to parlay but the hidebound, sexist commander’s attitude soon turned the situation into a brawl. Gamora beat up the entire company within minutes.

During that time the rest of the Watch, betting and bantering about the spectacle, realised that they enjoyed being together. They decided to re-form under Gamora’s interim leadership. Warlock eventually awoke after experiencing complex visions and a dialogue with Eternity.

The amnesiac Maxam then washed ashore. Gamora was about to kill him to prevent her vision from becoming real, but Warlock forbade it.

The Watch then tried resurrecting Shalla-Bal so she could be reunited with the Silver Surfer. A first attempt only recovered a soul-less body and a horde of demons. A second attempt led to the Watch and the Surfer fighting Mephisto in his domain. The good guys prevailed, and Shalla-Bal was fully brought back from utter annihilation.

The Infinity Crusade and other misadventures

Adam Warlock spawned two godlike beings from his soul. His “evil” side became a new version of the Magus, and his “good” side became the Goddess.

The latter, intending to transform the cosmos, harnessed the force of belief in a higher power. She thus mystically mustered multitudes across the universe — including Gamora.

However, the last Zen Whoberi apparently did not have faith in anything special. Gamora also nursed a deep-sated defiance toward being used. Doubt — the antithesis of the Goddess’s teachings — mounted within her, forcing other servants to keep her in line.

The Goddess’s plan — called the Infinity Crusade  — was eventually defeated. Her soul and the Magus’ were cast into Soulworld, as intangible entities unable to interact with the locals. Gamora immediately regained her free will.

The Infinity Watch continued to intervene in a number of crises. For instance, they joined Dr. Strange and the Silver Surfer in an attempt to cure the warrior madness that had overtaken Thor. Gamora fought the valkyrie that personified Thor’s darker impulses, but was defeated.

The Watch nevertheless cured Thor – though it involved storming the Rainbow Bridge and fighting off Asgard’s armies.

The Watch also discovered that the UN had been manipulated into clashing with them by Adam Warlock’s old nemesis, the psychic Man-Beast – and put an end to that.

Adventures in Watching

The immensely powerful otherdimensional tyrant Count Abyss then sent his agent Maya to Monster Island. Gamora reacted very poorly to Maya. Albeit everyone thought that it was jealousy caused by Warlock’s interest in Maya, Gamora was right. Perhaps a subtle precognition brought by the Time Gem helped. Maya had used a love philtre on Warlock.

After Moondragon prevented Gamora from gutting Maya, the Watch left to confront Abyss. Maya ended up marrying otherdimensional sorcerer Darklore as a political alliance to bring stability. To Gamora’s obvious glee, that made it impossible for Maya and Warlock to see each other.

However, this led Gamora to realise how much she still pined after Warlock, leaving her buried in a surly funk. An assault by the subterranean forces of Tyrannus, contesting the Mole Man’s ownership of Monster Island, thus brought some welcome release through combat.

After repulsing an attack by the magical construct Strange, who wanted to steal the Infinity Gems, the Watch hunted down Zakaius the Life-Stealer. The confrontation led the Watch, now allied with Zakaius, to the star empire of Lord Domitian, who had declared them to be cosmic aggressors in order to fulfil his own twisted goals.

I quit !

After Domitian was destroyed, the Watch came home. Gamora’s miserable mood led to a argument where Maxam called her defunct relationship with Adam “puppy love”. Their brutal fight was stopped. But Gamora, angry and despondent, cracked when Warlock implied that he had changed too much to ever love her again.

Throwing the Time Gem in his face, she stormed out of Monster Island while snarling threats at everything and everyone.

Her friend Pip dropped her in California, and she walked toward L.A.. She wanted to reflect on her situation and perhaps apply with Force Works, out of vague attraction toward Iron Man (Anthony Stark). As she was still on her way, Thanos teleported her to him to request her assistance, and Gamora hesitantly agreed.

Meanwhile, Maxam was given guardianship of the Time Gem. Holding the Gem allowed him to remember his past and, as Gamora had prophesied, he immediately attacked Adam Warlock. Soon afterward, the ancient vampire Rune stole all Gems. Thanos and Warlock immediatly focused on recovering the Gems in Rune’s native Ultraverse.

While they were gone, both Gamora and the Infinity Watch members walked out to attend their own business.

Wherever she may roam

Gamora and Pip ended up slumming it in outer space, getting drunk in seedy taverns and getting into fights on ill-civilised planets.

After months of this, Warlock came to request their help to investigate crimes on Titan. A stinking drunk Gamora first assumed that he was an hallucination, then kissed him. When he returned her kiss she slugged him, assuming he was an impostor. But it was the real Adam, who could again feel emotions.

Once the confusion was cleared Gamora and Pip helped Adam and Drax with the investigation, which led them to defeat Syphonn and other Negative Zone warlords.

After this victory, Adam had an opportunity to let go of the evil Soul Gem and abandon his role to start a new life. However, he and Gamora reluctantly admited that the burden of the Gem was his to bear, even if that threatened their renewed relationship.

What happened next is mostly unchronicled. Adam was contacted by a cosmic entity called Atlez, and the shock of that communion forced him to retreat into one of his cocoons to heal. Distraught, Gamora left to work as a space adventurer, mercenary and general troublemaker, whilst Pip resumed his life as a grifter, controll and general troublemaker.

Threat of the Thanosi

Gamora ran into a sort of Thanos double called Armor, who had organised a massive nihilistic rally. Armor recognised Gamora, but she evaded him and his army of madmen. The green-skinned assassin went to Thanos for an explanation. Her former mentor showed her his hidden lab and how he had created the Thanosii, strange altered clones of himself based on major super-heroes.

