"MARTIANS"
(from Reality-9930)

Species Name: Unrevealed

Classification: Alternate timeline (Reality-9930) extraterrestrial non-humanoids

Location/Base of Operations: Homeworld has never been identified;
   colony/staging base: Mars, the fourth planet from the sun in the Sol System of the Milky Way Galaxy;
   former conquest: Earth, the third planet from the sun in the Sol System of the Milky Way Galaxy

Habitat: Unrevealed
Gravity: Unrevealed
Atmosphere: Unrevealed

Known Members: None identified
Estimated Population: Unrevealed

Affiliations: Skorpsmen (ground warriors - only Skrag [deceased] was identified);
   Immortus

Enemies: The human race; the Avengers (Black Panther/T'Challa, Captain America/Steve Rogers [deceased], Crimson Dynamo, Giant-Man/Henry Pym [deceased], Hulk/Bruce Banner [deceased], Iron Man/Anthony "Tony" Stark [deceased], Jocasta, Killraven/Jonathan Raven, Living Lightning/Miguel Santos, Machine Man/X-51 [deceased], Thor Odinson [deceased], Thundra, the Wasp/Janet Van Dyne [deceased]);
   Captain America (Steve Rogers) from Earth-616 and Giant-Man (Henry "Hank" Pym) from Earth-616

First Appearance: (Mentioned) Avengers: Forever I#4 (March, 1999)
   (depicted) Avengers: Forever I#10 (October, 1999)

Powers/Abilities: Unrevealed. Given that the only information available about these "Martians" is what can be seen in the single known image of them, it's impossible to make any statement about any powers or abilities they may or may not possess.

   If these "Martians" were truly other-timeline counterparts of the "Martian Masters" who invaded and conquered Earth-691 in the year 2001 A.D., then they would have possessed telepathic abilities which they used to communicate with each other.

Cultural traits: The "Martians" are known to be a militant race, but how widespread their militancy was within their species has never been revealed. The ones who conquered Earth-9930 had no problem with slaughtering billions of humans.

   According to the Black Panther, the "Martians" lived in nests when on Mars. However, there has never been any in-story confirmation of the accuracy of this information.

Type: Non-humanoid cephalopods
Eyes: Unrevealed (at least one, possibly two, red in color)
Limbs: Unrevealed (at least one tentacle each, possibly more)
Fingers: Inapplicable
Toes: Inapplicable
Skin color: Orange (see comments)
Hair: None
Average height: 3' (wild guess)

Type of government: Unrevealed

Level of technology: The "Martians" are known to have been capable of interstellar travel. Although this was presumably accomplished using starships capable of traveling faster than the speed of light by accessing hyperspace, this has not been confirmed, and it's possible that they used some form of teleportation or portal technology to cross those vast distances.

   During their invasion and occupation of Earth, the "Martians" used large motherships to transport themselves, their warriors and their weapons between Mars and Earth. It has not been revealed if these were the space vehicles they used to travel to the Solar System from wherever their homeworld (or their former base of operations) was located.

   The primary military forces that the "Martians" are known to have used against the humans of Earth were their tripod-ships and their cybernetic Skorpsmen.

History:
(Avengers: Forever I#4 (fb) - BTS / Avengers: Forever I#10 (fb) - BTS / Avengers III#42 (fb) - BTS) - The aliens later known on Earth as "Martians" were members of a militant extraterrestrial race that had reached the planet Mars in the Sol system of the Milky Way Galaxy. These aliens had established a staging base on Mars that could be used to launch a fleet capable of invading and subjugating other planets. That base included at least one very large tower.

(Avengers: Forever I#10 (fb)) - At some point, as part of his effort to roll back human technological development on all Earths, the time-lord Immortus visited that staging base and, with a word in the right ear, he turned that race's attention to Earth.

(Avengers: Forever I#4 (fb) - BTS / Avengers III#42 (fb) - BTS) <sometime before 2040 A.D.> - The aliens sent a fleet from their staging base on Mars to invade and subjugate Earth. Exactly how they attacked has never been revealed, but it involved Tripod-ships and cybernetic ground warriors. The invasion was overwhelmingly successful, and Earth was conquered.

(Avengers: Forever I#5 (fb) - BTS) - During the ten years that the "Martians" ruled Earth, they slaughtered billions of humans.

(Avengers: Forever I#4 (fb) - BTS / Avengers: Forever I#6 (fb) - BTS) - Among those killed in the early stages of the invasion/conquest/occupation were six members of the Avengers: Captain America, Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, Giant-Man and the Wasp. Their deaths were witnessed by their fellow Avenger the Black Panther.

(Avengers: Forever I#6 (fb) - BTS) - A group statue was later erected in New York City in memoriam to those six Avengers for having died in the service of their country.

(Avengers: Forever I#4 (fb) - BTS) - As the "Martian" occupation of planet Earth continued, new super-powered beings and trained human fighters arose and joined the Avengers in fighting for freedom.

(Avengers: Forever I#6 (fb) - BTS) - During their rule, the "Martian" Overlords destroyed humanity's cities and plundered the planet of its resources. In Wakanda, they mined out almost all of the Vibranium in the Great Vibranium Mound. In the process, they destroyed Wakanda, reducing its cities to rubble, scorching the earth and killing hundreds of thousands of Wakandans who ended up buried in unmarked graves.

(Avengers: Forever I#6 (fb) - BTS) - The "Martians" also crushed any human space program that then existed on Earth.

(Avengers: Forever I#6 (fb) - BTS) - During their rule, the "Martians" also operated genetics laboratories where they conducted experiments that created new lifeforms, including the winged female humanoid later known as Mourning Prey.

(Avengers: Forever I#6 (fb) - BTS) - For reasons of his own, Immortus tampered with this timeline on at least two further occasions:

    At one point, he found Mourning Prey while she was frantically wandering after her escape from the Martian genetics lab and brought her to the Great Vibranium Mine where it was safe for her to lay her eggs, knowing that her children would need the remaining Vibranium to nurture and sustain them.

