BLACK KNIGHT STATUE
(This profile does not cover the Black Knight himself)

Real Name: None

Identity/Class: Magical creation

Occupation: Former decoration;
    occasional pawn/agent of others

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Victoria Bentley, Black Knight (Dane Whitman), Dr. Strange, Enchantress, Ningal;
    possibly the Dweller-in-Darkness and/or Ultron and/or some unknown manipulator (see comments)

Enemies: Formerly the Avengers, Clea, and Dr. Strange

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Currently transformed back into the flesh and blood of the Black Knight (Dane Whitman);
    formerly Garrett Castle, England;
    formerly Dr. Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum

First Appearance: Defenders I#4 (February, 1973)

Powers/Abilities: In its "normal" state, the statue was composed of immobile stone. On occasion it was granted mobility, and at those times it had superhuman strength (strong enough to knock out Wonder Man, though it was VERY soon after his recovery from death--possibly lifting 75-100 tons) and it was harder than normal stone (though certainly still weaker than steel or diamond).

History:
(Defenders I#4) - The Black Knight was mesmerized by the Enchantress and served as her pawn in an adventure into the past. After that adventure, the Enchantress prepared to leave him behind, and when he protested, she showed him her gratitude, with a kiss that turned him to stone. She then left him behind as a monument to the eternal love she could inspire. Dr. Strange attempted to reverse the spell to no avail, as did the Valkyrie (hoping her past connections to the Enchantress might help). Dr. Strange took the statue and the Defenders back to the modern era, outside of Garrett Castle, after which he prepared to convey it to his own Sanctum in New York.

(Avengers I#157 (fb)) - The Defenders teleported to Strange's Sanctum, statue in tow.

(Defenders I#8 (fb) - BTS) - The Black Knight's spirit was dispatched from the statue at some point into some unnamed and unnamable cosmos.

(Defenders I#5) - The Black Knight statue stood in Strange's sanctum as the Valkyrie thought about feelings she had developed for the Black Knight.

(Defenders I#6) - A stray mystic blast from Cyrus Black struck the Black Knight statue, and Dr. Strange siphoned off the harmful power before it could shatter the statue.

(Avengers I#117 (fb)) - Strange attempted to restore the Black Knight to human form, without success.

(Defenders I#8) - Dr. Strange summoned the Defenders as he sent a psychic message to contact the Black Knight's spirit via the statue, telling him that they were working to save him, and asking him if he knew anything that could help them. The Black Knight's spirit received the message and responded that he had no leads for them to find him, but expressed confidence that they would find him. However, the Knight's message was intercepted by Dormammu and Loki, who had formed an alliance and altered the message as part of their plot against Earth. The altered message told Dr. Strange that the Black Knight felt he could only be rescued via the power of the Evil Eye.

(Avengers I#116) - The Black Knight statue stood in Strange's Sanctum as Strange divined the location of the six fragments of the Evil Eye from the Orb of Agamotto (his crystal ball deal).

(Defenders I#9) - The Black Knight statue stood in Strange's Sanctum as the Silver Surfer returned with the Evil Eye fragment he had obtained.

(Defenders I#10) - The Black Knight statue stood in Strange's Sanctum as the Defenders and the Avengers shared their experiences and realized how they had been manipulated.

(Defenders I#11 (fb) - BTS) - The Black Knight's spirit was transported (allegedly via the magic of Merlin) to the 12th century, during the Crusades, where it possessed the form of his ancestor, Eobar Garrington.

(Defenders I#11) - Dr. Strange used the Evil Eye in an effort to contact the Black Knight's spirit, learning that it was no longer in the void where he had first contacted it. Strange and the Defenders were then transported by and with the Evil Eye to the 12th century, where they learned the fate of the Black Knight; the Knight ultimately elected to remain in the 12th century.

(Avengers I#157 (fb)) - The Black Knight statue stood in Strange's Sanctum as the Defenders and the Avengers reviewed their recent conflict, discussing their motivations, etc.

(Avengers I#157 (fb) - BTS) - The statue was moved into Strange's storeroom.

(Avengers I#157 (fb)) - A portal opened above the statue's shoulder. Ultron's hand touched it, animated it, and sent it on a mission.

(Avengers I#157) - The statue arrived at Avengers mansion, quickly incapacitating Iron Man, Yellowjacket, and the Beast. Smashing its way into the kitchen, it similarly took out Captain America and the Wasp in short order. The Scarlet Witch and even Wonder Man soon fell before the statue. Before the Scarlet Witch lapsed into unconsciousness she sent a mental summons to the Vision, who arrived almost immediately, confronting the statue and demanding an explanation. The statue, believing itself to be the true Black Knight, revealed how it felt betrayed by the Avengers and Defenders for leaving it behind and not working harder to restore it to life. The Vision forced the statue to remember how the real Black Knight's spirit had transported back to the 12th century, and that the statue was merely a "ghost of stone." Maddened and refusing to accept this, the statue assaulted the Vision, who turned to the density of unflawed diamond. The statue continued to pound away against the Vision until its stone form shattered into rubble.

