ZU'UB
Real Name: Zu'ub
Identity/Class: Extraterrestrial (race unrevealed) semi-humanoid tech-user
Occupation: Scavenger
Group Membership:: Scavengers (partnered with Mr'kk)
Enemies: Cannonball (Sam Guthrie)
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Mobile throughout space
First Appearance: U.S.Avengers#7 (August, 2017)
Powers/Abilities: His four arms provide an increased ability to perform multiple tasks at once.
He has access to a space suit that connects to his spaceship.
Transportation: The Lucky Glrpnx
Type: Semi-humanoid (four-armed biped)
Eyes: Two (yellow (no visible sclera; see comments))
Limbs: Six (four arms and two legs)
Fingers: Three (plus opposable thumb) on all four hands
Toes: Unrevealed
Skin color: Gray
Hair: Unrevealed (possibly inapplicable)
Height: Unrevealed (see comments)
Weight: Unrevealed
Other distinguishing features: No visible nasal structure.
History:
(U.S.Avengers#7 (fb) - BTS) - At some point, Zu'ub and Mr'kk met. Whether this was when they both became
scavengers aboard the The Lucky Glrpnx or at some point before then has not been revealed.
(U.S.Avengers#7 (fb) - BTS) - At some point in his life, Zu'ub learned that when the big Chitauri dragons exploded, the force of those explosions could throw their scales for gigameters.
(U.S.Avengers#6 - BTS) - A couple of small scavenger craft (presumably including The Lucky Glrpnx) who were following the Chitauri swarm entered Earth's solar system.
(U.S.Avengers#6) - A big Chitauri dragon exploded close to Earth, seemingly killing both Quasar (Avril Kincaid) and Cannonball (Sam Guthrie).
(U.S.Avengers#7 (fb) - BTS) - Presumably after witnessing the explosion of that big Chitauri dragon, Zu'ub suggested that they look for dragon scales gigameters away from Earth, and the crew set a course that would bring The Lucky Glrpnx close to the planet Saturn.
(U.S.Avengers#7 (fb) - BTS) - Near Saturn, the crew of The Lucky Glrpnx came across some Chitauri dragon scales and Zu'ub went out in a spacesuit to attach towlines to them.
(U.S.Avengers#7) - Outside The Lucky Glrpnx, Zu'ub reminded Mr'kk that he had told him that when big Chitauri dragons explode, their scales get thrown for gigameters. Zu'ub then said, "We tow a coupla these back to civilized space, we're set for -- Glorp."
When Mr'kk stated that Zu'ub had broken up there and asked if he was okay, Zu'ub replied, "There's an Earther out here with the debris. Musta had some kinda force field or something -- His suit's still sealed. He's still alive." Mr'kk was surprised at how lucky that was and Zu'ub responded by saying, "Oh yeah, we are. Y'know how much this glimp's gonna sell for?"
(U.S.Avengers#7 (fb) - BTS) - Zu'ub and Mr'kk got the Earther aboard their scavenger craft and held him captive.
(U.S.Avengers#8 (fb) - BTS) - At some point, Zu'ub and Mr'kk apparently discovered that their captive possessed unique "rocket legs" and began using a power damper to prevent him from escaping.
(U.S.Avengers#8 (fb) - BTS) - Zu'ub and Mr'kk contacted a certain alien slaver, informed him of the Earther (with rocket legs) whom they had in their possession and sold Sam Guthrie to the slaver.
(U.S.Avengers#8 - BTS) - When the slaver's initial attempts to sell the Earther with rocket legs did not get any bids, the slaver muttered aloud that he was starting to think that "them scavenger boys" had sold him a lemon. However, the Earther was soon afterwards purchased by Howard Mason from Glenbrook.
(U.S.Avengers#10 - BTS) - After signals from Guthrie's medical bio-implant revealed that he was still alive, the Shi'ar concluded that "battlefield scavengers" had picked him up in space and that they had sold him instead of returning him to Earth.
Comments: Created by Al Ewing, Paco Medina and Juan Vlasco.
