ALBERT EINSTEIN

Real Name: Albert Einstein

Identity/Class: Human;
   US and Swiss citizen, formerly Prussian citizen, Austrian citizen, Württemberg/German Empire citizen

Occupation: Theoretical physicist;
   former patent clerk

Group Membership: Institute for Advanced Study faculty, NAACP;
   formerly Cal tech faculty, Oxford University faculty, Humboldt University faculty, Prussian Academy of Science faculty, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute faculty, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH/Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) faculty, Charles University faculty, University of Zürich faculty, University of Bern faculty

Affiliations: Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell), Charlie Chaplin, Winston Churchill, Adam Destine, Newton Destine, Vincent Destine, W.E.B. DuBois, Abraham Erskine, Mr. Everett, Ghost Rider (Carter Slade), Kid Colt (Blaine Colt), Dr. Norman Lundquist, Marilyn Monroe, Nathaniel Richards, Rawhide Kid (Johnny Clay), Reed Richards, Thunderbird (John Proudstar), Two-Gun Kid (Matt Hawk), the "Watcher," West Coast Avengers (Hawkeye/Clint Barton, Moon Knight/Marc Spector, Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff, Tigra/Greer Nelson, Vision/"Victor Shade," Wonder Man/Simon Williams)

Enemies: Adolf Hitler, Black Knight (Nathan Garrett), Doctor Doom (Victor von Doom), Krozzar, Mysterio (Quentin Beck), Sandman (William Baker), Scorpion (Mac Gargan)

Known Relatives: (immediate family only; see comments) Hermann Einstein (father), Pauline Koch Einstein (mother), Maria "Maja" Einstein (sister), Mileva Marić (first wife, mother of his three children), Elsa Löwenthal Einstein (second wife, maternal cousin, paternal second cousin), Lieserl Einstein (daughter), Hans Albert Einstein, Eduard "Tete" Einstein (sons), Ilsa Löwenthal Einstein, Margot Löwenthal Einstein (step-daughters)

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey;
   previously California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. California;
                     Oxford University, England;
                     Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany;
                     Prussian Academy of Science, Berlin, Germany;
                     Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, Berlin, Germany;
                     Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH/Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland;
                     Charles University, Prague, Austria (modern day Czechia);
                     University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland;
                     University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland;
                     Ulm, Kingdom of >Württemberg, German Empire

First Appearance: (real life) Ulm, Kingdom of Württemberg, German Empire (14th March 1879); (Marvel) Amazing Adventures I#5 (October 1961)

 

Powers/Abilities: Albert Einstein was a brilliant mathematician and scientific genius with few peers in the realms of theoretical physics. He was also an inventor skilled in electronics, and an expert violinist. Though he spoke multiple languages fluently, notably English, Italian and his native German, and others with some well enough to communicate in, such as French, he was not generally skilled at languages nor biology or zoology, as he refused to put any effort into studying subjects that held no interest for him.

 

Height: 5'7"
Weight: 154 lbs.
Eyes: Brown
Hair:White; black in his youth

 

 History:
(real world) - Born in Ulm in the Kingdom of Württemberg in 1879 into a family of secular Ashkenazi Jews, Albert Einstein excelled at math and physics from an early age. In 1895, at the age of 16, he moved to Switzerland to study, and a year later he gave up his German/Württemberg citizenship to avoid having conscripted military service and became for the next few years stateless. At 17 he successfully passed the entrance exam for the Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich, where he furthered his studies in maths and physics, graduating in 1900. In February 1901 he became a Swiss citizen, a citizenship he retained for the rest of his life, though he would also jointly hold other citizenships with it. Having struggled to find a teaching job, he took a job at the Swiss Patent Office, a position he would hold for the next few years, but even during this time he was already writing scientific papers and patenting his own inventions, and throughout his life he would continue to add considerably to the world's understanding of the workings of the universe. In January 1903 he married fellow physicist Mileva Marić, with whom he had three children; fatherhood was later said to have given him the bushy hairstyle that became his iconic look, as he found himself too busy to visit the barber and stopped combing his hair.

 

(Amazing Adventures#5/2 (fb)) - A member of a super-intelligent alien race, the "Watchers," helped inspire Einstein towards making his great scientific discoveries, directing mankind along the path to reaping the benefits of atomic energy.