    On another occasion, Immortus may have officiated at the wedding of Machine Man and Jocasta, presumably because he knew that their union would result in a child and that Vibranium would be needed to prevent both mother and child from dying in childbirth. Although the "Martians" were probably unaware of these actions, they would later benefit from them.

(Avengers: Forever I#4 (fb) - BTS) - For some reason, despite having wiped out more than 99.999% of humanity, the "Martians" began to lose their dominance over the planet Earth.

(Avengers: Forever I#4 (fb) - BTS / Avengers: Forever I#5 (fb) - BTS) - About ten years after the "Martians" had conquered Earth, the territory they controlled was apparently limited to the New York City area. At the same time, the fifty thousand surviving humans had joined together and become an increasingly-experienced army, united in their determination to fight for freedom

(Avengers: Forever I#4 (fb) - BTS) - As Earth's last battle began in New York City, the "Martian" forces were outnumbered by the human fighters, but the firepower possessed by the Tripod-ships and the Skorpsmen ground warriors was devastating. The battle began to go badly for the humans, and it soon looked as if the "Martian" forces would easily defeat the human army.

(Avengers: Forever I#4) - As Earth's last battle continued to be fought, a chronosphere carrying two Avengers from the past of an alternate timeline (apparently from different points in time from Reality-616) warped into reality above New York City. After observing the war that was being fought and the humans who were dying and needed help, the two visitors left their vehicle and joined the fight, with the super-strong Captain America battling the Skorpsmen while Giant-Man attacked the tripods. The addition of these two new fighters caused the tide of battle to slowly begin to turn, and the humans, inspired by seeing what they were accomplishing, began to fight with renewed hope.

   Recognizing the effect that Captain America was having, the Skorpsmen began to target him in the belief that killing him would demoralize the humans. However, just as the Skorpsman Skrag was about to strike Cap down from behind, the Avengers arrived on the scene. and three five-pointed throwing stars hurled by Killraven struck Skrag's head, saving Captain America's life. The presence of the Avengers, who were easily able to kill them, caused the Skorpsmen to flee from the immediate area, giving the Avengers a chance to explain the situation to the two visitors.

(Avengers: Forever I#5) - As Earth's last battle continued, now with eight Avengers fighting alongside the human army, the forces of the "Martians" began to be killed off, with Giant-Man and the Crimson Dynamo handing the Tripods while the other six fought the Skorpsmen with no quarter and no mercy. Eventually, the alien losses became so great that the "Martians" apparently ordered the Skorpsmen to retreat to their motherships as they prepared to flee from Earth.

(Avengers: Forever I#5 - BTS) - Concerned that the humans could use any motherships they might capture to pursue them and follow them back to Mars, the "Martians" mined all but one of them, wrecking them.

(Avengers: Forever I#5) - As that single mothership began to slowly lift off, the Avengers and the humans killed dozens of the retreating Skorpsmen as they tried to reach it. However, despite their best efforts, none of the Avengers were able to prevent that mothership from escaping into space. With all the "Martian" forces in the city apparently having been been eliminated, the Black Panther, holding the head and spinal column of a Skorpsman aloft in his left hand, addressed the victorious human army, declaring, "We have to follow them! We have to! We must chase the enemy back to their lairs -- harry them, root them out -- AND DESTROY THEM FOR ALL TIME!"

(Avengers: Forever I#6 (fb) - BTS) - Since the American space program had long ago been crushed, the Black Panther knew that the only hope of pursuing the "Martians" back to their nests and destroying them once and for all lay in his homeland's technology and its power. T'Challa planned to use the very little Vibranium that remained in the Great Vibranium Mound to power a small fleet of Wakandan-designed spaceships that would get them to Mars where they could kill their enemies.

(Avengers: Forever I#6) - The day after the "Martian" overlords were finally repulsed, the Avengers traveled to Wakanda and entered the mostly-empty mound where they came across two situations that Immortus had secretly arranged. These situations forced the Black Panther to choose between using the Vibranium to bring death to the "Martians" or to preserve the lives of Jocasta, her unborn son, and Mourning Prey's insectoid children. Although aware that they were being manipulated, T'Challa chose life over death, and the two visiting Avengers soon used their chronosphere to leave that timeline.

What happened to the "Martians" after they returned to Mars has never been revealed.

   Reality-9930 was destroyed (along with the rest of the Sixth Multiverse) by the Beyonders in an attempt to prevent the threat of the coming Dominion, but this timeline, like all the others, was (re)created as part of the Seventh Multiverse by Franklin Richards and/or Reed Richards and/or the Molecule Man (Owen Reece).

Comments: The "Martians" were created by Kurt Busiek & Roger Stern, Carlos Pacheco and Jesús Merino.
   Design seemingly based on the artwork of P. Craig Russell from Amazing Adventures II#28.

   The image to the right is what I believe inspired the design of the "Martian" shown in Avengers: Forever I#10. It is a scan of panel 9 on page 7 of Amazing Adventures II#28, an issue for which Craig Russell was credited as the artist and colorist. As one can see, the main body of the Martian (later described as "a bloated, mucoid sac") is a pale orange color while the tentacles are green and are later shown to have sucker pads at their ends.

   The original Killraven stories are notable for the fact that the Martians were not portrayed consistently from issue to issue. Although this was usually because the art teams were different, it should be noted that artwork by P. Craig Russell depicted Martians in no less than three very different forms. This image shows his first design for a Martian, a second design appeared in Amazing Adventures II#36, and a third design showed up in Marvel Graphic Novel#7: Killraven, Warrior of the Worlds.

   It should be noted that the orange color of the "Martian" in this profile's main image may not be intentional. In the panel in Avengers: Forever I#10 that immediately follows the panel showing Immortus with an alien on Mars, he is shown talking with a Badoon Brother Royal whose scaly skin is depicted as being orange instead of green.

   All in all, this has been a somewhat frustrating profile to write. Not only was the information provided about the "Martians" extremely limited, their forces only appeared in scenes from the last battle against the humans. With only seven pages allowed for the depiction of that battle, those scenes were crowded with figures, so there were few (if any) full images of the Tripod-ships and the Skorpsmen. Even the "Martians" themselves were only partially shown in a single panel in a later issue.

