COUNCIL of KANGS
Membership: Kang "discoverer", Kang "final counterpart", Kang "prime"
Purpose: Elimination of redundant Kangs
Affiliations: Avengers (Black Knight (Dane Whitman), Captain America (Steve Rogers), Hercules, Namor, Wasp), Dire Wraiths
Enemies: Avengers, Kangs
Base of Operations: The Council Chambers, apparently
within Immortus' fortress in Limbo
First Appearance: Avengers I#267 (May, 1986)
History:
(Avengers I#269 (fb)) - Following an encounter with Thor (Thor I#140), Kang was banished to Limbo. He encountered the fortress of Immortus, in which he found the skeleton of the time lord. Exploring Immortus' monitoring equipment, Kang came across a screen viewing the period in which Ravonna had sacrificed herself to save him. Groping for the controls, Kang's hands fell upon an untried switch; he transported Ravonna to his side in Limbo, in the process diverging a reality in which Kang had died because Ravonna had vanished before she could move to save him.
Kang soon discovered that his adventures had triggered an abundance of divergent realities containing numerous copies of himself. Feeling that these counterparts were idiots (and were producing more idiots with each adventure), Kang decided he needed to put an end to the divergences "before the name of Kang becomes synonymous with 'Fool!' " Kang discovered that within Limbo, the lesser Kangs could be exterminated without producing more divergent doubles. Observation revealed that two "brothers" were too clever to be easily eliminated, so Kang enlisted them into a Council of Time (or Council of Kangs), letting them think they were part of his plan.
(Avengers I#269 (fb) - BTS) - The Council of Kangs eliminated countless divergent counterparts. The prime Kang prepared robot duplicates to replace the slain counterparts so that he could control them and thus rule the empires of every Kang in existence.
(Avengers I#267 (fb) - BTS) - One of the Kangs (Kang "discoverer") began to suspect that there was more to the Council and their Chambers; after a year of calculations, that Kang devised the means to return to the Council before the next meeting.
(Avengers I#267) - The Council summoned and slew a Kang who had slain the Avengers of his world, which had led to a global nuclear war resulting in Kang being the sole survivor. They also viewed a divergent version of that Kang who had failed against the Avengers and had been slain in the process. The Council then adjourned until their next meeting, but Kang "discoverer" then returned to the Chambers, exploring them and discovering a secret room. However, the prime Kang was waiting for him in that room. The prime Kang showed the discoverer his hidden nerve center, through which he viewed the other Kangs. The discoverer was startled to see Ravonna alive, causing him to lower his guard, and the prime Kang slew him with a laser cannon. The prime Kang was pleased as he knew he only had one final counterpart left to eliminate.
The prime Kang then summoned the Black Knight, Hercules, and the Wasp to Limbo, using the Space Phantom to manipulate the Avengers into fighting the final counterpart. While he felt that the Avengers would not be able to slay the counterpart, he knew that they would weaken him sufficiently to make him more vulnerable to assassination.
(Avengers I#268 (fb) - BTS) - The prime Kang enlisted the Dire Wraiths trapped within Limbo as pawns against the Avengers, promising that if they failed or refused him they would suffer great agony while they were tortured to death.
(Avengers I#268) - The prime Kang continued to goad the Avengers, sending Dire Wraiths to further prime their battle fury. As the Avengers arrived in Immortus' fortress, The prime Kang then set up the final counterpart Kang, telling him that the Avengers were attacking the Council Chambers. The final counterpart arrived in the Council Chambers, coming across the body of the dead "discoverer" Kang at the same time the Avengers did. The final counterpart and the Avengers fought fiercely, and Captain America, Captain Marvel, and the Sub-Mariner arrived to join the fight. Captain Marvel overloaded the circuitry in the final counterpart's suit, leaving him powerless, after which the prime Kang then ambushed and incapacitated both the Avengers and the final counterpart, placing them all in stasis.
(Avengers I#269) - As the prime Kang bragged about his conquests to his captives, Hercules struggled fiercely, eventually overloading the stasis device and freeing the Avengers and the final counterpart. Ravonna actually observed the disruptions in the stasis device as it began to have problems, but she chose to let the events play out rather than alert the prime Kang. The Avengers went after the prime Kang, while Ravonna held the final counterpart at bay with an energy weapon. Ravonna sought to persuade the final counterpart to put a stop to the endless violence and death, but he refused. She then let him go, and the counterpart revealed a hidden gun with which he intended to slay his former partner and captor, the prime Kang. However, when the final counterpart attempted to ambush the prime Kang, he found that he had booby-trapped his gun, and it exploded, slaying the final counterpart.
However, Immortus then revealed his involvement: He had allowed Kang to eliminate the others in order to clean up the timestream for him. Immortus similarly revealed that he was in fact the true final divergent counterpart of Kang and that he had only faked his own death. Immortus told Kang that he had been his pawn along, at which point he revealed the psyche-globe, containing the memories of all of the divergent Kangs slain by the Council, claiming it to be the power that made him the supreme master of Limbo. Kang leapt forward, tearing the psyche-globe from Immortus' hands, only to go mad as the minds of all of the other Kangs merged with his. The distraught Kang (now not only the last Kang, but actually every Kang) leapt from Immortus' fortress, apparently becoming lost in Limbo.
(Avengers Forever#9 (fb)) - Realizing that he would be lost forever if he did not act quickly, Kang was forced to use the temporal circuitry in his helmet, creating an additional divergence, spreading his madness between the two counterparts. One of the Kangs (who continues as the prime Kang) made his way to Chronopolis to recuperate, while the other, still addled from the experience, stumbled into an encounter with the Cross-Time Kangs.
COMMENTS: Created by Roger Stern, John Buscema, and Tom Palmer.
The Kang in Avengers Forever and Kurt Busiek's Kang war thinks of himself as the prime Kang, but in truth, because he created a divergence and absorbed the memories of every Kang, he admits that he is only guessing at which Kang he really is.
--Stunner
True, and what would actually constitute the "prime" being at any divergence. They're both equals.--Snood
Profile by Snood.
CLARIFICATIONS:
The Council of Kangs should be differentiated from
images:
Avengers I#267, p7, panel 1
panel 3 (Chambers)
p9, panel 6 (death discoverer)
Avengers I#269, p19, panel 4 (death final counterpart)
p21, panel 3 (prime Kang + psyche-globe)
Avengers I#268-269 (June-July, 1986) - Roger Stern (writer), John Buscema (pencils), Tom Palmer (inks), Mark Gruenwald (editor)
First Posted: 10/27/2004
Last updated: 10/24/2004
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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