DOMITIAN

Real Name: Unrevealed, probably Domitian

Identity/Class: Extra-terrestrial religious leader

Occupation: Leader and sole remaining member of the Imperial Court

Group Membership: Imperial Court

Affiliations:Kaef (loyal cyborg servant), other undead cyborg criminal aliens, Zakaius

Enemies: Warlock and the Infinity Watch, Firelord, innocent people across the universe

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: the unnamed planet on which the Imperial Court resides

First Appearance: Warlock and the Infinity Watch#38 (March, 1995)

Powers: Zakaius first appears to us as an old, decrepit man. In this form, he is the religious leader of the Imperial Court; in fact, he appears to be the only living member of the Imperial Court. He has some skill with reanimating dead tissue, and cyborg programming, or once employed scientists who did have such skills. I would also conjecture he has low-level telepathic abilities, which may help to explain his agent Zakaius' fanatical loyalty whenever near him, and his specifc control of his cyborg's actions. There is some evidence that he possesses planetary scale teleportational abilities, though these may be through mechanical means. Otherwise, he has no powers in his true form.

Domitian has another form, powered by the life-force runes that Zakaius collects for him. He appears as a tall, extremely muscular, much younger version of himself. In this form, he has immense strength and powerful concussion blasts, strong enough to stun Drax and severly injure Moondragon, despite her Infinity Gem trying to save her. But his primary ability is a truly impenetrable force field, on the level of something Thanos would possess, able to withstand any physical or energy assault directed at him. He didn't even flinch when hit full-force by an enraged Drax the Destroyer.

He also seems to possess the ability to grant power to individuals like Zakaius, including the 'death-touch' that creates the life-force runes. It is unknown how he does this, since he does not seem to possess this power himself. Also, once granted to another, it seems he cannot take those abilities away, with the exception of retaining some control over where and when these people can use their teleportation abilities. Domitian also must possess some kind of cosmic scrying device, to locate those alien 'sinners' he wants brought to justice, and to find who would make powerful life-force runes when killed.

Weaknesses: However, every assault on his force field or expenditure of his power results in 1-4 life-force runes being permanently drained of energy. Since he has collected a few million of them, this is not a serious limitation. However, a much more serious weakness is that he depends on machinery to utilize the life-force runes to power his enhanced form, and once this siphoning machinery is destroyed, he reverts to his original, old man self. Also, he has very little defense against telepathic intrusions into his mind.

Domitian also talks to himself under his breath constantly and annoyingly. This could be considered a weakness at cocktail parties.

Domitian is a humanoid alien of an unrevealed race. His skin is grey/brown, and he has tiger-like stripes on his head, blending into his yellow hair. It is unknown how much of his appearance is common to his race. The origin of all his abilites in his regular form are of unknown, in his enhanced form they are due to the use of life-force runes.

History: (Warlock and the Infinity Watch#38 (fb) - BTS) - Domitian has been collecting life-force runes for many centuries, he is shown to have several million sealed in a vault in his palace. He also sometimes takes the bodes of the 'sinners' that Zakaius executes for him, and turns them into zombie cyborg assassins. He has them completely under his control, either by programming or mental influence, including his personal assistant Kaef.

(Warlock and the Infinity Watch#37 (fb) - BTS) - He recently sent out Zakaius to collect the lifeforce of Firelord.

(Warlock and the Infinity Watch#35 - BTS) - Domitian gave Zakaius the order to collect the lifeforce of the Infinity Watch next.

(Warlock and the Infinity Watch#38) - When confronted by the Infinity Watch and Zakaius questioning his orders of execution, he used the life-force runes to power himself up.

(Warlock and the Infinity Watch#39) - He then attacked the Watch, and almost convinced Zakaius to join him again despite his trying to kill Zakaius, possibly through mental influence. He easily defeated the Watch, severely wounding Moondragon after she read his mind, and almost killing Adam Warlock. When he shot a beam of destructive energy at Warlock, Pip teleported in front of Warlock with Domitian's loyal retainer Kaef, who was obliterated. Pip and Zakaius then teleported to the machine controlling the life-force rune energy, and destroyed it, rendering Domitian a fairly harmles old man.

As far as is known, in the Watch's haste to leave the planet of the Imperial Court, they left Domitian there with all his life-force runes, although his machine to drain them was smashed. He swore undying vengenance on the Watch as they were leaving. Only Zakaius was left behind to watch him, with a new enlightenment seeing the error of killing random people for sinning and a promise to return the life-force runes to whatever beings he could possibly restore to life. I don't think this was a good idea, since Zakaius has been shown to be very easily manipulated by Domitian, who still exercises some control over Zakaius and his teleportation abilities. So I wonder how long Zakaius could last, having to return constantly to Domitian's palace and hear the religious spiel of his old master, while trying to get more life-force runes to return to poor unfortunates. My guess is that Domitian quickly re-established his power, and is probably out there still punishing 'sinners' as we speak.

Comments: Created by John Arcudi and Pat Olliffe.

Profile by: caliban

There's a lot of unanswered questions in this story. How did Zakaius gain his powers? How did Domitian convince him he was part of a great religion, of which he was the only member? How did he locate victims with good life-forces on alien worlds light years away? How did he create cyborg assasins all by himself? How did he convince Zakaius to annihilate innocent 'sinners' in the name of good, because they weren't members of this one-man religion, (like everyone else in the universe, duh). And how could the Watch be stupid enough to leave this dangerous cosmic villain with his source of power, and a now-reformed follower who only the previous day had been devoted to serving him to the point of killing people? And what exactly was the Imperial Court like before it fell, if that's indeed what happened? Like I said, a lot of questions.

Also, the Imperial Court seemed to have had a thing for checkerboard tile on every single floor they could get their hands on. Who knew?

Clarifications: Domitian has no known connection to:

• Domina, the leader of some kind of new branch of mutants and leader of some kind of group, possibly, in some bad stories, @X-Men#100
• Dominator, of the future world of Earth-MC2, daughter of the Wizard, and a member of the Wizard's Warriors, @ Fantastic Five#2
• Dominex, the sentient remnant of Lucifer's base that became a doomsday weapon, @Avengers III#12
• Domini, the wife of Dracula and the mother of Janus, @ Tomb of Dracula I#45
• Dominic 2099, of Freakshow, @ X-Men 2099#6
• Domino, the information source to the Conspiracy and the original Scourge organization, @ Rampaging Hulk I#4/2
• Domino, the former member of Six Pack and X-Force, @ X-Force#8
• Dominor, leader of the second generation Spaceknights, @ Rom#74
• Dominus, the super-computer given to Lucifer by the Quists/Arcane race, @ Uncanny X-Men#21
• Dominus, the Inhuman, @ Fantastic Four I#131