Unanswered questions
   A number of questions about the "Martians" and their conquest of Earth-9930 weren't answered by the storyline in Avengers: Forever I#4-6 + 10. So, since I want to write a thorough profile, that means that I must resort to some speculation which is best relegated to here in the comments section.

When did the "Martians" conquer and occupy Earth-9930?
   The time frame for the visit that Captain America and Giant-Man made to Earth-9930 is rather vague, presumably due to a desire to not clearly contradict Earth-616's Sliding Timescale, but there are a few temporal references that can narrow things down. First, the Omniscient Narrative in Avengers: Forever I#4 explicitly states that the Chronosphere warped back into reality above New York "in the first half of the twenty-first century." This means that Earth's last battle against the "Martians" can take place no later than 2050 A.D.

   Second, in Avengers: Forever I#5, the Black Panther refers to how "the past ten years" had given the people of Earth good reason to be bloodthirsty in their treatment of the "Martians." While it's not impossible that the "Martians" occupied Earth for more than ten years but it was only the last ten years of their rule that they really gave the humans reason to hate them, that seems incredibly unlikely, so I'm inclined to accept "ten years" as an accurate measurement of the length of the "Martian" occupation. Of course, since it's also unlikely that the occupation lasted exactly ten years, it's probable that T'Challa rounded the numbers somewhat. I'd say that ten years would be accurate to within four months, plus or minus, but I doubt that T'Challa would be inclined to round down the length of time that the people of Earth had suffered under "Martian" rule. So, that would place the date of the "Martian" invasion of Earth as occurring no later than 2040 A.D.

   Third, the ages of some of Earth-9930's Avengers can provide clues as to when in the first half of the twenty-first century the last battle took place. Of the six Avengers, Jocasta is a synthezoid, the Crimson Dynamo's body is always completely encased in his armor, and the Living Lightning is only depicted in his electrical form, so their ages cannot be determined. Similarly, although Thundra seems to be no older than her present-day Earth-616 counterpart, she is known to be a genetically-engineered warrior from a female-dominated Alternate Earth, and her enhancements may include decelerated aging. This leaves us with Killraven and the Black Panther as the only two Avengers whose bodies can indicate their age, with Killraven being described as a "young man" by T'Challa who is himself later described in the Omniscient Narration as being "aged-but-powerful" and is depicted as having a receding hairline, with the hair on his head ranging from black to grey to white. Given that the present-day T'Challa is generally considered to be in his thirties, I would estimate this aged T'Challa to be a few decades older, probably in his sixties or seventies, but he might even have been in his eighties (if the heart-shaped herb somewhat retarded his aging process).

   Taking those three factors into account leads me to believe that the last battle takes place in the second quarter of the twenty-first century, sometime between 2026 and 2050 A.D., with the "Martian" invasion having taken place ten years earlier, sometime between 2016 and 2040 A.D. While I am quite confident of those dates, it would have been nice if the writers had provided some actual dates.

   Having said all that, something about the story that puzzles me is the fact that, when Captain America revealed that he and Giant-Man were visitors from decades in the past who were investigating a temporal anomaly, the Black Panther instantly realized that Cap was referring to the Destiny War. The obvious implication is that T'Challa learned about the Destiny War from the Avengers files, just as Songbird and Genis-Vell had apparently done in their Earth-98120 timeline, but that has its own implications. Specifically, this strongly indicates that both Earth-9930 and Earth-98120 diverged from Earth-616 at some point after Giant-Man, the Wasp and Rick Jones appeared outside Avengers Mansion at the end of Avengers: Forever I#12. This would imply that, prior to those unspecified divergence points, those three timelines must have shared a single common past (or that their histories were separate but identical prior to those divergence points), and that in turn would imply that these history of this race of "Martians" and the history of the Martian Masters of Reality-616 must be identical prior to whenever their two timelines diverged, something that happened after Hank, Jan and Rick returned from the Destiny War.

   At this point, I would like to note that, while I believe that my reasoning is sound, I am not prepared to take the next step and import any pre-2000 stories about the Martian Masters from Earth-616 into this profile.

How exactly were the "Martians" defeated on Earth-9930?
   While the idea of a brave band of rebels being able to overcome a much more powerful force of oppressors is a common theme in literature, and sometimes in real life, there are times when such results seem wildly implausible, and what seemed to happen on Earth-9930 is one of those times. I mean, the "Martians" had destroyed all human cities and slaughtered billions of humans, leaving only 50,000 survivors who were, except for the Avengers, armed with weapons no more advanced than swords and metal clubs. How could this "dwindling band of refugees" hope to defeat their alien overlords whose weapons had enabled them to destroy whole cities?

   Of course, that doesn't mean that it's impossible for the underdog freedom fighters to defeat the evil empire, just that the story would seem more plausible if it included some reasons why they were able to win. For example, maybe the "devastating" firepower of the weapons used by the "Martian" forces was more effective against large targets but less so against smaller and more mobile targets? Or maybe the "Martians" went all in for their invasion, enabling them to swiftly overwhelm Earth's defenders, but that left them without forces that could be used to resupply them? If that were the case, then the size of their occupation forces could only decrease through attrition, eventually weakening their forces enough for the humans to have a chance. Or maybe, as Earth's resources were plundered and removed, the "Martian" occupation forces began to withdraw from those territories in which they were no longer interested, and, as the percentage of Earth's surface over which they wished to maintain control shrank, their forces began to be recalled to Mars?

   One thing that I really would have liked to have been told was how widespread the "Martian" dominance of Earth-9930 was. Specifically, did they once control much of the planet but later withdrew until they only controlled the New York City area? Or was NYC always their primary base of operations on Earth, the place from which they would dispatch forces to other parts of the planet, forces that would return to NYC once their missions were completed?

