Prime

The Ultraverse did some interesting things, but existed for a brief amount of time. It started in 1993, was bought by Marvel in 1994, and spiralled down until unplugged in 1996.

Like most of our Ultraverse writeups, this profile is based on what was published before the Marvel purchase.

Advertisement

Background

Powers & Abilities

Strength Level

As Prime, Kevin Green possesses vast superhuman strength on a level that is commensurate with that of the Incredible Hulk.

As such, it can only be presumed that he possesses “Class 100+” strength, and can lift or press weights in the range of hundreds of thousands of tons directly overhead.

In his human body, Kevin possesses the typical strength of a teen aged youth of his age, weight and height.

Advertisement

Known Superhuman Powers

As a result of the experimentation performed on his body in utero, Kevin Green gained the ability to exude a thick viscous substance from the pores of his torso. He can then mentally solidify and form that into a pliable, durable sheath that surrounds his body.

The sheath or shell can technically take the appearance of anything. But Kevin’s subconscious mind molds it into the shape and appearance of an impossibly large and exceptionally (borderline grotesquely) muscular human male.

The shell acts as an extension of Kevin’s physical being. While he floats in the middle of the viscous fluid within it, he experiences all of the normal physical sensations he would without it. In some unknown manner, Kevin still breathes. He can eat when encased within the shell.

Kevin’s shell, or Prime body, possesses tremendous strength and resilience to harm. His strength has no practical limits, and he is seemingly impervious to all forms of harm. He has survived small-arms fire, explosions, re-entry and falls from orbit at terminal velocity and even a close range explosion of a nuclear warhead.

Kevin’s Prime body can also fly at speeds greater than the speed of sound. With intense concentration he can project intense waves of energy from its chest.

Limitations

The energy that animates and empowers Kevin’s Prime “shell” is drawn from Kevin’s true body. It thus has limits. When fully rested, Kevin can maintain a Prime shell for several hours. The longest he has maintained a shell has been approximately 48 hours.

As this energy fades, it becomes harder for Kevin to maintain his shell. It begins to break down. Kevin has mastered the ability to summon his Prime shell or cancel it at will, but if he does so when not fully rested, the transformation itself is intensely painful.

History

Russel Green was working in a top secret military research department. He and his wife, Ruth, experienced problems conceiving their first child. They had all but abandoned the idea of having a child of their own when Russel was contacted by Doctor Samuels. Samuels was a leading scientist within the American government’s classified Super-Soldier program.

Samuel’s promised the Green’s a child. He began to put Ruth through several unspecified treatments while taking samples from Russel. To the Green’s elation, Ruth quickly became pregnant with a healthy and robust fetus.

Nine short months later, Ruth gave birth to a literally perfect baby boy. The two named the boy Kevin.

Childhood

With this birth, Russel was forced to reconsider his commission in the military. He made up his mind quickly and resigned in order to work in the private sector. A short time thereafter, Samuels’ project was shut down under mysterious circumstances.

Russel though nothing of it, as he finally had everything he wanted in Kevin. Kevin was a great kid and was genuinely happy. He never got sick, and did well in school. Everything was perfect … until Kevin hit his 13^th year.

Kevin began to experience intense stomach aches, and have some issues with the children in his school. One night, while he was asleep, the pain grew in intensity to the point where he felt he might burst.

With a sudden explosion of pain, Kevin transformed for the first time while half asleep. The transformation lasted for only a few seconds before his “shell” broke down.

Scared, confused and more than a little embarrassed, Kevin hid what happened and the remains of his very first Prime shell from his parents.

It’s Prime time !

The next day, Kevin went to school and tried to act as normal as possible, until he witnessed Coach Meyer inappropriately touching some of the girls after fifth period. In particular, Meyer had touched Kelly who was the single object of Kevin’s affections.

In that moment, he felt a rush of energy rise up within his body. Unable to contain it any longer, he extruded a gelatinous shell directly from his chest that quickly solidified around his body.

Once again, his subconscious mind shaped the shell into the form of a extremely large man. But this time he was dressed in the costume of a comic book hero. Spontaneously giving himself the name Prime, Kevin immediately confronted Coach Meyer and ended up giving the pedophile a compound fracture of his arm.

