Gremlin

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Background

Powers and Abilities

The diminutive Gremlin is an incredible genius and master of technology. His skills range from biotech to electronics, from weapons systems to avionics, from psychotronics  to high-energy physics. He is determined and courageous, and has a much greater authority than what one would expect from a child.

He never hesitated to take any necessary physical risk, such as running off to explore a Dire Wraith base while apparently unarmed. One imagines that he was confident in his ability to come up with something whenever necessary.

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The Gremlin’s technology was quite potent. His masterworks include :

• The Devastator armours.
• The first Super Trooper power armours .
• The artificial sapient dinosaur Droog, who was strong and durable enough to fight the Hulk on an equal standing for a long while.
• Strange energy weapons which managed to fell the Hulk in one blow.

He could quickly understand the technology of other geniuses such as Quasimodo or the Presence. He even developed a functional understanding of Dire Wraith technology within minutes.

With his great intelligence, deadly inventions and aggressive nature, the Gremlin was quite feared by the Soviet State. The Dire Wraiths on Earth also immediately considered him a major threat. In fact he seems to have an almost palpable sense of menace to his ways, even when what he says is not aggressive but merely curt and arrogant.

This is a Russian invention !

Notable gadgets used by the Gremlin include :

• Kid-sized jet pack or small “pogo” flying platform.
• The Gremlin carried a kid-sized pistol. He once used it to fatally shoot a man, but it is difficult to determine the statistics for the gun. It likely was at least as powerful as the plasma pistols listed for the guards below.
  He later packed a pistol (even when inside his Titanium Man armour) shooting armour-piercing bullets which he seemed confident could penetrate even the Crimson Dynamo power armour.
• Null ray canon. This large air defence energy canon has a rather striking effect. Vehicles hit by its beam have all their systems die (in DC Heroes RPG terms, EMP) and just stay suspended, immobile, in the air (Glue, Gravity Decrease). The beam fully cancels inertia. Thus, the sudden deceleration of a jet fighter caught in the beam does not stress it or its pilot.
• Flying robot interceptors – the Gremlin boasted that they had ’many skills’.
• Psi-clone technology – a mind transferal machine.

Boy of titanium, part 1

During his time with the Soviet Super-Soldiers, the Gremlin built himself a new version of a famous suit of Soviet power armour – the Titanium Man armour. The diminutive Gremlin was piloting the armour by sitting inside the torso. The limbs and head were entirely robotic.

The armour :

• Had jet boots.
• Was super-strong.
• Could project potent energy beam from both hands and its visor. These seemed more powerful than the weapon systems of previous Titanium Man suits.
• Could withstand blows from Thor, though the thunder god was then weakened by Hela’s curse.
• Included a rebuilt stasis ray – a weapon system used by older versions of the Titanium Man armour.

It was remarkably fast and precise. In this respect it was comparable to the Iron Man Stealth suit, which quite surprised Tony Stark. This was likely achieved with some form of sophisticated cybernetic controls keyed to the Gremlin’s mutant mind. It is thus quite possible that only the Gremlin can ride the armour.

Boy of titanium, part 2

A similar-looking armour was later seen worn by the original Titanium Man, Boris Bullski. In writeups.org nomenclature this the Mark V of the suit. This cannot be the same suit, obviously (Bullski is *much* more massive than the Gremlin), but I have assumed some similarities for coherence’s sake.

In particular I assumed that the Gremlin had the Interface Power Bullski used, though the young genius did not use it as Titanium Man II. The Security System is also an assumption based on the Gremlin’s paranoia.

The armour is 8’9” tall and weights 975 lbs. with the Gremlin aboard.

Tonight the / Super Trouper lights are gonna find me / Shining like the sun

A major, early line of work of the Gremlin was the design and production of the Super Trooper power armour. Four such suits were operational (and their operators and backups trained) during his first clash with the Hulk. Then there were about eight at the Gremlin’s Bitterfrost base.

Though they looked bulky and primitive, those suits were powerful and efficient. It is likely that they had more abilities than those documented below – I had the impression that they were supposed to be walking arsenals.

The Super Troopers could fly at high speed, withstand blows from the Hulk and keep attacking, and had considerable mass and strength.

