COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE

Membership: Others, Prodigals, Cliff Randall (a Prodigal), Coordinator, Guard 18, all others unnamed

Purpose: To return to their native dimension

Affiliations: None

Enemies: Nick Fury, SHIELD (Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law Division), their former tyrannical rulers (apparently deceased)

Base of Operations: dimension of origin unnamed; formerly had a base within the Andes Mountains

First Appearance: Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD I#6 (November, 1968)

Abilities: The Collective Intelligence is made up of a group of essentially humanoid beings. They possess a group memory and hive-type mentality, enabling them to work in concert with maximum efficiency and coordination. In addition, the group possesses undefined psychic powers of a high level. They can open portals into other dimensions (although they require additional, outside energy to do so). Their mental powers apparently form a screen that prevents other psychics from interfering with or affecting them.
They also possess some degree of adavanced technology. They see themselves as peaceful, highly developed beings.

History: (Nick Fury Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. I#6) - The Collective Intelligence is/are the last remaining members of an unnamed extra-dimensional race. Their "timeless" dimension was rocked by combat of a cosmic scope, in which the tyrannical rulers, rather then have their rule ended, detonated an "Impact Inducer", which would destroy everything in their dimension. A group intellect living in a space station combined its mental powers with the shockwave from the Impact Inducer, and opened a dimensional gateway. The ship passed through the gateway and crashed on Earth in a desolate region of the Andes Mountains. Working in concert (as was their nature), they immediately began to build a permanent headquarters within one of the mountains.

Realizing that twenty years of Earth time would be necessary for their dimension to recover from the deadly reverbations of the Impact Inducer, they began to establish a colony. Some of them, called the Prodigals, were sent out into society to keep the group posted on the behavior and events around them. The Prodigals' group memories were blocked and replaced with artificial ones. This enabled them to intermingle with human society, all the while serving as receiving sets, which transmitted information back to the HQ.
The remaining members stayed within the headquarters and worked to recreate the exact conditions that brought them to Earth, so they could use them to return to their realm. Those within the headquarters made a few attempts to establish outside contact, but always encountered what they say as unprovoked hostility. Seeing in humanity the same hostile traits of their own dimension, they called themselves the Others, in representation of the fact that they wished to stay apart from the barbarians of Earth.

Eventually, at least twenty years later, in the modern era, the Others discovered the means to return themselves to Earth. In order to duplicate the vibrations of the Impact Inducer, they devised the means to pull an immense asteroid onto a collision course with Earth. They would position their new ship a distance from Earth, that would allow them to ride the force of the explosion into a newly created dimensional gateway. They realized that this would, of course, destroy Earth. However, they felt no remorse, as they saw no traits within humanity worthy of saving. They began the process of recalling the Prodigals, in preparation for their return.

(Nick Fury Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. I#6) - SHIELD scientists discovered the existence of an immense asteroid (sufficient to extinguish life on Earth, a la Deep Impact, etc) on a collision course with Earth. They traced the impact point to the Andes Mountains, and correctly reasoned that the source of the asteroid's altered trajectory may be there as well. Nick Fury brought fellow SHIELD agent Cliff Randall to investigate. Randall, however, unbeknownst even to himself, was one of the Prodigals. As their jet approached the Andes, his memories began to resurface, and he guided the jet into a hidden portal.
Fury was instantly taken prisoner, as Randall joined the other Prodigals in regaining their true memories. After learning their plans (like any good villains, they were more than happy to detail their full plans to him), Fury broke free. He managed to contact SHIELD's ESPer (Extra Sensory Perception, a psychic division) unit and detail his location, but even the ESPers' full power had no effect on the mental abilities of the Collective Intelligence. Fury was unable to stop their ship from taking off, and things looked grim for our hero. However, at the last second, Randall's learned humanity kicked in, and he altered the ship's trajectory, so that it crashed into the asteroid itself--destroying the Collective Intelligence and the asteroid, and saving Earth in the process.

Comments: Created by Roy Thomas, Archie Goodwin, and Frank Springer.

Collective Intelligence have an entry in Marvel Legacy: The 1960s Handbook.

Clarifications: No known connection to:

• The Collective Man, Chang+Han+Ho+Lin+Sun Tao-Yu, the chinese mutant quintuplets, @ Incredible Hulk II#250
• Collection Agency, the Kresh cyborg mercenaries, @ Silver Surfer III#61