KALDERA

Real Name: Kaldera

Identity/Class: Extraterrestrial cyborg (species unidentified)

Occupation: Warrior

Group Membership: Possibly the Endrionic Blood Brutes

Affiliations: Proxima Midnight, Thanos; a number of unidentified large beasts;
    allegedly
Slaughterdeck, the Hunter Cosmic, Kroov Master of Seven Systems

Enemies: Eva Alexander, Kaelynn Alexander, Champions (Brawn/Amadeus Cho, Dust/Sooraya Qadir, Falcon/Joaquin Torres, Nova/Sam Alexander, Power Man/Vic Alvarez, Snowguard/Amka Aliyak, Viv Vision), Freelancers (Crush), Garlon from Centrifix IV, Justice (Vance Astrovik), Nova Corps (Scott Adsit, others), Sparky, Speedball (Robbie Baldwin)

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Custody of the Nova Corps;
    formerly mobile through outer space aboard the Slaughtership

First Appearance: Nova V#8 (November, 2013)

Powers/Abilities: Kaldera is a member of an unidentified alien race; she superficially resembles a young human woman, but possesses a prehensile spade-tipped tail -- with which she can wield weapons -- and is superhumanly strong and durable.

    She is a skilled armed and unarmed melee combatant; she wields two bladed weapons called Kroovs, and is extremely adept in their use.

    She appears to have a bionic left eye.

    She claimed to be the Mistress of Slaughterdeck, the Hunter Cosmic, Kroov Master of Seven Systems, and an adept of the Endrionic Blood Brutes.

Height: 5'9" (approximate)
Weight: 130 lbs. (approximate)
Eyes: Red (left); blue (right)
Hair: Brown

History:
(Nova V#8 (fb)) - An alien girl named Kaldera became the slave of Proxima Midnight, an alien warrior who served the nihilistic warlord Thanos. Proxima trained Kaldera until she became a fierce warrior in her own right.

(Nova V#9 (fb)) - Kaldera killed a number of  Nova Corps members over the years, including a Garlon from Centrifix IV whose hearts she tore out with her bare hands.

(Nova V#8 (fb)) - Kaldera acquired a number of large beasts to feed Thanos' troops.

(Nova V#8) - Kaldera slept inside one of the beasts' womb until she was summoned by Proxima; irritated, she cut her way out of the beast. Proxima gave her a mission from Thanos; find and destroy Sam Alexander, last survivor of the Nova Corps. Kaldera took a ship to Arizona, where she located Sam's younger sister, Kaelynn.

(Nova V#9 (fb)) - Kaldera took Kaelynn and Sam's mother, Eva, hostage in the Alexander home, sedating Kaelynn and binding and gagging Eva.

(Nova V#9) - Sam returned home with Justice and Speedball, who were trying to reassemble the New Warriors, to find his family captives of Kaldera. She offered to battle Sam in the ritual of Barak-tar -- unarmed combat without the use of his Nova Force. He reluctantly agreed, and they squared off in the parking lot of a donut shop. The two fought, and the well-trained Kaldera made short work of Sam....until Justice and Speedball revealed they'd been hiding Sam's Nova helmet. He summoned it, freed his mother, and attacked Kaldera, who transported them to the Slaughtership. There, Sam was briefly distracted by a Nova helmet Kaldera had taken as a trophy, giving her an opening to attack, but he swiftly overpowered her with the Nova Force. While the rest of Proxima's alien slaves collected her, Sam escaped. When Kaldera awoke, Proxima had placed her in the Midnight Sphere, a device that subjected her to lifetimes of torment, as punishment for both her failure and for not dying in battle.

(Champions III#4 (fb)) - While she was in the Midnight Sphere, Kaldera dreamed of nothing but killing Alexander.

(Champions III#3 (fb)) - The ship carrying Kaldera's Midnight Sphere crashed on planet Ell-N in the Star-C System, in the K Cluster. It burned for several cycles.

