Thursday, February 9, 2023

Death(urge), and Rebirth!

 

As a companion piece to the PPC's recent profile on Quasar--the 1989 hero patterned after Bob Grayson, the early 1950s adventurer known as Marvel Boy--we now circle back to take a closer look at those on the seventh planet whose existence paved the way for both characters: the doomed inhabitants of the Uranus colony, who welcomed Prof. Matthew Grayson and his infant son following their desertion of Earth in 1934. It was Prof. Grayson who would later renege on his decision to leave Earth to the mercies of tyrants and warmongers, outfitting his son to undertake missions on the world of his birth in order to help man "see his way to peace and righteousness." Until Quasar began appearing in his own series, the Uranians served as little more than supportive backdrop for the Graysons, the mystery of their existence on Uranus seemingly dying with them when their story is resurrected in late 1975 by writer Roy Thomas*, who returns a vengeful Marvel Boy to Earth as the Crusader.


*The details of Prof. Grayson's backstory have been modified several times in retellings, which added a middle name for the character as well as a previous surname. Thomas has chosen to use "Horace" as Prof. Grayson's given name.

With Bob Grayson's wrist bands coming into the possession of Wendell Vaughn, who fell into depression following his resignation as head of security for Project Pegasus, his father sees an opportunity to alleviate that state by suggesting Wendell undertake a mission to Uranus in order to gather more information about the bands' operation and capabilities. It's a mission, however, where Quasar will also discover his destiny, as well as the truth behind the destruction of the Uranian colony.



Quasar serves as our eyes and ears when he makes landfall on Uranus and brings us our first extensive look at the ruins of this colony, now a frozen graveyard of its former inhabitants. In preliminary reports transmitted back to Earth, he can only determine that the destruction of the colony's protective dome appeared to occur from within--while evidence of a Kree sentry has also been found. Unfortunately, he's seen no indications of anything pertaining to his energy bands; in addition, to his dismay, he later discovers that his communications with Earth ceased upon landing, which leads to a state of despondency at a mission that was seemingly undertaken for nothing.


But Vaughn's words, and, more importantly, his state of mind, have been noted by a figure who now appears in his midst--and through him, we learn details of the colonists' origin, their true reason for welcoming the Graysons (née the Grabsheids), and their ultimate goal which, when realized, preceded their end.



The macabre Deathurge, first introduced in 1981 when in the service of the revenge-seeking geneticist named Maelstrom, is quite the wild card to discover conducting his affairs on a planet 1¾ billion miles from Earth. Yet it's equally stunning that an offshoot race of the Eternals came to decide that mass suicide was their only option after completing their centuries-long task to decipher the secret of the universe. Why didn't these scholars and philosophers then turn their collective minds toward alleviating the state of boredom they subsequently became mired in? Strange that Deathurge would include Prof. Grayson in his mandate, as it seems unlikely that the man was in the same state of crushing despair or would choose to die along with the others.

Yet such speculation becomes pointless when Deathurge, playing on Vaughn's own recent doubts of his self-worth, informs him that his own time has come.


Soon enough, Quasar finds that his own powers are ineffectual against this figure, and the only option left to him is flight. Inevitably, Deathurge's declaration that there is no escape for Quasar proves true. One fatal strike is then followed by another--and Quasar is overcome, though the end result surprises both pursuer and victim.



We discover that Quasar's benefactor, Eon, has chosen the moment to both save Quasar and offer him a new role in the universe as its protector. Given Quasar's recent state of mind, he's understandably unsure if he's up to such a responsibility, yet it's to his credit that he accepts nonetheless. (Had he not, it would certainly have left readers wondering why they coughed up a buck for this issue.)

With new drive, determination and confidence, he returns to face Deathurge once more, this time having been mentally bequeathed total mastery of the power of his quantum bands. But it will be his renewed hunger and invigoration for life which will see him through.



It's interesting to note that cosmic awareness wasn't part of the deal this time around with Eon's offer, though it might have been considered overkill in light of having quantum bands on one's wrists. (Mar-vell, for instance, was unable to initiate spacial jumps in distance.) Also, given this refreshing change in the character, I might have gone further with the costume alterations and ditched the cape as well as the headband in order to take "Marvel Boy" out of the picture entirely.

If you still have a hankering for more of the Uranians, you might want to take a look at the 2010 three-issue series Marvel Boy: The Uranian, where writer Jeff Parker turns his focus on Bob Grayson's 1950s adventures and delves more into the Uranians.


11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why wasn't Deathurge named Thanatos? Because it's too much like Thanos! When Quasar abbreviated the villain's name to D'Urge, it brought to mind D'Spayre. The two aren't a thousand miles apart. Overall, not a bad tale, but Quasar's hard-won maturity's punctured by the final panel, with its "Gee Whiz, wait'll Dad hears this!" vibe. You'd never catch Mar-vell saying that - whether he could quantum-jump, or not!

Phillip

Comicsfan said...

Actually, Phillip, I was a little more surprised by Eon now appearing to be tagging along at Quasar's side for the duration. I suppose that would make sense, since Quasar seems in need of some guidance in his new, heady vocation--but perhaps a limited series would be better suited for a hero who still needs to be taken under another's wing.