(Avengers I#158) - The Vision stood over the rubble of the statue, until a long-brewing fight between him and Wonder Man erupted. The other Avengers entered and saw the fragments of the statue, with Jarvis wondering whether he should clean up the statue or call a morgue.

(Dr. Strange II#35 (fb) - BTS) - The statue's remains were transported to a sub-level of the Avengers' Mansion, where they would remain for a month.

(Dr. Strange II#29) - Iron Man and Yellowjacket contacted Dr. Strange, informing him of the statue's activities and fate, and Strange told them he would be over to pick it up as soon as he could.

(Dr. Strange II#35) - Dr. Strange traveled to Avengers Mansion to examine the statue. He managed to magically restore the statue to intact form, but was surprised to find that the statue now had a sword at its side, when the Knight's sword was in the 12th century with him, and the statue had not had a sword when last seen. Strange removed the seemingly stone sword, smashing it against a table, shattering its coating and revealing it to be the true Ebony Blade. Strange took the sword for further study, leaving the statue at Avengers Mansion for safekeeping.
    Via the Ebony Blade, Strange later fought off the demon Ludi.

(Dr. Strange II#36) - Strange had the Black Knight statue loaded aboard a plane bound for England, taking it to the Knight's ancestral home in Garrett Castle. En route, the demon Ningal assaulted the plane, until it was fought off by Strange. Within Garrett Castle, Strange attempted to contact the Black Knight via the Knight's brazier, but Ningal possessed the statue, transforming it to giant form with the face of Ningal. In this form, Ningal knocked out Victoria Bentley before being discovered by Strange and Clea.

(Dr. Strange II#37) - Ningal challenged Strange, who blasted the statue to rubble. However, Ningal almost immediately reformed and attacked the pair. Initially forced to hide behind a mystic shield, Strange tricked Ningal with his astral self and then stunned him with the "All-Consuming Maelstrom of Madness." Strange's astral self confronted Ningal's, imprisoning it in a block of mystic amber. Without Ningal's power, the statue crumbled back into rubble once again.

(Avengers I#226) - His spirit returned to the modern era by the magic of Amergin, the Black Knight reformed the statue and transformed back to human form, regaining his life.

Comments: Created by Steve Englehart, Sal Buscema, and F. McLaughlin.

    So who animated the statue and sent it after the Avengers?

• I remember Kurt Busiek mentioning that Ultron was a likely suspect, but I don't remember ever seeing or hearing much talk on panel (see his discussion at the bottom, courtesy of Sean McQuaid).
      Ultron fought the Avengers just a few issues later, @ #162.
• Giving the Dweller-in-Darkness' interactions with Strange around that time, it could have been him.
• That hand kind of looks like it could be the Prime Mover's.
• Some people think that Thanos did it, since they think that the In-Betweener indicated this during his battle with Doctor Strange around Doctor Strange II#28.--Per Degaton
• Anyone else?

The situation on who animated the statue was finally cleared in Black Knight (Whitman)'s profile in OHotMU A-Z HC#1. It was indeed Ultron!

    The talk about Merlin guiding the Black Knight's spirit back to the 12th century is a little odd, because it also referred to Garrington as the original Black Knight, while it was the 6th century's Percy of Scandia who held that title (if you don't count that prior magical construct...). Still, I don't remember hearing any other explanation. Have you?

    Ah, the original Avengers vs. Defenders saga...classic Marvel!

    I have a flashback from Avengers I#118 listed on my chronology, but I don't see it. Similarly, I had an appearance (not a flashback) from Avengers I#117 listed, but I don't see that, either? Did I miss them.

Kurt:
    It's Ultron's hand, drawn by an artist who wasn't told to make it anything more than a robot hand (and very possibly wasn't even told it was Ultron). This is the secret plot thread that's running through AVENGERS during the handoff from Englehart to Conway to Shooter, but which never gets explained.
    The evidence is tangled, but compelling:

