I am the chosen avatar of death. You want to learn about pain? I'll teach you! ... Now, who wants to go save the universe? 
- —Martyr[src]
History
Origin
After Genis-Vell, then known as Captain Marvel, destroyed and recreated the universe,[7] the "new" version was subtly altered. In this universe, Genis unconsciously created a better version of himself that was able to bring his mother Elysius back to life through an epic quest combining science and magic in unprecedented ways. Elysius was so impressed, she decided to repeat the process that had given life to Genis and create a daughter, Phyla.[8]
In time, Genis grew insane over his cosmic awareness, and Elysius told Phyla she was the new "Captain Marvel", telling her she had to face her brother. Phyla did as ordered, but their fight ended with the whole family stuck in the Nth-Space. This turned out to be a blessing, however, as Elysius was finally able to snap Genis out of his insanity and put him on a righteous path.[9]
Magus
To save Rick Jones' girlfriend, Marlo Chandler, Genis had to travel to the future to see what would be the cause of her future demise. He asked Phyla to stay behind on Earth to keep watch over Marlo. In doing so, she encountered the being known as the Magus, who tried to kidnap Marlo. She and the telepath Moondragon foiled the plot, and Genis returned to Earth shortly after, telling her that he had also stopped the villain in the future.[10]
After this, Phylla invited Moondragon to defend the galaxy by her side, which Moondragon gladly accepted.[11] The two later attended the trial of Starfox together.[12]
Annihilation
Some time later, Phyla's brother was killed.[13][14] As she visited Genis and her father's graves with Moondragon, the pair were attacked by Thanos, who quickly overpowered the couple and ripped off Moondragon's ear, giving it to Phyla. Before teleporting away, he told her to go to Drax the Destroyer and tell him his actions would determine Moondragon's fate. Once she got to Drax, he indicated he would continue his pursuit of Thanos.[15]
Phyla then joined the United Front against the Annihilation Wave, but they ended up suffering terrible losses, and the survivors had to retreat.[16] Feeling like the war was otherwise lost, Nova decided to try and kill Annihilus, and was joined on this mission by Phyla and Peter Quill, the legendary Star-Lord.[17] Ultimately in the battle, Phyla managed to steal away the Quantum Bands that Annihilus took from Wendell Vaughn, the original Quasar, weakening him and allowing Nova to finally bring an end to the Annihilation Wave. She was then seen reunited with Moondragon, and decided it was up to her to become the new Quasar.[18]
Around this time, she noticed that she'd lost her cosmic awareness, assuming it was a side effect of the Quantum Bands.[19]
Annihilation: Conquest
She was then seen on the Kree fringe-world of Lamentis, along with Moondragon, helping with the rebuilding after the Annihilation Wave. They helped defend a temple from raiders, wanting to teach that peace rather than violence was the way to go. Later, they were attacked by a Kree Sentry, when the Phalanx took over the War-Net. Phyla was the first to discover that the Kree Empire was cut off from the rest of the galaxy; and was told by a mysterious voice that she needed to "Find the Deliverer. Find the Redeemer".[3]
Accompanied by Moondragon, she followed the commands of that voice, which instructed her to find the "savior" of the Kree empire. After battling the Super Adaptoid, however, she realized that Annihilus had corrupted the Quantum Bands and she had to control herself not to succumb to his annihilating instincts; moreover, she couldn't abuse her Quasar powers, since the border around the Kree Empire had cut her off from the bands' energy source and they were running on stored energy only. When they met the Super Adaptoid again, he successfully replicated Phyla's bands and left to look for the savior, ahead of the heroes. In the meantime, Moondragon had been injured and, in her weaker state, succumbed to an old demon of hers called the Dragon of the Moon, being immediately transformed into a giant dragon. Phyla was frightened at first, and was shocked to learn Heather could never revert back to her human form, but she decided to remain by her lover's side, claiming that their telepathic connection was unshaken and that was more than enough.[20]
Quasar and the newly transformed Moondragon then tracked the savior to the remote planet Morag IV, where they were ambushed by the Super-Adaptoid. The heroes quickly recovered thanks to the locals, but discovered that the Adaptoid had already reached the savior and was attempting to assimilate them. After a brief fight, the Adaptoid unleashed a horde of Phalanax on the nearby town, forcing Quasar to choose the innocents over the savior at the cost of exhausting her Quantum Bands.[21] Feeling defeated, she almost gave up, but she was cheered up by the grateful natives, who assured her they would rather die fighting then wait to be assimilated. Hopeful once more, Phyla faced the Super-Adaptoid yet again, as Moondragon and the natives handled the horde.[5]