Terrified at his new-found power Kevin ran, or rather flew, away from the school. Over the next 48 hours, Kevin tested the limits of his new found power by destroying known drug houses . He even flew to Somalia and engaged their army (who were keeping much needed food and medical supplies from their citizens) in impromptu combat.

He had the Somali’s on the run, when he suddenly felt a wave of weakness flow through his body. As the weakness threatened to overtake his limbs, Kevin realized that his super-humanly powerful body was literally melting away.

Terrified, Kevin raced skywards and towards home. In but an instant, he flew from Somalia to Los Angeles and crashed down in his front yard. Seconds later his Prime body disintegrated and Kevin found himself trapped in a shell of slime.

It took him several seconds to fight free of the discarded shell, and afterwards he fell in a naked and exhausted heap at his front door.

Ostracized

He was found by his parents who immediately took him the hospital. It didn’t take Kevin long to recover, and in that time he reveled in the news coverage of his alter ego’s adventures. A day later, Kevin returned to school. He found he was at the center several rumors; his peers thought that he had run away, or was kidnapped, or worse.

Either way, Kevin’s popularity had hit an all time low. Even Kelly was avoiding him. The only manner in which he found that he could engage her in conversation was to bring up Prime. Kelly obviously had developed a school girl crush upon this super-man.

Kelly reacted as predictably as any other teen-aged girl when Kevin mentioned Prime. She unleashed a torrent of words and feelings about the massive hero she encountered. In those moments Kevin came up with a plan.

Later on in class that day, he found himself focusing on the same feelings that brought on the change before. To his surprise, he discovered that triggering the change was much simpler that time … too simple in fact. Kevin rushed from class before the torrent of fluid could burst from his chest.

He managed to reach a secluded area outside of the school just a few moments before the change occurred. When he finally released the dam within him, slime burst from his chest and quickly coalesced into the form of Prime.

Enters the Doctor

Kevin then waited patiently for Kelly to emerge from school and approached her in his Prime body. She shyly allowed him to take her flying. Everything seemed to be working out for Kevin, until he was attacked by a vicious mutate  from behind.

The two super-powered beings fought viciously in the skies over Los Angeles. They put many bystanders including Kelly at great risk. The mutate eventually subdued Kevin by engulfing him within its own body. Helpless and unable to breathe, Kevin eventually lost consciousness and was taken away.

When he awoke, Kevin found himself at the mercy of Doctor Samuels. Samuels had been searching for Kevin for the last decade. He was eager to isolate and identify exactly what it was about Kevin that had made his transformation so successful.

You see for the last 15 years, Samuels had struggled to create superhuman beings like Kevin. But he had yet to have a complete success. He had created several mutated beings, beings that were visibly repulsive and unstable. None had Kevin’s seeming stability or raw power.

As Samuels revealed his plans (and his true origins) to Kevin, Kevin grew more and more upset. With a frantic and berserker rage, Kevin broke free of his restraints and attempted to flee.

Free from medicine

Duey, Samuels assistant, attempted to prevent his escape. He transformed into a savage looking mutate form and attacked Kevin’s Prime body with abandon. The two gigantic beings’ fearsome battle destroyed Samuel’s lab and ended up critically injuring the mad scientist.

Duey let Kevin escape in order to aid his “father” in his final moments. Even as Kevin escaped, Duey subjected Samuels to the mutation process with a slight modification. He included a small amount of Kevin’s mutated DNA to the matrix.

Kevin returned to his home. In a fit of exhaustion, he crashed his Prime body into his father’s car. His father was the first person to respond to the noise and found his son floating unconscious in a deteriorating Prime body.

Unsurprised or phased, Russel dug into the rapidly decomposing Prime body and freed his son. He then revealed to the now conscious Kevin that he had suspicions all along and was not surprised at Kevin’s transformation. The two decided to keep Kevin’s abilities a secret from his mother, while Russell left and searched for a cure.