 

(real world) - 1905 saw Einstein publish four groundbreaking theoretical physics papers, including his theory of special relativity, in what later was dubbed his Annus Mirabilis (Amazing Year), thus winning himself major academic notice, and this led to him gaining a lecturer's role in the University of Bern in 1908. In 1911 he accepted employment at a Prague university, temporarily taking Austrian citizenship as a result. In April 1914 Einstein moved his to Berlin so he could take up a university position there, but his already crumbling marriage fell apart when Mileva discovered that this decision had also been influenced by Albert's desire to be near his cousin Elsa, with whom he had begun an affair, and so Mileva took the children and returned to Switzerland. In 1919, following the legally required five years separation, they were divorced, and Albert married Elsa.

 

(Marvel Super Heroes RPG: The Weird, Weird West) - A chronovore, a "temporal shark" that "swims" through timestreams and feeds off time itself, entered Reality-616 and began feeding just outside Dodge City, Kansas in the year 1871, triggering a time storm that dragged several notable historical individuals including Einstein back in time towards the chronovore. Finding himself in the Wild West in a region now populated by dinosaurs, cavemen, and warring soldiers from different eras led by Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and Napoleon Bonaparte, not to mention hostile reptilian aliens called the Krozzar, Einstein forged an alliance with local heroes - Kid Colt, Rawhide Kid, Two-Gun Kid and Ghost Rider - who had come to investigate the disturbance at Dodge City. They stole pieces of Krozzar technology for him so he could attempt to construct a device to determine the cause of the temporal disruption. Einstein determined there was a "temporal magnet" (the chronovore) pulling things to this era, but could not generate enough power for his device to pinpoint its location.

   When the West Coast Avengers traveled back in time to investigate the time storm, they encountered the cowboy heroes and were brought to Einstein. The future heroes were able to provide Einstein with a stolen Krozzar generator, and while they dealt with the threats of the aliens and displaced dictators, he completed his device. The heroes accompanied him as he tracked the disruption until they came across the chronovore, but the creature "swallowed" them all, transporting them inside itself, where they found themselves caught up in a jumble of events from throughout history that had been absorbed. Traversing these with difficulty, they encountered Doctor Doom, who had similarly detected the chronovore's presence and traveled back in time hoping to harness its power to his own ends, and who now was in the middle of wiring up a control device into what passed for the chronovore's brain. After the heroes overpowered Doom and the lackeys he had brought with him - Sandman, Black Knight, Scorpion and Mysterio - Einstein examined Doom's control device and used it to make the creature "regurgitate" the history it had "swallowed," restoring everyone, Einstein included, to their proper places in history.

 

(Immortal Hulk#4 (fb) - BTS) - Einstein allegedly had multiple identical copies of the same gray suit, so he didn't have to waste time deciding what to wear each day; decades after Einstein's death genius scientist Bruce Banner adopted the same practice while at college, a deliberate choice to follow his idol Einstein's example.

 

(real world) - In the early 1930s Einstein made a number of trips to the U.S.A.

(The Twelve#12 (fb) - BTS) - Einstein was pen pals with fellow nuclear scientist Mr. Everett.

(real world) - In March 1933, while Einstein was returning from the third of his American sojourns, the Nazis forced through laws in the German Reichstag which turned their previously democratically elected government into an effective dictatorship, allowing them to pass laws without going through the parliament and so to target anyone they considered to be an enemy of the state. Learning of this, and that the Nazis had already raided his home, as soon as his cruise ship from the States landed in Belgium, Einstein went to the German consulate to give up his German passport and citizenship. While in Germany laws were passed barring Jews from holding official posts, including university lecturer jobs, and Einstein's books became targets for book burnings, Einstein spent the next few months first in Belgium and then in the U.K., where he convinced Winston Churchill, then an opposition MP but already outspoken about the Nazi threat, to help get Jewish scientists out of Germany.

   In October 1933 Einstein returned to the U.S. to work at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and in 1935 he decided to become a permanent resident and apply for American citizenship, though he didn't actually achieve citizenship until 1940. Sadly, in 1936 his wife Elsa died after a year of illness brought on by kidney and heart problems.

(Silver Surfer VII#1 (fb) - BTS) - Einstein vacationed at the Greenwich Inn, Anchor Bay, New England, Massachusetts. While there he went fishing and caught a caught a small fish; despite its unimpressive size, the inn had it stuffed and mounted to commemorate their celebrity visitor.

(Captain America Reborn#2 (fb) - BTS) - Einstein befriended Abraham Erskine, another German Jewish scientist now exiled from their homeland, and discussed the nature of time and how time travel might create alternate futures.

