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Leland Owlsley (Earth-616)

From Marvel Database

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Real Name
Current Alias

Identity

Alignment

Affiliation
Leader of the Owl Gang; former ally of Mr. Kline, former member of the Gang of Four

Universe

Base Of Operations

Characteristics
Gender

Height


Eyes

Hair

Status
Citizenship

Marital Status

Occupation
Criminal

Origin
Origin
Mutant


First appearance
Last appearance

Contents

History

Leland "Owl" Owlsley was a ruthless financier, although he has a respectable image. An internal audit by IRS discovered files relating Owlsley with different illegal business enterprises.

Owlsley decided to get rid of his previous image, and began scheming to became a crimelord in New York City. He began by hiring thugs for the Owl's Gang, and created a small crime empire.

Somehow, "the Owl" managed to get a serum he supposedly used to glide and even fly for short distances; he had to use the serum frequently to retain these powers. Years later, it was discovered that the Owl was a mutant, not needing the serum except to improve a natural power. Anyhow, the Owl usually did not personally fight anyone, preferring to use thugs to do so.

The Owl fought Daredevil, who defeated him and led him to jail, but only for misdemeanor. The Owl left the jail soon after that, in parole, and immediately kidnapped the judge who had convicted him. Daredevil rescued the judge, but the Owl escaped.

Wanting to avoid Daredevil and the police, the Owl decided to "fly low" to avoid attention, and moved to San Francisco. There he met Mr. Kline, another criminal who sent the Owl to capture Daredevil. However, Daredevil was helped by the Black Widow, a former Russian agent and crimefighter. The Owl was again defeated, and again ran away before being jailed.

The Owl then moved to Chicago, where he obtained a technology to drain knowledge from human brains. He hoped to increase his own knowledge, but was opposed by a crimefighter known as The Cat.

The Owl returned to San Francisco with the technology. He built again the machine and captured Daredevil, wanting to use the machine on him. However, the Black Widow rescued Daredevil and defeated the Owl.

At some point, the Owl caught a weakening illness that would paralyze his legs, probably as a secondary effect of his serum.

The Owl returned to New York and established a new headquarters, The Aerie, on New Jersey Palisades. There, he freed the Man-Bull from prison, so he could use him as a thug, and ordered him to kidnap eminent neurologist Professor Brent Kerwin. He hoped Kerwin could heal his neurological problem. However, Daredevil stopped the Man-Bull before he could take Kerwin to The Aerie.

Scared, the Owl looked for another specialist in a different state. Dr. Howard Petrovic built an exoskeleton for his legs and joined a flying device to his spine. Soon after that, the Owl fought Daredevil on air and discovered that Petrovic had sabotaged his device, and the Owl fell to the Hudson.

The Owl's Gang rescued the Owl, and made Kerwin examine him. Kerwin designed a neurological pacemaker so that the Owl could survive. However, Daredevil and Spider-Man went to rescue Kerwin and fought and defeated the Owl. This caused him an anxiety stroke, breaking the pacemaker, and the Owl went into a coma.

The Owl recovered and made the Tinkerer repair his braces. He also got a flying support module to compensate his legs. He then tried to launch a great crime wave, but Spider-Man and the Black Widow stopped him.

Then, the Owl decided to launch his most ambitious scheme to the date: He wanted to replace Kingpin as the main gang leader on New York. He met with Doctor Octopus and try to convince him to form an alliance, but Octopus was not interested and they ended up fighting. Spider-Man interrupted the fight, and both of them ran away.

Soon afterwards, Octopus attacked the Owl at the Aerie, and defeated him in personal fight. He broke his claws and braces and threw him to a 20 feet fall.

The Owl was sent to a hospital in prison, where he recovered from his injuries, but he left prison as soon as he was fine.

As a consequence of his consume of experimental drugs to cure his spine and improve his gliding, the Owl became less human, but at least he did cure his spine.

Recently, when the Kingpin disappeared, the Owl tried to re-establish his presence in the criminal underworld, and enlarge his domains by refining Mutant Growth Hormone from his own genetic material, but Daredevil got him arrested.

