LEVIATHANmain image

Membership: Contessa Valentina de Fontaine, Hookworms, Left, Magadan (Vassili Dassaiev), Orion (Viktor Uvarov), Seth Waters, others

Purpose: To achieve global supremacy

Affiliations: Deadpool ("Wade Wilson"), Taskmaster (Tony Masters), Serpent Society (Anaconda/Blanche Sitznski, Bushmaster/Quincy McIver, Cottonmouth/Burchell Clemens, Death Adder/Theodore Scott, Rattler/Gustav Krueger)

Enemies: Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff), Brood, Captain America (Steve Rogers), Thomas Davidson, Dum Dum Dugan, HAMMER (Norman Osborn, Bullseye/Lester, others), Hand (Shoji Soma, others), Hawkeye (Clint Barton), Hydra (Baron Strucker, Gorgon/Tomi Shishido, Hive, Kraken/Jacob Fury, Kraken/Daniel Whitehall, Madame Hydra/Ophelia Sarkissian, others), Nia Johnson, Secret Warriors (Druid/Sebastian Druid, Nick Fury Sr., John Garrett), S.H.I.E.L.D. (Phil Coulson, Nick Fury/Marcus Johnson, Quake/Daisy Johnson, others), Silver Samurai (Keniuchio Harada), Cornelius Van Lunt

Base of Operations: A hidden base in New York City;
    formerly Perestroika base, Russia
    formerly Ursa Major shipyards, Russia
    formerly Ursa Minor weapons facility, Russia
    formerly Righteous Path intelligence center, Russia
    formerly Pillar testing ground, Russia
    formerly Proletariat recruitment facility, Russia
    formerly Vanguard training school, Russia
    formerly Revolution detention facility, Russia
    formerly Motherland production facility for Hookworms, Russia
    formerly Long Winter long-term storage facility, Russia

First Appearance: (Behind the scenes) Dark Reign: The List - Secret Warriors#1 (December, 2009);
    (full) Secret Warriors I#11 (February, 2010)

History:
(Secret Warriors I#12 (fb)) - Leviathan was the shadow counterpart to the Soviet Union's public-facing intelligence operations.

(Secret Warriors I#14 (fb)) - Valentina de Fontaine's parents, as well as the young girl herself, were Leviathan agents stationed in Rome, Italy. After they were assassinated, Viktor Uvarov approached her, letting her know that she would soon be recruited into the nascent spy agency S.H.I.E.L.D., and asked her to become Leviathan's mole in the organization.

(Secret Warriors I#25) - In 1961, Leviathan agents Vasili Dassaiev and Viktor Uvarov were among the eleven notable individuals (the "Great Wheel") summoned to the hidden city Pieta by the immortal Leonardo da Vinci to participate in a global scavenger hunt for artifacts of power they could employ in their struggle to rule the rest of the 20th century. They were split into teams; Dassaiev went to Giza with Hand grandmaster Shoji Soma, the mysterious Daniel Whitehall, and American spy John Garrett, where they encountered the alien Brook while attempting to retrieve a long-buried power cell from their starship. Uvarov travelled to the Zargos Mountains with German Baron Strucker, American Dum Dum Dugan, and industrialist Cornelius Van Lunt, where they battled ancient robots to uncover a trove of stasis chambers. Two weeks later, they'd brought the chambers and the power source to Pieta, where the Great Wheel discovered they could be used together to augment an individual in one of the chambers (the Orion chamber), giving them superhuman powers. One they were set up, Dassaiev and Uvarov double-crossed the rest of the Great Wheel and called in a squad of Leviathan troops, who took possession of the device. Although they originally intended to spare the others, their continued defiance led the Leviathan troops to open fire. A month later, they had moved the chambers to a base in Russia, adapting the Brood technology and filling the chambers with a hundred thousand of their finest agents. Uvarov intended to make himself the first Orion test subject, but as he was about to enter the chamber, Hydra and the Hand attacked; Uvarov was mortally wounded by Strucker and loaded into the chamber to by Dassaiev (now using the alias Magadan) to save his life. Later, after Hand and Hydra were driven off, Magadan tried to empower more soldiers with the chambers, but the Hand had stolen the power cell; the system fed off itself, and the test subject was transformed into a monstrous, insectoid "Hookworm."

(Secret Warriors I#12 (fb)) - One day, the entire organization went into cryogenic stasis in their Siberian base, codenamed "Long Winter."

(Secret Warriors I#26 (fb)) - Magadan continued to search for the power cell for years, looking to revive the rest of Leviathan. At one point he hunted down Shoji Soma; Soma refused to reveal the cell's location, and Magadan killed him.

(Secret Warriors I#12 (fb)) - Fourteen years later, Magadan was awakened from stasis to begin reviving the rest of Leviathan.

(Dark Reign: The List - Secret Warriors#1 - BTS) - Norman Osborn arrested Seth Waters, a Leviathan agent who'd infiltrated the Department of the Treasury. During interrogation by Bullseye, he admitted he worked for Leviathan; he was then immediately assassinated by John Garrett, under orders from Nick Fury. Fury then absconded with a device full of Leviathan data.

