GREAT COORDINATOR

Real Name: Harvey Jessup

Identity/Class: Time-displaced (Earth-861095) human, technology user

Occupation: Ruler, scientist;
    former chief scientist for Roxxon Oil Company

Group Membership: Leader Exiles of Central City;
    formerly Roxxon Oil Company

Affiliations: Formerly Reed Richards

Enemies: Fantastic Four (Human Torch, Invisible Woman, Mr. Fantastic, She-Hulk), Iron Man (Stark)

Known Relatives: wife (unidentified, presumably deceased), Murna (daughter)

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Central City and its time-displaced pocket realm

First Appearance: (BTS) Fantastic Four I#293 (August, 1986);
    (named and fully seen) Fantastic Four I#294 (September, 1986)

Powers/Abilities: Jessup had no superhuman powers. He was highly intelligent in the field of nuclear technology and had a working understanding of the manipulation of the passage of time, though his calculations were less than perfect. He created the Salvation Generator.
    By the time the Fantastic Four encountered him, he spent the vast majority of his time in suspended animation; he was extremely infirm and could only be awake for brief periods of time before suffering from severe exhaustion. He wore a helmet containing the Ultimate Adjudicator (pictured at top right), which could project a blast that could disintegrate others. From his command capsule, he could project illusions throughout the city, as well as activate and control a variety of weapons, such as concussive blasters.

 

 

History:
(Fantastic Four I#294 (fb) - BTS) - Jessup worked in Central City, the hometown of Reed Richards, and the two were familiar with each other's work.

(Fantastic Four I#294 (fb)) - Jessup was responsible for overseeing the construction of a nuclear power plant for Roxxon Oil Company. However, he eventually began to feel that the power was not being handled well. He complained to his superiors about the dangerous cutting of corners, but they ignored him initially and later fired him. Jessup was plagued by nightmares of an imminent nuclear war that would destroy the world. When he saw the newly transformed Reed Richards discussing the space-time continuum, he came upon the idea of using time to save himself and his city from the war.

 

 

 

 

    After several years of work he finished construction of his Salvation Generator. He then activated it, intending for it to form a bubble that would essentially warp time inside it, so that only a relatively short time would pass inside the bubble, while time would pass much more rapidly on the outside. After the world had cleansed itself of the nuclear radiation and it was safe once again, he would open the bubble and the people would return to the outside world.
    However, things did not quite work as Jessup had intended. In fact, almost the exact opposite happened: time instead moved extremely rapidly inside the bubble, while time moved normally outside the bubble. One month passed inside the bubble for each second that passed on the outside.

(Fantastic Four I#295 (fb) - BTS) - Jessup arranged approximately 50 loyal technicians to assist him. With their aid, he put the rest of the population--presumably against their will or without advance warning--into suspended animation. Jessup and his technicians ran the city for an unknown period of time.

(Fantastic Four I#294 (fb) - BTS) - Eventually, as Jessup aged, he built a device in which he could be placed to remain in suspended animation. He set up a plan for his technicians to oversee everything, and he entered his machine, only being awakened ever few centuries to reevaluate things, or when there were unforeseen complications. As Richards and his Fantastic Four had been a strong influence on Jessup, the Exiles of the time-displaced Central City eventually developed a cult-like worship of the Fantastic Four.

(Fantastic Four I#295 (fb) - BTS) - Jessup eventually realized that something had gone awry with his device, but he was afraid to deactivate it, for fear of exposing the city to the radioactive wasteland (as he perceived things to be on the outside).

(Fantastic Four I#295 (fb) - BTS / Fantastic Four I#293 - BTS) - Approximately 9800 years after forming the bubble (but only 34 hours on the outside), Iron Man attempted to investigate the bubble. Iron Man spent 3 weeks inside the bubble, during which time he encountered the Exiles of Central City. After unspecified circumstances, Iron Man emerged from the bubble, his power sources exhausted and partially dehydrated and starving, while only about 1/2 second had passed on the outside since he had entered the bubble.

(Fantastic Four I#295 (fb) - BTS) - In response to the above encounter, Jessup had several patrols of mutates created to meet such threats.

(Fantastic Four I#295 (fb)) - Decades later (as time passed within the bubble), the She-Hulk entered (having become trapped within the bubble within a minute or so of Iron Man entering it) Central City. The mutate patrols were sent after the She-Hulk, who managed to fight them off, but they continued to pursue her for months, until she was finally exhausted and overcome. She was brought before the Great Coordinator--as Jessup was now called--who had his daughter, Murna, use her psychic powers to probe the She-Hulk's mind. However, neither Jessup nor any of the other Exiles were able to accept the fact that the She-Hulk had been one of the Fantastic Four--who had been elevated to a god-like status by the people of Central City--and Murna was decried as a blasphemer. Jessup saved Murna from being torn apart by the enraged Exiles, but he told them that she knew not what she was saying, as she had been possessed and corrupted by contact with the green demoness. Jessup--perhaps suspecting the truth, but unwilling to allow the information to become public knowledge--stripped her of her status as a priestess and forbade her from speaking or interacting with others ever again.