Their doctrine was faintly similar to that of a ground attack plane like a A10 . They operated from the air and swept in in a coordinated fashion (usually from multiple angles) to deploy special weapon systems on their target as a fly-by attack. Or just ram their target, trusting the heavy Russian engineering of their suit to withstand the enormous shock.

Weapon systems included :

• The oddly-named “anti-grappler”. That meant two mechanical tentacles deployed from the torso, ending in suction discs (in DC Heroes RPG terms, Extra Limbs). These were apparently designed to seize superhumanly strong opponents and large vehicles.
• Dispensers of an extremely potent knockout gas. It was apparently designed by the Gremlin specifically to take the Hulk out.
• A wrist-mounted laser beam used as a cutting torch.
• A heavy shoulder- and torso-mounted blast canon (Energy Blast).

Apparently, not all suits had all the weapon systems due to space constraints.

Into the bitter frost and snow

Bitterfrost was an enormous, armoured fortress. It hosted numerous inventions from the Gremlin, *and* had state of the art conventional military defences. These included numerous air defence gun emplacements, which could also engage targets on the extensive plain surrounding Bitterfrost.

Furthermore, the base had extensive vaults and underground labs carved into solid granite.

Before the base was destroyed, it had numerous guards clad in red coveralls with yellow boots, gloves and belts. Somehow they were all big, bald, lantern-jawed White men. It is likely those were clones and/or genetically engineered. They were all quietly obedient and disciplined.

In DC Heroes RPG terms, use the Shock Troops stats in the Generic Soldiers entry, but with 5 HPs. Their equipment is a pistol that looks very much like a S.H.I.E.L.D. plasma pistol [BODY 03, Energy blast: 07, R#4].

When the Gremlin returned to Bitterfrost, the base was protected by automated, radar-guided laser canons. Those were powerful enough inflict serious damage to the then-current Crimson Dynamo armour.

History

The Gremlin is the son of the great, deformed Russian genius, the Gargoyle (Yuri Topolov). As explained in the Gargoyle’s writeups.org entry, the elder Topolov’s incredible intelligence made him a powerhouse in science, engineering, espionage and the military.

After learning about the Hulk, the Gargoyle had the jade giant captured. He had the monster brought to him for analysis. However, Topolov eventually formed a professional relationship with the Hulk’s human alter ego, Dr. Banner. Working together, they designed technology which could revert Topolov’s disfiguring mutation.

Topolov then decided to take his revenge on the military-industrial Soviet complex and die as a human being. He detonated the major research complex he was directing, and apparently perished in the blast.

Son of the Gargoyle

However, it was later revealed that the mutated genius had fathered a son, apparently shortly before his demise. This son was deformed, much like his father had been. But he too demonstrated an incredible mutant genius. Even as a boy, it was commented that his genius was comparable to the likes of Anthony Stark’s.

Much like the father he never knew, he became a feared master of espionage and technology and a high-ranking KGB officer. This occurred while he was about 12. He was 13 or 14 when he first encountered the Hulk.

At that point, Gremlin was the director, architect and resident genius of an incredible underground base under the Arctic, close to Canada. He designed many technological wonders there, including the first production run of the Super Trooper power armour, the Null Ray or the first Devastator suit.

Green and purple

When the Hulk, chased by USAF forces, ventured close by, the Gremlin immediately had him and USAF General Ross captured. This was both to run in-depth studies on the fantastic brute, and to avenge the death of his father.

The Gremlin only knew of the official version of the Gargoyle’s death. He did not know that Topolov and Banner had designed a cure. The Gremlin thought the Hulk had been the one to blow up the Gargoyle’s base and kill his dad.

The Gremlin kept the Hulk in captivity for days, running extensive tests. He learned a lot, and in particular how to build even stronger exoskeletons imitating the Hulk’s bones and muscles. However, after Ross suggested an escape plan to Banner, Banner turned into the Hulk at an unexpected moment.

Not sharing Banner’s memories and thus not remembering the deal with Ross, the jade giant just went away. He left the hated Ross behind, a prisoner of the Gremlin. Ross was later transferred to a Soviet prison, and eventually rescued by American operatives.

