A-PEX
Please be forewarned, this series included mature themes, and may not be suitable for everyone. If you read on and are offended, that's on you.

Real Name: Allan Powell

Identity/Class: Alternate reality (Earth-94189) human mutate

Occupation: Superhero;
   former government operative

Group Membership: Formerly National Intelligence Agency (Malcolm LeStrange, Avis Catlett, Michael Gorski, others)

Affiliations:  Jean Paul M'Butu;
   mutually reluctantly Michael Gorski;
   formerly Doctor Annette Newmar, Doctor Henry Cox

Enemies: Andrew Wednesbury, Doctor Annette Newmar, Doctor Henry Cox, Epiphany St.Miracle, Nancy, Sabrina, Syd;
   formerly Folde, Jean Paul M'Butu, Mutyl8 (Winters), Spyndl

Known Relatives: Belladonna (wife)

Aliases: The American Powerhouse

Base of Operations: 

First Appearance: (as Alan Powell) Power & Glory#1 (Malibu's Bravura imprint, February 1994); (as A-Pex) Power & Glory#2 (March 1994)

Powers/Abilities: Powell speaks English, French, Spanish, German and Russian. He is a firearms expert, skilled in unarmed combat, electronics and disinformation. He's superhumanly strong (able to rip doors off safes and throw armored vehicles), has nearly indestructible skin, regenerates from injuries, and can outrun bullets. He was estimated to be a man to the tenth power - ten times as fast, ten times as strong, ten times as powerful as the average man. Although most of his abilities are the result of gene splicing and surgery, his bloodstream contains nanorobots to help maintain them.

 

Height: 6'6"; (formerly) 6'2"
Weight: Unrevealed
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Blond

 

History:
(Power & Glory#1 (fb) - BTS) - Allan Powell was a mediocre operative for the National Intelligence Agency. He was also a degenerate with a perverted sense of humor and psychological issues including touch aversion and mild germaphobia.

(Power & Glory#2 (fb) - BTS) - Scared of catching AIDs or Herpes, Powell "found the 90s a very frustrating decade."

   At some point fellow agent Michael Gorski, a much more competent operative, heard about Powell and came to the conclusion he was a loose cannon at best, and at worst a flaming @$$hole.

(Power & Glory#1 (fb) - BTS) - Powell was tasked with gathering intelligence about major international drug smuggler, head of a minor African state, and pop star Jean Paul M'Butu, a.k.a. Pop 'Afreeq. Powell broke into the skyscraper law offices of Andrew Wednesbury, a wheelchair-using American associate of M'Butu's, so he could steal information about his dealings with the druglord from his computers. Finding a Japanese businessman using the office to have bondage sex with a hooker, Powell knocked the man out, but since the woman was tied up, and so unable to move, he merely gagged her.

(Power & Glory#1) - As he searched through the computer Powell told the prostitute a dirty joke while copying files confirming M'Butu's involvement in sex, guns and drug trafficking. As he was about to leave he was confronted by Wednesbury, accompanied by his two female bodybuilder guards Syd and Nancy. As the two woman charged him Powell tasered one, but the other grabbed him in a headlock, forcing him to drop his weapon. Grabbing some headphones, Powell managed to get them on his attacker's head, then he screamed loudly into the attached microphone, causing his assailant to release him as she recoiled in pain. Snatching up a sports trophy from a nearby display, Powell smashed her in the face with it, then pointed Wednesbury's wheelchair at her and shorted out the controls. The chair, complete with occupant, rammed into his recent opponent and carried both her and Wednesbury smashing out through a floor-to-ceiling window sending the pair plummeting to their deaths. Grinning, Powell wished the still trussed up hooker ciao and left via the elevator. He later celebrated his successful mission by paying a pair of prostitutes to have sex with one another while he watched, but when they tried to involve him he got angry and told them to leave. A moment later he received a phone call from NIA head Malcolm LeStrange, instructing him to come to the White House. Once there he was directed into the Oval Office to meet with LeStrange and the President, and learned he had been chosen to undergo the new APEX process that would turn him into the world's first real superhuman (mostly for the PR), codenamed the American Powerhouse.