(real world) - In 1939 the otherwise pacifist Einstein was convinced by fellow scientists who had recently fled Europe to lend his prestigious reputation to convince President Roosevelt that the United States needed to pursue nuclear weapons research, as the Nazis were already deeply invested in that field; he later counted even this minor role in the ultimate creation of the atomic bomb as his one major mistake in his life, though he recognized that it would have been worse had the Nazis got there first.

(Fantastic Four Annual#15 (fb) - BTS) - The shapeshifting Skrulls, who were infiltrating many Earth institutions, were aware that Einstein was tormented because his theories had been put to practical use in developing the nuclear bomb; they considered him a fool, believing meaningful progress was only achieved through war.

(real world) - After the war Einstein's hatred for racism led to him becoming an outspoken advocate for equal rights for African Americans, and in 1951 when civil rights activist W.E.B. DuBois was put on trial Einstein offered to appear as a character witness for him; upon learning that the scientist was prepared to do this, the judge summarily dismissed the entire case against DuBois.

(Fantastic Four Annual#33 (fb) - BTS) - Einstein was friends with Newton Destine, the Destine Clan's scientific prodigy, and with Clan patriarch Adam Destine. When one of Adam's younger sons, Vincent, reappeared unaged after vanishing four years prior, and informed Adam he had been time-traveling, Adam, concerned for his child's welfare, listened to Newton's advice and took Vincent to see Einstein.

(Fantastic Four Annual#33) - Vincent showed Einstein what he called a fire-spirit (actually a shrunken and time-displaced Human Torch (Johnny Storm) of the Fantastic Four), that he had trapped in a jar. Believing the fire-spirit some sort of magic trick, Einstein praised Vincent's skill for illusion to Adam. Then, while Vincent absentmindedly examined the equations Einstein had scrawled on his chalk board, Adam informed Einstein about his son's disappearance and claim of having time-traveled. Einstein checked whether Adam had consulted psychiatrists, but was informed that they had given the boy a clean bill of health. As he pondered other options, Einstein failed to notice Vincent quietly correcting some of the equations.

(Fantastic Four I#273) - Scientist Nathaniel Richards brought his young son Reed to meet Einstein (see comments).

(Captain Marvel I#6) - Norman Lundquist, later a Nobel Prize winner, was one of Einstein's star pupils.

(real world) - On April 17th 1955 Einstein suffered an abdominal aortic aneurysm and was rushed to Princeton Hospital. Now 76, he declined surgery, and died the next morning (see comments).

(Fantastic Four I#137 - BTS) - When the Shaper of Worlds granted Andrew "Slugger" Johnson's desire to be smarter, he reshaped Johnson's new "Brain" persona to look identical to Einstein.

(Captain America I#269 (fb) - BTS) - The Mad Thinker considered Einstein one of the greatest minds in history, and so included him among the intellectual robots that he built to duplicate said geniuses.

(Iron Man I#280 - BTS) - Tony Stark considered Einstein his scientific peer or better; when the alien Stark of the 28th century of Reality-691 brought Tony Stark forward through time seeking his help, he asked them why they had chosen him rather than a potentially more useful genius such as Reed Richards or Albert Einstein.

(Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme#21/2 - BTS) - Alongside Isaac Newton, Pythagoras, Euclid and Leonardo DaVinci, Doctor Strange considered Einstein to be one of the "priests of the temple of mathematics" who sought to understand the multiverse through mathematics, the "supposed signature of God."

(Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme#48 - BTS) - While attempting to escape the realm of the Vishanti, which required him to call on powers outwith his normal magics, Doctor Strange elected to produce transmigration (to pass from one state of existence to another) by singularity (the math/physics concept of an infinite point, e.g. a black hole), and so invoked famous physicists as well as mystical entities:
    "Spells of Einstein, Bohr and Stephen Hawking,
    let the mystic and quanta become entwined,
    it's space/time's door that now now needs unlocking,
    by equations of most exquisite kind.

    By the Seraphim, Vril and Munipoor,
    bend now the rules of relativity.
    Allow me passage through dimension four,
    safe from peril of no small gravity."

(Captain America I#401) - In the modern day someone who resembled Albert Einstein was hanging out at the Laughing Horse Bar when an out-of-costume Clint Barton (Hawkeye), Steve Rogers (Captain America) and Tony Stark (Iron Man) dropped by (see comments).