Bitterfrost

The Arctic base having been compromised, the Gremlin (and presumably his men) moved to a Siberian techno-fortress. It was likely built by the Gremlin and called Bitterfrost. They soon took another high-ranking USAF officer (Glenn Talbot) prisoner.

Using a technology based on his father’s research, the psi-clone, the Gremlin transferred Talbot’s mind into the body of a Soviet agent, Gregori Kronski. The plan was to use the Talbot double, laced with explosives, as a weapon to kill the POTUS. The plan did not work thanks to the sacrifice of an American senior officer, Colonel Armbruster.

S.H.I.E.L.D. later learned that Talbot might still be alive, and gathered intelligence on Bitterfrost. They eventually launched an incredible commando raid on the Siberian base. The small team, which included Ross as an expert, was led by one of the S.H.I.E.L.D.’s top agents, the indefatigable Clay Quartermain.

Unbeknownst to them Banner also stowed on their special S.H.I.E.L.D. stealth jet. He was accidentally jettisoned, along with cargo, when Quartermain was evading missiles from Bitterfrost. Soon, the Gremlin’s men assaulted the Hulk in an attempt to capture him anew.

Meanwhile, Quartermain, Ross and their team managed to rescue “Talbot”. But the person within Talbot’s body was Kronski, who captured them. As to the Hulk, he was knocked unconscious by special energy weapons of the Gremlin’s design.

More experiments on the Hulk

The power-hungry Gremlin attempted to use the psi-clone to transfer his mentality into the Hulk’s body (and vice-versa), but this failed.

Meanwhile, the ever-dashing Quartermain used miniaturised gadgets (some based on designs by the Gargoyle) to bust out of prison and free his men and Ross. The S.H.I.E.L.D. men grabbed Talbot/Kronski and attempted to escape Bitterfrost, which was soon to be targeted by a scheduled orbital bombardment by S.H.I.E.L.D..

The team faced the Gremlin and some of his guards in a Mexican standoff. That lasted until the Gremlin’s monstrous pet Droog came to the recue of his master. Droog was met in a fight by the Hulk, and the Gremlin fatally shot Talbot/Kronski so his secrets could not fall into US hands.

Droog and the Hulk fought for more than 20 minutes, damaging much of the Bitterfrost basements. Meanwhile the American commando escaped in the confusion. The Gremlin, the Hulk and Droog were all thought killed when the S.H.I.E.L.D. orbital weapon platform blew Bitterfrost up. Nothing could survive that !

Enemy of the State

All three survived. However, the Gremlin and Droog were separated and seemingly both assumed that the other was dead. The wily Gremlin stayed in hiding for a bit, studying the reactions of his superiors to his apparent demise. Thus, he learned that they hated him and had been manipulating him. He also learned the truth about his father.

Foregoing his now pointless revenge against the Hulk, he angrily and immaturely confronted his bosses. But the Gremlin was now too much of a danger to the state. He had to fight his way out and flee.

Now in hiding, the Gremlin made his way to the Forbidden Zone. This is a devastated stretch of the USSR where once stood the base of the Presence. He secretly commandeered the abandoned base, making the technology there his own. When the artificial intelligence Quasimodo later discovered the base, the Gremlin carefully hid from it and spied on it.

Months later, Rom the Spaceknight came to Quasimodo to be reverted to human form. The procedure seemed to be successful, but the fully-organic Rom soon started to die and decay. The body was unstable, since all Quasimodo wanted was for Rom to vacate his alien suit of cyborg armour so Quasimodo could occupy it.

Quasimodo was seemingly destroyed. But Rom laid dying in the arms of his would-be lover Starshine, an Earth woman who had been transferred into a body of a female cyborg warrior of Rom’s race.

The Gremlin then made his appearance. He offered his help in return for assistance with his revenge against the USSR.

Alien conspiracy, part 1

The new Devastator and a squad of Super Troopers (both types of power armour derived from originals by the Gremlin) attacked the hidden base at that point. Starshine engaged them. Rom asked the Gremlin to save his life and transfer him back into his cyborg armour so he might help her against the assailants.

