ABSOLOM SECTOR
Official Name: Absolom Sector
Nature: A volume of space on one of the borders of Kreespace (the territory claimed
by the Kree Empire)
Distance from Earth: Unrevealed
Number of Stars/Planetary Sytems: Unrevealed
Diameter: Unrevealed
Major Galactic Powers: Brood
Minor Galactic Powers: Probably none
Other Species: Unrevealed
Population(s): Unrevealed
Capital(s): Unrevealed
Government(s): Unrevealed
Major Languages: Unrevealed
Planetary Defense(s): Unrevealed
Places of Interest: "Acanti graveyard" planetoid (no true name)
Visitors: Grand Admiral Devros (later the Brood King, deceased) and his crew (none named, all deceased or transformed into Brood); a Brood Queen-Mother (deceased), the Queen-Mother's Brood-hive (many deceased); Commander Zen-Pram (deceased) and the crew of the Pama (all deceased or transformed into Brood except Captain Mar-Vell, Medic Una and Colonel Yon-Rogg)
First Appearance: The Untold Legend of Captain Marvel#2 (May, 1997);
First mentioned in The Untold Legend of Captain Marvel#1 (April, 1997)
History: Little has been revealed about the volume of space known as Absolom Sector, including who named it, why it was given that name and where exactly it was located.
(Untold Legend of Captain Marvel#2 (fb) - BTS) - Absolom Sector was on the border of Kreespace, the territory claimed by the Kree Empire. Devros considered it to be thousands of light-years from home.
(Untold Legend of Captain Marvel#2 (fb) - BTS) - Absolom Sector was also not extremely far away from the Kentari border of Kreespace, presumably the border that was closest to the Shi'ar Empire.
(Untold Legend of Captain Marvel#2 (fb) - BTS) - At some point, the Brood gained control over Absolom Sector, making it part of their territory. This fact was not known to most of the Kree military.
(Untold Legend of Captain Marvel#1 (fb) - BTS) - Aware of the Brood presence, the Kree military leadership (and/or the Supreme Intelligence) classified Absolom Sector as a Level-Five Risk on Kree star charts, identifying it as a maximum hazard that was even greater than the sector containing the Skrull Throneworld, which only warranted a Level Four.
(Untold Legend of Captain Marvel#1 (fb) - BTS) - An expeditionary force under the command of Grand Admiral Devros was sent to Absolom Sector on a special assignment.
(Untold Legend of Captain Marvel#2 (fb) - BTS) - Grand Admiral Devros was told by Prime Minister Zarek that his mission was to establish a military beachhead in preparation for an invasion.
(Untold Legend of Captain Marvel#2 (fb)) - The Kree warship commanded by Devros had barely
crossed the border into Absolom Sector when it came under attack by a Brood-controlled Acanti space whale.
Outmatched and alone, Devros sought to lead the Brood death-swarm away from sacred blue territory. Luckily,
he was able to spot a planetoid that would make a suitable Acanti graveyard not too far from where the space
battle was taking place. Although doing so cost the lives of many of his crew, Devros was tenacious enough to
continue the battle until he could pierce the Acanti's heart, causing its massive form to writhe as it, in its
wounded state, was unable to resist the planetoid's gravity and remain in the spaceways. As the mortally-wounded
Acanti crashed onto the planetoid where it soon died, Devros scuttled his own damaged flagship so that any Brood
from the dead Acanti would be unable to use it to escape from where he had exiled them.
Unfortunately, this left Devros and his men trapped on that same planetoid. Having no hope of rescue nor desire for same, the Kree were easy prey for the surviving Brood horde. However, instead of being killed outright by the Brood, Devros and his crewmen were captured so they could serve as hosts for Brood young. Implanted with Brood embryos, all of the Kree soon metamorphized into Brood warriors. The only exception was Devros himself who had been horribly fascinated by the process, a reaction that had made the Brood-hive's Queen-Mother fascinated by him. After the two of them reached a meeting of the minds, one in which Devros had come to believe that a synthesis between the Blue-Kree and the Brood would enable the Kree to escape their race's evolutionary dead end, Devros allowed himself to be implanted with a Royal Brood embryo and became what he called the Brood King. In this state, Devros came to regard the Brood Queen as "his love."
