STORYTELLER

Real Name: Gavin (last name unrevealed)

Identity/Class: Human mutate

Occupation: None

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Rich, Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers)

Enemies: A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics)

Known Relatives: Unidentified parents

Aliases: "Captain Gavin"

Base of Operations: The Moon;
    formerly an unidentified island, New York City, New York, USA

First Appearance: Ms. Marvel II Special#1 (March, 2007)

Powers/Abilities:  The Storyteller appeared to be able to warp reality to his every desire in a similar vein to the Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff). His only limitation appeared to be that he couldn't create sentient beings, merely puppets that he could control. A.I.M. also introduced the inability for Gavin to remove A.I.M. from existence. 

   Initially, Gavin was limited to reading a story out loud and broadcasting it inside people's minds. While at this level of the Storyteller's powers, the broadcasting also did not affect the writer of said story.

   He also developed some amount of telepathy.

   Likely as a result of the experiments carried out on him, Gavin has a large almost-question mark shaped scar that runs from his right eye up over the top of his head, coming to an end on the back of his skull about level with his forehead. This scar glows when he uses his powers.

Height: 5'2" (by approximation)
Weight: 150 lbs.
(by approximation)
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Bald

History: (Ms. Marvel Special: Storyteller#1 (fb) - BTS) - Gavin was born to two unrevealed A.I.M. agents and as a teenager was enrolled along with other children of A.I.M. into the "Storyteller Experiment," designed to reproduce the Scarlet Witch's powers to alter reality as she had done during the "House of M" warp.

(Ms. Marvel Special: Storyteller#1 (fb) - BTS/Ms. Marvel II Special#1 (fb) - BTS) - The other children did not survive but Gavin eventually developed the ability to broadcast stories into people's minds. However, A.I.M. also introduced the inability for Gavin to remove them from existence.

(Ms. Marvel II Special#1 (fb) - BTS) - A.I.M. experimented on Gavin for about a month before he somehow escaped. Making his home in New York City he befriended another teenager called Rich, revealing to his new friend his powers, which at the time comprised of him reading books and broadcasting inside the heads of those around him. The two teens then tried several stories published by others, which worked while one story Rich wrote about a girl he liked did not work

(Ms. Marvel II Special#1) - Gavin and Rich visited the New York Public Library and Rich had Gavin read "Binary: A Novel by Carol Danvers," a semi-nonfiction novel about Carol's time as Binary. Gavin started reading and began broadcasting the story (which mirrrored actual Earth-7031 events) into Rich's mind. Unfortunately, Gavin soon lost control of his powers and began to broadcast to everyone in the vicinity, slowly enveloping the city and overlapping it with events from the novel (Earth-7031). Gavin's powers grew and eventually brought a Keeper (a giant Earth-7031 alien species) to Earth-616. This drew the attention of Ms Marvel (Carol Danvers) and Wonder-Man (Simon Williams), who went to investigate the Keeper. Wonder-Man too fell under the control of Gavin (now dubbed the Storyteller) but hearing the Storyteller's broadcasting voice recounting her story Carol was able to track down Gavin to the library. As she entered the library, the reality merger intensified.

   Gavin found himself viewing the whole of the reality he was broadcasting but soon lost the book and was unable to read anymore. Affected by the Storyteller's powers, Carol found herself in space, observing Reality-7031's Swarm, and began communicating with Gavin, who revealed to her his abilities. Carol encouraged him to try and just imagine the resolution in an attempt to get them out of this situation but she was chased and consumed by the Swarm. In order to free her, Gavin imagined Carol was Binary again so she could burn her way out. His imagination became reality, proving that Gavin had gained control of his ability again. Gavin then ended the story, unmerging Reality-7031 from Reality-616.

   With the changes undone, Gavin, Rich and Carol were returned to the library and the trio left to check if everyone affected was alright. Once outside, Rich fled but Carol and Gavin were confronted by A.I.M. agents. Gavin did not want to be captured and altered reality once more to have the agents sent to jail. Gavin then thanked Carol for helping him regain control of his powers and she offered to further help him but he rewrote reality to return her to the point just after the Reality-7031 Keeper had arrived and reset reality as if the events had never occurred, though Carol at least retained her memories of the events.

(Ms. Marvel Special: Storyteller#1 (fb) - BTS) - After presumably spending time alone on an island, Gavin found Rich again and wanted to hang out with him. Bringing Rich to his island, Gavin forced him to play a series of different games with him, in which Gavin would alter reality to always win. Rich was against these games and he wanted to go home to his family but was scared of Gavin and played along. Gavin allowed Rich to briefly return to New York to see his parents but soon brought Rich back to the island, not listening to Rich's suggestions of returning to New York.