The Gremlin swiftly did so, reawakening Rom’s lifeforce within the armour and fully reactivating him as a Spaceknight. Rom saved the Gremlin and Starshine from the Soviet troops.

Rom and Starshine stayed in the Forbidden Zone to bury the human Rom clone. Intrigued, the Gremlin asked about the Dire Wraiths, whom he had seen aiding Quasimodo while spying on it. The Gremlin then deduced that the Wraiths had extensively infiltrated the Soviet government. This was likely done during Stalin’s rule, by exploiting the paranoia and purges of those times.

Thus did the boy genius suddenly figure out that some of the oddest paranoid conspiracies and spying activities in the country were actually caused by the evil aliens.

Alien conspiracy, part 2

A Dire Wraith infiltrator, who held a high rank within the KGB, was at at the same time plotting against the Gremlin – whom the KGB actually knew was hiding in the Forbidden Zone. The Wraith understood that the boy had come into contact with Spaceknights, had almost certainly deduced the truth about Dire Wraiths, and could easily become a fearsome foe for the aliens.

He contacted the Soviet Super-Soldiers (Darkstar, Vanguard and Ursa Major). These were superhuman operatives who had previously broken contact with the State. The infiltrator fed them a story about the Gremlin, asking them to kill him before he could “inflict awful devastation on the Soviet people”.

By this point the Gremlin had already teleported with Rom and Starshine to what he rightly suspected was a major Dire Wraith base in northern Khystym. They were intercepted there by the Super-Soldiers. Due to a miscommunication,; a fight erupted.

The Gremlin ran off to investigate the secret base. Ursa Major, while trying to catch him, discovered the Dire Wraith. Fighting them off, he warned his comrades, who allied themselves with Rom and Starshine. Meanwhile the Gremlin, sneaking around the base, hacked the Dire Wraith technology. He shut everything down just in time to save his allies from zombie prehistoric beasts.

The Soviet Super-Soldiers

The Gremlin joined his fellow mutants of the Soviet Super-Soldiers. He claimed the Khystym base as their own so neither the Wraiths nor the State could use it for their own goals.

Apparently, the mutant foursome were the leading heroes who fought the Dire Wraith menace in the USSR. That lasted until the Wraiths were destroyed worldwide through the actions of Rom and another mutant technosmith, Forge.

As a member of the Soviet Super-Soldiers, the Gremlin built a suit of Titanium Man power armour. It seemed based on a different technology than the previous Titanium Man suits. Topolov started calling himself the Titanium Man as his heroic code-name, though he still referred to himself as the Gremlin otherwise.

His last 2 appearances give the impression that he had suceeded the Titanium Man, which doesn’t make sense. Unless something complicated happened entirely off-panel .

The Super-Soldiers were later seen when they clashed with the X-Men and the Avengers as they tried to kill Magneto. Magneto had killed many Soviet soldiers and sailors in the past, and the Russians wanted to avenge those heinous crimes no matter what.

The Super-Soldiers were defeated by the Avengers. Their next attempt also failed due to interference by the X-Men, with Wolverine damaging the Titanium Man armour.

Some time after those clashes, the Gremlin apparently left the Super-Soldiers for undisclosed reasons. He secretly rebuilt some of the underground labs under the razed and abandoned Bitterfrost fortress, and became even more reclusive and paranoid.

Armour Wars

At this point, Tony Stark was launching his so-called “Armour Wars”. Two of his targets were the Crimson Dynamo and the second Titanium Man. Their armour apparently included a variant on the Stark-designed S-circuit, which Stark wished to destroy.

The KGB manipulated the Titanium Man (whom they knew would refuse to work with them) and the Crimson Dynamo. Their plan was to have the Titanium Man destroy Iron Man and/or the other way around.

The Crimson Dynamo got his armour fried by Iron Man after the automated defences of Bitterfrost greatly weakened him. On the other hand, Stark soon discovered than the Gremlin’s suit was much more powerful than the specialised Iron Man stealth armour he was then wearing.