Anonymous said...

Okay, but where does the Eternal Uranos fit into this? As I recall, his first appearance was in a flashback in Starlin's Captain Marvel arc. I think he was originally intended to be the Greek god, but as we know, Marvel retconned all that. At any rate, I was under the impression that he established the Uranus colony, having been exiled by Zues or Zuras, as the case may be.
I ran across Uranos in an Eternal one-shot online sometime back, and he's depicted rather like Thanos: big, hairless, ugly and genocidal. That makes some sense, him being Thanos' uncle.
Recessive genes, maybe?
Also, the two didn't seem to like each other very much! Not very surprising, I guess. I can't remember the name of that comic, but it was rather interesting. My gripe with it was the depiction of the Deviants, who seemed to be just weird little guys running around waiting to get exterminated.
Deviants oughtta be a lot more interesting (and formidable) than that!

On another note, I had thought Deathurge was one of Maelstrom's mutates, but instead he appears to be a low-level cosmic entity of sorts. Maybe he works for Death, who knows.

M.P.

Comicsfan said...

Your history is just a tad skewed around the edges, M.P., but you've got many of the essentials down. First of all, Uranus didn't have much of a chance to establish anything, given that he was on the losing end of the brutal war between the titans (which took place on Olympus, at least in Starlin's arc)--and while his story seemingly ends with being exiled to the same-named planet, thanks to all the retconning that was actually his clone from what I understand, with the real McCoy remaining to face judgment by Chronos' faction. (I frankly have no idea what became of him.) In the same story, A'lars, one of the children of Chronos, met exile himself at Zeus's hand and later settled on Titan to marry and create the paradise that Mentor et al. inherited.

That follow-up series by Jeff Parker may have more on our clone of Uranus, you'd have to check and see. My curiosity of that series may prompt me to give it a full read myself one of these days.

Anonymous said...

Maybe a post on the character is in order, C.F.! ;)
Clear up this whole mess.

M.P.

Comicsfan said...

Some Marvel messes are beyond my poor capabilities, M.P.! (E.g., though I've touched on aspects of it, to this day I prefer to give the whole Spider-Man/"clonage" saga a wide berth.)

Anonymous said...

As regards exploring the clones saga, "Many hands make light work" !


I'll get my coat...

Phillip

Big Murr said...

I'm entirely stuck on the opening splash page where the captions explain that Quasar has been travelling to reach Uranus for years!! My comic book mind can't process that at all. Does subsequent text explain why a superhero (with light-based power) travel at the speed of a poor, mundane NASA probe? On an Earth where a superhero in good standing can mooch a superspeed ship or teleport from many sources?

Comicsfan said...

I can't speak for the FF, the Avengers, SHIELD, or any other source which Quasar could have petitioned for transport to Uranus, Murray, but I don't think we can equate Quasar's power prior to traveling to that world with that of Monica Rambeau. As he stated, he "can harness the power of stars... of quasars!" and emit stellar energy, but could not (to my knowledge) actually become light as could the new Captain Marvel and thus achieve light speed. As we've learned here, he only learned through Eon of the bands' ability to make the trip from Uranus to Earth a near-instantaneous one.

Anonymous said...

I agree a better costume was needed. Eventually Quasar would get a decent costume after the Cosmos in Collision storyline. Obviously still derived from Marvel Boy's, but more attractive. I do agree that if he had a more original costume it probably would have been better for the character. The costume reflects its legacy but does not reflect the name "Quasar" or a "cosmic hero".

A major problem of the first two years of Quasar, IMO, is the rather slow pace of how Gruenwald develops the character and storyline. Gruenwald needed to get to the cool stuff about cosmic heroes fast in order to grab the reader's attention, but he wastes precious time on a lot of pedestrian stuff and a slow build up. But there are a few issues that show the promise of the title.

Gruenwald had some strengths as a writer and some weaknesses. Unfortunately one of his weaknesses was to take concepts that should be awe inspiring and majestic and reduce them to the ordinary and mundane. He just can't blow your mind in a way that Kirby, Starlin, Claremont, or Ditko does. Even Englehart does better, and he is nowhere near these others (I consider Steve Englehart to be someone who has great concepts, but often mediocre execution).

My own introduction to "cosmic" space opera stuff was Stern's run in the Avengers with the introduction of Nebula hijacking Sanctuary II. Stern isn't quite at the level of the others I mentioned for cosmic stuff, but he definitely impressed me with the scope and expansiveness and wonder of space. And that is something Gruenwald rarely achieved during his time on Quasar.

Chris

Comicsfan said...

Heh, I couldn't help but note the change in costume following the CiC arc, Chris, particularly the way it was announced in the cover caption: "In His All New And Final Costume," which I assumed was either the captioner getting quippy or might have been a nod to letters page comments on the subject. For myself, the ideal look for Quasar was on the cover of issue 16 (by artist Steve Lightle), if you were to picture it without the cape--much more delineation in the chest and waist areas that offered greater contrast and reduced the red coloring to something less garish, serving to make the character more imposing.