How are these "Martians" connected to other Martians in the Marvel Universe?
   Over the past past eight decades, Marvel Comics, as well as Timely Comics and Atlas Comics before them, have published over two hundred comic book stories that feature Martians and/or the planet Mars. Most of these were stand-alone/one-shot stories that were not meant to exist within a larger shared continuity. For this reason, while I have no objection to the idea that these stories took place within the Marvel Megaverse, I strongly dislike any suggestion that they must co-exist within the Marvel Multiverse. I also dislike the idea that stories published by Marvel during the Golden Age must necessarily be part of the continuity of Modern Age stories that came into existence with the publication of Fantastic Four I#1 in 1961. With that filter in mind, I prefer to consider the following five types of Martians, plus the "Martians" from this profile, as the only ones who could have been active on the "mainstream" Earth or any of its closely-associated divergent timelines:

1. The Martian Masters from the Killraven stories in Amazing Adventures II#18-39 and Marvel Graphic Novel#7: Killraven, Warrior of the Worlds. These are the Martians who failed to conquer Earth-691 in the year 1901 A.D. but succeeded with their second attempt in 2001 A.D. Their arch-foe is Killraven, a former gladiator slave who escaped and became a freedom fighter. These are the beings that come to mind when I consider the "Martians of the MU." Sadly, due to different art teams, their appearance has varied significantly between issues, showing them in about six different forms.
2. The Takers from 2099: World of Tomorrow#1-7. These green-skinned semi-humanoid beings were presented as being the last members of a race that was indigenous to Mars. After a war with the Phalanx that was fought 10,000 years ago, the surface of Mars was rendered uninhabitable so the last 200 survivors placed themselves in suspended animation. By the year 2099 A.D., when Alchemax had established the Ares Colony on Mars, there were only seven of them left alive. A guide to the World of Tomorrow identified this race, "Mars’ native people," as the Sheenar. The Takers existed in the Earth-928 timeline which, at the time that the 2099 titles were being published, was supposed to be the definitive future of the present-day Earth-616. This would mean that the war against the Phalanx would have been part of the common history shared by Earth-616/Earth-928.
3. The humanoid race from Silver Surfer V#7 who looked exactly like Caucasian humans except for their pointed ears. This unnamed race supposedly lived on Mars over one hundred million years ago until a war with the green-skinned inhabitants of their sister planet, Tiamat, left Mars a desolate wasteland. There is some in-story evidence that this race and the people of Tiamat were nothing more than part of a false origin for itself that was believed by the malevolent thought-form known as Marduk.
4. The unseen Martians from Secret Avengers I#3. According to the secret history revealed by the construct Archon, Mars once had an atmosphere like that of Earth and lush forests and cities that reached to the skies. However, a millennium past, the planet was abandoned after it was all but destroyed following a failed attempt by those who had been touched by the Abyss to use the three crowns to free the nameless father of the Dark Children from his prison in a side reality beyond where humans can see or touch.
5. The ancient race of shape-shifters from All-New Invaders#9-15.

   Out of these six races of Martians, the Martian Masters, the shape-shifters and this profile's "Martians" are possibly (or probably meant to be) the same race, and they may (or may not) also be the unseen race who created the three crowns that could free the Abyss. The race who once warred with the people of Tiamat are probably totally fictitious, nothing more than part of the delusions of the entity Marduk who has been retroactively removed from history. And that leaves the Takers/Sheenar, for whom I have no explanation.
    A large number of the Martian stories from the Golden and Atlas Ages are clearly an alternate reality. But, a number of them also have nothing that would discount them from being Reality-616.
    Discounting the Golden Age ones, which is really just an arbitrary bias, there are also the Martians of the Gullivar Jones and John Carter series (such as Krakas)...yes, these are adaptations of characters from novels, but the same is true of the "Martians" from Amazing Adventures and other Killraven stories, as they adaptations of the characters from H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds." There's nothing to rule them out of continuity, either. As I discuss in the header for the Martian event, maybe there's a reason why multiple races have existed on Mars and seeming vanished without a trace.
    --Snood

Why are the "Martians" believed to not be native to Mars?
   I first learned that Martians existed in the Marvel Universe back in 1976 when I read my first Killraven story in Marvel Team-Up I#45. However, I didn't actually see any of those Martians until I bought a copy of Marvel Graphic Novel#7 as a back issue in the early 1990s. By that time, Marvel had already begun using the Official Handbook to retcon those Martians into being non-natives of Mars. In 1983, the Appendix in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe I#7 contained an entry for Killraven which stated that he and his Freemen fought beings called "Martians" who were semi-octopoid aliens using Mars as a base for their invasions of Earth. Six years later, The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Update '89#4 contained a full profile on Killraven which backtracked slightly. While it did refer to "sentient octopus-like aliens known as Martians," it also noted that "It has not yet been revealed whether these aliens actually originated on Mars, or whether their race is native to another planet and merely uses Mars as a base."

   Back then, I had no problem with retconning Killraven's Martians into being non-natives of Mars. After all, since the images from the Viking landers had made it very clear that the Mars that existed in the real world was lifeless, it seemed perfectly appropriate to enhance the realism of the Marvel Universe by making the MU Mars match the real world Mars as much as possible. However, it would be almost twenty years later before the first Avengers: Forever mini-series would make the first in-story references to the idea that the "Martians" were actually extra-solar aliens who were merely using Mars as a staging base for their invasions of Earth.

   Oddly enough, it was only after that in-story confirmation of the non-nativeness of the "Martians" that I decided that I didn't like the retcon after all. There were three things that changed my mind. The first was the fact that the 2099: World of Tomorrow series had introduced the Takers who were explicitly stated to be the sole indigenous race of Mars. I found it irritating that Marvel Comics, after going to the trouble of retconning the MU Mars into being a lifeless world where Killraven's "Martians" had not evolved, then undid that by creating a new native race for Mars. If they were going to make Mars a place where life had once existed, then why not restore the nativeness of the Martian Masters?
    This bothers me not at all. The writers of 2099 stories may consider it to be a future of -616, but it's not. It's an alternate reality, and there are many differences, ret-conned or not. So, anything true as of 2099 A.D. in Reality-928 or the other 2099 series did not necessarily occur the past of Reality-616.
    --Snood

   The second reason was that, by the mid-2000s, I had been able to read the Killraven stories from the Amazing Adventures series. This was important because, although the Martians usually weren't given much of a backstory, there was one significant exception. "Red Dust Legacy" in Amazing Adventures II#36 provided the most in-depth examination of the Martians to ever appear in any Killraven story, and it established that the Martians had lived on Mars for an unspecified (but long) period of time before they ever tried to invade and conquer Earth.

