TRIBELLIAN race
Classification: Extraterrestrial semi-humanoids;
involved with Earth circa 1958 AD;
Location/Base of Operations: An unidentified alien planet whose location
has never been revealed;
(Un Earth) A unidentified town in Kansas
Habitat: Unrevealed (now possibly destroyed)
Gravity: Unrevealed
Atmosphere: Unrevealed
Known Members: None named
Estimated population: None (population prior to the deployment of Howard Stark's
bomb is unknown)
Affiliations: None
Enemies: The Man on the Wall (Woodrow McCord, Jr., deceased), Howard Stark, Jr. (officially listed as deceased), Colonel Nicholas J. Fury (now the Unseen), U.S. Army forces (unspecified number of soldiers, only Harden and Tolliver identified, all deceased)
First Appearance: Original Sin#5 (September, 2014)
Powers/Abilities: Unrevealed (possibly inapplicable)
Cultural Traits: Conquerors
Type: Semi-humanoid, possibly insectoid
Eyes: Two
Fingers: Two (plus opposable thumb)
Toes: Two
Skin color: Unrevealed
Hair: Unrevealed
Average height: 6' (estimated)
Type of government: Unrevealed
Level of technology: Intradimensional portals
enabling travel between two points within the same universe; advanced energy weapons (guns
and grenades) and powered suits of armor.
History:
(Original Sin Annual#1 (fb) - BTS) - The Tribellians were "a race of
conquerors older than (Earth's) Sun."
(Original Sin#5 (fb) - BTS) - Despite this, the Tribellians were still considered to be a "bunch of nobodies" by the Man on the Wall (Woodrow McCord).
(Original Sin#5 (fb) - BTS) <1958 A.D.> - The Tribellians decided to carry out a "secret" invasion of Earth.
(Original Sin Annual#1 (fb) - BTS) - However, "thanks to their big fat bug mouths," the Man on the Wall learned of their plan.
(Original Sin#5 (fb) - BTS) <1958 A.D.> - The Tribellians transported one of their portals to Earth where it appeared at a location near an unidentified town in Kansas. The first warriors who travelled through the portal wiped out the entire nearby town. Then, when United States Army forces arrived on the scene and attacked them, the Tribellians proceeded to wipe them out as well.
(Original Sin#5 (fb)) - After a battle lasting "a whole ten minutes," Army Intelligence officer Colonel Nick Fury was the sole survivor.
As Colonel Fury anticipated that the rest of the world had only a few hours left and began planning to spend those last few hours dying as best he could, Woodrow McCord suddenly flew in on a jetpack and fired a "package" at the portal. Once he had communicated the successful delivery to Howard Stark, McCord attacked the Tribellians who had already come through and dived down into them. Those Tribellians were defeated, but McCord was fatally impaled.
As Colonel Fury warned him that a whole army was about to pour through the portal, energy suddenly erupted from it and electrocuted those Tribellians on the Earth side. Looking through the portal, Fury watched as a whole world burned and an entire race died screaming. As he watched everything the Tribellians had ever been being swept away in the flames, Fury figured that "they must've had it coming."
Seconds later, Woodrow McCord died and then Howard Stark approached Fury, exclaiming that his bomb was "gonna make (him) a mint."
(Original Sin Annual#1 (fb) - BTS) - Howard Stark managed to somehow reactivate the portal device and re-direct its far end to the vicinity of an alien sun. Stark and Fury then began destroying all evidence so that it would be as if the Tribellian invasion of Kansas had never happened. The bodies of the Tribellians and most of the G.I.s were tossed through the portal to be cremated in that alien sun.
(Original Sin Annual#1 (fb)) - After disposing of the last G.I., Stark and
Fury then did the same with the body of Woodrow McCord.
Comments: Created by Jason Aaron and Mike Deodato.
The only Tribellians who have ever been depicted are the members of the ill-fated attempt to secretly invade Earth in 1958. Since all of those would-be conquerors wore their armored suits throughout their entire stay on Earth, it is impossible to state with any certainty as to what they looked like without their suits. Accordingly, I have had to assume that their actual bodies somewhat resembled their suits in certain details (just like Tony Stark's Iron Man armor does). If this assumption is accurate, then the Tribellians, as two-armed bipeds, were either humanoids or semi-humanoids. Howard Stark's statement about "their big fat bug mouths" could mean that these aliens were also insectoid in nature. The fact that their suits had two forward-facing eyes, were about the size of an adult human male, and had two clawed fingers and an opposable clawed thumb on each hand could mean that their actual bodies had those physical characteristics as well.
The legs of the armored suits were somewhat different from humanoid norm because each leg was postured like a dog or other non-hoofstock quadrupeds, with the tarsus (heel) elevated and prominent, and the metatarsals and digits in contact with the ground. Also, each and every warsuit foot had four toes, two facing forward and two facing backwards. While it's possible that these toes mimicked the shape of the Tribellian foot, it seems more likely that these "toes" were present in that configuration simply because it provided the most stable footing for those wearing the warsuits. However, this is only speculation on my part.