Drafted into service

Russell didn’t have much time though. Within a day or so, one of Kevin’s battles with a local superhuman drew the American military to him. At the conclusion of the battle, Kevin was taken away by the military who attempted to force him into action as one of their operatives.

Not knowing what to do, Kevin went along with their plans. He eventually found himself on the moon tracing signals from an ancient alien artifact that had become stranded there. The artifact was sentient. In its desperation it had mutated several members of the human race. It hoped that they would eventually leave the earth and free it from its confinement.

Thus, the alien artifact was responsible for the Earth’s Ultra-Humans.

Kevin eventually realized that he wasn’t the only Ultra-human that had an interest in the artifact. He soon found himself confronted by a dozen ultras. Individuals such as Hardcase and Mantra teamed up with the Freex in the attempt to destroy the artifact.

Kevin, having been in telepathic contact with the artifact, decided to protect it from them. He engaged the invading heroes in combat. Eventually, the entire situation was sorted out and the artifact was freed from its captivity.

Kevin returned to Earth. He quickly found himself at the mercy of the government again. This time, they affixed a control collar to his human body’s neck to prevent him from going AWOL again. They forced him to participate in a series of missions until his father’s ally, Firearm, came to his aid.

Firearm helped Kevin escape in the night, but not before being surrounded by soldiers who were under strict orders to kill him. During the escape, Kevin (ever the impressionable youth) became enamored of Firearms attitude and mystique.

Wanting nothing less than to help the man that rescued him and to never be manipulated or pushed around again, Kevin broke free of the collar and transformed into Prime. But this time, it was different.

Going rogue

Prime’s body had taken on a completely new form. In the place of bright colors and cape were deep blacks, blues and chains. With his new appearance came a new attitude, one that resembled Firearm’s.

Kevin tore through the soldiers and confronted the colonel who was in charge of the entire operation. Rather than face Kevin, the colonel took his own life. Now freed from the military, Kevin returned home and went “rogue.”

His experiences had left him bitter, petulant and angry. He was somewhat unstable before, but at this point he began to pick unnecessary fights with the people who surrounded him and destroyed public property because he could. He even fought with other Ultra-Humans to simply prove he was stronger.

This finally changed when he was confronted by Hardcase, who attacked him while he was flying over the Hollywood sign. The two fought briefly, and Kevin was prepared to go all out when Hardcase begged him to surrender or someone who he cared about would die.

Samuels returns

At first, Kevin thought it was a trick, but eventually realized that Hardcase had told him the truth. Kevin surrendered and let himself be taken captive by Hardcase. Hardcase led Kevin to the lair of the man who had captured his comatose lover (Starburst) and to Kevin’s surprise, it was Samuels.

Samuels had survived their previous encounter, and become all the better for it. His body had transformed much like Kevin’s into a superhumanly powerful facsimile of his true body, but it was much much larger and much much stronger. Alongside Duey, he easily rendered Kevin helpless and the two took him away, leaving Hardcase alone with Starburst.

Kevin awoke from unconsciousness within yet another one of Samuels’ lairs once more. But this time he was not alone. Samuels (who had started to call himself Doctor Gross) had kept Starburst’s comatose form for himself. He hoped to breed her with Kevin in the attempt to create more superhumans.

Horrified and disgusted, Kevin resisted the temptation easily and freed himself from Samuels manacles in his human form. As he did, Duey and Doctor Gross pursued him. They were stopped by Hardcase who had tracked Samuels to his new lair and desperately wanted Starburst back.

Rebirth of a hero

Hardcase did his best to battle the mutated twosome but was grossly outmatched in raw strength. Despite this, he refused to yield and kept fighting. Hardcase’s heroism inspired Kevin and touched something deep within him.

Kevin found himself pondering his actions of the previous week(s) and felt shame creeping into his soul. Angry at himself and his actions, Kevin resolved from that day forward to be more than what he had been.

With a single thought, he willed his transformation to take place and a new Prime stood before the battling trio once more. Kevin’s body now closely resembled his original one, but still had traces of the one inspired by Firearm.

Kevin threw himself at both Gross and Duey. With his awesome “Primal Power” managed to fight them to a standstill. As it turned out, Samuels mutated body was unstable, and unable to withstand Kevin’s assault.