(Secret Warriors I#11) - Magadan and a Leviathan squad attacked the Yashida Clan stronghold in Japan, looking for the Brood power cell. They clashed with the Silver Samurai, but the power cell was no longer there. They moved on to Hydra's Nemesis shipyards, where they encountered the Gorgon.

(Secret Warriors I#12) - Gorgon slew a number of Hookworms, but Magadan scuttled two Hydra ships and captured the Viper, escaping with her on their aircraft. They returned to Long Winter, where they attempted to torture her to determine the location of the power cell. However, she also did not know where it was located.

(Secret Warriors I#13) - Madame Hydra flew to Long Winter, and gave Magadan the power cell.

(Secret Warriors I#14) - Madame Hydra gunned down the shocked Viper before unmasking as Fontaine, who had infiltrated Hydra as a triple agent. As the power cell was prepared, Fontaine explained the last fourteen years to Magadan; before long, it was ready, and they awakened the first of Leviathan's warriors - Orion!

(Secret Warriors I#28 (fb)) - Nick Fury had sabotaged Leviathan's systems, making them feed too much energy into the revived warriors, giving them dramatically reduced lifespans.

(Secret Warriors I#15 (fb)) - Knowing Hydra was en route, having tracked Fontaine, Leviathan revived the rest of their personnel and evacuated Long Winter, leaving only a few cloaked assassination squads, Viper's corpse, and a message from Orion, requesting a meeting at Hydra's Crown base in three days.

(Secret Warriors I#15) - Later, a team of Leviathan agents accompanied Fontaine to a meeting with Nick Fury in New Mexico, where they had a brief standoff with Fury's men.

(Secret Warriors I#16) - Orion, Magadan, and Fontaine attended the meeting with Hydra at the Crown base in Kyoto, Japan, where they discovered Viper had returned to life as the monstrous new Madame Hydra. At the meeting, Orion's offer to Strucker was simple - Hydra's total surrender. Strucker reacted with hostility, and the meeting erupted into a brawl - just as Leviathan launched an aerial attack on the Crown, resulting in massive casualties on both sides and tot total destruction of the facility. However, the leadership of both Leviathan and Hydra survived.

(Secret Warriors I#20 (fb)) - The Hydra/Leviathan war raged on; Leviathan destroyed Hydra's Hive bases, their shipyards, and their recruitment center in Vancouver, but incurred heavy losses as well.

(Secret Warriors I#20 (fb) / Secret Warriors I#23 (fb)) - Hydra and Leviathan called a ceasefire, but it ended violently when Fury's agent Druid assassinated Magadan at Leviathan's Ursa Major base, killing him with a bullet meant to look like Hydra ordnance. In retaliation, Leviathan destroyed Hydra's new recruitment center in Seattle, causing mass casualties.

(Secret Warriors I#27) - Leviathan built a new base, Perestroika; Orion and Fontaine were reviewing the situation with Hydra when their men began to spontaneously explode and die, thanks to Fury's sabotage. Within moments, the two of them were surrounded by corpses.

(Secret Warriors I#28) - Fontaine turned herself into Interpol, leaving Orion as the last of Leviathan.

(Battle Scars#5 (fb)) - Although he outlived his troops, Orion began to wither and die himself. Desperate for the Infinity Formula, began to rebuild Leviathan with new troops, and eventually learned that Nick Fury had a secret son, Marcus Johnson.

(Battle Scars#1) - Orion hired Taskmaster to assassinate Johnson's mother, Nia Johnson, to draw Marcus and Fury out. Agent Left reported that Taskmaster had been successful.

(Battle Scars#2) - Left reported that Taskmaster had failed to capture Johnson, enraging Orion. He ordered that they send another mercenary after him - Deadpool.

(Battle Scars#3 - BTS) - Both Deadpool and Taskmaster failed to apprehend Johnson, so Leviathan sent in the Serpent Society.

(Battle Scars#4) - Orion went into cardiac arrest, but was revived by his doctors. His condition continued to deteriorate as Johnson evaded the Serpent Society.

(Battle Scars#5) - Leviathan located Fury and Johnson in a S.H.I.E.L.D. safe house in New York, and took them to Leviathan's New York City, where he had his assistant Agent Left extract Johnson's left eye. Johnson seemingly fell to his death while escaping, but Fury remained in captivity; the eye revealed that Johnson's body naturally produced the Formula. Orion arranged to have Fury's blood transfused into him, regenerating him back into his youthful form. He had his men search for Johnson's body, unaware that he had survived.

(Battle Scars#6) - Orion used a telepathic Leviathan agent to interrogate Fury, hoping to find some of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s hidden secrets; meanwhile, Johnson was fighting his way through Leviathan agents, including Agent Left. He made his way to the command chamber, attacking Orion and his men, as well as detonating their arms bunker - which alerted S.H.I.E.L.D. and a number of super heroes, who stormed the base. In the resulting chaos, Johnson attached a bomb to Orion's armor. It detonated, killing him. Later, as S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, Johnson (who had taken the name Nick Fury) and his friend Phil Coulson were sent in to finish off the remnants of Leviathan.