(Ms. Marvel Special: Storyteller#1) - After a few weeks, Gavin brought versions of pirate heroes and pirate ships from Earth-91113, making himself the Captain of the heroes and Rich the Captain of the villains. When the villains surrounded the heroes, Gavin unleashed the Kraken and Rich tried to surrender. Ms. Marvel arrived, having tracked Gavin via an A.I.M. splinter group. She defeated the Kraken and Gavin stopped the game. She informed him of A.I.M.'s intention to recapture him and Gavin said he could take care of it. Gavin then read her mind and sensed her desire to become a greater superhero and her lack of self-esteem. Using this, he created a city where Carol was the most popular superhero again (possibly overlapping Earth-616 with Earth-58163 or a similar reality). Carol tracked down Rich and he told her about his imprisonment at the hands of Gavin. Gavin then attacked Ms. Marvel with his Earth-91113 pirate heroes, stating that to be the greatest superhero, she needed a foe. Carol grabbed  Gavin and made him reverse his reality changes and return to his island. Feeling rejected by both Ms. Marvel and Rich, Gavin made them reappear in New York while he escaped and refused Ms. Marvel's help again. He then appeared on the Moon, created oxygen around himself and wondered what else he could do.

(Ms. Marvel II#39-46 (fb) - BTS) - Later, A.I.M. used both Gavin and M.O.D.O.K.'s protocols to create other Storytellers in the form of embryos, which either contained part of Gavin's mind or had access to his knowledge of Ms. Marvel's help, thus prompting them to resurrect Carol after she died.

Comments: Created by Brian Reed, Giuseppe Camuncoli and Lorenzo Ruggiero.

   Gavin's height is approximated by him being about a head shorter than Ms. Marvel.

   To clarify: Earth-7031 was the reality which Earth-616's Carol Danvers unknowingly glimpsed and adapted into her semi-nonfictional novel on Earth-616 called "Binary: A Novel by Carol Danvers." In this reality, Carol's time as Binary occurred slightly differently than on Earth-616 and Carol-616 recorded the events of her past as she remembered them, not how they actually occurred on Earth-616 but rather, how they did actually occur on Earth-7031. Make sense? --Proto-Man

   To clarify further: Past comics have set the precedent that any fictional tale someone in a comic is reading is actually an account of real events elsewhere in the multiverse - c.f. Kitty's Fairy Tale or in DC Comics the discussion between the Silver and Golden Age Flashes when they meet one another, and outwith comics the stories of The Incomplete Enchanter. So either Carol's tale unwittingly matched the events of 7031 simply because in an infinite multiverse every version of events happened somewhere, or else she subconsciously witnessed that reality's events and incorporated them into her novel. In terms of Gavin's powers merging realities, another precedent set in places such as Excalibur: Weird War III and the Chaos Engine novels is that typically large scale reality warps that seem to rewrite an entire world's history actually latch onto a reality that fits and overlays it - in other words, when Red Skull uses a Cosmic Cube to transform Earth-616 into a world where the Nazis won, the easiest way for the Cube achieve this is to merge 616 with the Nazi-dominated Earth-2192. Did Storyteller merge 616 with 7031 or did he just change 616 to look like 7031? Potayto, potahto. Makes no real difference, end result is the same, and it's virtually impossible to tell which one happened.. - Loki

This profile was completed 7/22/2021, but its publication was delayed as it was intended for the Appendix 20th anniversary 's celebratory event.

Profile by Copeinator123.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Storyteller has no known connections to:


Rich

Rich was a friend of Gavin's. He met Gavin after Gavin's escape from A.I.M. and the pair tested out Gavin's abilities until he read Carol Danvers' book and merged Earth-616 with Earth-7031. After reality was restored, Rich fled but Gavin eventually tracked him down and forced him to participate in a variety of games which Rich was against, as he wanted to go back to his family. Due to the intervention of Ms Marvel, Rich was able to return to his family.







--
Ms. Marvel II Special #1 (Ms. Marvel Special: Storyteller#1,

images: (without ads)
Ms. Marvel Special: Storyteller#1,
p8, pan1 (main image)
Ms. Marvel II Special#1, p1, pan3 (headshot)
Ms. Marvel Special: Storyteller#1, p17, pan1 (Storyteller with Earth-91113 pirates)
Ms. Marvel Special: Storyteller#1, p15, pan4 (Rich)
Ms. Marvel Special: Storyteller#1
, p22, pan1 (headshot with darker scar)


Appearances:
Ms. Marvel II Special#1 (March, 2007) - Brian Reed (writer), Giuseppe Camuncoli (penciler), Lorenzo Ruggiero (inker), Andy Schmidt (editor)
Ms. Marvel Special: Storyteller#1
(January, 2009) - Brian Reed (writer), Giuseppe Camuncoli (penciler), Lorenzo Ruggiero (inker), Stephen Wacker (editor)


First Posted: 09/30/2021
Last updated: 09/29/2021

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.!

Back to Characters