History
Taneleer Tivan is one of the oldest living beings of the Universe. His species at Cygnus X-1 was one of the first to evolve after the Big Bang. Death took Tivan as the last surviving representative of the species and gave him total immortality - Tivan, as well as one representative of each of the first species of the Universe, cannot die. These people have associated among themselves to create the Elders of the Universe. As they are relatively few, they call each other "brother".
Tivan spent the first millenia of his existence with his wife, Matani, and daughter, Carina, on a planet he chose as his headquarters. Carina eventually reached maturity and left them. After this, Matani died due to mysterious causes. Tivan could not explain Marani's death as he thought that she too was immortal.
He eventually understood that a factor in an Elder's immortality was the will to live, and that Matani had lost hers. Tivan then decided he would not suffer the same fate, and looked for a goal to which he could dedicate his life.
Tivan then had a vision seeing powerful things that would rise, determined to destroy the universe. He decided to prevent this from happening and that he would dedicate his life to collecting artifacts and living beings throughout the universe to place them out of danger. Then, after the destruction of the universe, he could re-populate it and bequeath the knowledge and cultures from past. He built a great spaceship and began his work, stopping on every world to collect a sample of its greatest achievements, as well as living representatives of each of their lifeforms.[1]
In a matter of years, the ship was full and he had to stop in order to collect expanded facilities for his "permanent collection". Using robo-mechanics bought on planet Cron, the Collector transferred his collection. Every time his ship's hold became full, the Collector would return to his museum-worlds to place the new samples. He has currently filled up ten museum-worlds with artifacts from one hundred thousand planets.
With the passing of eons, his monomania became more obsessive, until he forgot the original reason for his collection.
In recent years, the first of the powerful beings in his prophecies, Thanos of Titan, was born and eventually defeated without the Collector's intervention. Meanwhile, the Collector had not always peaceful encounters with the heroes of Earth, beginning with the Avengers.[2] He tried to collect the team on several occasions.[3][4]
The second of the threats was Korvac of Earth. Tivan, then known as the Collector, contacted his daughter Carina and sent her to spy on Korvac. The intelligence led to the Collector attempting to report to the heroes of Earth. However, Korvac found the Collector before he could do so, and destroyed him.[1] Korvac was eventually destroyed, dying alongside Carina.[5]
Another of the Elders of the Universe, the Grandmaster, was close to the Collector and searched for a way to resurrect him. The Grandmaster contacted Death and played a Contest of Champions to obtain the power to resurrect the Collector.[6] The Grandmaster won, but the use of that power had a price he had ignored until the victory: The Grandmaster had to sacrifice his own life, or the life of all of the Earth's heroes, to resurrect his brother. To obtain the victory, the Grandmaster had sworn not to use any of the Earth's heroes as a pawn again, so he forfeited that choice. Death suggested him not to use the power, but the Grandmaster wanted to, and thus destroyed himself to resurrect the Collector - who was not happy to see his "brother" dead.
Resurrected, the Collector returned to his previous task and he also predicted the attempt of Surtur to destroy Asgard. However, Surtur was also stopped without the Collector's intervention.
The Collector eventually resurrected the Grandmaster in a complex scheme including the Avengers fighting the West Coast Avengers, each team following one of the Elders and believing the other one was a villain.[7][8]
The Collector then joined the other Elders in the Grandmaster's scheme to kill Galactus. Thus, the existing universe would collapse. The Elders would survive the big crunch and the subsequent big bang of a new universe, becoming Galactus-like beings in the new universe. The scheme failed, but the Collector had become one of the threats to the universe he had once predicted and against whom he had schemed.
Following the Grandmaster's schemes, the Collector took possession of the Reality Gem. He held it for a time until Thanos of Titan came to bargain for it. Thanos had defeated the Collector's fellow Elder, the Runner, and reduced him to infancy using the Time Gem. Thanos offered the infant Runner to the Collector in exchange for the Reality Gem, but neglected to mention the infancy spell was only temporary.[9]
The Collector learned that one of the Seven Friendless, Enmity, had created a being named, Unum, from the collective hatred of fallen minions from various villains and that Unum desired to kill all heroes starting with heroines. The Collector attempted to protect the universe's heroines by adding them to his collection and fighting Unum. Unum was eventually defeated with the aid of She-Hulk and the other heroines.[10]Attributes
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Powers
Unlike other Elders such as the Champion or the Contemplator, who used their lives to improve the powers of body or mind, the Collector has not been dedicated to self-perfection. Thus, he does not possess super-human physical or mental abilities beyond those all the Elders possess.
- Cosmic Energy Control: The Collector can channel the ambient energy of the cosmos.
- Immortality: Due to his status as Elder of the Universe, the Collector's body is immune to cell deterioration and cannot be damaged through piercing, illness or anything similar. His will to live is strong enough than he can regenerate any lost part of his body. It has been proven that the destruction of most of his molecules can stop regeneration and kill him.
- Precognition: The Collector is prone to have precognitive flashes of the future, but he must meditate for long periods of time to get the details (including place, timeline and participants). Notably, some of his visions take place in alternate timelines (as the one including Thanos destroying the universe).
Paraphernalia
Equipment
The Collector has access to the finest technology of one hundred thousand worlds, which provides him with a virtually unlimited arsenal. He is only limited to what he can access at a certain situation, but he always has access to at least one incredibly powerful device.
- Armor: The Collector usually wears an armor made of Etherion which also allows him to fly.
Transportation
- Collector's Spaceship: The Collector keeps this ship in hyperspace while orbiting, to avoid it being detected while he is looking for specimens. He can access the ship through a small, invisible cabin-like gateway.
- Temporal Assimilator: This device allows the Collector to travel through time, but is only effective for short distances (meaning short times). A bigger-scale device similar to this allows him to "fish" artifacts from other periods of history and even alternate realities.
See Also
- 111 appearance(s) of Taneleer Tivan (Earth-616)
- 16 appearance(s) in handbook(s) of Taneleer Tivan (Earth-616)
- 20 minor appearance(s) of Taneleer Tivan (Earth-616)
- 30 mention(s) of Taneleer Tivan (Earth-616)
- 10 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Taneleer Tivan (Earth-616)
- 74 image(s) of Taneleer Tivan (Earth-616)
- 14 quotation(s) by or about Taneleer Tivan (Earth-616)
- 15 item(s) used/owned by Taneleer Tivan (Earth-616)
Links and References
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Avengers #174
- ↑ Avengers #28
- ↑ Avengers #51
- ↑ Avengers #119
- ↑ Avengers #177
- ↑ Contest of Champions #3
- ↑ Avengers Annual #16
- ↑ West Coast Avengers Annual #2
- ↑ Thanos Quest #2
- ↑ She-Hulk: Cosmic Collision #1
- ↑ Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #2
- ↑ Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z Vol 1 2