At first, the Super-Adaptoid had the upper hand, but Phyla reabsorbed some of the power he had stolen into her bands and, upon realizing he could only copy her powers in the exact way she had used them before, she used her imagination to summon all sorts of creatures, that overwhelmed the Super-Adaptoid, culminating in this defeat. In the end, as she was succumbing to Annihilus' corruption again, Wendell Vaughn's spirit briefly appeared to assure her she would make a great Quasar and to vanish Annihilus' influence for good. As she reunited with Moondragon and faced a cocoon from where the savior's energy was emanating, the mysterious voice guiding Phyla finally identified itself as the Kree Supreme Intelligence, who confirmed the savior, Adam Warlock, was inside the cocoon. Moondragon and the Supreme Intelligence helped Warlock re-emerge,[5] but he was younger than expected (due to the prematurity of his re-emergence) and troubled, despite the mental work of Moondragon and the Supreme Intelligence to soothe him.[22]
Adam did not see the war with the Phalanx as his fight, but when the Phalanx came to capture him, he sped them far away, to a sanctuary used by the High Evolutionary, who Adam hoped could help them. Unfortunately, the sanctuary was attacked by the Phalanx's leader Ultron, shortly afterwards and he killed Moondragon.[23] The grieving Phyla then accompanied Adam and the High Evolutionary to Hala, where they hoped to activate a superhuman Kree army, but the High Evolutionary ended up betraying his companions to save his own skin, subduing Phyla and transferring Ultron's mind into Adam's body.[24]
When Ultron faced trouble with the arrival o Nova and the Technarch also named Warlock, Phyla had a vision of Moondragon, informing her that the barrier isolating the Kree galaxy had weakened and her bands were filling with energy once again. Though Phyla desired Moondragon to return, her lover urged her to help their friends. Joining the battle, Phyla returned Adam's soul to his body, once the Technarch Warlock forced Ultron out of it. After this, Ultron created a massive body made out of thousands of Kree Sentries that Ronan the Accuser was intending to use to annihilate Hala, but Adam empowered Phyla with the souls of the Kree to give her more power and she used her Quantum Sword to slash Ultron in half, effectively killing him.[25]
Guardians of the Galaxy
Phyla later joined Star-Lord's new Guardians of the Galaxy, a group dedicated to protecting the universe at all times,[26] but when Drax revealed to the rest of the team that he had overheard the truth of how the Guardians were formed: that Star-Lord had Mantis tamper with their minds to ensure the formation of the team, the team to broke up and everyone went their separate way.[27]
Phyla accompanied Drax in his search for Cammi. While doing so, they encountered a soothsayer who informed them that they could save Moondragon.[28] Hopeful at the prospect, they met with Mentor, who apparently killed them.[29] Finding herself in Oblivion, Phyla saw her bands disattaching from her to seek a new host, just as she was attacked by ghosts of her father and brother. Before they could subdue her, however, Drax intervened and defeated them, explaining they were a manifestation of her dears and doubts. As they began exploring Oblivion in search of Moondragon, they encountered Maelstrom, who found the Quantum Bands and defeated both Phyla and Drax, hoping to feed them to the Dragon of the Moon and get enough power to escape back to the land of the living.[30]
After the Dragon devoured Phyla, Wendell Vaughn appeared in a quantum light form, fighting Maelstrom and demanding to know what he had done to her. With Maelstrom focused on the fight with Vaughn, Drax got close to him and chopped off his arms, returning the bands to Vaughn. In the meantime, Phyla retrieved Moondragon's soul from within the Dragon and punched a hole though his belly to escape. As Moondragon reunited with her father, Vaughn tried convincing Phyla to retake the bands, but she insisted he kept them, claiming she had never managed to live up to his reputation. With their mission complete, Phyla and Drax were returned to life, and Moondragon's soul entered a new cloned body. The three of them then joined the Guardians of the Galaxy but, unbeknownst to her friends, Phyla had accepted to become the new avatar of Death.[31]