(Power & Glory#2) - Overseen by Dr. Annette Newmar and Dr. Henry Cox, Powell was shaved bald and began the APEX process, though he signed on only because they promised it would make him immune to STDs. The doctors immediately discovered he had no pain threshold whatsoever, finding everything they did hurt. After being unable to locally anesthetize him for preliminary surgical work despite multiple attempts, Newmar eventually orally administered a massive dose of laudenoisine which finally put him under. They bombarded his DNA with radiation and then respliced the gene tissue, and broke every bone and applied synthesized marrow, muscle and sinew via complex microsurgery to rebuild him several inches taller and more muscular than before. However, once the process was completed, the doctors anticipated Powell would need to relearn every human function. For that reason a very unwilling Michael Gorski was ordered to retrain Powell to use his body again, with another NIA agent (and Gorski's ex-wife) Avis Catlett overseeing things.

   Avis introduced the pair and it was loathing at first sight, with Gorski calling Powell a loser who was all-style and no guts and Powell taking shots at Gorski over his failed marriage, adding that he'd beaten Gorski to be chosen for the APEX process. Gorski motivated Powell in fight training by insulting his beloved Elvis Presley, and confirmed that flight was not among Powell's enhanced abilities by throwing him out a plane; luckily a nearly indestructible and regenerative body was. Over the next six months Powell rapidly improved, with Gorski sticking things out mostly in the hope he might reconcile with Avis, but it became increasingly clear that wasn't likely to happen, and worse that Avis and Powell seemed to be developing a relationship. Angry, Gorski demanded that LeStrange reassign him, and was returned to pursuing a case against M'Butu. Powell was also prepped to make his public debut, outfitted with a costume and accompanied by a camera crew to record him as A-Pex, the American Powerhouse, capturing Sabrina, a suspect who was running a guns for drugs operation for M'Butu as she attempted to flee from Gorski. However, when Sabrina drove their car at him and started shooting A-Pex suddenly turned and fled, terrified at the idea of being touched, despite neither the bullets nor the car doing him any harm when they struck him. Watching this via the video feed, LeStrange was informed by Cox and Newmar that the APEX process had apparently amplified Powell's phobias along with his physical abilities, so that now he was afraid to touch anything.

(Power & Glory#3) - Sabrina abandoned the now wrecked car and ran from Gorski, while A-Pex in turn fled in terror from Sabrina until Gorski tackled her. As Sabrina attempted to get away, A-Pex panicked that he was about to be touched and swatted her away, killing her. Gorski was angered at losing his pipeline to M'Butu, but A-Pex had drawn the attention of Empty-V music reporter Vanessa Cheng, who'd chanced to witness the aftermath of the confrontation. A-Pex proved very willing to talk to her, and as a result she broke the news that the United States had "successfully" created a superhero. To the frustration of LeStrange and Avis, Powell went AWOL, only resurfacing a week later in Santa Monica to hold an unauthorized press conference arranged by Cheng. There he played up the idea that he was just an average man blessed with an amazing gift, one which he intended to use to serve the United States of America. Though it was all an act on his part, the public ate it up, and he became a merchandising phenomenon, publicly endorsed by the President while secretly demanding a raise to reflect the revenue his licensing fees were generating. With the aid of spin-doctors to coach him, he performed in a string of commercials advertising everything from sporting gear to loans companies to breakfast cereals, did the talk show circuit, and attended the Macy's Thanksgivings Parade riding on his own balloon effigy. Meanwhile Gorski handled actual problems, such as two hostage taking would-be supervillains Crackpot and Crybaby, who wanted to be A-Pex's nemeses. Knowing that sooner or later A-Pex would have to actually publicly perform as a superhero, Avis was inspired by this last event to propose that Gorski tackle these kind of problems while disguised as A-Pex, using taser gloves, a kevlar suit and exoskeleton. Avis leveraged a reluctant Gorski to go along with this by telling him this would prove his claims to still love her, but behind his back she had begun sleeping with Powell...although he insisted on wearing a wet suit during sex because he didn't trust Cox and Newmar's promises that he was immune.

   Soon after Powell accompanied Gorski so that he could meet the press to take the credit once the disguised Gorski captured another would-be supervillain planting a bomb. However the press got close enough to realize that Gorski wasn't A-Pex, so Powell covered by claiming Gorski was his sidekick, Buddy, much to Gorski's annoyance.