(Deadpool III#61) - While temporarily deceased, Deadpool visited what appeared to be an afterlife full of famous ghosts, among them Einstein, who was hanging around with Thunderbird, Captain Marvel and Marilyn Monroe to watch Napoleon Bonaparte arm-wrestle Humphrey Bogart (see comments). 

(Heralds#1 (fb) - BTS) - For reasons best known to themselves, S.W.O.R.D. cloned a large number of deceased scientists, Einstein included, in many cases not bothering to give them fully functioning cortices, and stored them in an hidden underground facility in the Nevada Desert, about a hundred miles from Las Vegas.

(Heralds#1) - The clones escaped and reached Las Vegas, where Emma Frost was celebrating her birthday with several friends. Seeing the chaos the rampaging clones were causing, the heroes waded in, with Patsy Walker making a point to punch Einstein's clone despite him not being a threat, simply because she had always wanted to punch Einstein in the face.

 

Comments: Created by Hermann and Paula Einstein, introduced into the Marvel Universe by.

   I'm ASSuming that Earth-616 (mainstream Marvel Universe) Einstein has a largely similar history and background to real world Einstein, except where we know otherwise. That said, since the real world Einstein's family tree has been extensively documented back as far as his great-great-great-great grandfather, and forward to his still living great-grandchildren, listing them all here would be risking bombarding the readers of this profile with an overwhelming barrage of information that would simultaneously of little use unless I also then went into even more details about who they all were. As such, I've stuck to immediate family; there are plenty of sites dedicated to real world Einstein that can be checked if you want more about the larger family tree.

   Hang on, he wasn't a German citizen? Well, yes and no. Einstein was born after the Unification of Germany in 1871 created the German Empire, a.k.a. Imperial Germany, a.k.a. the Second Reich, a.k.a. the Kaiserreich. Breaking that down - the Second Reich (Empire) because the Holy Roman Empire, itself an off-shoot/successor to the Roman Empire and which had included the states of the same Germanic region, was counted as the First Reich; and yes, that's why Nazi Germany was the Third Reich, as it considered itself a successor to those two prior Reichs. Kaiserreich because what distinguished the German Empire from its Third Reich successor was that it was ruled by a Kaiser (Emperor, and from the same root word we get the Russian Tsar from). In 1871 German unification saw what had previously been neighboring kingdoms become states within a larger confederation; crucially, they retained their individual monarchs, with the King of Prussia being elevated above the others to become the Kaiser. The German Empire ended in 1919, following an internal revolution sparked by the disastrous (for Germany) end of World War I; Germany became a republic. The Free State of Prussia was a state within the new republic that even had its own parliament, and it was this state to which Einstein became a citizen, until it was forcibly placed under direct rule of the Nazis when they took over Germany in the 1930s.

   The similarity in both name and appearance (at least in some depictions) of Professor Reinstein (a.k.a. Abraham Erskine) and Albert Einstein is almost certainly not coincidental; Einstein has become the shorthand for a scientific genius. Additionally, it strikes me that the name similarity might not be coincidental in-universe either. Considering that Reinstein was a codename given by the U.S. military, whoever chose it might well have been inspired by Einstein.

   In Fantastic Four I#273 we see in a flashback that young Reed Richards was taken by his father Nathaniel to meet Einstein. When this story was originally published in 1984, Einstein had been dead for just under thirty years, so assuming Reed was around ten give or take a couple of years when he met Einstein, he would have been in his forties when the story was published. Now however, as real world time has inexorably moved on while comic time is subject to the sliding timescale, it's not feasible for Reed to have been born before 1955; assuming a ten year old Reed met Einstein the same year the scientist died, Reed would now be in his eighties. However, two options suggest themselves. First, we know Nathaniel could time travel, so he could have taken Reed back in time to facilitate the meeting; however, this would then beg the question why Reed didn't know about his father's time travel capabilities until the modern day. Even if they'd traveled in time without Reed noticing it, you'd think meeting a famous scientist who died before he was born would clue him in. The second option that suggests itself is that Einstein didn't die in 1955; perhaps on Earth-616 he survived for a few more decades. Maybe the public still thought he died in 1955, or maybe it was widely known he was still alive.

   If Einstein died in 1955, then who was it at the Laughing Horse Bar decades later? There's a surprisingly large number of possibilities.

