RANCOR
Real Name: Rancor
Identity/Class: Human mutant (Earth-691)
Occupation: Despot
Group Membership: Nine (Bat-Wing, Bear, Blaster,
Blockade, Mind-Scan, Rhodney, Shaddo, Side-Step)
Affiliations: None;
formerly Doctor Doom (Victor von Doom)
Enemies: Doctor Doom (Victor von Doom),
Guardians of the Galaxy (Aleta/Aleta Ogord, Charlie-27, Major
Victory/Vance Astro, Martinex/Martinex T'Naga, Nikki/Nicholette Gold,
Talon, Yellowjacket/Rita DeMara), Hagda, Inhumans (Anenome, Egressor,
Exemplar, others), Resistance (Bear, Phoenix/Giraud, Replica, others)
Known Relatives: Talogan
(son), unidentified father (deceased), unidentified
ancestor (presumably deceased), James Howlett/Logan (Wolverine,
great-great-great grandfather, possibly deceased), Bat-Wing (cousin),
numerous other relatives through Wolverine
Aliases:"Spockears"
Base of Operations: Haven II;
formerly New York City;
formerly Haven
First Appearance: Guardians of the Galaxy I#8
(January, 1991)
Powers/Abilities: A mutant, Rancor has superhuman
speed, stamina, strength, and senses. She also has a superhuman healing
factor that allows her to heal from grievous injuries within a matter of
hours; this healing factor also slows her aging. She has sharp teeth and
retractable claws in her fingers, and also wields an Adamantium dagger
made from one of Wolverine's claws. She is an experienced and savage
fighter.
Height:
5'3"
Weight: 115 lbs.
Eyes: Green; solid white when angered
Hair: Black
History:
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#9 (fb) ) - The fifth-generation descendant of
the ageless mutant Wolverine, who along with many of Earth's other
mutants had colonized the planet Haven centuries ago, Rancor was the
latest member of the dynasty that had ruled Haven since Wolverine's
alleged death. By the time of her birth, mutant births had slowed to a
crawl, leaving only a mere handful as the ruling class of the planet. On
her sixteenth birthday, she killed her father, clawing his heart out of
his chest, and seized the throne. Her first act as ruler was to enslave
the entire human population, prompting the formation of an underground
human resistance movement. Together with the remaining mutants, the
Nine, Rancor ruled the planet with an iron fist.
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#8) - When the Guardians of the Galaxy's starship neared Haven, Mind-Scan sensed that it was occupied by individuals of great power. When Side-Step speculated they were the prophesied Overmen, who were said to be the saviors of Haven's humans, Rancor insisted that they were a myth - and that whoever their visitors were, they would feel her wrath if they dared to challenge her rule.
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#9) - After Rancor's lieutanants slaughtered a resistance cell that included Bear, a penitent member of the Nine, three of the Guardians - Martinex, Aleta, and Yondu - were granted an audience with the mutant ruler. When they mentioned that their teammates were meeting with the populace, Rancor flew into a rage and accused them of aiding the resistance. She and the Nine attacked the Guardians. Rancor made quick work of Martinex, as her claws were able to pierce his crystal skin; when Aleta fell as well, Rancor prompted Yondu to surrender, as well. She then broadcasted a message to the rest of Haven, demanding that the rest of the Guardians surrender, lest she execute their teammates.
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#10) - Bat-Wing beckoned Rancor
to look at the town square from her palace balcony, where she saw that
the human populace, inspired by the "Overmen", were massing and tearing
down statues. Remaining in her palace, Rancor sent Rhodney, Bat-Wing,
and Blaster out in the Battle-Sphere vehicle to massacre the crowd.
Before long, however, the other Guardians invaded the palace; as she
mobilized the Nine, she went down to the dungeon herself, where she
found the Resistance member Replica freeing her prisoners. She battled
all four of them, earning an arrow in the leg from Yondu, only to cower
in fear as she saw the awe-inspiring sight of the Phoenix Force
(occupying Resistance member Giraud) outside her palace.
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#11) - As the Phoenix Force destroyed her forces and two of the Nine (Rhodney and Blaster) were slain by the Guardians, Rancor used Side-Step to evacuate the rest of the Nine back to the palace and arm the bombs beneath the planet's surface - as if she couldn't rule Haven, nobody would! Mind-Scan objected, until Rancor threatened to kill her; Mind-Scan did as she told, detonating the bombs and sending Haven's seismic activity into overdrive, triggering ground-quakes and volcanic eruptions all over the planet. In moments, the entire planet was destroyed, although Giraud used the Phoenix Force's power to evacuate the planet's civilians to safety. Meanwhile, Rancor and her surviving lieutenants escaped.