   The third reason was that I finally realized how pointless it was to be concerned about the realism of a fictional continuity in which magic and mutants and multiple alien visitations already existed. In the midst of so much unrealism, what would be the harm in letting Mars be the homeworld of the Martian race?

   Anyway, if I were someday made God-Editor of the Marvel Universe, one of my decrees to my minions would be to find some way to retcon the "Martian Masters" into being a race who had actually evolved on Mars. Who knows, maybe they did evolve on Mars but then something (maybe an environmental crisis or what happened with the three crowns) forced them to abandon their homeworld for another planet, and it was only in recent years/decades that they were able to return to their ancestral home and reclaim it?
    The idea that they were native to Mars but departed it at some point and then only returned in recent years is very intriguing, and it is the kind of "No-Prize" solution that I like, where all stories could be made true.
    --Snood

   Also, the fact that the actual species-name of the "Martians" in this profile was never revealed meant that I had to use quotation marks around every mention of them in order to show that they weren't "real Martians." That was tedious.

Avengers Forever
   Although the 1998/1999 Avengers: Forever mini-series does not, in my opinion, contain any definitive in-story references that absolutely tie the "Martians" from Reality-9930 to the Martian Masters from Earth-691, three of the four "Sources" pages do strongly indicate that they were meant to be other-dimensional counterparts of each other.

• ISSUE FOUR: Killraven and the Martian invaders, including the cyborg Skar, the basis for the Skorpsmen, were first seen in a divergent future in Amazing Adventures #18-39.
• ISSUE FIVE: M'Shulla, Carmilla Frost, Volcana Ash and Old Skull all debuted in the alternate-future depicted in AMAZING ADVENTURES #18-39.
• ISSUE SIX: Mourning Prey and her children first appeared in AMAZING ADVENTURES #39, although in this timeline her children resemble the Vibranium-mutated Jakarra, from BLACK PANTHER vol. 1 #7-10.
• ISSUE TEN: Immortus' visit to the "Martians" occurred prior to Amazing Adventures (vol. 2) #18.

   While my opinion is obviously influenced by my wish that the Martian Masters be restored to being natives of Mars, there are clearly some differences between the "Martians" who conquered Earth-9930 and the Martian Masters who conquered Earth-691. Aside from the fact that the "Martians" only occupied Earth-9930 for about ten years, a far shorter time than the Martian Masters remained on Earth-691, there are no in-story references to Earth-9930 having previously experienced a failed "Martian" invasion in its early twentieth century, something that is a vital part of Earth-691's history. Sure, it could just be that space limitations caused the writers to omit any reference to the "Martians" having previously tried to conquer Earth-9930, but that omission also be interpreted as evidence that no such failed invasion took place in the Earth-9930 timeline, and that would mean that those two timelines diverged almost a century (or more) before the present-day. Having said that, I am also aware that "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
    I think they were inspired by Martian Masters, and the fact that they were centered around an invasion opposed by Killraven and his associates (and references to Skar) clearly indicates that they were alternate reality variants...but, does that mean that they were definitely the same race? Certainly not...they were the "Martian" race that invaded Earth -9930.
--Snood

Skar and the Skorpsmen
   As mentioned above, the Sources page in Avengers: Forever I#4 states that "the cyborg Skar (is) the basis for the Skorpsmen." Given that Skar was the only non-human minion of the Martian Masters to appear in any Killraven story, it makes sense that the Avengers: Forever writers would have had no choice but to use him if they wanted to play into the idea that Earth-9930 was a version of Killraven's future, albeit one in which he and the Avengers co-existed. However, while their appearances are identical, the actual physical capabilities of the Skorpsmen seem to be far less than those of Skar.

   Aside from being a sadistic killer who took pleasure from the suffering of his victims, Skar was also a somewhat formidable opponent. He appeared to have super-strength, at least in the hand which he used to crush a metal gun. More importantly, Skar was also very durable, being able to withstand a crossbow bolt that penetrated completely through his neck and a sword thrust into the "eye" socket in his head without experiencing any impairment of function. It was only by using a laser pistol and then brutally battering him to death that Killraven was able to kill Skar. In contrast, the Skorpsmen seemed to be a lot easier to kill. Apart from being electrocuted by the Living Lightning or being disrupted by Jocasta's phasing, the Skorpsmen were also seen to be vulnerable to more mundane ways of killing, like being stabbed by swords or impaled by poles, being strangled by Thundra's chain, blunt force trauma to the head by a metal pipe wielded by Old Skull or by Captain America's shield, or having their heads torn off by the Black Panther. Perhaps the lamest way in which a Skorpsman was shown dying was when Skrag was killed by throwing stars whose points were slightly embedded in his head. I mean, I suppose that they could have been lethal if they hit vital spots, but I can't imagine that Skar would have had any reaction other than laughter if his Killraven had tried to use such weapons against him.

   A second difference is that Skar never experienced any pain, not even when Killraven was blasting his body open with a laser and then battering him to pieces with his bare hands. In contrast, a Skorpsman was shown crying out in pain when Jocasta disrupted him.

   Finally, there's the matter of how vague the true natures of Skar and the Skorpsmen were. For most of his on-panel existence, Skar appeared to be an organic being, and it was only on the last page of Amazing Adventures II#34 that he was revealed to have been something else all along. Given that his torso, arms and head were shown to be mechanical beneath his skin, one would assume that that meant that he must have been a robot or an android, but there are two references that could be indications that he might have been a cyborg. The first was in Amazing Adventures II#27, when Skar was able to receive the instructions that the High Overlord gave him using telepathy, something that (maybe) suggested that he had an organic brain (although that possibility was perhaps contradicted by the fact that they used "mechanical telepathy" to communicate in Amazing Adventures II#32). The second was the fact that the Omniscient Narrative referred to Skar's "broken cyborg parts" on the page on which he was killed. Personally, I suspect that the use of the term "cyborg parts" may have been a mistake and that "android parts" might have more accurately conveyed what the writer intended to say about Skar's nature, namely that he wasn't at all organic, but this is only supposition on my part.
   Anyway, the Skorpsmen were also presented inconsistently. Whenever their bodies were shown partially dismembered or torn open, only mechanical components were visible, and never any blood or tissue, suggesting that they were all androids. Unfortunately, this was contradicted by that one instance where a Skorpsman was shown having his "cellular structure" disrupted when Jocasta phased her arm into his body, Vision-style, implying that he had (organic) cells that could be disrupted.