(Fantastic Four I#295 (fb) - BTS) - Jessup had the She-Hulk placed into suspended animation.

(Fantastic Four I#293) - One hundred and fifty years later (ten minutes on the outside), the rest of the Fantastic Four--joined by Wyatt Wingfoot--entered the bubble in search of the She-Hulk.

(Fantastic Four I#294) - After encountering and fighting the mutate patrols, they met with Priestess Livia, to whom they explained their origins. Livia believed their stories and proclaimed to the city that the Four had come to save them. However, when she summoned the Great Coordinator, he denounced them as frauds. Reed challenged him to prove his claims, and Jessup used the Ultimate Adjudicator on them. While they expected to be submitted to a lie-detector type process, they instead apparently disintegrated under its beam. As Reed Richards asked why, Jessup muttered under his breath, "because a society may have many gods--but there is room enough for only one savior."

(Fantastic Four I#295(fb)/294) - The Fantastic Four escaped death due to the Invisible Woman, who had shielded them and then caused them to progressively become invisible from the outside in.

(Fantastic Four I#295) - The Four were discovered by Murna, who answered their questions and then led them to free the She-Hulk. Meanwhile, Jessup was being prepared to return to stasis, when the FF confronted him again. However, Jessup managed to get within his command capsule and drive them off briefly, but they fought their way back in. Eventually Reed had Murna link his mind with Jessup's, and Jessup was forcefully confronted about what had really happened. Jessup then commanded the Exiles to stop fighting, and he told the people to trust in Murna. With the last of his strength, Jessup showed Richards the mechanisms to his Salvation Generator.

 

Comments: Created by John Byrne, Roger Stern, Jerry Ordway, Al Gordon.

    Interesting story. Byrne wrote and drew #294, and drew and co-plotted #295. Roger Stern scripted #295 and wrote #296. I'm not sure whether Byrne had anything different intended, but the end result was pretty good. From the sudden appearance of the Bubble around Central City in the modern era (and from the calculations below), it would have seemed that it should have happened right then. Perhaps it was Jessup's obsession with his work that made him ignore or miss relatively recent changes in the Fantastic Four, such as: (1) Sue's changing her name to the Invisible Woman (as occurred in #283, only 11 issues before (and perhaps just a week or so in Marvel Time) this story, and (2) The Thing quitting and being replaced by the She-Hulk, as occurred in F4#265 (29 issues, perhaps just a few months in Marvel Time).

   However, I thought that it was a big cop-out that every person from the original Central City--except Jessup and a few allies--had been put in suspended animation and were all restored back to their normal lives at the end of the story. The people from the "future" Central City were then sent into the future to live out their lives. And everyone lived happily ever after.

10,000 years = 3,650,000 days = 87,600,000 hours = 315,000,000,000 seconds

At roughly a 2.6 million:1 conversion, that equals a little over 34 hours on the outside.

As Alpha Flight nemesis Llan the Sorceror makes a comeback every ten millenia, the people of this community could very easily fall prey to him. Imagine what he could do with their advanced technology augmenting his own magic!
--Carycomic

CLARIFICATIONS:
The Exiles of Central City o known connection to:

  • Exiles, a group of alternate earth heroes @ Blink #4, Exiles #1
  • Exiles of the Ultraverse, Rachel Deming's group, @ Exiles #1(Ultraverse title)
  • Exiles of the Ultraverse, of which Sienna Blaze and the Juggernaut of the Marvel Universe were both members, @ All-New Exiles #1
  • Exiles, old allies of the Red Skull @ Tales of Suspense I #41?, Captain America I #102
  • Exiles, an unofficial band of Yuri Garnogg's gang of underground mutants, @ Soviet Super Soldiers #1
  • Exile, an extradimensional that encountered the Fantastic Four, @ Marvel Comics Presents #66/3

The Warp Bubble around Central City has no known connection to:

and, in general, no one with the Warp Bubble of Central City has any connections to any other similarly named characters outside of the Bubble.


The Exiles and Central City

 

    The original city was the home of both Reed Richards and Harvey Jessup. Jessup's warp allowed 10,000 years to pass inside the warp. In addition, the majority of the natives were put into suspended animation, and only fifty people--loyal technicians to Jessup--ran the city, and also served as the genetic stock to repopulate it. After Iron Man's arrival, steps were taken to create a defense force, which consisted of the mutate patrols (Burner, Clobber, Head, and Wing).