I'm not sure how Zu'ub's eyes
should be described. They could be "yellow sclera with black irises and
no visible pupils" or "yellow irises with black pupils and no visible
sclera."
Obviously alien eyes may be completely different, but the sclera is the
non-visual external part of the eye (you may recall the phrase, don't
fire until you see the whites of their eyes. The white is the sclera,
contrasting with the clear cornea, the central portion of the front of
the eye, through which you see. The iris is the variable colored part
of the eye deep/central to the eyeball, which opens or closes to
different degrees to control the light that makes it back to the
retina, which is the nerve portion of the eye that transmits the images
to the brain. The pupil is not actually a black dot but simply the hole
in the iris. So I would go with him yellow iris and no visible sclera.
--Snood
Since Zu'ub and his starship were never depicted in close proximity of anything of a known height (like Sam Guthrie), it is impossible to determine their actual sizes. Accordingly, while Zu'ub may be about the same size as an average human from Earth, he could also have been much smaller or much larger than the Earther he found. Of course, the starship would have had to have been large enough to contain both Guthrie and the Chitauri dragon scales that they were scavenging.
Since Zu'ub and Mr'kk were only shown talking to each other and not to any human, the fact that their conversation was presented in English was clearly a translation meant for the convenience of the readers. This translation effect extends to the units of length which have been converted into the SI units known as gigameters (Gm). However, Zu'ub's choice to express how far Chitauri dragon scales can be thrown when big dragons explode in gigameters is a bit odd. Given that their starship was near Saturn at the time and that the distance between Earth (where the dragon exploded) and Saturn is never less than 1.2 billion kilometers, the fact that there were scales in that vicinity means that they must have been thrown no less than 1,200 gigameters. If Earth and Saturn had been as far apart as possible, then the distance would have been 1,700 gigameters. It would have been more accurate if Zu'ub had stated that dragon scales could be thrown hundreds of gigameters instead.
In contrast, the words spoken by the alien slaver who bought Sam Guthrie from the scavengers are also translated into English but pairs of angle brackets are used to show that it's an alien language (identified in a caption by Tom Brevoort as "alien French") that is not understood by Guthrie. Which, now that I think about it, seems a bit odd. Doesn't Sam have access to advanced Shi'ar tech like universal translators? Maybe it was damaged in the explosion that threw him out to Saturn? Or maybe the scavengers stripped him of anything potentially valuable before they sold him to the slaver?
In any event, the only untranslated words spoken by the scavengers were "Glorp" and "glimp" (by Zu'ub) and "Flark" (by Mr'kk). Two of these alien words had previously been used by the Space Cabbie in U.S.Avengers#6.
Hmmm, now that I'm doing these comments, I've noticed a flaw in the whole "a giant explosion threw Cannonball all the way to Saturn" idea. It concerns how much force would have to be applied by the explosion and the speed that the projectile (Sam) would have to reach. First of all, we would need a figure for the average speed at which he traveled. Sam was caught in that explosion in U.S.Avengers#6 and found near Saturn in the following issue. From the point of view of Roberto Da Costa, who was waiting on Earth to hear of any news, the elapsed time between those issues was probably only a few hours before HYDRA took over, but let's make it easier and assume that it was a full 24 hours. So, the average speed of someone who travels 1,200 million kilometers in 24 hours comes to 50 million kilometers per hour (kph). Since the speed of light is only(!) 300,000 km/s (or 1,080 million km/hr), that would mean that the traveler must have been moving at about 4.6% of light speed, almost 100 times faster than the fastest object ever made by humans (in the real world).
Now that we have that average speed, how exactly does it wreck the
storyline? In two ways. First, since Sam and the dragon scales were not being accelerated by a continuous thrust,
all of their acceleration must have come from the force imparted unto them by that giant explosion. I have no idea
how to properly calculate that figure but I am completely sure that it FAR exceeds the amount of force that would
be needed to shred the molecules of any solid body. Essentially, if Sam and the dragon scale were caught in a
explosion that was large enough to instantly accelerate them to almost one-twentieth the speed of light, then
they should have been vaporized. Since that would end their story right there, let's assume that dragon scales
are virtually invulnerable and that Sam's mutant force field was impossibly effective at protecting him from any
negative effects of being subjected to such a powerful force. It couldn't, of course, but for the sake of argument,
let's pretend.