   The Skorpsmen from Earth-9930 were based on Skar who was seemingly a unique individual on Earth-691. However, in 2023, Spider-Man Unlimited Infinity Comic#6 had two Spider-Men being menaced by a Skorpsman while visiting Earth-691, meaning that Skar has now been retconned into being one of a group of identical minions of the Martian Masters.

    I definitely recall being impressed with how tough Skar was when I originally read the stories. My only consideration for the above differences would be that perhaps in Reality-691, Skar was built to be an extremely powerful warrior, while in Reality-9930, they went with quantity over quality, and the Skorpsmen were nowhere near as powerful as Skar. And then, subsequent Skorpsmen created in Reality-691 were patterned after Skar, but perhaps not as powerful as the original
    --Snood

Profile by Donald Campbell.

CLARIFICATIONS:
The "Martians" who conquered Earth-9930 in its early twenty-first century were apparently meant to be other-timeline counterparts of:

• the Martian Masters from Reality-691 who conquered the planet Earth in their timeline in the year 2001 A.D. after failing to do so in the year 1901 A.D.--Amazing Adventures II#18
• the Martian Masters from Reality-616 who made several unsuccessful attempts to conquer the planet Earth in their timeline in its early twentieth century--All-New Invaders#12

These "Martians" have no known connections to:

• any of the hundreds of other individuals or species who claim to be "Martians" from the planet Mars in Earth's solar system. A list of them (courtesy of Snood and Prime Eternal, with help from many other Masters of the Obscure) can be found here.

• the Skorpsmen from Reality-691 who served the Martian Masters who conquered the planet Earth in the year 2001 A.D.--Spider-Man Unlimited Infinity Comic#6

The Skorpsmen from Earth-9930 have no known connections to:

• the Scorpeople - residents of Antares who, in 2075, pitted Speed Carter against the Centaurs of Sagittarius--Speed Carter#6/4
• the Scorpian race - the extraterrestrial race of grey-skinned reptilian humanoids from the planet Pygram in the Scorpius star system whose only identified member was Slitherogue--Skull the Slayer#4
• the Scorpio Key - the power object that Mikel Fury wielded during his time as Scorpio--Marvel Graphic Novel: Wolverine & Nick Fury: The Scorpio Connection
• a normal scorpion that was accidentally mutated into a giant monstrous form and gained sapience, but was tricked by its creator into letting him kill it after expressing its intention to conquer the world--Journey into Mystery I#82
• the white scorpion creatures from the Ankh dimension--Avengers III#58
• the Scorpion God from the Pre-Cataclysmic Age - a god-demon worshipped in Valusia during the time of Gonra of the Sword (c. 19,500 B.C.) whose worship had been abandoned during the thousand years before the reign of King Kull--Mentioned in Kull the Conqueror III#9
• a Scorpion priest from Pre-Cataclysmic Valusia - this priest of the Scorpion god (may have) forged the Sword of Gonra and (may have) appeared to King Kull (in a vision) when he approached the Temple of the Scorpion--Kull the Conqueror III#9
• the Scorpion Queen - an immense female scorpion/humanoid Demoness from the Hell ruled by "Satan" (a.k.a. Marduk Kurios) who was the mother of all Hell's vermin before being killed by Satana--Legion of Monsters: Satana#1
• anyone else who used the word "Scorpion" as part of an alias
• anyone who used "Scorpio" or "Scorpia" as an alias

Skrag the Skorpsman has no known connections to:

• Skragg - a powerful Storm Giant who was (allegedly) one of Odin's two most fearsome enemies--Journey Into Mystery I#104
• Skragg - a male Skrull scientist who served Thanos as one of his Thanos-Thralls--Captain Marvel I#25
• Skragg - a male Skrull who was the son of Raava the Un-Skrulled--Mentioned in Black Bolt#2
• anyone else with a name that sounds like the word "scrag"

Motherships

   The space vessels which the "Martians" used to travel between their staging base on Mars and Earth. These round, disc-shaped vehicles may have also been the starships in which the "Martians" traveled to the Solar System in the first place.

   The fact that they were known as motherships implies that they served as bases or carriers for smaller vessels, but no such craft were depicted. Alternatively, it's possible that they were primarily used to transport the Tripod-ships and/or the Skorpsmen warriors. It's also possible that any "Martians" who came to Earth actually lived within the motherships.

   Apart from their external appearance, almost nothing has been revealed about the motherships. Their exact size, their armaments, the crew complement needed to operate them, the amount of mass they could transport, their fuel requirements, their means of propulsion and their flight capabilities are all unrevealed.

   When the final battle for the planet Earth was fought in New York City and it became clear that the human army was going to win, the "Martians" decided to flee back to Mars, and their warriors began to retreat back to the motherships. Although many Skorpsmen were killed while retreating, one mothership managed to slowly lift off and then swiftly rise through the atmosphere and into space before the flight-capable Avengers could catch it. When the victorious humans checked the other motherships, they discovered that the "Martians" had wrecked them all, mining them so that the humans could not use them to follow the "Martians" back to Mars.

--Avengers: Forever I#5

Note: It's odd that these Motherships don't look like the Tripods that made up the strike fleet that the Martian Masters used when they attacked Earth-691 in 2001 A.D.

Skorpsmen

   Cybernetic humanoids who served the "Martians" as their ground warriors. Although nothing has been revealed about their origins, it seems likely that they were either androids created by the "Martians" or cyborg members of some unidentified extraterrestrial race who had been recruited by the "Martians."

