KARL SWENSEN

Real Name: Karl Swensen

Identity/Class: Alternate Reality (Earth-148611)

Occupation: Scientist, researcher, robotocist

Group Membership: Formerly Krotze International, California Institute of Technology

Affiliations: His industrial robot;

Enemies: Bronson, Fritz Krotze, 

Known Relatives: Jennifer "Jenny" Swensen (daughter; aka Chrome; formerly Spitfire), unidentified wife (Jenny's mother, fate unrevealed, presumably deceased; possibly this woman)

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Unrevealed;
    apparently perished within his laboratory/home on "Fort Krotze" (Fritz Krotze's property "out on the turnpike" in relation to Cambridge, Massachusetts);
    California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California;
    formerly Burlington, Vermont circa 1961 A.D. (in Vermont at least through 1967)

Education: Presumably at least one Ph.D., likely in mechanical engineering, robotics or something along those lines.

First Appearance: Spitfire and the Troubleshooters#1 (October, 1986)

Powers/Abilities: Karl Swensen was an extreme genius, highly gifted in mechanical and presumably other forms of engineering, robotics and the development of the Mark I and II M.A.X. Armors.

    Pacifistic, he was dedicated to helping others, and he staunchly believed that there was never any excuse for fighting.

History:
(All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Update#3) - Karl's daughter, Jenny was born in 1961 in Burlington, Vermont.

(Codename: Spitfire#10 (fb) - BTS) - At the age of six, Jenny was thrown from a pony at her father's farm in Vermont.

(All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Update#3) - Karl and Jenny moved from one university town to another as she grew up.

(Codename: Spitfire#12 (fb) - BTS) - The Department of Defense repeatedly tried to convince Karl to work with them, offering him money, status and "fancier equipment." Disgusted by the military, Karl consistently refused, telling him he would have no part of their "obscene system."

(Codename: Spitfire#12 (fb)) - Karl Swensen was leaning against the wall, gazing at the picture of his (presumably) wife when Jenny (perhaps 6-8-years-old at the time) came in and asked for a book on quantum physics for a school project. Feeling that quantum physics was stretching things about, Karl suggested Isaac Newton instead, but Jenny told him that that was "kid stuff."

    Appreciating that her mind was made up, Karl found a book for her, during which time she found a letter for him from the Department of Defense and asked him about it. Karl rushed over to her, grabbed the letter out of her hand and tore it to pieces. He related how they would not leave him alone despite his consistent refusal to work with them.

    Karl further lectured Jenny that the military's type of thinking was a sickness and that there was never justification for the use of violence. He made Jenny promise that she understood, and she hugged him and assured him that she did.

(Spitfire and the Troubleshooters#1 (fb) - BTS) - As a young girl, Jenny earned the nickname "Spitfire" from her father.

(Spitfire and the Troubleshooters#1 (fb) - BTS) - While Karl worked at Cal Tech, Jenny was at Stanford (or Stamford, both spellings are used), they left messages for each other at Stanford Engineering Department's bulletin board.

(Spitfire and the Troubleshooters#1 (fb) - BTS) - While working at Krotze International, Karl Swensen designed the M.A.X. (Man Amplified eXperiment) model I armor, a multi-environment construction device designed to facilitate large-scale engineering projects  via magnifying the abilities of the human body. By enhancing a person's natural strength through computer amplification, the MAX was a more economical, efficient and small-scale machine than anything currently in use. Karl intended the armor to be used to perform peaceful construction and other labor. Correctly suspecting that Fritz Krotze intended to sell the armor to weapons dealers, Swensen kept secret the development of a superior second model.

(Spitfire and the Troubleshooters#1 (fb) - BTS) - Karl frequently spoke of Krotze to Jenny, never describing him as a friend.

(Spitfire and the Troubleshooters#1 (fb) - BTS) - Karl never got along with another of Krotze's scientists. Faylen.

(Spitfire#9 (fb) - BTS) - Krotze sold MAX model I armor (or the blueprints thereof) to the Russian army.

(Spitfire and the Troubleshooters#1 (fb) - BTS) - Krotze at least made arrangements to sell the MAX model I armor and/or blueprints to unspecified parties in the Middle East.