I don't think it is that far-fetched that Sam's force field could
protect him...assuming he was in flight at the time.
--Snood
The second problem is, now that Sam is traveling that fast, how could he
end up just drifting in space near Saturn? The answer is, he couldn't. Since 50 million kph is far greater than the
escape velocity of the solar system, anything moving that fast is never going to slow down due to the Sun's gravity.
As far as I know, the only thing that could stop such a projectile would be a direct impact with a solid object, like a
planet, something that would definitely not leave the projectile intact.
That is an excellent point, especially considering that the speed may
have been 4-5 times that, as you mentioned above.
--Snood
This leaves us with only two possibilities: Either the scavengers, their starship, Sam and the dragon scales were actually all traveling through space at the same incredible speed when they all came together near Saturn; or Sam and the dragon scales traveled from Earth to Saturn via some other method, one that did not involve accelerating them to 4.6% of light-speed. Unfortunately, neither of these possibilities is supported by anything in that published story.
Since the whole "the force of the explosion threw them through space" idea is clearly unworkable, an alternate explanation is needed. The only one that I could think of was that the explosion had actually torn open space-time, creating a small temporary wormhole between Earth-space and Saturn-space. This resulted in both Sam and the dragon scales being sucked into the wormhole near Earth and then being expelled out the other end, leaving them drifting in space near Saturn. However, while this theory removes the need for a massive acceleration that would either vaporize them or leave them traveling at an excessive speed, it doesn't really match what the story says happened to them. Ah, well.
The explosion that was believed to have killed Sam Guthrie occurred because he, unaware that the large Chitauri dragons were also living bombs, had flown straight at one, intending to bounce off its hide in an attempt to distract it from Quasar (Avril Kincaid) whom it had just swallowed. Secret Empire#7 revealed that Kincaid had somehow survived being swallowed by that Chitauri dragon and been found (comatose) in the wreckage by Nova (Sam Alexander). I have no idea how this is supposed to relate to what happened to Cannonball.
The idea that "dragon scales" fetched a nice price in the Rimworlds may be a reference to the story in Captain Britain (Vol. 2) #6 in which Gatecrasher's Technet accepted payment from Opul Lun Sat-Yr-Nin in dragon-scales because they were in great demand on the Were-Worlds. Since it has no relevance to the storyline, I assume that it's just some sort of homage?
Zu'ub and Mr'kk and the unidentified slaver are more of those aliens created
by writers who don't bother to reveal the name of the races to which they belonged. As someone who likes knowing
the proper names of things, I find this tendency to be very frustrating because it makes any references to that race
cumbersome. Since there is no simple name (like the Blorg) that could be used, one has to constantly refer to
"Character X's race" every time instead.
I 100% agree. It is very frustrating, especially when trying to detail the events and profile the characters.
--Snood
I did consider doing a separate profile on the slaver and the "hive of scum and villainy" (a reference to the Mos Eisley Spaceport from the movie STAR WARS IV) where he plied his trade. However, since the lack of names for either of them made that problematic, I decided to just give him a sub-profile attached to the main profile on one of his named associates, Zu'ub.
Profile by Donald Campbell.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Zu'ub has no known connections to
An alien scavenger who worked with Zu'ub aboard The Lucky Glrpnx. When their starship was near Saturn and Zu'ub went on a spacewalk to collect some of the Chitauri dragon scales that were in the area, Mr'kk remained in radio contact with Zu'ub and, upon spotting the scales, one of them commented on them by saying, "Nice."
As Zu'ub continued his extravehicular activity, he reminded Mr'kk of how he (Zu'ub) had told him (Mr'kk) that, when big Chitauri dragons exploded, their scales got thrown for gigameters. As Zu'ub was remarking on how they would be set for life once they had towed a couple of scales back to civilized space, he suddenly cut himself off with a "Glorp." Concerned, Mr'kk asked him, "You broke up there, Zu'ub - - You okay?" Zu'ub replied that he had found an Earther out there with the debris, wearing a suit that was still sealed, and that he must have had some kind of force field or something because he was still alive. Mr'kk reacted by saying, "What? Flark, talk about lucky..." Although this comment was presumably about how lucky the Earther was to still be alive, Zu'ub had a different interpretation of that term and spoke of how lucky they were to have found some "glimp" that they could sell for a high price.