(Untold Legend of Captain Marvel#2 (fb) - BTS) - At some point, Devros came to believe that the Supreme Intelligence had sent his flagship into Absolom Sector knowing that the crew would would fall victim to the Brood, as an experiment to learn if the addition of Brood genes would result in Kree who could escape their race's evolutionary dead end. Believing that the Supreme Intelligence would want to learn what had become of its grand experiment and needing a starship with which to leave the planetoid and begin his holy crusade to convert his Blue-Kree brothers, Devros was able to jury-rig his ship's communications grid to send a distress call meant to lure more Kree into a trap.
(Untold Legend of Captain Marvel#1 (fb) - BTS) - After receiving that final communique, a frantic request for help, the Kree leadership, knowing that Admiral Devros possessed a great deal of sensitive military information that enemies of the Kree Empire could use to cripple Kree military endeavors, concluded that it was imperative that his whereabouts and condition be discovered. Once that had been accomplished, then either a rescue mission could be mounted or the admiral's service to the empire could be terminated. In order to minimize the chance of hostile powers discovering the nature of the mission, only a single cruiser would be deployed on this assignment. The Worldbeater class imperial crusier Pama was chosen for this mission, and the Supreme Intelligence and Prime Minister Zarek hand-selected a crew who were to carry it out.
(Untold Legend of Captain Marvel#1) - Following the failure of his recent mission on the planet Tarsis, Captain Mar-Vell received new orders from Central Command that instructed him to report for duty aboard the Pama where he was to present himself for special assignment to Commander Zen-Pram's elite force.
Once the crew complement was complete, Commander Zen-Pram, Colonel Yon-Rogg, Captain Mar-Vell, Medic Una and two others received a high security briefing at 0730 in the starship's War Room from Prime Minister Zarek and the Supreme Intelligence via a communications link with Homeworld. Zarek and the Supremor revealed that the expeditionary force under the command of Grand Admiral Devros had ceased contact with the homeworld two cycles earlier while on a special assignment to Absolom Sector. They ordered the Pama and its hand-picked crew to prevent any enemies of the Kree from profiting from the information that Devros possessed by either rescuing him or terminating him. Once contact had been broken, Zen-Pram asked for questions, and Mar-Vell pointed out that Absolom Sector was a Level-Five Risk Zone on their star-charts, making it a maximum hazard. Zen-Pram agreed and stated that that was why the Pama would be making the voyage cloaked behind the Aura of Negativism, so it would be safe from prying eyes, and that strict radio silence would be observed throughout the journey. With the briefing concluded, Zen-Pram ordered Yon-Rogg to coordinate with helm control and navigation to calculate the optimal course and speed to Absolom Sector, and that they would move out at 0900.
(Untold Legend of Captain Marvel#1) - After breaking from spacedock, the imperial starcruiser Pama set course for Objective: Absolom Sector. Over the (unspecified) duration of the voyage, the freshmen crew underwent training meant to make them function as one. Concealed by the Aura of Negativism, the mission proceeded without incidence until, as they neared Absolom Sector, they came across four alien vessels engaged in a firefight. After the alien ships were identified as a single Shi'ar scoutcraft battling theee Skrull warsaucers, Zen-Pram found it suspicious that either party to be out in the middle of nowhere and so close to Absolom Sector. However, he granted Mar-Vell's request to be allowed to lead a small party to engage and repel the Skrulls who had boarded the Shi'ar scoutcraft. Mar-Vell proved to be very helpful to members of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard, and the Skrulls were soon repelled.