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#19) - Rancor and her surviving lieutenants traveled to a world on the edge of Shi'ar space, where they visited a museum. The curator showed them their most prized exhibit; a severed claw said to have been broken from Wolverine by Gladiator (Kallark) centuries ago. Pleased, Rancor had Shaddo kill the curator while she stole the claw.
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#20) - Rancor and her lieutenants visited a seer on the Shi'ar world, Hagda; she presented Hagda with the claw and asked her if Wolverine still lived. She directed them to Earth; satisfied with the answer, Rancor slew Hagda and set out for Earth.
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#21) - Rancor and her men attacked the city-state of Madripoor, where they believed they would find Wolverine; instead, they attracted the Guardians' attention, who swooped in to face them.
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#22) - As her lieutenants took
on the Guardians, Rancor attacked their leader, Major Victory. Although
she proclaimed her superiority to his band of heroes, she was quickly
felled by a blast from Nikki. Soon, the tide was turned in the
Guardians' favor by the arrival of a new incarnation of their member
Starhawk; however, Mind-Scan sensed evil in the cosmic being, and Rancor
ordered her to try to influence him. She then extended her hand to
Starhawk, giving him the chance to join her, find Wolverine, and rule
together.
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#23) - While Starhawk turned on the Guardians, Rancor and her allies headed towards Madripoor Palace; they found it deserted, but Rancor's senses and Mind-Scan's telepathy informed them that Wolverine had been there. Before long, the Guardians caught up with them, and Rancor took on the Guardians' newest member, the feral Inhuman Talon. He dodged her killing blows, and used his prehensile tail to grab her claw-dagger and hurl it out the window. As she raged against him, and and her allies were mysteriously teleported away by Doctor Doom, finding themselves in a domed city in remote Latveria.
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#30) - After weeks trapped in
the domed city, Rancor went into a berserker rage, demanding to know who
was responsible for her imprisonment. Before long, Doom revealed his
presence; Rancor and her allies were shocked, as he had reportedly been
dead for centuries.
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#31) - Believing Doom's presence to be a trick, Rancor attacked him, but was quickly swatted away by the ancient despot; he sealed her head inside an energy bubble, making her suffocate until Bat-Wing pleaded to Doom for her life. He relented, and Rancor survived...but silently swore vengeance against Doom.
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#32) - Doom explained to Rancor and
her lieutenants how he'd developed the addictive virtual reality
Realitee-Vee technology and used it to control the populace of Earth
until the Guardians and their allies, the Commandeers, had destroyed his
broadcasting facility in the Bronx. Rancor pre-emptively refused to
repair it for him; amused, Doom activated a Realitee-Vee broadcast,
enthralling Rancor and her allies, and gave them the choice - aid him,
or stay hypnotized by Realitee-Vee forever! Even after he shut it off,
Rancor was reluctant to serve him, but he offered her the gift of
Wolverine's claw, lost during her battle with Talon in Madripoor. She
agreed, but still planned to overthrow Doom at the soonest opportunity.
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#33) - Sent to the Saltex Compound in the Bronx, Rancor and her crew began restoring it to functionality. Before long, they encountered the Retox Contingent, a faction of Realitee-Vee addicts who sought to restore the service, accompanied by two hostage Commandeers, Tarin and Old Redd.
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#34) - Rancor and her crew collected and enslaved thousands of people, bringing them to the Saltex Compound to work on it. As the repairs neared their completion, Doom himself visited the facility and personally reactivated Realitee-Vee, running the "Karoshi" program designed to make slaves work themselves to death; Rancor and her mutants, however, were protected by nasal implants that protected them from Realitee-Vee's mind-controlling gases. Later that night, Rancor crept into Doom's quarters, planning to use her Adamantium dagger to slay him...however, he spotted her, and she hid her true intentions. Instead, she watched as he attempted to scan Earth's moon for the long-lost Inhuman race.
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#36) - After another visit from
Doom, in which he complimented her on her successful efforts so far,
Rancor found Bat-Wing waiting for her in her quarters. He accused her of
having lost his edge; enraged, she attacked him and used her dagger to
partially scalp him, ordering him never to question her again.
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#37) - Rancor approached Doom, informing him that Mind-Scan had located the hidden Inhumans. He went to see the psychic mutant, but found her confused; Rancor had been preparing an ambush, and flung her dagger into Doom's heart. She ordered Mind-Scan to broadcast her to the citizens of New York as she devoured Doom's heart...
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#38) - As she moved in for the kill, Rancor was shocked to see claws burst out of Doom's gauntlets. He slashed her and got to his feet, then pulled the dagger out of his chest and hurled it into Rancor. Showing no ill effects from his wound, he began using the claws to cut his armor and robe away, revealing that he was a shocking fusion - Doom's brain housed inside a robot built out of the original Wolverine's Adamantium skeleton!
