Thursday Rubinstein (Earth-616)

Ruby's origin is probably unknown outside of the Headmen. Dr. Arthur Nagan (AKA Gorilla Man II) inducted her into the Headmen -- a group of megalomaniacal villains that also includes Dr. Jerold Morgan (AKA Shrunken Bones) and Chondu the Mystic -- shortly before their second entanglement with the Defenders.^[1]

A few years later, Ruby perpetrated some sort of crime in the Las Vegas area that brought Omega the Unknown in pursuit of her. Introduced here as her (new?) servant was the Dibbuk, a demonlike creature. In the midst of their confrontation, Las Vegas police officers arrived on the scene. The officers believed that Omega was criminally assaulting Ruby -- perhaps because of duplicity on Ruby's part -- and they shot him dead.^[2]

The Defenders traveled to Las Vegas to investigate Omega's death, and encountered Ruby and the Dibbuk. During their confrontation, the Wasp shattered Ruby's head with a sting blast, thereby killing her. The Dibbuk sorrowfully collected her corpse and teleported away.^[3]

Ruby reappeared with the Headmen several years later in their plot to replace Chondu's monstrous body with a clone of She-Hulk's body. Due to a miscalculation by Dr. Nagan, Spider-Man learned of the Headmen's activity and confronted them. Ruby revealed to Spider-Man that she had recovered from death. (Neat trick, eh?) She-Hulk and Spider-Man defeated the Headmen and handed them over to New York authorities.^[4]

A few years after that, Ruby reappeared with the Headmen to once again pursue the prospect of attaching Chondu's head to Spider-Man's body (despite Dr. Morgan's earlier determination that it wasn't feasible). They tracked Spider-Man to an art gallery event that coincidentally had the Human Torch in attendance. With the Human Torch's help, Spider-Man subdued the Headmen for submission to New York authorities.^[5]

A few years later, a Doombot (robot built by Doctor Doom) formed its own will and personality. Calling itself Mechadoom, it began using Capturebots to subdue cyborgs and "sentient" robots for the purpose of dismantling and analyzing them with the hope of learning how to adapt to its selfhood. It succeeded in subduing Ruby, Forge, Bushwhacker, Machine Man and Ultron. With Capturebots on her trail, Misty Knight approached Deathlok to alert him to the danger; he and members of the Fantastic Four and the X-Men found and defeated Mechadoom and convinced it to release its captives. Having been a victim rather than a criminal perpetrator in this case, Ruby was presumably allowed to go her own way upon release.^[6]

A few years later, the Headmen learned of and sought out a mystical idol called the God from Beyond. Soon afterwards, they used another mystical artifact, the Star of Capistan, to power the idol in order to summon and control the monstrous and powerful extraterrestrial Orrgo. In the midst of this they incidentally rescued MODOK from extradimensional exile; in exchange, he availed himself and his organization, Advanced Idea Mechanics (AIM), to them. Per Dr. Nagan's instruction, Orrgo seized mental control of all life (or at least all humans) on Earth except those who had previously touched the idol (which Orrgo couldn't affect) and MODOK and the operatives of AIM. Fortunately, the Defenders had previously touched the idol and thus were free to oppose the Headmen. During their period of control over life on Earth, Ruby interfaced with some AIM computers and researched the ramifications of introducing seventh-dimensional objects into the three-dimensional universe. Thanks to Nighthawk's quick thinking, the weaker contingent of the Defenders defeated the Headmen and scared Orrgo away from Earth; MODOK and the AIM operatives presumably escaped in the confusion.^[7]

She had a brief romantic liaison with the Answer at some point in the past, to which she called an end. She more recently approached him and asked him to fetch AIM's procurement budget for her, which he did. Soon afterward, word got to him that Bullseye was out to assassinate him, but he later discovered that Bullseye was actually hired by AIM to assassinate Ruby instead, and wanted to get to her through him. Bullseye decapitated her, but he let the Answer keep her head. The Answer went into hiding to search for a way to reactivate her head.^[8] He apparently succeeded at some point, because she has been listed as having been incarcerated during the events of Civil War.^[9]

Powers and Abilities

Powers

Ruby’s head has been somehow replaced with a mass of "organic circuitry," a malleable red plastic that can mimic all the proper functions of a human head (seeing, hearing, speaking and presumably breathing and eating). It also allows Ruby to exercise a number of powers:

She can extrude up to four tentacles from her head, each of which can elongate and constrict an opponent. She can form blunt or edged weapons on the ends of these tentacles for bludgeoning or swordplay instead of constriction.
She can also form other shapes and certain other colors with her head. With concentration, Ruby can disguise herself as a normal red-haired woman.
She can emit a huge sticky blanket or up to twenty projectiles at a time from her head. Her head immediately replenishes its lost mass, presumably from an extradimensional source.
She can separate her head from her neck. In this condition, she can control both her head and body, albeit in a lesser capacity. Her head can fly fast enough to dodge some attacks.
She can fire blasts of pure force from her head. If in contact with an individual, the head can generate Amazing intensity energy of almost any type.
She can cause her head to explode and reform. She can make the magnitude of the explosion large enough to knock out durable human and humanoid creatures such as the Hulk.
Abilities

Ruby has shown herself to be skilled in scientific matters, particularly physics and computers. She is an accomplished engineer. While disguised as a normal human, Ruby can be a persuasive orator.

Strength level

Ruby possesses the normal human strength of a woman of her age, height, and build who engages in moderate regular exercise.

Paraphernalia

Equipment

She began wearing long opera gloves and stopped showing her "eyes" in Sensational She-Hulk #1. Her head was smaller starting in #2; this may have been an artistic error on John Byrne's part, but it could be suggested that this tactic allowed Ruby to better evade attacks aimed at her head. She sported a sleeveless version of her bodysuit in the Deathlok Volume 2 series. She switched back to her previous costume and original head volume in Web of Spider-Man. She had reverted to her original costume in the Defenders Volume 2 series.

Links

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[0] Defenders Vol 1 32-35, Defenders Annual 1

[1] Omega the Unknown 10

[2] Defenders Vol 1 76-77

[3] Sensational She-Hulk 1-3

[4] Web of Spider-Man 73

[5] Deathlok Vol 2 2-5

[6] Defenders Vol 2 5, Defenders Vol 2 9-10

[7] I Heart Marvel Vol 1 4

[8] Civil War: Battle Damage Report

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Thursday Rubinstein (Earth-616)

From Marvel Database

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