ROT
ROT
Real Name: Inapplicable
Identity/Class: Abstract entity
Occupation: Spatial anomaly, abstract entity
Group Membership: None
Affiliations: None
Enemies: Any and all life (or death , it doesn't discriminate), Avengers, Death, Mentor, Primo, Raptra, Reptyl, Thanos
Known Relatives: Death ("mother"), Thanos ("Father")
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Deep space
First Appearance: Avengers: Celestial Quest#5 (March, 2002)
Powers/Abilities: As its name implies, anything that touches the Rot will rot. Any being that touches it will rot and disintegrate almost immediately. It cannot be destroyed through physical force or energy blasts or any other conventional injury. It is humongous, empty and growing, continuing to expand, taking up whole portions of space. It can absorb energy directed against it and add it to its own strength. It is both living and dead, since it is the offspring of Death itself, and a living thing. Thus nothing living or dead could effectively harm it. It has proven so powerful, or so abstract, that neither Death, nor Eternity can affect it. It has no apparent affect on inorganic matter, such as Thor's hammer.
History: (Avengers: Celestial Quest#8) (fb)- Death always maintained a gulf between herself and Thanos, but when Thanos died, all his energy merged with hers, and as a result, Rot was created. At first Rot was small and miniscule, and Death did not notice it. But it slowly consumed more, and grew. When Death finally noticed it, she realized she had not noticed it before since it was alien to her and she held no sway over it.
(Avengers: Celestial Quest#5)- Raptra, who was flying with Quoi in a ship, told Quoi they were flying into the Rot. When asked, Raptra said that the Rot is a patch of space that a pirate can hide in. When Quoi noticed a blackened area, Raptra told him that it was the Rot.
(Avengers: Celestial Quest#6)- Reptyl and Primo received information that Raptra
was heading toward the Rot. When they asked about the Rot
to their informant, he said it just popped up one day. He also said going inside it
was suicide, but it was good for hiding. Meanwhile, the Avengers spot the hole in
space (Rot) everyone was headed toward, and Vision and Mantis left to enlist
Eternity's aid. When they met him, Mantis told Eternity that the Rot was like a
cancer to him, and that it would eat and kill him. He told her he cannot affect Rot.
He then dismisses the heroes. Rot killed Mentor.
(Avengers: Celestial Quest#7)- The Avengers entered the Rot to battle Thanos and his minions and rescue Mantis and Vision, who were all in the Rot as well. The Rot had grown since it was last seen. It appeared that the Rot is following the living things, as if it were sentient. After a fight between Thanos and his minions and the Avengers, Thanos finds he cannot teleport, and that Rot had completely encased them.
(Avengers: Celestial Quest#8)- Mantis made a bubble to protect the ship from the Rot. It broke the bubble and killed Primo with one touch. Mantis and Quoi then make a bubble together, which manages to resist the Rot. Thor, Scarlet Which, Reptyl and Vision all then went outside the ship under the protection of the bubble, and channeled their powers into Rot. Rot was completely unaffected. Mantis managed to hold the bubble by herself as Quoi decided to go against Rot. He thought that his powers may affect it since they were unconventional and he was not human. Quoi then enters the Rot and finds he cannot absorb it since it is too big. He then tried to reverse its power, but it enjoyed it. Quoi returned to the ship and Death goes on to reveal the Rot's origin. Thanos and Death then go out to destroy Rot, using a plan Death concocted. Death and Thanos also discover they cannot affect Rot directly, but the Rot was both of them. So they both went against their nature. They release their power and Death pushed and Thanos pulled, and the Rot is dissolved. All killed by Rot are restored.
Comments: Created by Steve Englehart and Jorge Santamaria
Rot is not so much the offspring of Thanos and Death as the sum total of them. Thanos is a nihilist, and would never go and make life on purpose.
I thought that Rot's existence was cool, and its death was almost anticlimactic. In this story, Mantis and Vision are in a relationship, which they break off at the end due to Vision being unable to have kids, which he know Mantis wants. I was disappointed to see them break up.
PROFILE BY STUNNER
CLARIFICATIONS: Rot has no connection to:
images: (without ads)
Avengers: Celestial Quest#8, p2 pan4 (Rot around Thanos' ship)
Avengers: Celestial Quest#8, p3, pan2 (Rot kills Primo)
Other appearances:
Avengers: Celestial Quest#5-8 (March-June, 2002) - by Steve Englehart (writer), Jorge Santamaria (pencils), Scott Hanna (inks), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Last updated: 04/28/03
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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