(Untold Legend of Captain Marvel#2) - After the Skrull forces were repelled and retreated, the Shi'ar regent, Lady Deathbird, came aboard the Pama to meet with Commander Zern-Pram. During that meeting, Lady Deathbird claimed that their presence in Kreespace, so far from their own borders, was unintentional because they had been so intent on pursuing a party that had been raiding Shi'ar shipping lanes that they had not realized where they were until just before the Skrull warsaucers had jumped them. Claiming to have no idea why the Skrulls had attacked them, Lady Deathbird then revealed that the raiding party they had been pursuing were Brood. Stating that his engineering crew would have the Shi'ar vessel spaceworthy in a few hours, Zen-Pram offered to have the Pama provide escort to the Kentari Border but the Shi'ar regent declined and returned to her starship. Once she had left, Zen-Pram and Yon-Rogg agreed that the Shi'ar and the Skrulls had come to Absolom Sector to find Admiral Devros. When Yon-Rogg asked why the commander hadn't revealed that Absolom Sector was Brood territory, Zen-Pram stated that he hadn't wanted to demoralize the crew because a man who expects to die usually finds a way to make it happen. Later, Zen-Pram ordered the helmsman to resume course into Absolom Sector, following the vector of Devros' last transmission, and ordered the tactical officer to erect the Aura of Negativism so the Shi'ar couldn't register their course.
Once within Absolom Sector, the Pama soon approached a planetoid with a life-sustaining atmosphere. When a geological analysis showed traces of Kree-native metals, that area of its surface was scanned visually, revealing what was left of Devros' flagship in close proximity to the remains of the dead Acanti. Yon-Rogg suggested that they reconnoiter further before making planetfall but Zen-Pram disagreed, stating that they were no safer in space than they would be on the surface, so the Pama landed and an outrider party was sent out to find some tangible evidence of Devros' death. However, as Delta Company prepared to search the flagship, they were ambushed by dozens of Brood and, despite putting up a fierce resistaence, were soon forced to surrender after Admiral Devros entered the battle on the side of the Brood.
(Untold Legend of Captain Marvel#2 - BTS) - The Pama was also overwhelmed and all of the crew who had remained onboard and who survived the Brood attack were captured. All of the captured Kree were then restrained within the dead Acanti's body and were implanted with Brood embryos.
(Untold Legend of Captain Marvel#2) - Mar-Vell regained consciousness inside tha Acanti corpse, shackled beside Una, Yon-Rogg and Zen-Pram, in time to hear Devros, with the Brood Queen beside him, tell them how he had become the Brood King and how he planned to use the Pama to begin his holy crusade to convert his Blue-Kree brothers. However, Mar-Vell managed to break free, grab a weapon from the pile lying nearby and use it to kill the Brood Queen. With Devros distracted, Mar-Vell set the weapon on overlaod, making it into a bomb which he used to blast the first wave of Brood reinforcements. After freeing Una, Mar-Vell saw that more reinforcements were coming and was forced to retreat, using another weapon to blast a passage upwards through the Acanti to open air above and then flying himself and Una up and out through that hole.
(Untold Legend of Captain Marvel#3) - The following day, while the Brood swarm searched for them, Mar-Vell told Una what their five mission objecties were to be. First, they were to get aboard the Pama without being detected. Second, to prevent Devros and his Brood followers from getting back into space, they would have to somehow cripple the starship irreparably. Third, Una would have to determine if the Brood eggs implanted within them could be neutralized. Fourth, they would have to find a means of getting off the planetoid. And lastly, they were to find a way to recover whoever remained of their fellow crewmen. After entering through the secondary beam-weapons array and taking out two Brood guards before they could sound an alarm, Mar-Vell and Una made their way to the Med-Lab before splitting up. Using knowledge that his father had shared with him long ago, Mar-Vell set his weapon to undergo a delayed overload within the main power coupling for the secondary systems, then went to the main Engine Room, where he knew Devros would expect him to go, as a diversionary tactic. After defeating a Brood who attacked him there, Mar-Vell recognized him as having been Zen-Pram and put him out of his misery. Mar-Vell was then attacked by Devros and the two battled until Mar-Vell's hidden weapon went off, triggering an alarm. Mar-Vell then revealed that he had started a cascade effect throughout the lower levels of the starship that would destroy the Pama. When an enraged Devros attacked him, Mar-Vell violently snapped his neck and the Brood nearby dared not get in his way. Mar-Vell then went back to Sick Bay where, after Una let him it, he revealed that he was now the Brood King and leapt at her. However, Una quickly used the Omni-Wave Projector that she had modified and already used to treat herself on Mar-Vell, killing the Brood egg within him and restoring him to normal. With explosions beginning to occur in the lower levels, Mar-Vell instructed Una to initiate a critical contamination purge of Sick-Bay, something that would jettison Sick-Bay away from the rest of the Pama at sufficient speed to break the planetoid's gravity and achieve spacefall.