(Champions III#3) - A local scavenger accidentally freed Kaldera from the Midnight Sphere, and she swore vengeance on Sam Alexander. She made her way back to Earth, where Sam had joined the teen superhero team the Champions, and she attacked the team's Mobile Bunker, which Sam was piloting over Manhattan.

(Champions III#4) - Kaldera attacked Sam and demanded that he fight back. Instead, she was attacked by Sparky, the team's robot dog, while Sam toppled out of the hole Kaldera had blown in the still-airborne vehicle. She leapt out after him, encountering and attacking his teammates Brawn, Falcon, and Snowguard. Using Brawn to cushion her landing, she was confronted on the ground by the young mutant Dust. Kaldera stabbed her in the heart, but Dust was unaffected, and converted her body into a raging sandstorm to defeat Kaldera. Sam finally told her that the Nova Corps had taken his powers away, and she swore she would help him restore them - so she could properly defeat and kill him. Wanting his powers back, he agreed, despite the objections of his teammates. The two of them squeezed uncomfortably into her small spacecraft, and took off.

(Champions III#7) - The two made their way to the Andromeda II Galaxy, still contending with the cramped conditions of the ship, during which time Kaldera insisted that she had "no desire for physical relations" with him. Finally, they reached their goal: Nova Corps outpost Wheeler-Delta, alias The Spirit of Xandar.

    After using a device to breach its hull, they went inside; Kaldera defeated two Corpsmen who came to investigate, but Sam stopped her from killing them; disguising themselves with Nova uniforms, they fought their way through the Nova barracks until they took Corpsman Scott Adsit hostage. He took them to where Sam's Nova helmet was sorted, only to find that it had already been stolen by a member of the New York Thieves Guild as part of their recent crime spree.

    As Adsit activated a tracking device in the helmet, Kaldera moved to shoot him; Sam tried to stop her, but she'd given him an unloaded gun. She shot Adsit, then tracked the helmet to Earth, where she promised to give Sam his helmet back, then kill him.

(Champions III#8) - Tracking the helmet to a military facility in Muscatine, Iowa, Sam and Kaldera found that the Champions and their arch-rivals, the Freelancers, were already engaged in battle there. Freelancer strongwoman Crush hurled a car door at their spacecraft, getting Kaldera's attention; Sam then had the ship eject both of them. Kaldera landed and pummeled Crush, then took on the Champion Power Man; she was impressed by his fighting skill, but left him to take on Sam, who had reclaimed his helmet. Overjoyed, she tried to fight him, but he simply encased her in an energy bubble and handed her over to a Nova Corps contingent led by Adsit, who had survived.

    They took the infuriated Kaldera into custody and departed.

Comments: Created by Zeb Wells, Paco Medina, and Juan Vlasco.

    A caldera is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms during a volcanic eruption. It's suitable for Kaldera's fiery temperament.

    The Nova Corps have once more been decimated since they imprisoned Kaldera, so she may be on the loose again.

    This profile was completed 07/29/2021, but its publication was delayed as it was intended for the Appendix 25th anniversary event to represent Nova (Sam Alexander)'s stories and characters.

Profile by Minor Irritant.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Kaldera, alien foe of Nova, has no known connections to:


images: (without ads)
Nova V#8, p20, pan1 (main image)
Champions III#3, p2, pan5 (headshot)
Champions III#7, p11, pan5 (using prehensile tail)


Appearances:
Nova V#8-9 (November-December, 2013) - Zeb Wells (writer), Paco Medina (pencils), Juan Vlasco (inks), Stephen Wacker (editor)
Champions III#3-4 (May-June, 2019) - Jim Zub (writer), Steven Cummings (art), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Champions III#7-8 (September-October, 2019) - Jim Zub (writer), Steven Cummings (art), Tom Brevoort (editor)


First Posted: 09/07/2026
Last updated: 07/31/2026

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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