--Heard (but not seen) in U.S.Avengers#7
Notes: Since Mr'kk was never depicted on-panel in any story, little was revealed about him. Aside from the fact that he was capable of communicating verbally over a radio, only two possible details about him can be inferred. First, the fact that he and Zu'ub had names that had the same format (i.e., each four letters long and with an apostrophe in the middle) could be an indication that they were both members of the same (unidentified) species. However, as evidence goes, this is clearly VERY far from being conclusive.
Second, assuming that Mr'kk and Zu'ub were "them scavenger boys" who sold Sam Guthrie to that alien slaver, then that would mean that both Zu'ub and Mr'kk were male representatives of whatever species (either singular or plural) they were. Alternatively, one or both of them could have belonged of a species which lacked gender...or maybe the slaver just wasn't very good at determining the genders of the beings with whom he did business. Who can say? Only Al Ewing knows for sure.
A Delta-class scavenger craft operated by Zu'ub and Mr'kk (and possibly others who were neither seen nor heard) that was capable of interstellar travel at faster-than-light speeds. Exactly how it accomplished this was never specifically stated but it was presumably through the use of warp engines that enabled it to enter and exit warp space, an extradimensional realm where vast distances can be traveled in an amount of time greatly reduced from the time it would take to travel that same distance in "real" space.
As scavengers, Zu'ub and Mr'kk used The Lucky Glrpnx to follow Chitauri swarms through space in order to "pick the bones" by recovering any loose Chitauri dragon scales they could find. After entering the Sol system and observing the explosion of a big Chitauri dragon, they piloted the craft to the vicinity of the planet Saturn where they found an Earther still alive in a sealed spacesuit amidst the debris. Zu'ub brought him aboard The Lucky Glrpnx where he was apparently imprisoned while they completed their business, then the starship traveled to an unspecified "hive of scum and villainy" somewhere in deep space where the scavengers sold the Earther to an alien slaver.
The specific capabilities of this particular scavenger craft have not been revealed, but it had a range that was great enough for it to travel from "civilized space" to Earth's solar system and back again. Additionally, The Lucky Glrpnx was fast enough that it was able to transport a being from Saturn to a certain planet in an alien solar system and that being could then be transported aboard a Skrull starship from that same planet to Kral X in the Andromeda Galaxy, and the total travel time for those two voyages would be less than 32 Earth-days. Admittedly, not knowing the respective durations of those two voyages doesn't really help determine how fast this craft could travel, especially since some Skrull starships can cross intergalactic distances in seconds by using space-time warps, but that's all the data that is available.
The size of The Lucky Glrpnx was also not clearly established since it, like Zu'ub, was never depicted in close proximity to anything of a known height (like Sam Guthrie). However, it was clearly large enough to carry both Zu'ub and Mr'kk as well as whatever cargo they had planned to transport, be it either a couple of Chitauri dragon scales and/or one Terran mutant. Whether it was large enough to carry both some dragon scales and Guthrie was not clarified. If it was one of the starships that was detected by the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier Douglass as it approached Earth, then it would have been classified as a small craft.
Since only one view of this starship was ever seen, providing a detailed description would be impossible. Aside from being bilaterally symmetrical, the craft appeared to be shorter than it was wide. There were two pairs of cylinders/nacelles (presumably the warp engines) that were attached to the left and right sides of the hull by struts that held them slightly away from the hull. The foremost pair was adjacent to the fore section of the starship while the second pair was behind and slightly higher than the first. The fore section was rounded, like a half-disk with a curved upper rim, and had what seemed to be at least seven pairs of square windows set into it. The fore section was directly attached to the rear of the starship and what could be seen of that rear section was both higher and blockier than the fore section.
