REAL NAME: Mar-Vell
KNOWN ALIASES: Dr. Walter Lawson
IDENTITY: None
OCCUPATION: Protector of the Universe; former astronomy assistant, captain of the Kree military
CITIZENSHIP: Kree Empire
PLACE OF BIRTH: Rad Nam, city of Kree-Lar, planet Hala, Kree Galaxy
MARITAL STATUS: Single
KNOWN RELATIVES: Genis-Vell (son, deceased), Phyla (daughter), Hulkling (son)
GROUP AFFILIATION: Honorary member of the Avengers; Legion of the Unliving (after death); Kree military
EDUCATION: Kree military training
FIRST APPEARANCE: Marvel Super-Heroes Vol. 2 #12 (1967)

HISTORY: Mar-Vell was a member of the Kree race who was born with pink skin, the mark of interbreeding which his race had induced in the hopes of escaping the evolutionary dead end they had found themselves in. Mar-Vell became a captain at a young age, and engaged in many battles with the Kree’s greatest foes, the Skrulls. He was assigned to the vessel Pama, where he fell in love with the medic Una, to the annoyance of his superior Colonel Yon-Rogg, who also desired Una.

After battling Devros, a Kree officer who had become infected by the Brood, Mar-Vell was transferred to the vessel Helion along with Una and Yon-Rogg, and they were sent on a mission to Earth on behalf of the Kree's Supreme Intelligence. Sentry#459, a robot the Kree-had stationed on Earth millennia before, had been recently awakened by the Fantastic Four, reigniting the Kree's interest in humanity.

Yon-Rogg dispatched Mar-Vell to Earth to recover the Sentry; along the way, Mar-Vell witnessed the death of Dr. Walter Lawson, a scientist on his way to a new post at Cape Canaveral, where the Sentry was being held. Mar-Vell noticed a resemblance between himself and Lawson, and masqueraded as him in order to mingle with humanity. At Cape Canaveral he met Carol Danvers, the chief of security. Carol was attracted to Mar-Vell, but he remained loyal to Una. Hoping to have Una to himself, Yon-Rogg reactivated Sentry#459 from the Helion in order to pit it against Mar-Vell and kill him. However, Mar-Vell wound up defeating the robot in battle; during the course of his struggle, garbed in his Kree uniform, he was assumed by onlookers to be a super hero, and hearing his name to be "Captain Mar-Vell" assumed his alias was "Captain Marvel."

Mar-Vell remained on Earth in the Lawson identity to continue studying humanity on behalf of his superiors, and Yon-Rogg continued to conspire against him. Mar-Vell found that he loved humanity, and humanity, for the most part, welcomed him as a new hero. Unfortunately, neither Mar-Vell nor Yon-Rogg ultimately won the affections of Una as she was tragically slain during a battle between the Kree and the Aakon.

Mar-Vell then fell into the clutches of Ronan and Zarek, two Kree officials conspiring against the Supreme Intelligence. They endowed Mar-Vell with superhuman powers so that they could then frame him for the attempted destruction of Hala by way of a magnetic generator designed to tear the planet apart. They intended to claim that it was actually the Supreme Intelligence who had powered Mar-Vell, thus providing grounds for the Supreme Intelligence to be ousted, but Mar-Vell destroyed the generator.

As it turned out, the Supreme Intelligence had himself manipulated Ronan and Zarek's plans to his own ends, and had Mar-Vell brought to him for safety. When Ronan attempted to kill the Supreme Intelligence with an anti-matter bomb, Mar-Vell flung himself over the bomb to shield the Supremor, but the Supremor had already deactivated the bomb. The Supreme Intelligence was impressed with Mar-Vell and allowed him to keep most of the powers the conspirators had given him, and also provided him with a uniform. But as Mar-Vell set out back into space, he was swallowed into the Negative Zone.

