They call him ... Grotesk --!
(I was going to try to continue my retrospective of Ms. Marvel rogues, and wanted to do a sketch along with this write-up. Well, the sketches just aren't happening, but rather than wait around, here's some of my thoughts....)
This guy was originally an X-Men villain-- which makes it kind of amazing how much overlap there is between Ms. Marvel villains and X-Men villains. (Okay, not SO amazing, considering how Chris Claremont was the author of both for a significant number of years.)
Basically, he's just one of those underground civilization-type guys-- you know, the kind that are upset at the whole surface world because we kept doing underground nuclear testing. But when trying to revenge his peoples, he ran into the X-Men, got hoisted by his own petard, and disappeared for many, many years of publishing history. (But hey, the battle was one of distinction, as it was the first time Professor X died! Actually, it was the Changeling in place of Professor X, but at the time, who knew?)
Grotesk surprisingly survived, beating up Ms. Marvel when he tried to steal a special alien crystal, and later battling her again when he used the crystal to create a giant warp energy implosion to destroy the earth. Instead, Ms. Marvel allowed Grotesk to be fall into the warp he was creating, hoisting him by the petard once more.
Currently, Grotesk is little more than a spirit-possessed armor, and if you remove the helmet, his spirit "dissipates," which kind of … defeats the purpose doesn't it? I mean, let's face it, if he's got one gimmick, it's in the name. That and he is a seven-foot tall, Hulk-like monstrosity.
Re-Villaining!
So here's my re-villaining-- if the guy's a spirit now, make him all spirit… but keep him motivated by the revenge against the "surface world." He can possess his victims, causing them to Grotesk-out into the ugly muscle-bound freak he used to be. But Grotesk isn't simply about possession so he can walk around and go to Starbucks. No, he will be willing to destroy humanity one person at a time-- purposefully getting them into suicidal situations and then leaving them. And what would be more suicidal than purposefully getting into battles with superheroes? Imagine Ms. Marvel having to save people from themselves, only to be in the classic I-Must-But-Must-Not throw-down!
This guy has a bit of stories left in him and a whole lot of tradition behind him, once you can get a bit creative around the whole subeterranean civilization thing. Those kinds of stories have tended to fall into fairly predictable patterns by now.
For more information on Grotesk, another blog has recently started a more detailed documentary. It's called, appropriately enough, Groteskology.
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