The Thanosi project had been cancelled when Thanos realised it was a bad idea, but several of the creatures had escaped.

Armor then came to Thanos’ place to kill his creator. The wounded Thanos had Gamora lure the creature into an ambush. The assassin performed admirably, and they destroyed Armor.

Thanos and Gamora tracked down the most powerful Thanosi, Omega – a meld of Thanos and Galactus. They found him on Earth along with X, a meld of Thanos and Professor Xavier. Gamora allied with Spider-Man and Captain Marvel (Genis Vell) to protect Atleza Langunn, a human child whom the Thanosii were trying to kill.

Gamora executed a perfect assassination on X, but the thing was too tough and survived. Thankfully, further allies came in – including Adam Warlock, as Pip the Troll had found and awakened him. The Thanosii, including Omega, were destroyed.

The Heart of Darkness

Atleza Langunn was the designated successor of Atlez, the entity that had contacted Adam Warlock months before. The kid received cosmic puissance and intelligence to replace Atlez as a guardian of reality. However, she was far too young to take these responsibilities.

As Atlez died, Adam Warlock agreed to be Atleza’s tutor. Gamora joined him and they established themselves in the Heart of Darkness, Atlez’s otherdimensional hideout.

In the Heart of Darkness, Gamora and an emotionally and mentally stable Adam resumed their relationship. They both served as mentors and surrogate parents to Atleza Langunn. How long that lasted from their point of view is impossible to tell – years if Atleza grew up and matured normally.

Warlock was briefly summoned from the Heart of Darkness to stop the Champion of the Universe, but was defeated and had to regenerate in a cocoon for a while. Gamora then stepped in a became Jennifer Walters’ physical trainer as she was scheduled to fight the Champion.

Every bit of physical strength and fighting skill Walters gained as Gamora coached her was magnified when she assumed her She-Hulk form, and the glamorous gamma giantess defeated the Champion in a boxing match.

When Atleza became mature enough to handle her responsibilities, Adam and Gamora left the Heart of Darkness.

Description

See illustrations.

Personality

Gamora’s entire childhood was desocialised, cold and strange. She never had any role-model or cultural milieu. Her first major attempt to brave the world alone resulted in brutal trauma. When came the moment she had focused her entire existence on, she failed against a god.

Her sense of self-esteem is thus peculiar and tends toward overcompensation. She has little sense of belonging or purpose, which makes her quietly miserable and outwardly abrasive and brusque. Gamora is rude, scornful, threatening, immature, gloomy and dismissive – and that’s on a good day.

Due to the dearth of normal experiences during her formative years, Gamora doesn’t know how to deal with life. Despite all the bad things that happened to her and her pessimistic outlook, Gamora doesn’t want to die either – but she’s walking wounded and wishes she could forget much of her life.

She’s thus prone to occasional self-destructive behaviour, and might have become an alcoholic had not her healing factor made that difficult.

After Tartoonla#7 Gamora made a vow that she would never allow anyone to use or abuse her. She is thus wary of powerful entities – except Adam, whom she’ll always trust, and Thanos, whom she trusts a little bit against all evidence.

Nevertheless, the company she keeps means that Gamora is endlessly used as an expendable tool by entities of vast power. She’s negligible in the grand scheme of things, but Thanos has given her the skills and weapon that make her useful even to the likes of Galactus.

Gamora is a bullet. But she’s a bullet that stubbornly survives being used and always ends up limping back to the gun whence she was shot since she has nowhere else to be.

Relationships

Being the last of a species she’s never known, Gamora is driven to belong. However, she has no idea what she wants or what to do, and just clings to whatever floated into her life.

She clings to Warlock, she clung to the Watch as if it were a family despite its dysfunctional nature, she’ll later cling to the United Front officers and the Guardians of the Galaxy despite her pretences of being all cynical and uninvolved, etc.

She also clings to Pip, whom she doesn’t even like. She treats him like a surly teenager afflicted with an irritating kid brother.

Gamora’s feelings for Adam Warlock leave her uneasy. She doesn’t know how to deal with them or express them. This usually leaves her acting awkwardly distant toward him. While they were close in Soulworld, the sort of intuitive, blissful empathy that is shared by all beings there does not seem to translate in the real world.

She definitely cares about Adam and is usually quite protective of him. But she lacks the experience to express that. Likewise, the only way she found to share something with the emotionally stunted Thanos is full-contact sparring, with Gamora pitting her skill and speed against Thanos’s raw power.

The immature, unassured Gamora gets visibly moody and jealous if she feels another woman might seduce Adam. Since this is another sort of situation she’s not equipped to handle, there’s a clear risk of violence as Gamora doesn’t know how to proceed otherwise.

Despite all this, Gamora often feels that she is the most mature, responsible and level-headed person among the Infinity Watch. And, scarily enough, she’s not that wrong.

Quotes

(Upon being bestowed the Time Gem) “Adam, I wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to use the damn thing ! I don’t want this kind of power.”

“Blast you, Galactus ! You USED me !”

“Half the group isn’t even mentally competent enough to handle the responsibility you laid on them !”

“I tried to be reasonable with them. The gods know I tried. I really did.”

“Hands off the troll, pal ! Only members of the Watch get to abuse him !”

“I vote to slit the trollop’s throat and thwart Abyss’s plan.”

(Feeling watched) “What are you looking at, weasel ?”

(Elated to finally find the missing Warlock) “Oh, Adam. I knew you were all right.” (beat) “You *are* all right, aren’t you ?”

By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: Marvel Universe.

Helper(s): Pufnstuff and Peter Piispanen (for the ’combat monster‘ discussion for the Metabaron writeup), Darci.