There were presumably several airlocks which were used when Zu'ub exited to perform his EVA and when Guthrie and/or the scavenged dragon scales were loaded aboard, but they (or it) were (or was) never depicted.
--U.S.Avengers#7
A semi-humanoid bipedal alien whose name and gender have never been revealed, he (or she) was in the business of selling living beings to anyone who would buy them. This slaver's base of operations was (at least temporarily) a settlement (possibly a spaceport) on a planet in deep space that was described as "a hive of scum and villainy" but was not otherwise named. The language that the slaver spoke was referred to as "alien French" in a caption by editor Tom Brevoort (but this was probably a joke and not meant to be taken literally).
The name of the species to which this slaver belonged was never revealed. Their species was bilaterally symmetrical and orange-skinned. The slaver appeared to be slightly taller than the 6-foot tall Guthrie but had a considerably stockier build, suggesting a greater weight. Most of their body was covered by gray-and-purple clothing, including a cape that extended down below their knees, and their feet were clad in heavy gray boots. The only unclothed parts of their body were their hands, most of their arms, and their head and neck.
Each of their hands had three fingers and an opposable thumb. Their arms appeared to be well-muscled and red strips of cloth were wrapped around both of their forearms.
Their head, like the rest of their body, was hairless. They had two pointed
ears, one set on each side of their head and pointing backwards instead of up. Their mouth was large and wide, and
the teeth were spike-like canines that were widely separated from each other, with only seven visible teeth on each jaw.
Their nose consisted of two long and narrow slits as nostrils that were not visible unless the observer was looking
up at their face from below.
They had six white eyes that were arranged in three pairs in the upper half of their face.
Each of the four lower eyes had their own brow ridge above them, and the uppermost pair could be closed enough
that their eyelids appeared as just teardrop-shaped patches of skin. Their eyes appeared to be comprised of white
irises on white sclera with no pupils visible in their centers.
This slaver acquired Samuel Guthrie from the scavengers Zu'ub and Mr'kk who had rescued him from space. However, it has not been established whether Zu'ub and Mr'kk brought Guthrie to the planet where the slaver was based or if they met the slaver somewhere else and the slaver later brought Guthrie to that unidentified planet.
However Guthrie was acquired, the slaver kept him bound by a power damper, made him stand on the side of one of the streets of the settlement where people and their beasts of burden walked, and began trying to sell him to passersby.
The slaver tried to attract potential buyers by calling out, "You'll never get a better chance, friends -- at the deal of a lifetime! We're talkin' opposable thumbs! Hi-def color vision! And -- unique to this specimen -- rocket legs! What am I bid?"
However, when none of the passerby appeared to be interested in buying the merchandise, the slaver began talking to himself, saying, "Nothin'? Startin' to think them scavenger boys sold me a lemon..." At this point, Guthrie began making requests, asking if he could get a phone call to the Shi'ar embassy and if someone could turn off the power damper in which he was bound. When no one responded, Guthrie asked if anyone there spoke English and, to his surprise, someone in the crowd spoke up, stating that he was speaking American English. This individual identified Guthrie as "A genuine 100% corn-fed American" and stated that way out there he was a lucky find. After identifying himself as Howard Mason, the speaker, who appeared to be a pale-skinned human with white hair, apparently proceeded to buy Guthrie from the slaver.
--U.S.Avengers#8
images: (without ads)
U.S.Avengers#7, page 7, panel 2 (main image - Zu'ub)
page 7, panel 3 (Zu'ub head shot)
page 7, panel 5 (Zu'ub thinking of profit)
page 7, panel 1 (starship)
U.S.Avengers#8, page 14, panel 1 (slaver head-and-arm shot)
page 14, panel 2 (slaver full body)
Appearances:
(Zu'ub) U.S.Avengers#7 (August, 2017) - Al Ewing (writer), Paco Medina (penciler), Juan Vlasco (inker), Tom
Brevoort (editor)
(slaver) U.S.Avengers#8 (September, 2017) - Al Ewing (writer), Paco Medina (penciler), Juan Vlasco (inker), Tom
Brevoort (editor)
First Posted: 03/01/2023
Last updated: 03/01/2023
Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.
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