Alternatively, since none of the Tribellian attackers were ever seen without their armor, it's possible that they actually WERE that armor. If so, then the Tribellians would have been mechanical beings, possibly a "race" of sentient war machines who had outlived (or even killed off) their creators, the original (presumably organic) Tribellian race. Once again, this is only speculation.
So, Woodrow McCord and Howard Stark committed genocide against an entire alien species in order to protect Earth, and Nick Fury just watched and thought to himself, "Well...They must've had it coming." If any other sentient race had done something like this they would be considered murderous monsters by the good people of Earth. Fortunately, everyone knows that human beings are just so darned special that normal standards of what's good and evil don't apply to them, right?
Is it a coincidence that the Tribellian invasion took place in Kansas, the same state where the infant Kryptonian Kal-El crashed in a Different Cosmos? Maybe the unnamed town that was wiped out by the invaders was Smallville?
Profile by Donald Campbell.
CLARIFICATIONS:
The Tribellian race has no known connections to
A piece of very highly-advanced technology used by the Tribellians to travel to alien planets which they had chosen to invade and conquer. Little information has been revealed about its origins, not even the name by which the device was known to the Tribellians. It has also not been revealed if the Tribellians created the portal device or if they acquired it from some as-yet-unidentified creator.
While the exact workings of the portal device have never been explained, certain observations have allowed for informed speculation. The fact that Nick Fury was able to look through a portal and see what was happening on the far side indicates that the device functioned by folding space/time so that two widely-separated locations were artificially made to be adjacent to each other. As such, these portals were unlike those types of stargates which use wormholes or other forms of extradimensional shortcuts to cross interstellar distances. Also, using these portals did not involve breaking the bodies of the travelers down into energy at one end and reconstructing them at the other.
Similarly, the fact that Howard Stark was able to use the device to open a portal whose far end was in the vicinity of an alien sun suggests that two portal devices, one at either end of any given voyage, are not required. Instead, when a single device had folded space/time and made two distant locations adjacent to each other, then that device, with the portal between locations being within it, was effectively in two places at the same time. Once a portal was deactivated, then the portal device would no longer be capable of remaining in this state and would have to resume existing at a single location. However, it's possible that those operating the device could choose either of the two locations as the place where the device would now exist. In essence, a portal device could remain at its original location or it could end up being relocated to the destination site. This could explain how the Tribellians got the portal to Earth without using any spacecraft to transport it there.
Although light and solid matter could pass though these portals, matter in gaseous form apparently could not unless it was within a solid container. Presumably some sort of forcefield was responsible, something designed against the chance that a portal might be opened on a location with a different atmospheric pressure. This would have been a safety feature intended to prevent a planet's atmosphere from being drained away through the portal into a less pressurized environment (like that in the vicinity of an alien sun).
However the portal devices actually function, in 1958 the Tribellians caused one of them to create a portal between a staging area on a planet under their control and a landing zone on Earth in the American state of Kansas. Once the portal was established, Tribellian warriors began to pass through it and, once they had arrived on Earth, they proceeded to search out and kill all of the local inhabitants. More warriors continued to pass through the portal even as native defenders (U.S. Army forces) responded by attacking the invaders. Although these defending forces were almost totally wiped out within ten minutes, it was then that the Man on the Wall arrived via jetpack and delivered "the package" (a bomb) into the portal. After the bomb arrived on the alien side of the portal, it was remotely activated by Howard Stark and detonated, apparently wiping out all life on the alien planet. The energy released by the explosion affected the portal device, causing the portal to change color from purple to orange and to emit energy that electrocuted the Tribellians who were on Earth. The explosion also caused the portal device on Earth to be destabilized and it fell partway backwards so that it was no longer vertical. Despite this, the portal remained open and Colonel Nick Fury was able to look through it and watch the entire Tribellian race die screaming as their whole world burned.
With the Tribellians now wiped out, Howard Stark and Nick Fury set about destroying all evidence of their invasion of Kansas. They restored the portal device to an upright position and Stark was somehow able to not only reactivate it but to re-direct its other end to the vicinity of an alien sun. The two men then began heaving the dead bodies of the Tribellians, the soldiers and Woodrow McCord into the still-orange portal to be incinerated when they arrived. It has not been revealed if the same was done with the bodies of all the dead townspeople.
What happened to the portal device once Stark and Fury had finished using it to dispose of the evidence has not been revealed. Stark and Fury may have destroyed it or they could have scavenged it for future use by the next Man on the Wall (who turned out to be Fury himself).
--Original Sin#5 (fb), Original Sin Annual#1 (fb)
images: (without ads)
Original Sin#5, story page 1, panel 2 (main image)
page 2, panel 2 (portal with invaders);
pg. 3, panel 1 (McCord assaulting invaders);
pg. 6, panel 1 (portal facilitating destruction of Tribellians);
Original Sin Annual#1, page 2, panel 1 (portal with Fury and Stark)
Appearances:
Original Sin#5 (September, 2014) - Jason Aaron (writer), Mike Deodato (artist), Tom Brevoort
with Wil Moss (editors)
Original Sin Annual#1 (December, 2014) - Jason Latour (writer), Enis Cisic (artist), Tom
Brevoort with Wil Moss (editors)
First posted: 06/18/2017
Last updated: 04/18/2023
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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