(Spitfire and the Troubleshooters#1 (fb) - BTS) <Months before the main story> - Suspicious of Krotze and not wanting his second model MAX armor to fall into his hands, Karl divided his lab into three sections, which each part sitting on the flatbed of a tractor trailer truck. They could be split off and driven away at a moment's notice. Explosive bolts, triggered by the lead truck's ignition system, dropped the outer shell, allowing the trucks to drive away.

(Spitfire and the Troubleshooters#1 (fb) - BTS) <About a month before the main story> - Karl showed Jenny his lab modifications.

(Amazing Fantasy II#19/2) <April 26, 1986> - As Jenny piloted the Mark I MAX armor to help contain the radiation at Chernobyl, Karl asked her to turn off the "horrible music" (Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone"). He then instructed her to just observe the situation, as she was illegally within Soviet airspace, and he didn't want her to be shot down. She argued that he had built the MAX armor to help people and the Russians down there needed her help. He further warned her that he had no idea if the armor could shield her from the kind of radiation levels the sensors were detecting.     Against her father's recommendation, Jenny headed down, noting that the armor was providing more protection than the locals were receiving and that she was providing the testing he wanted for the suit. When he replied that he had wanted it tested in a controlled environment, she told him that she was trusting that he had built the armor to the best of his super-genius abilities, and she asked if he could wait to chastise her until she got home. Detecting massive radiation readings, he urged her not to enter the main building, but she did anyway.     Jenny encountered Dmitri Durovich within, and he told her how he had absorbed massive radiation but that he needed to cool down to stop the spread. Karl suggested she transport him to the Pripyat river, but Jenny felt that he was burning too hotly for direct contact with the suit, but she detected (via "x-ray vision" (which would travel travel far through rock)) underground conduits to the river, and she drilled a hole into such a conduit into which he entered. After he had cooled, Dmitri had Jenny use some explosives to bury him in stone.     Jenny subsequently to Karl's base, where he told her that she was reckless, a damn spitfire. She admitted the risk and commented that she was pretty sure Krotze would not have improved, and she asked him to promise her that she would never let him use the MAX armor for defense contracting. Karl assured her that he would have to do so over his dead body. The two then ran some diagnostics on the suit.     She encountered the scientist Dmitri, who had absorbed massive amounts of radiation in the process of trying to save everyone else, and was at risk to meltdown himself. Under his guidance, Jenny tunneled into the nearby Pripyat river and immersed him in the waters, preventing the meltdown, and then collapsed the underground cavern on him, covering him in rock. (Spitfire and the Troubleshooters#1 (fb) - BTS) - Karl left a message for Jenny on his computer's bulletin board (possibly Stanford's bulletin board), advising her that if she was reading this then he must be dead, and that she should not let Krotze obtain his model II MAX armor, which was hidden within his lab.

. (Codename: Spitfire#12 (fb) - BTS) - Karl further created the MAX advisory program, written for Jenny to assist in her continuing his work in the event of its death. (Spitfire and the Troubleshooters#1 ) <August 5, 1986> - Krotze's agent Bronson, wearing the model I MAX armor, ambushed Karl Swensen in his lab and attempted to force him to reveal the designs and/or location of the model II MAX armor. Insisting that this was his laboratory and his work, Karl refused, despite being battered.     After Bronson shoved a heavy piece of equipment against Karl, pinning him against the wall, the agonized Karl used his remote control to activate his industrial robots, which assaulted Bronson.

Protected by his armor, Bronson crushed the robot's "arm" and then channeled the electricity through the metal equipment pinning Karl, slaying him instead. Bronson took Karl's safe and departed. (Spitfire and the Troubleshooters#1 - BTS) <presumably August 6, 1986> - Det. Sloan and his partner, Jenkins, met with Chairman Dibble and Jenny Swensen at M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), informing her of her father's death, from what appeared to be a "freak lab accident." Jenny wept for her father. (Spitfire and the Troubleshooters#1 - BTS) <August 8, 1986> - Following Karl's funeral, Krotze introduced himself to Jenny, telling her that Karl was more than an employee but also a friend. He advised her that Karl's contract specified that his family had 24 hours after his death to remove any personal equipment from his laboratory. Bending the rules for her, Krotze asked her to please by done by 10 a.m. the next day.     Jenny subsequently visited her father's home, where she was reminded that she could only take personal property. Going through her father's possessions, especially seeing pictures of herself and her mother, made it sink in that she would never see her father again, and she dearly missed him. Find her father's personal computer, she recalled how they used to leave messages for each other on Stanford's bulletin board. Checking this, and figuring that his password would be his nickname for her, Spitfire, she saw the first part of her father's message before time ran out, and she had to leave. She turned off the computer before departing.