With only three minutes remaining until Sick Bay launched, Mar-Vell spotted a still-untransformed Yon-Rogg. Despite Una's belief that it would be impossible for him to rescue the colonel and get back before the launch, Mar-Vell insisted on trying to complete his final mission objective. Mar-Vell did manage to retrieve Yon-Rogg from amidst the Brood horde and get them both back to Sick Bay after it had blasted off from the Pama but before it flew out of range. As Sick Bay reached space, the Pama exploded on the planetoid beneath them.
(Untold Legend of Captain Marvel#3 - BTS) - With Sick Bay now in space, the three survivors sent out a Kree distress signal
(Untold Legend of Captain Marvel#3) - After three weeks in space, the Shi'ar scoutcraft commanded by Lady Deathbird tracked down the source of the Kree distress signal and retrieved the three Kree. When Deathbird asked how their "secret" mission to Absolom Sector had fared and how the Pama had fared, Mar-Vell stated that there was nothing left for her to search for. Deathbird enjoyed the reversal of fortunes a bit by stating that she was under no obligation to transport them anywhere because they were all presumed dead and suggested that perhaps Shi'ar intelligence could interrogate a Kree colonel as well as a fallen admiral. However, when Mar-Vell told her to stop strutting and that she would escort them to the Kree homeworld, Deathbird stated that he was different from other Kree and that there was a fire in his blood, the same fire that burned in her, and she then instructed the helmsman to adjust course for Kree-Lar.
Absolom Sector has never been visited or mentioned since then.
Comments: Created by Tom Brevoort with Mike Kanterovich, Scott Kolins and John Lowe.
This profile turned out to be more of a retelling of The Untold Legend of Captain Marvel than I had intended it to be. However, since it does summarize everything that happened in Absolom Sector, I guess that it's justified. Plus, since Absolom Sector hasn't appeared or been mentioned in any storyline since that 1997 miniseries, I've come to feel that it at least deserves the attention provided by this single profile.
Given that Absolom Sector was Brood territory, one would expect that they had colonized (or infested) a number of planets within that volume of space, like the now-destroyed Broodworld (a.k.a. "Sleazeworld") from Uncanny X-Men I#162-166 or the Nestworld from X-Men/Brood: Day of Wrath#1, but none were ever depicted in the miniseries, with only the previously-uninhabited planetoid being visited. On the other hand, maybe there were no Broodworlds there, only Brood roaming the sector in their Acanti starships, constantly searching for hosts to infest with their spawn. Only Tom Brevoort knows for sure.
Omniscient Narrative captions in X-Men V#8-9 state:
"In the adjacent space of a million broken civilizations, there is a Shi'ar graveyard. A spawning ground. For
predators. For parasites. For Brood. Ten thousand worlds. Six trillion drones. One thousand queens." Subsector
43 of Shi'ar space was also identified as a Brood spawning ground. However, no mentions of Absolom Sector were
made in either issue.
A "sector" (or a star sector) is a volume of space with imaginary boundaries which have been established by whoever mapped the larger space (usually a galaxy) within which the sectors are located. Just as two-dimensional maps can be divided into a grid of same-sized squares by regularly spaced horizontal and vertical reference lines, a sector is what results when three-dimensional star maps are divided into a three-dimensional grid of same-sized volumes by reference lines oriented along three axes. Since we humans from Earth have not yet extended our map-making into the vast universe beyond our own planet, this usage of the term "sector" is not currently applicable to the real world but only to various fictional continuities, including the Star Trek Universe and the Marvel Comics Universe.