Comments: Created by Jonathan Hickman and Stefano Caselli.

Leviathan was said to have gone into stasis fourteen years ago - in 2010, that was 1996. Assuming that it's supposed to be a moveable date, though, that puts it just on the cusp of the modern era of the Marvel universe. Leviathan could be connected to the Red Room and the Winter Soldier, or they could have encountered the First Line.

I feel that there was more Hickman wanted to do with Leviathan in Secret Warriors, but it ended prematurely and he had to wrap everything up.

Leviathan made it into the MCU, as seen in the Agent Carter TV series. There, they operated what appeared to be a proto-Red Room training program, and employed Dr. Faustus.

This profile was completed 7/27/2021, but its publication was delayed as it was intended for the Appendix 20th anniversary 's celebratory event.

Profile by Minor Irritant.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Leviathan has no known connections to:

Hookworms

(Secret Warriors I#25 (fb)) - When the first Leviathan troops were placed in the high-tech stasis cells acquired by Orion and Magadan, they were unaware that Hydra and the Hand had stolen the Brood power cell that was meant to power them; thus, the system fed on itself, and some of the troops were converted into mutated, insect-like Hookworms.

(Secret Warriors I#28 (fb)) - Over the years, more Leviathan troops were converted into Hookworms, which served Magadan on his quest to find the Brood power cell and revive the rest of Leviathan; however, they did not realize that Fury had sabotaged the system, feeding too much power into them and giving them a dramatically-reduced lifespan.

(Secret Warriors I#11) - A Hookworm accompanied Magadan and his Leviathan squad to the Yashida stronghold, looking for the Brood power cell. It probed the Silver Samurai's mind, learning the Yashida clan no longer possessed it.

(Secret Warriors I#12) - The Hookworm battled the Gorgon at the shipyards, injuring him and informing him that they had the Viper before Gorgon decapitated him. Later, several Hookworms interrogated the Viper at Long Winter, determining that she didn't know the location of the power cell.

(Secret Warriors I#13) - Two Hookworms took Viper to greet Madame Hydra when she visited Long Winter.

(Secret Warriors I#14) - Two Hookworms reactivated the Orion cell, returning Viktor Uvarov to life.

(Secret Warriors I#27) - At Leviathan's newly-constructed Peretroika base, hundreds of Leviathan troops, including the Hookworms, exploded messily, thanks to Fury's sabotage of the stasis cells.

Hookworms were mutated insectoid humanoids with superhuman strength and endurance, and sharp claws and mandibles; they could conduct psychic probes with their extendible claws.

--Secret Warriors I#11 (Secret Warriors I#25 (fb), 11, 12, 13, 14, 27

images: (without ads)
Secret Warriors I#11, p3, pan1 (main image; Leviathan troops with Hookworm and Magadan)
Dark Reign: The List - Secret Warriors#1, p22, pan1 (Leviathan insignia)
Secret Warriors I#12, p22, pan1 (Leviathan agents in stasis at Long Winter)
Secret Warriors I#12, p5, pan1 (Leviathan airship)
Secret Warriors I#27, p4, pan2 (Hookworms)

Appearances:
Dark Reign: The List - Secret Warriors#1 (December, 2009) - Jonathan Hickman (writer), Ed McGuinness (art), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Secret Warriors I#11-15 (February-June, 2010) - Jonathan Hickman (writer), Stefano Caselli (art), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Secret Warriors I#16 (July, 2010) - Jonathan Hickman (writer), Gianluca Gugliotta (art), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Secret Warriors I#20 (November, 2010) - Jonathan Hickman (writer), Mirko Colak (art), Bill Rosemann (editor)
Secret Warriors I#23 (February, 2011) - Jonathan Hickman (writer), Alessandro Vitti (art), Bill Rosemann & Lauren Sankovitch (editors)
Secret Warriors I#25-28 (May-September, 2011) - Jonathan Hickman (writer), Alessandro Vitti (art), Lauren Sankovitch (editor)
Battle Scars#1 (January, 2012) - Cullen Bunn & Matt Fraction (story), Chris Yost (story/script), Scot Eaton (pencils), Andrew Hennessy (inks), Alejandro Arbona (editor)
Battle Scars#2 (February, 2012) - Cullen Bunn & Matt Fraction (story), Chris Yost (story/script), Scot Eaton (pencils), Andrew Hennessy (inks), Alejandro Arbona & Tom Brennan (editors)
Battle Scars#3 (March, 2012) - Cullen Bunn & Matt Fraction (story), Chris Yost (story/script), Scot Eaton (pencils), Andrew Hennessy (inks), Tom Brennan (editor)
Battle Scars#4-5 (April-May, 2012) - Cullen Bunn & Matt Fraction (story), Chris Yost (story/script), Scot Eaton (pencils), Andrew Hennessy (inks), Alejandro Arbona & Tom Brennan (editors)
Battle Scars#6 (June, 2012) - Cullen Bunn & Matt Fraction (story), Chris Yost (story/script), Scot Eaton (pencils), Andrew Hennessy (inks), Tom Brennan (editor)

First Posted: 09/20/2021
Last updated: 09/19/2021

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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