From the Negative Zone, Mar-Vell made psychic contact with the human Rick Jones on Earth and directed him to a Kree base which held the Nega-Bands. Rick donned the bands and by striking them together, found that he could release Mar-Vell from the Negative Zone while simultaneously placing himself there in Mar-Vell's place, Mar-Vell finally faced Yon-Rogg, by now a sworn enemy. Yon-Rogg took Carol Danvers hostage and threatened to activate a Psyche-Magnetron, the Kree's most powerful weapon. As the two men fought, the-weapon overloaded, and Mar-Vell chose to save Carol, leaving Yon-Rogg to die. Unknown to either Mar-Vell or Carol at the time, radiation from the Psyche-Magnetron imprinted some of Mar-Vell's power upon Carol; she later adopted the identity of Ms. Marvel, donning a costume similar to Mar-Vell's, and subsequently served in the Avengers as Warbird.

Rick finally set Mar-Vell free by journeying to the Baxter Building, where he used Mr. Fantastic's portal to the Negative Zone to release Mar-Vell. Immediately afterward, when the Kree-Skrull War erupted, Mar-Vell was a key player as the Skrulls had the Super-Skrull appear to him as Carol Danvers in an attempt at tricking him into providing them with the Omni-Wave Projector, a Kree communications device which could also be used as a weapon by non-Kree. Rick wound up halting the war with the psychic powers the Supreme Intelligence untapped from his mind. However, Rick was so depleted that Mar-Vell remerged with Rick to save his life. Mar-Vell’s powers were soon altered again, as Professor Benjamin Savannah performed experiments which allowed him fire photonic energy blasts, but he would lose some of this power when deprived of sunlight.

As the mad Titan Thanos sought to win Death's favor by wielding the Cosmic Cube to alter reality, Mar-Vell was approached by Eon, keeper of cosmic awareness. Eon tested Mar-Vell and determined that he was worthy of the mantle of Protector of the Universe. As Eon did not possess the Quantum Bands he normally bestowed upon the one who bore the mantle of Protector, he instead granted Mar-Vell cosmic awareness. Charged with the task of thwarting Thanos, Mar-Vell's new power alerted him that while Thanos seemed to have drained all of the energy from the Cosmic Cube, it was still, in fact, his power source. By shattering the Cosmic Cube, Thanos was defeated, and Mar-Vell won his greatest victory.

Shortly afterward, Mar-Vell fought the villain Nitro, who had stolen a canister of nerve gas. Although Mar-Vell stopped Nitro, the canister was broken. Mar-Vell seemed to recover from exposure to the gas at the time.

Mar-Vell went on to face the Lunatic Legion, a faction of Kree led by Ronan and Zarek in conspiring against the Supreme Intelligence. Despite his loyalty to the Supreme Intelligence, Mar-Vell eventually learned that his ruler's only motivation had been to merge Mar-Vell with Rick so that after Rick had tapped into his psychic powers; the Supreme Intelligence could then absorb Rick's mind into itself. The Supreme intelligence could not absorb a non-Kree mind ordinarily, but Rick's merging with Mar-Vell made it possible for him to do so: Rick and Mar-Vell turned against the Supreme Intelligence, and Mar-Vell was forced to abandon the Kree Empire permanently.

Mar-Vell continued to seek adventure on Earth, facing menaces such as the Stranger and the Cheetah, as well as Drax the Destroyer, an enemy of Thanos' who blamed Mar-Vell for cheating him of his purpose. While assisting the Avengers against the Super-Adaptoid, a creature which could mimic the powers of anyone it encountered, the Super-Adaptoid generated its own pair of Nega-Bands. When Mar-Vell struck his bands and the Adaptoid's together, it resulted in the Adaptoid being exiled to the Negative Zone, while Rick was finally set free from the Negative Zone permanently.

Without Rick, Mar-Vell drifted aimlessly for a while, working at an observatory on Earth for a time, and considered joining the Defenders for one day. He again found himself hounded by the Kree for his unique genetics when the scientist Dr. Minerva attempted to force him to mate with her so that she could spawn a superior race of Kree. Minerva took Rick as a hostage to force Mar-Vell's compliance, but he saved Rick and spurned Minerva.