(Power & Glory#4) - The N.I.A. then staged a public funeral for Buddy, where A-Pex claimed his sidekick had been killed on a mission fighting terrorists. However, A-Pex's popularity with the public had plummeted, and M'Butu brokered a deal with LeStrange to let the NIA use his country as a base to run operations in Africa so long as Powell was fired. At the same time Avis informed Gorski about her affair, adding that she intended to marry Powell as soon as their divorce was finalized. Meanwhile Powell had also begun an affair with Cheng, who upon hearing that he was being fired as America's superhero arranged to leak the news that he was having dating the pop star Belladonna. Avis wrote this off as media hype until Powell told her that he was now engaged to Belladonna instead. However, unknown to all of them, LeStrange had decided to clean up the mess Project APEX had made. Prior to Powell, there had been three guinea pigs that the experiments had turned monstrous, resulting in them being kept imprisoned while it was decided what to do with them. Bribing them to kill A-Pex and Gorski, LeStrange sent them to M'Butu's compound in San Bernadino, then told Gorski and Powell they were being deployed to finally get the evidence needed to finally imprison the drug lord. Instead the pair were airdropped into an ambush, first attacked by heavy ordinance until Gorski directed Powell to throw an armored jeep into a minefield, blowing the first group of attackers up, then confronted by the three APEX failures, now calling themselves Folde, Spindl and Mutyl8. However, realizing they'd all been set up, Gorski managed to convince them to turn against LeStrange. When the NIA director held a press conference to announce that A-Pex had died "defending M'Butu's consulate" Powell and Gorski crashed it, claiming to have defeated the three supervillains and publicly revealing LeStrange's illicit deal with M'Butu. The President fired LeStrange, while Powell announced his retirement from government service and took up acting, signing up for a co-starring role in an all-white, all-rap film version of Porgy and Bess with his new wife, Belladonna, to be produced and directed by M'Butu, who was Belladonn'a ex and the best man at the wedding.

(Power & Glory Holiday Special#1) - Having gone into the private sector LeStrange had become the CEO of a multinational corporation called the Plex. He hired Gorski for security (having had him blackballed so he couldn't get work elsewhere) and A-Pex to advertise a super-lottery where the winner could be temporarily given superpowers via an injection of nanites. The winner was infonet gospel guru and religious fanatic Epiphany St.Miracle. After she had her powers for seven days at LeStrange's behest A-Pex visited her First Church of the Internet in the Mojave Desert at remind her she was to be depowered the next day, but she informed him she didn't intend to let that happen and knocked him out. He woke in an infirmary to find Cox and Newmar were siphoning his blood into St.Miracle to steal additional nanorobots in order to boost her powers further, but his fear of needles paralyzed him, so that he was unable to stop her. With St.Miracle having missed her depowering appointment, LeStrange sent in Gorski in a powered suit. Powell watched as the outmatched Gorski fought St.Miracle, and when Gorski asked him to help, he volunteered the fact that the infirmary's x-ray laser would mess up the nanorobots. After being blasted by it, St.Miracle's body literally exploded into a rain of blood, covering both men. Powell complained that he'd need to be hosed down, but then realized with horror that the blood was moving, the nanorobots in it still controlled by St.Miracle's now disembodied mind. As she grabbed Gorski by the throat and held him out a window high up in the church building, he recalled that Cox and Newmar had programmed them to switch off upon hearing a specific phrase, and quickly said it. Immediately the blood creature dissolved but this caused Gorski to plummet, but luckily Powell caught him and pulled him back inside. Gorski thanked him, and Powell admitted that he'd owed the other former operative one, prompting Gorski to point out that Powell owed him a lot more than just one.

  

Comments: Created by Howard Chaykin.

   This profile was completed on 09/19/2026, but its publication was delayed as it was intended for the Appendix 25th anniversary's celebratory event to represent Power & Glory.

Profile by Loki.

CLARIFICATIONS:
A-Pex has no known connections to:

images: (without ads)
Power & Glory TPB cover (main image)
Power & Glory#1, p28, pan2 (headshot)
Power & Glory#2 cover (standing with Gorski)
Power & Glory#3, p11, pan2 (alternate costume and merchandise)
Power & Glory#4, p1, pan1 (mourning costume)
Power & Glory#4 cover (being used as a human shield by Gorski)
Power & Glory#3, p13, pan1 (second alternate costume)

Appearances:
Power & Glory#1-2 (February-March 1994) - Howard Chaykin (writer, art), Tom Mason (editor)
Power & Glory#3-4 (April-May 1994) - Howard Chaykin (writer, art), Dan Danko (editor)
Power & Glory Holiday Special (December 1994) - Howard Chaykin (writer, art), Dan Danko (editor)

First Posted: 09/21/2026
 Last updated: 09/19/2026

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

Non-Marvel Copyright info
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