More recently so, he managed to manipulate behind the scenes and get the Kingpin arrested for a past murder when it looked like Fisk was going to make a deal with the FBI. As the Kingpin sauntered into his jail cell, the Owl taunted him with "Payback's a bitch."

The deal in question involved Matt Murdock being arrested for being Daredevil. When Foggy Nelson, representing Murdock in court, visited him in jail, he was apparently killed by the other prisoners. The Owl later taunted Murdock about this, and Murdock, who had become unhinged due to his friend's death, brutally beat the Owl. (Unbeknownst to the two of them, Foggy was alive at the time and in witness protection.)

Later, the Owl escaped prison and stole Deathlok from S.H.I.E.L.D. in hopes of selling him off to the highest bidder to other supervillains. Unfortunately, he did not ask permission of the newly-established 'kingpin of supervillains', The Hood, and was subsequently shot down by the villain. It remains to be seen how permanent this current death is.

Powers and Abilities

Powers

Avian Physiology: The Owl's natural physiology is similar to that of birds in the sense that he has hollow bones and has a greater proportional muscle mass than a normal human of the same body weight and almost no body fat. Like an actual Owl, he is also able to rotate his head to a 180 degree angle.

  • Gliding: The Owl's primary mutant power is a low level gliding ability that allows him to travel, unaided, through the air for an extended period of time. He must leap from at least a height of at least 20 feet and cannot simply float into the air from the ground. The Owl also has a low level psionic power that he uses to help levitate himself while gliding, allowing him to stay aloft for longer periods of time if required.
  • Superhumanly Acute Senses: The Owl's sense of sight is considerably greater than that of an ordinary human. He is capable of seeing much farther, with perfect clarity, than an ordinary human. He retains this same level of clarity in near-total darkness. He is also capable of moving one eye independently of the other. His sense of hearing is similarly enhanced, allowing him to both hear sounds ordinary humans can't and sounds that they can but at much greater distances.
  • Peak Human Strength: Due to his natural mutation, the Owl possesses superior physical strength than most human beings, even though he exercises relatively little. If he exercised regularly and intensively, he has the potentially of achieving some degree of superhuman strength. As of now, he is capable of lifting about 600 lbs with great effort.
  • Peak Human Stamina: Much like his natural strength, the Owl has the potential to achieve superhuman levels of stamina through intensive regular exercise. However, his musculature still produces less fatigue toxins during physical activity than the musculature of most normal humans. He can exert himself physically, including gliding through the air, at peak capacity for about one hour before fatigue begins to impair him.
  • Peak Human Durability: The Owl's bodily tissue is enhanced to the peak of human development. While not superhuman, his body is as physically tough as it's naturally possible for a human body to be. If he sustains physical injury or illness, his recovery time is also superior to that of most ordinary humans. However, his recovery time is not superhumanly fast.

    Weaknesses

Must wear a special, lightweight exoskeleton to make use of his legs.

Paraphernalia

Equipment

  • Leg Support: Using specially electric-powered braces, the Owl could overcome his previously-injured legs.
  • Sliding Coat: His specially-designed coat increases his agility.

    Transportation

Owl's Flyer: A distinctive flying vehicle that can carry up to 4535 pounds; Owl uses it to transport himself and his gang.

Weapons

  • Claws: Artificial metal claws he uses in personal fight.

Notes

  • The Owl has appeared in one episode of Spider-Man: The Animated Series, second season premiere of the series ("The Insidious Six"). He is portrayed as one of the crimelords supporting Silvermane and against the Kingpin. He was voiced by Michael Bell.
  • For a time, the Owl's legs were injured and he could not work without his special braces (see Equipment). Currently the Owl has overcame this injury.
  • Experimental drugs he has consumed trying to improve his natural gliding powers have decreased his sanity and made him much more animal-like. Notably, he enjoys eating live mice with his vintage six hundred dollar wine.

Trivia

Links

Discover and Discuss

  1. ↑ http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=23092
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