(Spitfire and the Troubleshooters#1 (fb) - BTS) - Using Swensen's designs from his safe and working from Krotze International's main headquarters complex, twenty miles outside of Boston, Krotze's agent Faylen was able to overcome most of the engineering problem with the model I MAX. Faylen additionally included weaponry that would make the armor work well for military operations.

    Wearing the MAX model I, Bronson, tracked Karl's trucks' heat emissions and confronted Jenny and the Troubleshooters at the quarry area in which they had parked. Wearing the Model II armor, Jenny defeated and subdued Bronson

(Spitfire and the Troubleshooters#9 (fb) - BTS) - Seeking to manipulate Jenny into working with him, Roth and his agent Rupert used a computer program based on Karl Swensen to make what appeared to a videotape recording of Swensen to help convince her to work with Roth.

(Spitfire and the Troubleshooters#9 - BTS) - Roth played Jenny what appeared to be a recording of her father, which told her that her viewing this videotape meant that he had died and that she had met Edmund Roth. The false video acknowledged that Jennifer would never bow to any strongarm tactics, but it advised her that they were not living in peaceful times, and it urged her to keep an open mind and to give some serious consideration to what was being asked of her. It further noted that while it did not always agree with Edmund Roth and the agency he represented, it assured Jenny that Roth was worthy of her respect. It concluded with a statement that it could not tell her how to proceed from here on out, as that decision was up to her and her conscience.

    Noting Karl to have been a great man who was always looking toward the future, and that Karl had given her the tape to play for her in the event of his death.

    After sending Jenny away in a jet, Roth and his agent Rupert worked on another video using the "Karl Swensen" program.

(Codename: Spitfire#12 (fb) - BTS) - After testing her model III MAX armor in combat applications, Jenny looked at a picture of her father and wondered about what she was doing. After considering his apparent urging of her -- via the "recorded" message that she did not realize was faked -- to work with Roth to prevent the MAX being perverted by foreign powers. Subsequently recalling the day she learned how totally dedicated to peace he was, she appreciated that he would never understand that what she was doing was the only way to continue using the MAX technology to build a better world.

    Accidentally dropping his picture, she shattered the frame and found a computer disc that had been hidden behind the picture. Putting it into a disc drive of the facility, she followed prompts to ask its function, and it stated that it was the MAX advisory program, written by Karl for her use in continuing his work in the event of its death. She soon found that its program was based on her father's personality.

    When Jenny was advised by Roth that she needed to use the MAX armor to recover or destroy the F-19A Quicksilver Fighter Bomber jet that had been stolen by freelancer Evan Reinger, she struggled with using her father's technology thusly. However, after seeing how Reinger had used the jet to slay everyone at the US Air Force base from which he had stolen it, she was convinced of the necessity of this action.

    When she confronted Reinger in the jet, however, Karl's MAX program blocked signals from Jenny's allies, notably Anne Polliccino, who was trying to send telemetry. Forbidding the use of force against Reigner's, Karl's program disabled all of her weaponry. Realizing what was happening after the program told her that there was no defense for the use of violence, Jenny directed Anne to eject the disc, which deactivated Karl's program.

    After destroying the stolen jet and apparently slaying Reinger in the process, Jenny replaced the disc and explained what had happened to her father's program. When it refused to condone her decision to kill or be killed, Jenny informed it that she had to be her own woman and live with her own actions, after which she deleted the program and said, "Goodbye, Daddy."

Comments: Created by Eliot Brown, John Morelli, Gerry Conway, Herb Trimpe

    See the New Universe primer.

    I don't see any reason that the New Universe should have a sliding timescale like Reality-616 with "Marvel Time." So, the 1961 date of Jenny's birth fits with her being about 25 years-old in Spitfire#1

    Spitfire, with its technology far in advance of what existed at that time in the world, didn't fit the plan/mold for the New Universe being "the world right outside your door" prior to the White Event. 40-years-later, and that technology still doesn't exist in the real world.