 

 

 

 

 

    A cult-like worship of the Fantastic Four had developed including a shrine to the Four and the Baxter Building, as well as establishing the use of their powers and symbols as sacred.
    A little over a day had passed on the outside world, when the warp bubble was discovered. The West Coast Avengers--joined by the She-Hulk who had been out searching for the missing Thing--received notice and investigated. Iron Man investigated first and narrowly escaped with his life. The She-Hulk probed the warp bubble and her hand became trapped in it. She was eventually pulled in, and then minutes later the rest of the Fantastic Four arrived and followed her in. Reed Richards managed to deactivate the warp and shunt the entire population of the Exiles, along with their advanced city, 10,000 years into the future (one alternate/potential future anyway), hoping that there they would be able to fit in better.
    The original inhabitants of Central City were awakened, and fortunately only a day and a half was lost to them. Much of the original city had been preserved underneath the more advanced city of the Exiles.

 

-- (city) Fantastic Four I#293, (exiles) #294 (294(fb), 295(fb), 293-295

 

 

 

 


Burner Patrol

 

They would appear to be patterned after the Human Torch.

 

They are simple-minded and can transform into flame or a thick substance, which can adhere to and cover other people or things. They are immune to flame attacks, and instead just seem to soak them up. A group of them covered the Human Torch, smothered his flame, and forced him to crash into the ground below. They were unharmed by the crash.

 

--Fantastic Four I#294 (295(fb), 294, 295

 

 

 

 

 


Clobber Patrol

 

They were also simple-minded, about 8-9 feet tall, and possessed superhuman strength (Class 5?) and durability. They were more human in appearance, but wore helmets similar to that which the Thing has worn in the past to cover up his face. While fighting, they continued to yell "Clobber Time!" as an obvious reference to the Thing's famous "It's Clobbering Time!"

 

--Fantastic Four I#294 (295(fb), 294, 295

 

 

 


Head Patrol

They have some similarities to the Invisible Woman.

They each have two connected heads, and have telekinetic powers similar to Sue's force field. They can levitate as well.

 

 

--Fantastic Four I#294 (295(fb), 294, 295

 

 

 


Livia

 

    A Priestess, she broke up the first fight between the Fantastic Four and the mutate patrols. She recognized them as the Four and proclaimed them as such to the rest of the Exiles. However, when the Great Coordinator was awakened, he overruled her claims and condemned the Four as demons.

    She may or may not have mental powers. She projected a hologram of the Fantastic Four, but she may have been using technology to do so.

 

--Fantastic Four I#294 (295

 

 


Murna

    The daughter of the Great Coordinator, she served as a Priestess until she revealed the She-Hulk to be one of the Fantastic Four, threatening to discover what had gone wrong with the Salvation Generator. The Coordinator saved her from death at the hands of the other Exiles for her apparent blasphemy, but he forbade her further contact or communication with others ever again. 150 years later, she was an old woman, but retained her mind and powers, and she detected the Fantastic Four after they had faked their deaths at the Great Coordinator's hands. She revealed to them the history of the Exiles and led them to rescue the She-Hulk. When the Fantastic Four finally confronted the Coordinator again, Murna used her powers to link the minds of the Coordinator and Reed Richards, forcing her father to accept the truth about what he had really done. Before he died, the Coordinator named Murna as his successor and told the others to trust and follow her.

    She had the power of telepathy--though she apparently had to be in contact with others to accomplish this--as well as other forms of ESP, allowing her to detect beings who were invisible. She aged at a slower rate than a normal human.

--Fantastic Four I#294 (295(fb), 294, 295

 


Salvation Generator

 

    Created by Jessup, it created a force field around Central City that warped time around it. Unfortunately, rather than slowing down relative time inside it, it did the reverse, and 10,000 years passed inside the warp, while only a day and a half passed on the outside. When he learned what he had done, Jessup showed the Generator to Richards, who deactivated it. In the process, he sent the Exiles and their futuristic city about 10,000 years into the future. Despite the massive time differential, beings who passed through the bubble did not suffer any ill effects from what would have been caused by a difference in blood flow to their body. Apparently beings passing through the warp remained within the wall of the bubble initially and were then shunted to the inside all at once.

 

--Fantastic Four I#294 (295(fb), 294, 295

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Wing Patrol

 

Apparently patterned after Mr. Fantastic (after a flying stunt he once performed in Fantastic Four I#18).

They flew and used staffs as weapons.

--Fantastic Four I#294 (295(fb), 294, 295

 

 


images:
Fantastic Four I#294, p20, pan2;
    p16, pan3-4;
p19, pan4;
#295, p11, pan1;
Central City: #293, p19, pan1 & the FF shrine: last page
Burner: #294, p10, pan6;
Clobber: #294, p8, pan5;
Head: #294, p8, pan5 & p12, pan4;
Livia: #294, p13, pan2;
Murna: #295, p5, pan3;
Salvation: #294, p17, pan3;
Wing: #294, p11, pan1;
 


Other appearances:
Fantastic Four I#294-295 (September-October, 1986) - John Byrne (#294) & Roger Stern (writers), Jerry Ordway (pencils), Al Gordon (inks), Michael Carlin (editor)


Last updated: 03/01/14

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