Even as the tunnel they had been fighting in collapsed about them, Samuel’s mutated form melted away. When he turned to Duey for help, Duey simply consumed his body in a fit of jealousy. Duey felt that Samuels didn’t value him since his body wasn’t beautiful like Kevin’s.

As Kevin and Hardcase escaped the collapse of Samuel’s lair with Starburst, Duey disappeared into the darkness.

Hardcase and Kevin eventually emerged into the sunlight, and exchanged a brief handshake before parting ways. What Hardcase could not know, was that Kevin had promised himself that from that point on, no one would be saying Prime was childish or monstrous, or anything else.

Instead, he vowed from that point on, the only thing people would say was that Prime was a hero.

Description

Kevin Green is a relatively plain looking 13 year old boy. He has mousy brown hair that sits in an unruly mop on top of his head, plain blue eyes and a freckled complexion. He is of average height and weight for his age. Under normal circumstances does not have any features that truly stand out or would draw attention to him.

As Prime, Kevin’s body is transformed into an impossibly large and exceptionally (borderline grotesquely) muscular human male. He is clothed in a colorful costume that greatly resembles that of Superman or Shazam. The costume is a red, yellow and blue number.

The majority of the costume (including the torso, forearm guards and boots) are a bright yellow color. The pants/tights are red on the outside with blue stripes down the interior of his legs. A long red and blue cape (red in the center of the cape, with blue trim on the right and left sides) flows down from his shoulders to hang just above his ankles.

To top it off, his hands are covered by red gloves. Kevin’s Prime body’s face is a near duplicate of his father’s face. It too has sandy brown hair but the freckles are gone.

Of note, anyone who has actually come into contact with Prime has always noted that the costume itself feels as though it was made of skin. This is actually true, the costume is physically a part of Kevin’s body. Should it become torn or shredded it will bleed the same viscous green ichor that fills the Prime body.

Personality

For the majority of his story, Kevin was a confused young man trying to gain a grip of the unusual situation that he was thrust into. Despite the fact that he came from a well adjusted family, he displayed a tendency to over-react to outside stimulus. He also tended to act out again people of authority or anyone he felt was trying to tell him what to do.

His immaturity and limited life experience bred within him the belief that “Might made Right,” and since he was the strongest being their was, he was always right.

To make matters worse, Kevin already had a volatile temperament. It always led him to conflict with those he most certainly should have been allies with. In some cases, it seemed like the slightest word of disagreement would lead to either physical conflict or Kevin simply abandoning his allies to whatever fate had in store for them.

Eventually though, Kevin’s experience with Hardcase and the superhero team Ultraforce, managed to temper Kevin’s personality. He truly made the effort to become not only more mature, but even heroic.

Quotes

“I protect the innocent — and expose the guilty. That is the PRIME DIRECTIVE !”

“Better learn the PRIME LESSON… You play with fire, you get burned !”

“Who are you ? Doesn’t matter ! You START it — PRIME ENDS IT !”

“You don’t know everything do you ? Like you don’t know how fast I am — when I’m moving in PRIME TIME !”

“Get out of the way Kelly ! This is going to be a battle PRIME !”

“PRIME is the strongest there is !”

“You might say it’s become my PRIME concern !”

“It’s Prime Time !”

“I’ll show you some Primal Power !”

“From now on nobody’s going to say that Prime acts like a KID… or even a teenager. They’re just going to say that PRIME acts like a hero !”

Marvel Universe History

The entire Malibu line up of characters was eventually acquired by Marvel Comics. The characters within ended up having several cross overs with the characters from the Marvel Universe including: the X-Men, the Avengers, the Hulk, Spider-Man and entities like the Phoenix.

As such, Prime already has a defined presence in the Marvel Universe proper. It may only be time before he is re-introduced to said stable of characters.

By Bryan Gittens.

Source of Character: Malibu Comic Series – Prime, created by Gerard Jones (author), Len Strazewski (author) and Norm Breyfogle (illustrator).

Writeup completed on the 15^th of June, 2013.