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#39) - As millions watched on
Realitee-Vee, Rancor, furious over Doom's desecration of Wolverine's
remains, engaged in a brutal duel with Doom. He quickly gained the upper
hand, as she could do little to damage his metallic form, while he cut
her badly with his own claws. However, he wished to see her suffer, and
did not deliver a killing blow when he had the opportunity, allowing her
to stab him in the eye with her Adamantium dagger. He quickly recovered,
but without depth perception, Rancor was able to evade him more easily.
He accidentally slashed open a conduit, exposing a high-voltage cable
and filling the room with vision-obscuring smoke. Rancor grabbed the
cable and electrocuted him, dropping him to the floor. She proclaimed
her victory to the citizens viewing on Realitee-Vee, but Doom recovered
and stabbed her in the back, critically wounding her. Before he could
finish her off, the Guardian Yellowjacket drove him off. Yellowjacket
then took the dying Rancor to the Guardians' ship, the Icarus,
to be treated; meanwhile, the other Guardians had defeated Rancor's
lieutenants and destroyed the Realitee-Vee complex, freeing the
population of Earth. Rancor quickly recovered on the ship, and attacked
Yellowjacket; before she could do too much damage, however, Side-Step
and her other lieutenants teleported her away to parts unknown.
(Guardians of the Galaxy Annual I#4) - Rancor and her lieutenants stole the med-shuttle from the Icarus and hid behind the asteroid Ceres. They waited there for weeks before the Guardians disappeared from the Icarus; with their enemies absent, Rancor landed the shuttle in the ruins of Attilan on the Moon. Beneath the surface they found hundreds of Inhumans. Rancor ordered her lieutenants to subjugate them; they quickly did so, after which Blockade brought their leader to her. He attempted to negotiate surrender with her, prompting her to have Blockade execute him. After sending Side-Step to sabotage the empty Icarus, she had the enslaved Inhumans salvage a number of sites on the Moon, including Uatu's citadel, Loki's caverns, the ruins of Attilan, and Korvac's compound, to build a massive slave barge, which the med-shuttle towed out of the Solar System with the Inhumans on-board; she also had Mind-Scan use her powers to sap the Inhumans' wills, making them more pliable, although she was unaware that three Inhumans, Egressor, Anenome, and Exemplar, remained unaffected and began to foment a resistance against her. Using Loki's technology, they located a habitable world, which Rancor dubbed Haven II, and set the Inhumans to work building her a new castle.
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#46 - BTS) - Rancor sent
Side-Step to meet with the Stark warrior Overkill, trading one of the
Realitee-Vee nasal implants for a sample of Charlie-27's DNA.
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#50) - Having settled on a planet they dubbed Haven II, Rancor and her mutants rebuilt. Rancor had Mind-Scan grow a clone of the Guardian Charlie-27, which she had presented to her in front of her other lieutenants. However, upon seeing him, she was seized with bloodlust, and swiftly slew the mindless clone.
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#52 - BTS) - Rancor used a
subsequent clone of Charlie-27 to destroy the planet Sigma IV with a
geometron bomb, framing the real Charlie-27 as the interplanetary serial
killer Ripjak,
(Guardians of the Galaxy Annual I#4) - When the Guardians returned to the Icarus, they triggered Side-Step's trap, flooding the ship with knockout gas. Icarus travelled to Haven II, where Side-Step teleported the various Guardians to an assortment of battle sites across the planet, where they were to fight Rancor's mutant allies. She had the Inhuman Talon brought to her castle, where she had him brought to her in restraints. He broke free of them and fought her, but his back had been injured in battle previously, and she soon defeated him and had him re-shackled and examined. When he woke up, she explained that her near-death experience at the hands of Doom had given her thought to continuing her own lineage - and that she had chosen Talon as her scion's sire. He refused, but she was insistent, and raped the helpless Inhuman. He subsequently escaped along with his friends, but Rancor didn't care, as he had successfully impregnated her. As the slave Inhumans continued to toil for her on Haven II, Rancor found herself at peace.
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#52) - With Rancor in her second
trimester, Side-Step, who had long resented her ruler, got her revenge
by tipping the Guardians off about Rancor's plan to frame Charlie-27;
they subsequently proved his innocence.
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#61/2) - On Haven II, Rancor gave birth to a son, who she named Talogan; the event was witnessed by Talon, thanks to a vision by the sorcerer Krugarr.
SECRET WARS III HAPPENED
(Secret Wars: Battleworld #3/1) - Rancor, or an
extra-dimensional counterpart of her, ended up on Doctor Doom's
composite Battleworld following the collapse of the Multiverse. She and
numerous other counterparts of Wolverine were gathered from across
Battleworld by Mojo, who pit them all against each other in a massive
brawl that he broadcast to his subscribers.