The Gremlin defeated Iron Man and caught him in a bear hug. But Stark’s jet boots then accidentally ignited the Titanium Man armour, apparently killing the Gremlin. In shock and under Soviet fire, Iron Man flew away. The apparent death of the Gremlin, combined with previous acts of violence and treason during the Armour Wars, led to the Avengers discharging Iron Man.

It is entirely possible that the wily Gremlin survived his apparent death. There is no reason to assume he did not eject himself from the burning armour. Furthermore, the notion that the suit just caught fire from the exhaust of Stark’s jet boots is, to say the least, suspect.

The Gremlin has not been seen since, though.

Description

The Gremlin has an habit of trying to look taller than he is by delivering grand soliloquies while standing ramrod-straight with his hands crossed behind his back.

Personality

Originally the Gremlin was just a power-mad, authoritarian comic book Soviet villain and mastermind. He was aggressive, determined and power-hungry. He always berated and threatened his subordinates and called people ’comrade‘.

He hated the US, and blamed the Hulk for the death of his father, whom he revered and felt duty-bound to replace. Aware that he was but a boy, he compensated by being grandiloquent, claiming that nothing was impossible for him, and publicly committing to ambitious goals for himself.

Rebel rebel

After the destruction of Bitterfrost, the Gremlin became a bitter enemy of the state. He researched better technology and potential allies to strike back against the USSR. Although terse and always telling others about his incredible genius, he seemed considerably less villainous.

Once he realised that part of the issues plaguing the USSR were caused by Dire Wraith infiltration, he became determined to fight them off. It soon became apparent that his actual motivation was to save the Soviet people. Thus, during his alliance with Rom, his DC Heroes RPG Motivation shifted from Power to Responsibility.

His last appearance was a bit of a continuity break. He seemed paranoid and more reclusive and bitter than he was as a super-hero. He also had started smoking. It is likely that something happened that led him to leave the Super-Soldiers and perhaps stop acting as a hero. But the nature of this possible incident is unknown (and, in fact, intriguing).

The Gremlin had a definite paranoid streak, but it was not an Irrational Attraction. It was, in fact, quite rational and did not hamper his reasoning. On two occasions he thought he was hidden from the KGB only to discover they knew where he was all along.

These experience could have led to a plan to fake his death well enough to, this time, fool the KGB. Perhaps he did so because he had detected the Skrull presence, and has been busy fighting against the Secret Invasion  for years before anybody else noticed ?

Quotes

“*We* are blessed with nothing, comrade general ! Rather, as the sole guiding genius behind this installation, it is I who am blessed ! I, the Gremlin ! It was I who conceived the concept of the Super-Trooper — the common soldier outfitted with an advanced-design exoskeleton, giving him 20 times his normal strength — and it was I who decided the Hulk was mandatory for our further research on that project here ! Speak no more of *we*, general ! Simply order the men to bring me the Hulk !”

“Use the gas on him, cretins ! Use the gas !”

“What in Lenin’s name is this ?!”

“Beyond that door lies the ultimate product of a short but thus far fruitful life — a product you shall experience first-hand ! Come with me, general Ross — and behold the psi-clone ! […] From the moment I was old enough to solve the simplest equation, I have devoted myself to finishing my father’s masterwork – a towering computer, capable of duplicating and controlling even the most powerful and resistant human mind !”

“So ! You mock me, but mark me well, comrade Quartermain ! Though I am still but a child, there is nothing the Gremlin cannot do ! I will break the Hulk ! Indeed — I will return with the Hulk as my servant — or I will not return at all !”

(As Droog makes its entrance) “Is he not beautiful, comrade Ross ? I raised him from a pup in the bio-genetics labs ! He is one of a kind — and he is mine !”

“And you, being of another world — do you desire to survive as well ?”

“Never have I witnessed so strong a love — and this from two beings no longer even human ! But, then, for the Gremlin, love of any sort has always been alien !”

“*I* shut your damnable device down, Wraiths, utilising the science I discovered here in your hidden complex — science which my mutant mind easily mastered !”

“Intelligence got me where I am today ! And that same intellect tells me to trust your ’people’s panel‘ about as far as I can throw this building – without my armour !”

By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: Marvel Universe.

Helper(s): Capita_Senyera, Gareth Lewis.