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Monarch (comics)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Monarch is the name of three fictional DC Comics supervillains. The first Monarch is Hank Hall, formerly Hawk, who later renames himself as Extant for the Zero Hour crossover. The second Monarch is Nathaniel Adam, a U.S. Army Captain. The third Monarch is Captain Atom, a "quantum field" duplicate of Nathaniel Adam. Monarch was created by Archie Goodwin, Denny O'Neil, and Dan Jurgens, and first appeared in Armageddon 2001 #1, cover dated October (1991).
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Monarch is an oppressive tyrant from a bleak, dystopian Earth fifty years in the future. The people are unhappy with his rule, particularly a scientist named Matthew Ryder, an expert on temporal studies, who is convinced he can use his technology to travel back in time and prevent the maniacal ruler from ever coming to power. He learns that forty years ago, one of Earth's heroes eventually turned evil and became Monarch, and ten years from that he conquered the world.
Chosen by Monarch to take part in a time-travel experiment, Matthew Ryder travels back to the DC Universe of 1991. Ryder determines to find out who Monarch really was and, if possible, kill him before he can rise to power. As he travels through the rift, his body mutates into a form of living temporal energy, and upon arriving at his destination, he takes the name Waverider.
Although Waverider uses his abilities to look into the future of various characters, he cannot pinpoint who will become Monarch. But eventually, Waverider accidentally comes into physical contact with Captain Atom, unleashing a storm of temporal energy that openes a gate to the future through which Monarch emerges. Monarch, it seems, has been monitoring Waverider's every move in the past ever since he left the future, and merely waiting for the perfect time to travel back and stop Waverider from erasing Monarch from existence.
In a subsequent battle with the Justice League, Monarch retreats, taking Dawn Granger, the current Dove, with him. Hank Hall follows and catches up to him just in time to see Dawn killed in front of his eyes. Being created as two beings whose natures were supposed to be in balance, Hank becomes enraged when his partner's pacifist nature can no longer contain his warlike spirit. He beats the Monarch to death, only to learn the horrible truth: he is the one who will be the Monarch of the future.
The reveal of Hank Hall as Monarch led to some controversy amongst the fan community; Monarch was originally intended to be revealed as Captain Atom, with clues in the story pointing towards this which had to be discarded when it was changed at the last minute.
Upon seeing Monarch's dead body and the device he is building to enslave humanity, he muses that the Earth will need someone to keep the balance, so he puts on Monarch's armor and continues building his machine. Eventually, the Justice League finds him and Captain Atom, feeling guilty that he let Monarch slip through the timestream in the first place, decides to fight him one-on-one. The battle causes Atom's energy and Monarch's suit to clash, creating a portal that sends them both back in time to the age of the dinosaurs.
After being thrown back to the middle of the Triassic Era, Monarch and Captain Atom encounter hostile aliens who attempt to enlist each one separately and without the other's knowledge, to assist them in destroying the Milky Way Galaxy for their own ends. The two defeat the aliens' plans, and Captain Atom eventually returns to the present, while Monarch's fate is unknown.
- See also: Extreme Justice
In an experiment in the 1960s, Nathaniel Adam is housed in a shell of alien metal, under which an atomic bomb is detonated, propelling him into the "quantum field". There, the metal fuses with him, allowing him to survive in the void and giving him a connection to the quantum field. Meanwhile, however, the excess metal forms into a replica of him, which re-enters the timestream in the mid 1980s as Captain Atom, unaware that it is not the original Adam.
In the quantum field, the real Adam meets the original Monarch, Hank Hall, who is revealed to have become trapped there after the events of Armageddon The Alien Agenda. Adam trains Hall to manipulate the quantum field, enough to allow Hall to gain powers of time travel and escape back into the timestream. In return for helping him escape, Hall sends the Monarch armor back to Nathaniel Adam in the quantum field.
In Zero Hour, Monarch joins forces with renegade Green Lantern Hal Jordan (now known as Parallax). With his new time travel powers he re-dubs himself as Extant, eventually confronting Waverider and absorbing him and most of his time-warping abilities, giving him the power to travel through time as he pleases.