Although some sectors in the Marvel Comics Universe are identified or named, the word "sector" is often used as a synonym for region of space. Something that is located in a distant sector is far away while two things that are in the same sector are relatively close together (at least on an astronomical scale).
Although I was somewhat apprehensive about what The Untold Legend of Captain Marvel would reveal about Mar-Vell's history prior to his first appearance in Marvel Super-Heroes II#12, I was pleasently surprised by how the storyline fleshed out the characters of Captain Mar-Vell, Colonel Yon-Rogg and Medic Una. We readers got to see that Mar-Vell, even before coming to Earth, had attitudes which the Kree Empire considered to be flaws and which would ultimately lead to him betraying the empire in order to protect the people of Earth. We also got to see that Yon-Rogg's irrational hatred of Mar-Vell was, at least from his point of view, somewhat justified by how Mar-Vell had seemingly swooped in and captured the affections of the woman who was the object of his unrequited lust. Medic Una was also given a deeper personality with the revelation that she was a Cotati worshipper and she was given a chance to shine by being the one to discover the way to cure herself, Mar-Vell and (presumably) Yon-Rogg of the the Brood embryos that had been implanted in them.
However, despite those positives, this miniseres also contained some flaws. One of them was the revelation that the Brood, who had been presented as an unknown race when they first appeared in Uncanny X-Men I#155, had actually been known to both the Kree and Shi'ar Empires for years (or, according to later retcons, eight thousand years). A second problem was that Lady Deathbird was depicted without the functional wings that she has had since birth and in all of her other appearances, and she was described as a regent, a term that is defined as a person who rules a state while the true ruler is absent or too young or incapacitated. A third problem was that the uniforms worn by Colonels Hez-Tarr and Yon-Rogg were (in different ways) both incorrect.
Aside from those flaws, there were also two that were directly associated with Absolom Sector itself. The first was that very little about Absolom Sector was ever established. Given that the Kree, Skrull and Shi'ar Empires are all known to control their own galaxies, none of which are the Milky Way, some hint as to what Absolom Sector was and where it was located would have been appreciated. Specifically, was Absolom Sector its own galaxy? Or was it some smaller structure, like a star cluster? Also, since the imperial galaxies are all located hundreds of thousands or even millions of light-years from each other, how close was Absolom Sector to any of their borders? Was it actually within one of the galaxies, prsesumably the Large Magellenic Cloud, or was it outside one of them, in the intergalactic void? Treating the Marvel Universe as if it were like a planet with countries that existed side-by-side on its surface, without any voids (except oceans) between them, is misleading, an example of the trope that Sci-Fi Writers (sometimes) have no sense of distance or size when it comes to dealing with stories set in space.
The second flaw was that the world where Mar-Vell battled the Brood was always referred to as being a "planetoid." It was my understanding that planetoids were small celestial bodies resembling planets, with planetoid essentially being synonymus with asteroid. Given that this "planetoid" had a breathable atmosphere, something that asteroids are not massive enough to retain, I felt that it should have been called a planet all along. However, while doing this profile, I did some online research and discovered that the term "planetoid" is not well defined, and can be used to describe minor planets and dwarf planets as well as asteroids. Given that this planetoid was massive enough for its gravity to have compacted it into a stable, round (or ellipsoidal) shape, it would probably be classified as a dwarf planet. I found an article online about a paper published by Harvard University researchers who had calculated that small, low-gravity planets with masses that were greater than 2.7 percent the mass of Earth could be habitable because they (theoretically) would be able to maintain surface liquid water long enough to allow for the evolution of life. So, clearly I was wrong.
Profile by Donald Campbell.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Absolom Sector has no known connections to:
Located within Absolom Sector but probably not too far from the border with Kreespace, this planetoid possessed a life-sustaining atmosphere, one that both Kree and Brood could breathe without any difficulty. About half of the planetoid's surface was covered by water, indicating the presence of seas as well as lakes, but whether the seas were salty and the lakes were fresh has not been confirmed.