Comments: Created by Jim Valentino and Steve Montano.
There's a common tendency in fiction to "soften" female
villains, to make them more sympathetic, and I can say with some
confidence that Jim Valentino and later Michael Gallagher did nothing of
the sort with Rancor, who remained the same brutal murderous dictator
she was from the start - and she added "rapist" to her resume in there
later on, too.
Is Wolverine dead in Reality-691? He's strongly hinted to be alive in GotG #23 as an aide to Madripoor's ruler, having lived for over a thousand years. However, in GotG #38, Doctor Doom claims that Wolverine is long dead - and he would know, given that he transplanted his brain into a robot made of Wolverine's skeleton. Still, with that nutty healing factor, it's possible Wolverine somehow survived having his skeleton removed from his body, although that would be a hell of a thing to heal from. (I know Magneto pulled the Adamantium out of Logan's skeleton in Fatal Attractions, but at least that left him with his regular bones.)
Rancor also has an entry in the OHotMU Master Edition.
Profile by Minor Irritant.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Rancor, Earth-691's great-great-great granddaughter of Wolverine, has no
known connections to:
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#9 (fb) ) - A descendant
of Wolverine, this feral mutant gave into the savagery that his ancestor
battled against, and ruled the people of Haven with an iron fist; his
lineage would eventually produce the savage Rancor.
--Guardians of the Galaxy I#9
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#9) - A descendant of Wolverine, this feral mutant ruled the planet of Haven and sired an heir, Rancor. She killed him on her sixteenth birthday and carved his heart out of his chest.
--Guardians of the Galaxy I#9
(Guardians of the Galaxy I#61/2) - Rancor gave birth to her son, Talogan, on Haven II; unbeknownst to mother or child, the baby's father, Talon, watched from afar via magic.
--Guardians of the Galaxy I#61/2
images: (without ads)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#8, p22, pan1 (main image)
Guardians of the
Galaxy Annual I#4, page 6, pan5 (headshot)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#10, p14, pan4 (snikt)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#39, p 2-3, pan1 (without cape, using
Adamantium dagger)
Guardians of the
Galaxy Annual I#4, p48, pan1 (pregnant)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#8, p12, pan1 (Rancor's ancestor)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#8, p12, pan2 (Rancor's
father)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#61/2, p21, pan1 (Talogan)
Appearances:
Guardians of the Galaxy I#8-11 (January-April, 1991) - Jim Valentino
(writer/pencils), Steve Montano (inks), Craig Anderson (editor)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#19-22 (December, 1991-March, 1992) - Jim Valentino (writer/pencils), Steve Montano
(inks), Craig Anderson (editor)
Guardians of
the Galaxy I#23 (April, 1992) - Jim
Valentino (writer), Mark Texeira (art), Craig Anderson (editor)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#30-34 (November, 1992-March, 1993) -
Michael Gallagher (writer), Kevin West (pencils), Steve Montano
(inks), Craig Anderson (editor)
Guardians
of the Galaxy I#36-39 (May-August, 1993) - Michael
Gallagher (writer), Kevin West (pencils), Steve Montano
(inks), Craig Anderson (editor)
Guardians of the
Galaxy I#46/1 (March, 1994) - Michael
Gallagher (writer), Kevin West (pencils),
Steve Montano (inks), Craig Anderson
(editor)
Guardians
of the Galaxy I#50 (July, 1994) - Michael
Gallagher (writer), Kevin West (pencils),
Steve Montano (inks), Craig Anderson
(editor)
Guardians of the Galaxy Annual I#4 (1994)
- Michael Gallagher (writer), Jim Hall,
Kevin West, & Ed Lazellari (pencils),
Tom Christopher, Mark McKenna, Jim Amash,
Micky Ritter, Bob Almond, & Steve
Dutro (inks), Craig Anderson (editor)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#52 (September,
1994) - Michael
Gallagher
(writer),
Kevin West
(pencils),
Steve Montano
(inks), Craig
Anderson
(editor)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#61/2 (June, 1995) - Michael Gallagher
(writer), Michael Bair (art), Craig Anderson (editor)
Secret Wars: Battleworld #3/1 (September, 2015) - Ivan Brandon (writer),
Aaron Conley (art), Jon Moisan (editor)
First Posted: 10/21/2019
Last updated: 10/21/2019
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
Non-Marvel
Copyright info
All other characters mentioned or pictured are and © 1941-2099
Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. If you like this stuff, you
should check out the real thing!
Please visit The Marvel Official Site at: http://www.marvel.com
Special Thanks to www.g-mart.com for hosting the Appendix, Master List, etc.!