Some time after Zero Hour, Extant is killed while facing the JSA when Atom Smasher, with the aid of Metron, swaps Extant with Atom Smasher's mother, who had been killed in a plane crash.
In the 1990s, Adam uses the Monarch armor to escape the quantum field as the new Monarch. This Monarch claims to be a hero, much to the annoyance of Captain Atom, and is very popular. He is assisted by Justice League International's former UN liaison, Catherine Cobert, with whom Captain Atom once had a relationship.
It is eventually revealed that Monarch's true plan is to control the world via genetic implants he inserts into people under the guise of healing them. This plan is prevented when Booster Gold's future biology proves resistant to the implants. What became of this version of Monarch is unknown.
In Superman/Batman #6, Captain Atom is blasted to the Wildstorm Universe for the Captain Atom: Armageddon storyline. He returns to the DC Universe during Infinite Crisis. His voyage back to the DC Universe causes damage to his radiation-shielding skin, leaving him comatose and unable to keep down his body radiations to safe levels.
During the time period of the One Year Later storylines, Atom is revealed to be contained by the modern day Atomic Knights inside a secret S.H.A.D.E. facility in Blüdhaven, and used to administer radiation treatments to metahumans.
The Knights fit Atom with an updated version of the Monarch armor in order to contain the radiation leaking from his breached skin. Captain Atom awakens, and breaks free of the facility. He then apparently kills the rampaging Major Force by absorbing his energy, and, after the city has been evacuated, triggers a vast explosion, completely obliterating what was left of Blüdhaven. His mental condition is unknown at this time.
Found by Kyle Rayner in the Bleed, a slightly paranoid Captain Atom, still in Monarch armor, is currently traveling the Bleed to avoid the Monitors' gaze and expand his knowledge of the apparently rediscovered multiverse.
Captain Atom is first referred to as Monarch by Dan DiDio in an interview for Wizard Magazine.[1]
Monarch appears in the last panel of Countdown #45. He appears to be observing Forerunner. In his weekly interview on Newsarama.com, Mike Marts revealed that Countdown #44 bears a cover by Ed Benes with the Monarch armor. [2], as in the same issue Monarch manages to sway Forerunner to his side, turning her against the Monitors.
Since then, Monarch has played a substantial role in Countdown. In the Bleed, he has gathered a colossal army of potentially millions of soldiers from across the Multiverse in order to battle the Monitors. It was revealed in Countdown to Final Crisis #26 that he wishes to unleash a crisis wave which will destroy the multiverse and leave there only one unified reality, ruled by him. Currently, besides foot-soldiers his army consists at the very least of the Crime Society of Earth-3, and the JL-Axis of Earth-10. Initially, he used Forerunner to both train his army and recruit new warriors, but he later abandoned her. He approached Lord Havok of Earth-8 to be his second in command, and while the warlord initially said no, he later appeared to change his mind as he was seen leading Monarch's armada. How exactly this decision was reached will be chronicled in the mini-series; "Lord Havok and the Extremists."
An upcoming series, Countdown: Arena features Monarch arranging battles between alternate versions of characters throughout the Multiverse to compile the strike team for his new Multiverse army, specifically one Superman, one Batman, a Wonder Woman, a Green Lantern, a Flash, a Blue Beetle, a Nightshade, a Starman, a Ray and a tenth battle.[1]
- The original Monarch's armor was crafted using advanced technology from an alternate future, it was highly durable and had various uncatalogued functions.
- The updated Monarch armor currently worn by Captain Atom, contains a "nanoweave" designed to contain radiation leaking from a breach in his chest. It also contained instruments for monitoring his vital signs, through a direct neural interface.
- ^ "One of the things we want to do with Captain Atom, and what comes about with Monarch, is to see what the differences between the Wildstorm and the DC Universe are. You see the difference in attitude, and how the characters act and behave. And some of those behavioral patterns that Captain Atom picked up in the Wildstorm Universe, will affect how he behaves as Monarch."
Dan Didio as interviewed by Dylan Brucie. Wizard Magazine #179, page 46 July 27, 2006. - ^ Counting Down with Mike Marts: Countdown #45