The planetoid posssessed a habitable biosphere, with at least some parts of its surface being covered in green plant life, including grasses, bushes and trees. However, no forms of native fauna (animal life) were seen by the only Kree to visit the planetoid and return from it. If any animal life did exist there, then the lack of any widespread signs of civilization suggests either that its highest life form had not evolved to sapience or that any hypothetically-sapient lifeforms were committed to keeping their presence and their existence a secret from any visitors.
Given that the planetoid seemed to lack any native sapient forms, it would therefore not have a native name. If the Brood knew of the planetoid, then they presumably would have given it a designation of their own for their star charts. However, if the planetary system was one which they hadn't surveyed yet, then they may not have known of the planetoid or given it a designation.
The first non-native beings known to have visited the planetoid did so quite unwillingly. After the Kree flagship of Grand Admiral Devros entered Absolom Sector, it had quickly been attacked by a Brood-controlled Acanti space whale. With his starship damaged by the Brood vessel's weapons and outmatched and alone, Devros spotted the planetoid not far in the distance and realized that its gravity made it a suitable Acanti graveyard. Although some of his crew died in the process, Devros was able to continue the battle until he had maneuvered the Acanti close enough to the planetoid, then he fatally wounded the creature, knowing that it would no longer be able to resist the planetoid's gravitational pull and would crash on it. Once his own damaged starship had crashed nearby, Devros scuttled it to make sure that none of the Brood survivors would be able to use it to escape from the planetoid. The surviving Kree and Brood battled each other, with the Kree killing some of the Brood, but the Brood chose to capture as many Kree as they could so that they could serve as hosts for embryos implanted by the Brood Queen. Soon enough, the only sapient beings left on the planetoid were a Brood horde, their Queen-mother, and Devros, who had become a Kree/Brood hybrid.
Now needing a starship to get he and his Brood off the planetoid, Devros sent out a false distress call back to Hala, one that was meant to lure more Kree to the planetoid. The Kree Empire responded by sending the imperial cruiser Pama to search for Devros with orders to either rescue or kill him. After tracking Devros' transmission to the planetoid and locating the wreckage of Devros' flagship, the Pama landed so that an outrider party could search the wreckage and come back with tangible proof of the admiral's death. However, both the outrider party and the crew who remained aboard the Pama were ambushed and subdued by the Brood who were now being led in battle by Devros. Although all of the new Kree arrivals were soon implanted with Brood embryos, Mar-Vell managed to kill the Brood Queen and escape with Medic Una. While the Brood swarm searched for them, Mar-Vell and Una managed to evade them and get aboard the Pama without being detected. Then, while Una searched for a cure, Mar-Vell was able to secretly sabotage the starship, then went to where Devros had expected he would go to keep him occupied in battle until it was too late to prevent the destruction of the Pama. After killing Devros and being cured by Una, Mar-Vell was able to recover Yon-Rogg, the only other Kree who had not yet metamorphisized into a Brood, and escape from the planetoid by jettisoning the Sick Bay.
Once the Sick Bay had blasted away from the planetoid and achieved spacefall, and the Pama had exploded, any Brood who survived were left trapped on the planetoid with no way to ever escape.
--The Untold Legend of Captain Marvel#2 (TULOCM#2 (fb), 2-3)
images: (without ads)
My computer's Paint program (main image)
The Untold Legend of Captain Marvel#2, page 24, panel 1 (Devros's flagship vs. Acanti)
page 13, panel 1 (Pama approaching the planetoid)
page 13, panel 2 (starship wreckage on the planetoid's surface)
Mentioned/Appeared in:
The Untold Legend of Captain Marvel#1-3 (April-June, 1997) - Tom Brevoort with Mike Kanterovich (story),
Scott Kolins (pencils), John Lowe (inks), Mark Bernardo (editor)
First Posted: 12/30/2023
Last updated: 12/30/2023
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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