Now calling herself Martyr, Phyla-Vell became a more abrasive and aggressive figure. When the Guardians attempted to negotiate with the Inhumans to stop the War of Kings, she ruined the attempt by taking Inhuman princess Crystal hostage instead; this led to a battle between the Inhumans and the Guardians, which she continued to escalate. Eventually, the Inhumans tried to end the war by detonating a weapon that would shatter space itself, creating a multiversal Fault.[citation needed]
When Adam Warlock stopped the Fault's growth by using a redundant timeline, one where he became the villainous Magus, Phyla-Vell revealed that her deal with Oblivion was to kill "the Avatar of Life" and she would know what to do when the time came. Knowing he would now become Magus, she ran Adam through but this failed to stop his transformation. Several of the Guardians, then stranded in the year 3009, were then sent back in time to stop Magus' creation and Phyla was prevented from making her move. This time when Warlock was transformed, she engaged him in combat - but Magus magically teleported her own sword from her hands and slew her with it.[32][33]
Actually a ploy by Magus, Phyla was revealed to be alive and in his custody on Sacrosanct where she helped release her other seemingly-deceased teammates, then ran off to confront Magus, leaving them behind. Coming to a cocoon she assumed to be Magus, the cocoon hatched before her, revealing a resurrected Thanos, who immediately slew her.[34]
After her death Phyla went to Hell. When Thanos and Deadpool arrived in Hell to find Death, she, along with the other victims of Thanos and Deadpool, tried to kill them, but the duo was able to fend them off.[35]Attributes
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Powers
Phyla-Vell possessed vast physical capabilities and was stated to have a "Continental" threat level by the Nova Corps (with investigations still in process).[36] Like her brother Genis, Phyla-Vell's superior genetic inheritance potentially made her many leagues stronger than her parents: Mar-Vell, a genetically augmented Kree super-soldier, and Elysius, a Titanian.
- Super-Humanoid Strength: Phyla was originally able to lift around 5 tons and her strength only kept increasing.[37]
- Super-Humanoid Durability[37]
- Super-Humanoid Speed: Phyla-Vell has natural superhuman speed, but, when powered by the Quantum Bands, she can go beyond light-speed.[37]
- Flight: Phyla-Vell can fly without the aid of any cosmic objects.[5]
- Energy Absorption and Manipulation: With the helpd of her Nega-Bands, Phyla-Vell could absorb energy directed at her and use it for her own purposes.[5][37]
- Self-Sustenance: At least with the help of the Quantum Bands, Phyla possessed a natural ability to survive unharmed in the depths of outer space.[3]
- Energy Locking: After losing the Quantum Bands to the supervillain Maelstrom, Quasar learned that her Quantum Sword; the last energy construct that she ever made with them, still maintained itself despite her loss of the items. Wendell Vaughn once told her that through her sword she still retained a connection to them through that lone construct.[1]
- Cosmic Awareness As Captain Marvel, Phyla possessed a fraction of her father's cosmic awareness. While not as prolific as that of his or her brother's cosmic awareness. It provided her with a predominant boosting of her instinctive combat skills and inductive reasoning. When she gained the Quantum Bands and they absorbed her Nega Bands, she supposedly lost these abilities as a result.[19]
- Energy Construct Creation: Phyla often utilized the quantum bands to create and manipulate a host of energized fabrications capable of overwhelming the vast analytical and adaptive abilities of a Phalanx enhanced Super-Adaptoid.[38]
- Force Field Manipulation: Quasar is able to bend and mold the various energies of her cosmic tools for protective and detention efforts.[14] Able to throw up force fields powerful enough to stop whole armies, having once created a shield bubble with which to hurl a phalanx contingent straight into a star.[5]
- Blast Wave Emission: One of Phyla's favorite tricks to use with her quantum sword was the projection of incredibly destructive energy pulses that could cleave and sheer through anything she directed them against.[3][39]
- Avatar of Oblivion: In order to rescue her lover, Moondragon from death itself. The cosmic entity known as Oblivion came to her while she battled the Dragon of the Moon. In exchange for becoming his avatar she was given new yet undisclosed powers that dwarfed her previous abilities in comparison.[1] What all these abilities were remains a mystery as she died shortly after receiving this upgrade when she ran afoul of a recently resurrected Thanos.[34]
Abilities
Paraphernalia
Equipment
Weapons
Notes
- Phyla is a lesbian.[11]
Trivia
- Phyla's name is a reference to phylum, a level of scientific classification for all life forms, similar to Genis' name being a reference to genus.