   Option 1 - It's the real deal, and time travel is involved. After all, we know he was was visited by at least two time travelers, Vincent Destine and Nathaniel Richards, and that he went back in time himself at least once, to the 1880s.

   Option 2 - It's the real deal and he simply didn't die in 1955, or was resurrected. We've got no end of age retarding options in 616, from the Infinity Formula to Fu Manchu's elixir of life to implanted healing factors to spending lengthy periods in cryogenic suspension. Every other historical genius the world has known seems to have been revealed in recent years to be both members of the ancient Shield cabal and still around in the modern day, so why not Einstein? Does the public know he's still alive, or did he fake his death like the various Brotherhood of the Shield genii? Only time will tell. 

   Option 3 - It might be his ghost. Einstein, Humphrey Bogart and Elvis Presley's apparent ghosts were in Deadpool II#61, and all three were also apparently in the Laughing Horse Bar, so maybe the drinking establishment is full of spirits in more than the alcoholic sense.

   Option 4 - It might be a clone. We know from Heralds#1 that he had at least one.

   Option 5 - It might be the Albert Einstein robot built by the Mad Thinker.

   Option 6 - If we're considering extra-dimensional options, then this could be the ghost of Albert Einstein who is a recurring character in E-Man's universe, Einstein from the Manhattan Projects comic universe (which is easily wild enough to have him dimension jumping), the time-traveling Einsteins from Metacops or Chronos Commandos or Albert Einstein: Time Mason, the Einstein visited by Doc Brown in Back to the Future: Tales from the Time Train, the Einstein from the Doctor Who universe who is a pal with a titular Time Lord, or the Einstein who encountered the time-traveling Abraham Lincoln in Time Lincoln. Seriously, comic books clearly believe Albert Einstein and time travel belong together!   

    If we allow for the possibility of a time-traveling Albert Einstein, we then can't rule out the possibility that the wizard Quiquaequod who Conan encountered might be Einstein, visiting the Hyborian era for unrevealed reasons. After all, not only does Quiquaequod look the spitting image of Einstein, but he had a magical (or was it really super high tech?) ring that was said to be able to transport the user anywhere, even across dimensions - and what is time but another dimension?

Profile by Loki.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Albert Einstein is connected to but should not be confused with:

but has no known connections to:

images: (without ads)
Fantastic Four Annual#33, p20, pan4 (main image)
Fantastic Four Annual#33, p20, pan5 (headshot)
Photo of Einstein in 1903 (younger Einstein)
Amazing Adventures#5/2, p4, pan1 (Einstein being inspired)
Marvel Super Heroes RPG: The Weird, Weird West p45, pan1 (Einstein building his temporal disruption locator)
Marvel Saga#1, p6, pan1 middle section (Nathaniel and a young Reed Richards meet Einstein; recolored image from originally blue-tinted version in Fantastic Four I#273, p15, pan 1 middle section)
Deadpool III#61, p16, pan1 (Einstein's ghost?)

Appearances:
Amazing Adventures#5 (October 1961) - Stan Lee (plot, editor), Larry Lieber (script), Don Heck (art)
Captain Marvel I#6 (October 1968) - Arnold Drake (writer), Don Heck (pencils), John Tartaglione (inks), Stan Lee (editor)
Fantastic Four I#273 (December 1984) - John Byrne (writer, art), Michael Carlin (editor)
Marvel Super Heroes RPG: The Weird, Weird West (1989) - Ray Winninger (writer), John Statema (art), Chris Mortika (editor)
Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme#21 (September 1990) - Roy Thomas, Jean-Marc Lofficier, Randy Lofficier (writers), Lou Weeks (pencils), Doug Hazlewood (inks), Ralph Macchio (editor)
Captain America I#401 (June 1992) - Mark Gruenwald (writer), Rik Levins (pencils), Danny Bulanadi (inks), Ralph Macchio (editor)
Deadpool III#61 (February 2002) - Frank Tieri (writer), James Calafiore (pencils), John Holdredge (inks), Mike Marts (editor)
Captain America Reborn#2 (October 2009) - Ed Brubaker (writer), Bryan Hitch (pencils), Jackson Guice (inks), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Heralds#1 (August 2010) - Kathryn Immonen (writer), Tonci Zonjic (art), Jeanine Schaefer (editor)
The Twelve#12 (June 2012) - J. Michael Straczynski (writer), Chris Weston (art), Tom Brevoort (editor)

First Posted: 08/08/2021
Last updated: 08/08/2021

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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