   Whatever their nature, the Skorpsmen were a group (or race) of hairless, yellow-skinned humanoids who all had exactly the same appearance. Aside from their skin color and hairlessness, the most distinctive (and non-human) feature of the Skorpsmen were their heads. While they had ears and mouths that looked human and were in the same relative positions as human ears and mouths, the Skorpsmen lacked noses and, instead of a pair of eyes, they each had a single dark, round socket situated at the mid-point between where a human would have had eyes. Since those sockets appeared to be empty, it's unclear how Skorpsmen were able to perceive their surroundings.

   While the exact physical and combat capabilities of the Skorpsmen were also unclear, they did not appear to possess even enhanced levels of strength or durability, given that it was shown that they could be killed as easily as any human by impalement, blunt force trauma, electrocution, strangulation or having their heads pulled off their bodies. The only exception to their unexceptionalness was their ability to project energy beams from their hands. However, although those energy beams were presumably lethal to humans, the fact that they were not shown firing them often during the last battle for Earth suggests that their energy projection ability had limitations which made it less than ideal for use in close-quarters combat with multiple opponents.

   The exact role that the Skorpsmen played during the "Martian" invasion and conquest of Earth has not been revealed. While they could have been part of the initial attack, alongside the Tripod-ships, it's also possible that they could have been held back until after Earth's primary defenses were destroyed, and only then deployed to mop up Earth's remaining lesser defenses, like human soldiers. As for their function during the occupation, the Skorpsmen presumably served the "Martians" by protecting "Martian" ground installations from attack and hunting down resistance fighters, but this has not been confirmed.

   During Earth's last battle, fought in the ruins of New York City, the Skorpsmen and the Tripod-ships were outnumbered by the humans who had gathered to fight them to the death, but the fact that the "Martian" forces had devastating firepower should have enabled them to handily win the battle. At first, that seemed to be the case, as the battle went badly for the humans. However, with the arrival of two costumed heroes from another timeline, the tide of battle began to turn. As the huge Giant-Man dealt with the Tripod-ships, the super-strong Captain America, with his fighting skills and his indestructible shield, mowed down the Skorpsmen in his path.

   As the costumed hero's successes in taking them down inspired the other humans to fight harder, the Skorpsmen realized that killing him would negate his inspirational effect, and several of them targeted him. However, when the Avengers arrived and Killraven killed Skrag just as he was about to kill Captain America, the Skorpsmen in the area turned and fled, unwilling to face off against the Avengers.

   As the last battle continued, the human forces, now greatly bolstered by the Avengers, fought savagely, offering the "Martian" forces no quarter and no mercy. Eventually, the number of Skorpsmen killed rose to a point that the "Martians" realized that there was no longer any chance that they could win, and so the decision was made to flee Earth and return to Mars. Presumably in response to "Martian" commands, the Skorpsmen began to retreat, attempting to get to the motherships so that they could escape. However, dozens of the Skorpsmen were cut down as they retreated, and, when a single mothership managed to lift off and escape into space, any Skorpsmen who weren't aboard it were left behind and were presumably killed by the victorious humans.

   In the aftermath of the battle, after being told that the "Martians" had destroyed the other motherships to prevent pursuit by the humans, the Black Panther, concerned that the "Martians" might rearm and return, addressed the victors. Holding aloft the skull and spinal column of a Skorpsman in one hand, he declared that they had to chase the enemy back to their lairs, harry them, root them out and AND DESTROY THEM FOR ALL TIME! Then, after seeing how surprised Captain America and Giant-Man were by his behavior, T'Challa dropped the skull and spinal column at Captain America's feet and explained that, in the past ten years they had been given good reason to be bloodthirsty.

--Avengers: Forever I#4-5; Avengers III#42

Note: As with Skar, the character upon whom they were based, the true nature of the Skorpsmen remains unclear. On the one hand, when their skin was damaged or their body parts had been torn off, their insides seemed to be mechanical, implying that they were androids. On the other hand, they possessed a "cellular structure" that could be painfully disrupted by Jocasta and the fact that Captain America worried about killing so many of them implies that they were (or he thought they were) organic, living beings. While calling them cyborgs would seemingly resolve this contradiction, it just doesn't feel right to me, and I really wish the creative team had been clearer about what they were supposed to be. Specifically, were the Skorpsmen androids, genetically-engineered lifeforms or aliens?

Skrag

   One of the Skorpsmen who served the "Martians" as their ground warriors during their occupation of the planet Earth. Skrag looked exactly like every other Skorpsman and presumably possessed the same abilities as they did, including the ability to fire some sort of destructive energy from his hands. He has the distinction of being the only Skorpsman whose name has ever been revealed.

   Like every other Skorpsman, nothing has been revealed about Skrag's nature or his life or his service to the "Martians" prior to Earth's last battle. As such, Skrag may have been part of the actual invasion of Earth or he may not have arrived on-planet until after the conquest. Since his origin has never been revealed, Skrag may even have been born (or created) on Earth.

   During the last battle that the people of Earth fought against their alien conquerors in the ruins of New York City, Skrag was one of the many Skorpsmen who battled the human army. Despite being outnumbered, the Skorpsmen and the "Martian" Tripod-ships had devastating firepower that gave them the advantage and would have undoubtedly enabled them to crush the humans. However, the tide of battle began to turn after two visitors from another timeline, the huge Giant-Man and the super-strong Captain America, arrived and began fighting alongside the native humans.

   Skrag was one of the Skorpsmen who encountered Captain America in battle and realized that killing him would demoralize the human fighters. As Skrag approached Captain America from behind, preparing to attack, one of his comrades who was facing the human garbed in red-white-and-blue called out, "This one, Skrag! Kill him and the others -- UHH!" but a punch from Captain America cut off his words. Preoccupied with using his shield to protect himself from two energy blasts, Captain America wasn't aware that Skrag was about to fire his own energy blast from his left hand. However, Captain America was saved from Skrag when, just before he could fire, he was struck in the face and head by three yellow throwing stars that had been hurled at him by the just-arrived Killraven of the Avengers. Skrag managed to cry out, "AKHH!" before he collapsed, apparently dead, as the the presence of the Avengers caused the other Skorpsmen to flee.