See Also
- 51 appearance(s) of Phyla-Vell (Earth-616)
- 3 appearance(s) in handbook(s) of Phyla-Vell (Earth-616)
- 13 minor appearance(s) of Phyla-Vell (Earth-616)
- 5 mention(s) of Phyla-Vell (Earth-616)
- 6 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Phyla-Vell (Earth-616)
- 73 image(s) of Phyla-Vell (Earth-616)
- 8 quotation(s) by or about Phyla-Vell (Earth-616)
- 1 victim(s) killed by Phyla-Vell (Earth-616)
- 4 item(s) used/owned by Phyla-Vell (Earth-616)
Links and References
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Guardians of the Galaxy (Vol. 2) #12
- ↑ Captain Marvel (Vol. 5) #16
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Annihilation: Conquest Prologue #1
- ↑ Guardians of the Galaxy (Vol. 2) #4
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 Annihilation: Conquest - Quasar #4
- ↑ Guardians of the Galaxy (Vol. 2) #23
- ↑ Captain Marvel (Vol. 5) #6
- ↑ Captain Marvel (Vol. 5) #18
- ↑ Captain Marvel (Vol. 5) #16–18
- ↑ Captain Marvel (Vol. 5) #19–24
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Captain Marvel (Vol. 5) #25
- ↑ She-Hulk (Vol. 2) #12–13
- ↑ Thunderbolts #100
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Annihilation: Conquest - Quasar #1
- ↑ Annihilation #2
- ↑ Annihilation #3
- ↑ Annihilation #4–5
- ↑ Annihilation #6
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 Annihilation: Conquest - Quasar #1–2
- ↑ Annihilation: Conquest - Quasar #1–3
- ↑ Annihilation: Conquest - Quasar #3
- ↑ Annihilation: Conquest #1
- ↑ Annihilation: Conquest #1–3
- ↑ Annihilation: Conquest #4–5
- ↑ Annihilation: Conquest #6
- ↑ Guardians of the Galaxy (Vol. 2) #1
- ↑ Guardians of the Galaxy (Vol. 2) #4–6
- ↑ Guardians of the Galaxy (Vol. 2) #7
- ↑ Guardians of the Galaxy (Vol. 2) #9
- ↑ Guardians of the Galaxy (Vol. 2) #11
- ↑ Guardians of the Galaxy (Vol. 2) #12–13
- ↑ Guardians of the Galaxy (Vol. 2) #17
- ↑ Guardians of the Galaxy (Vol. 2) #19
- ↑ 34.0 34.1 Guardians of the Galaxy (Vol. 2) #24
- ↑ Deadpool vs. Thanos #3
- ↑ Annihilation: The Nova Corps Files #1
- ↑ 37.0 37.1 37.2 37.3 37.4 Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z #9
- ↑ Annihilation: Conquest - Quasar #1–4
- ↑ Annihilation: Conquest - Quasar #2
- ↑ Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z #9
- ↑ Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z Vol 1 9