• The hand animated the Black Knight statue, which bashed a hole in the mansion _and_ shut down the security system. Who benefited from that?
  The Grim Reaper, who infiltrated the mansion while there was a big hole in the wall and the security system was shut down. Did the Reaper get in by coincidence -- he just happened to show up, and there just happened to be a way in? Or was it a plan? It had to be a plan -- otherwise there's no reason for anyone to have sent the "Ghost of Stone" on a rampage. But if it was a plan, whose was it? Well, who was backing the Reaper? Who set him up, who had him infiltrate the mansion for purposes of his own? Ultron. That's one track of the sub-plot.
• The second track is this: When the Black Talon gets captured after Wonder Man is revived, he says something that's been forgotten about ever since -- he says that he _didn't_ revive Wonder man, that Wonder Man was alive again by the time he reached the Talon. So who revived Wonder Man? It wasn't the Reaper -- he thinks the Talon did it. It wasn't the Talon -- he admitted it. But there are two clues: First, at one point, when Wonder Man's semi-conscious, he raves about "The silver shadow... the reaching hand..." Whose shadow? Whose hand?
• Second, as noted above -- who's backing the Reaper at this point? Ultron. Glimpsed through a semi-conscious haze, he could appear to be a silver shadow. And that "reaching hand" that revived him -- it must be the same reaching hand that we saw revive the "Ghost of Stone"; it's unlikely in the extreme that two reaching hands would reanimate beings in order to help out the Grim Reaper.
• Ultron is the one behind the scenes at this point. Ultron is the silver shadow. It's Ultron's reaching hand. He's the only one who has a reason for doing it, and who's actually involved in the story and benefits from the Reaper being aided.
• How did he do it? Well, this part never gets explained -- whatever was going on there gets lost in the switchover from Conway to Shooter, and the general hectic pace of AVENGERS back then (the book was insanely late, so it was being churned out really fast). But Conway was building a sub-plot, and I'm convinced that those two pieces -- the silver shadow that reanimated Simon and the reaching hand that reanimated the "Ghost of Stone" -- had to be two pieces of the same plot; he wouldn't use the same gimmick so close together without intending a relationship between the two.
• And given Ultron's brilliant technological innovations, from the encephalo-beam he supplied the Reaper to rebuilding the Human Torch into the Vision, it's not out of the question for him to have devised a way to awaken a man in ionic coma in order to secure the services of the Reaper, or to make a stone statue move around for a while, causing destruction that would directly benefit Ultron's partner/agent (the Reaper again).
• As for Ultron -- the fact that it doesn't look much like his hand doesn't mean a lot, not at that point in his history. There had only been three villainous Ultron's before that -- Ultron 5 (Buscema Ultron), 6 (Barry Smith Ultron) and 7 (the "Omega" Ultron), and Ultron's body was very different every time. The features of his torso and limbs didn't get standardized until Ultron 8, the first Perez Ultron.
• So call this Ultron 7.5, or just figure that Ultron-7's hands looked like that, under the gloves of the Omega costume. He's a robot. He can change his hands. Heck wasn't given any reference when he drew the story because Ultron didn't have standard hands. But he's the only one it makes sense for it to have been. He had motive. He had opportunity. And the means...

Profile by Snood.

CLARIFICATIONS:
No known connection to:

• any of the real Black Knights or other statues

images:
Defenders I#4, p28, panel 2 + 3 (kiss and turned to stone)
Avengers I#157, p6, panel 3 (full body)
    p7, panel 1 (face)
        panel 7 + 8 (mysterious hand)
Dr. Strange II#36, p30 (possessed by Ningal)

Appearances:
Defenders I#4-6 (March-June 1973) - Steve Englehart (writer), Sal Buscema (pencils), Frank McLaughlin (inks), Roy Thomas (editor)
Defenders I#8 (September, 1973) - Steve Englehart (writer), Sal Buscema (pencils), Frank McLaughlin (inks), Roy Thomas (editor)
Defenders I#9 (October, 1973) - Steve Englehart (writer), Sal Buscema (pencils), Frank McLaughlin (inks), Roy Thomas (editor)
Avengers I#116 (October, 1973) - Steve Englehart (writer), Bob Brown (pencils), Mike Esposito (inks), Roy Thomas (editor)
Defenders I#10 (November, 1973) - Steve Englehart (writer), Sal Buscema (pencils), Frank Bolle (inks), Roy Thomas (editor)
Avengers I#117 (November, 1973) - Steve Englehart (writer), Bob Brown (pencils), Mike Esposito & Frank McLaughlin (inks), Roy Thomas (editor)
Defenders I#11 (December, 1973) - Steve Englehart (writer), Sal Buscema (pencils), Frank Bolle (inks), Roy Thomas (editor)
Avengers I#118 (December, 1973) - Steve Englehart (writer), Bob Brown (pencils), Mike Esposito & Frank Giacoia (inks), Roy Thomas (editor)
Avengers I#157 (March, 1977) - Gerry Conway (writer), Don Heck (pencils), Pablo Marcos (inks), Gerry Conway (editor)
Avengers I#158 (April, 1977) - Jim Shooter (writer), Sal Buscema (pencils), Pablo Marcos (inks), Archie Goodwin (editor)
Dr. Strange II#29 (June, 1978) - Roger Stern (writer), Tom Sutton (pencils), Ernie Chan (inks), Archie Goodwin (editor)
Dr. Strange II#35 (June, 1979) - Roger Stern & Ralph Macchio (writers), Tom Sutton (pencils), Pablo Marcos (inks), Al Milgrom (editor)
Dr. Strange II#36-37 (August-October, 1979) - Roger Stern & Ralph Macchio (writers), Gene Colan (pencils), Dan Green (inks), Al Milgrom & Mary Jo Duffy (editors)
Avengers I#226 (December, 1982) - Steven Grant (writer), Greg LaRocque (pencils), Chic Stone (inks), Mark Gruenwald (editor)

Last updated: 11/22/04

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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