Mar-Vell also teamed with the Avengers against Thanos, during which he witnessed the death of Adam Warlock. He later aided the people of Titan against a revolt by their computer ISAAC, whose program had been corrupted by Thanos. In the course of this adventure, Mar-Vell fell in love with Elysius, a lieutenant of ISAAC's who switched sides. Eon then directed Mar-Vell to return to Earth to face new menaces, which Mar-Vell did, bringing Elysius with him. While back on Earth, he aided the Avengers against the cosmic menace of Korvac.

Unfortunately, Mar-Vell's earlier exposure to the nerve gas bore fatal consequences. Mar-Vell learned on Titan that he had cancer, and had no hope of a cure. As Mar-Vell's health faltered, he was joined by Rick, Elysius, Drax, and many of the heroes he had fought alongside on Earth, all of whom paid him tribute at his deathbed. He was granted honorary membership in the Avengers; even the Skrulls presented him with the Royal Skrull Medal of Valor. As he succumbed to Death, Mar-Vell was welcomed by Thanos, who engaged his foe in battle so that Mar-Vell could enjoy one last struggle before passing. Mar-Vell then died and was buried on Titan. Since Mar-Vell's death, Elysius used some of his genetic material to impregnate herself, creating Genis-Vell. Genis eventually adopted the mantle of Captain Marvel to honor the father he never knew, and like his father, received a pair of Nega-Bands and was bonded to Rick Jones. Following a time warp, it was revealed that Elysius had also created a daughter, Phyla, via Mar-Vell's genetic material. Mar-Vell's body and spirit have been restless since his parting: his spirit has visited the Silver Surfer, Genis, and Quasar (his successor as Protector of the Universe), and has been controlled by the Grandmaster and the Grim Reaper to serve in their respective Legions of the Unliving; his corpse was raided by the Kree's Captain Atlas for the Nega-Bands, which were later used to create the Shi'ar's Nega-Bomb, and his body was also raised by the Negative Zone creature Syphonn to slay Elysius, but Genis later revived his mother.

Despite these unusual occurrences, Mar-Vell is still remembered throughout the universe as one of the noblest warriors to have existed a staggering legacy for successors such as Quasar and Genis-Vell to live up to.

HEIGHT: 6 ft. 2 in.
WEIGHT: 240 lbs.
EYES: Blue
HAIR: Blond, originally white

STRENGTH LEVEL: Originally Captain Mar-Vell possessed the normal level of strength for a Kree of his age, height, and build who engaged in intensive regular exercise. Under Earth's gravity he could lift (press) 1000 pounds. His Kree nega-bands enabled Mar-Vell to convert his psionic energy into physical strength, so that he could then lift (press) 10 tons.

KNOWN SUPERHUMAN POWERS: Originally, Captain Mar-Vell had no superhumanoid powers. However, the Kree have evolved with greater strength than Earth humans in order to combat the heavier gravity of their home worlds.

The Kree nega-bands converted Mar-Vell's psionic energy into strength (he could now lift 10 tons), a high degree of imperviousness to harm, and the power to fly. They also allowed Mar-Vell to exist unprotected in outer space without having to breathe.

Dr. Benjamin Savannah's radiation treatment altered Mar-Vell genetic structure so that he could absorb solar energy and convert it to various uses. When his solar power was at its peak, Mar-Vell could then lift (press) 15 tons with the nega-bands on. He then relied on the solar power rather than the bands for flight, and would leave a glowing trail behind him.

The exact nature and scope of the "cosmic awareness" granted to Mar-Vell by Eon have never been clearly defined. Apparently it enabled him to sense the presence of beings and objects in the universe that were somehow of importance to him for whatever reason. It may be somewhat comparable to Spider-Man's spider-sense and to Mantis's awareness of psychic "vibrations," but its scope was far greater than either.

NOTE: Updated using “The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Book of the Dead 2004”