   As the two Avengers from another timeline got acquainted with the native Avengers, Skrag's corpse lay on the ground nearby with two throwing stars sticking up from his head. About a minute later, as he told Captain America that the alien invaders were "Martians" or, at least, had staged their invasion from Mars, Killraven retrieved his throwing stars, plucking them out of Skrag's head as he spoke.

--Avengers: Forever I#4

Notes: Although the story definitely implied that Skrag was the Skorpsman who was about to strike down Captain America when he was himself killed by Killraven and was presumably the Skorpsmen from whose corpse Killraven retrieved his throwing stars, that was not absolutely established. As such, Skrag could be the Skorpsman seen between his loud-mouthed comrade and Captain America in the upper left image for this subprofile or he could have been behind Cap and to his left and not actually depicted until the panel where he was shown getting struck in the head by three yellow throwing stars. Or maybe neither of those Skorpsmen, assuming they were different individuals, were Skrag.

   Similarly, Skrag may or may not be the Skorpsman shown lying dead with throwing stars protruding from his head and/or the Skorpsman from whose corpse Killraven retrieved his throwing stars. However, it does make it easier to presume that it was Skrag, doesn't it?

Tripod-ships

   The armored fighting vehicles that are the primary offensive weapons used by the "Martians" in their conquest of the planet Earth. Each tripod-ship consists of a disc-shaped main body that is held aloft on three articulated legs which enable them to move over land by walking. Each leg is made up of several rigid segments connected by joints, with segments that are further away from the main body being narrower than those closer to the main body. The legs are long enough, being several tens of feet in length, that they are able to keep their main bodies out of reach of most ground forces, effectively giving them the tactical advantage of holding an elevated position.

   The Tripods are also equipped with multiple whip-like cables that extend from a band that encircles the main body. These cables are presumably prehensile in order to enable the Tripods to use them to grasp or attack targets.

   The Tripods are also equipped with a form of directed-energy weapon, possibly a heat-ray, that they can use to easily incinerate large groups of people with a single blast. These beams are apparently emitted from projectors that are mounted on cables that are situated higher on the main bodies than the tentacles.

   It is unclear if these Tripods were manned vehicles or if they were drone weapons that were controlled by remote operators.

   During the last battle for Earth, the devastating firepower of these Tripod-ships made it likely that the "Martian" forces would win the battle quickly and without much difficulty. However, while they were largely out of reach of most of the human ground forces, the Tripods proved to be vulnerable to Giant-Man who, after enlarging himself, was able to single-handedly topple them by brute force directed against their legs. Giant-Man was also large enough and strong enough that he was able to grab their tentacles, enabling him to restrict their movement enough for him to grab hold of the main bodies of the Tripods or pull the Tripods off-balance so that they toppled. One of the native Avengers, the armored Crimson Dynamo, was also able to attack the Tripods in similar ways, either by assaulting the main bodies or by smashing their legs.

   Ultimately, the human forces won this last battle, routing the "Martians" and forcing them to flee from Earth in a single mothership. It is unclear whether or not all of the Tripod-ships had been destroyed by then.

--Avengers: Forever I#4-5; Avengers III#42

Notes: It is an unfortunate fact that there is only one panel that shows the full image of a Tripod out of all the panels on the five pages from Avengers: Forever I#4-5 in which they appear. All of the other panels in which they appear only show parts of various Tripod-ships. Additionally, these crowded battles scenes only show the effects of the heat-ray being used against the humans (see the red-orange explosions in the upper right image) and not the weapons being fired or the beams being projected from them.

   The images used in this subprofile are slightly out of sequence compared to how events occurred during the battle. In the correct order, the leftmost image is the first, the upper right image is the second, the near-left image is the third and the lower right image is the last.

images: (without ads)
Avengers: Forever I#10, page 14, panel 2 (main image)
Avengers III#42, page 9, panel 2 (Kang's glimpse of this future)
Amazing Adventures II#28, page 7, panel 9 (a P. Craig Russell Martian)
Avengers: Forever I#5, page 4, panel 3 (mothership - side view)
      page 4, panel 5 (mothership - underside)
      page 4, panel 4 (Skorpsmen retreating)
      page 5, panel 6 (a Skorpsman's skull and spinal column)
Avengers: Forever I#4, page 10, panel 3-4 (maybe-Skrag with Captain America)
      page 12, panel 2 (maybe-Skrag with throwing stars in corpse)
      page 12, panel 5 (plucking throwing stars from maybe-Skrag's corpse)
Avengers: Forever I#4, page 9, panel 4 (full body view of a Tripod-ship)
Avengers: Forever I#5, pages 2-3, panel 1 (Giant-Man and Crimson Dynamo vs. Tripods)
Avengers: Forever I#4, page 10, panel 2 (Giant-Man smashing the legs out from under a Tripod)
Avengers: Forever I#5, page 4, panel 1 (Giant-Man pulling a Tripod down)

Appearances:
Avengers: Forever I#4 (March, 1999) - Kurt Busiek & Roger Stern (plot), Kurt Busiek (writer), Carlos Pacheco (penciler), Jesús Merino (inker), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Avengers: Forever I#5 (April, 1999) - Kurt Busiek & Roger Stern (plot), Kurt Busiek (script), Carlos Pacheco (penciler), Jesús Merino (inker), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Avengers: Forever I#6 (May, 1999) - Kurt Busiek & Roger Stern (plot), Kurt Busiek (script), Carlos Pacheco (penciler), Jesús Merino (inker), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Avengers: Forever I#10 (October, 1999) - Kurt Busiek & Roger Stern (plot), Kurt Busiek (script), Carlos Pacheco (penciler), Jesús Merino (inker), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Avengers III#42 (July, 2001) - Kurt Busiek (writer), Alan Davis (penciler), Mark Farmer (inker), Tom Brevoort (editor)

First Posted: 03/23/2024
Last updated: 03/14/2024

Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.

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