    The Amazing Fantasy "Untold story" is a fun read, but it is a little problematic, as it had Jenny not only knowing about, but operating a MAX unit prior to her apparent discovery" of the Mark II armor in Spitfire and the Troubleshooters#1. In addition, it had another superhuman existing before the White Event. Then again, as mentioned above, Spitfire and the Troubleshooters didn't quite fit the New Universe in the first place. 

• I think the part about the MAX armor is vague enough that she could have read it about it for the first time in her father's message, or she could have known about it before and then found that the problem related to the MAX armor.
• I think if she had prior knowledge about the MAX, it would have occurred to her that this is what it was all about right off the bat.
• However, again, all we have is her looking at the file and then thinking, "M.A.X. This is all about M.A.X."
• Then, after reviewing the file, she explains it to the others.
• Regardless, I think it is vague enough that expanding it to prior knowledge/usage is a reasonable extrapolation.
• The pre-White Event paranormal is more problematic, but I guess if we wanted an explanation, the easiest one would be that Dmitri Durovich had previously encountered the Old Man and picked up a touch of the Star Brand power from him.
• What was the Old Man doing in the months before he tried to divest himself of its power? 
• Per Star Brand#12, he spent the time between nearly being crushed in a cave-in in 1985 and the White Event "trying to transfer the power into other life-forms and objects."
• That would seem to be the out...
  

    This profile was finished 08/19/2025, but it was published in 10/2026 as part of the New Universe's 40^th Anniversary celebration.

Profile by Snood.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Karl Swensen should be distinguished from:

• SWENSON, - Vigilance, unwittingly fired on Avengers Quinjet as it flew over their base--West Coast Avengers II#43
• SWENSON, HIRAM - anthropologist, dwelled amongst a group of Yeti in the Himalayas, encountered Man-Thing--Man-Thing II#3
• SWENSON, LUCILLE of Earth-93060 - Elven's mother--Elven#1
  
• SWENSON's GARAGE (Mr. Nelson, Stu) - Glenville, employed Johnny Storm--Fantastic Four: First Family#3
• other Swensen or Swenson characters, groups, items, events, races or places...

Karl designed and used a remote control industrial robot to wield and perform other construction and maintenance functions in his laboratory.      While being assaulated by the MAX model I armor-wearing Bronson, Karl desperately used the remote control to activate his industrial robot, which used its welding tool on the armor, briefly distracting Bronson.      However, Bronson swiftly recovered and crushed the robot's armor, and he channeled the "couple a' thousand volts" across a metal piece of equipment into Karl Swensen, killing him. --Spitfire and the Troubleshooters#1

possibly Mrs. Swensen / Jenny's mother      A picture of this woman was hung on the wall above the fireplace in Karl's study.      Karl was leaning against the wall and gazing at the picture when Jenny came in asking for a book on quantum physics. --Codename: Spitfire#12 Note: This picture would seem most likely to be Jenny's mother and Karl's former wife or lover, who was presumably deceased.      However, it could also be a previous lover or wife who was not related to Jenny, or perhaps Karl's mother, aunt or another relative that he cherished...or maybe it was a scientist or somehow else who had inspired him.      What's a little funny is that a computer disc circa 1986 could probably only hold a few dozen word documents. I remember the disc I had to store my comic book indexes and my early master list, and even in the late 1990s, I think the discs were getting full with like 30 documents.      But, obviously, on Earth-148611, despite having supposed to have been just like the real world prior to the White Event, MAX technology and other aspects were far in advance of the real world.

All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z: Update#3 (2007) - Jeff Christiansen (head writer/coordinator), Stuart Vandal, Sean McQuaid, Michael Hoskin, Eric J. Moreels, Al Sjoerdsma, Chad Anderson, Ronald Byrd, Anthony Flamini, Steven Faulkner, Madison Carter, Chris Biggs & David Wiltfong (writers), Brian Overton (copy editor), Michael Short & Cory Levine (assistant editors), Mark D. Beazley (associate editor), Jeff Youngquist & Jennifer Grunwald (editors)

First posted: 10/01/2026
Last updated: 08/19/2025

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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