Intelligencia (comics)

The Intelligencia is a name of a fictional supervillain team appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The team is depicted as being made up of the smartest villains in the Marvel Universe.

The name is derived is from the term coined in nineteenth-century Russia to denote an intellectual elite.

Publication history

The group first appear as antagonists to the Hulk in Fall of the Hulks: Alpha (December 2009) and was created by Jeff Parker and Paul Pelletier.

Fictional team history

Intelligencia is a collection of some of the smartest supervillains in the Marvel canon. The core group consists of the Leader, Mad Thinker, Red Ghost, Wizard, and MODOK. Doctor Doom was also a member of this group before he left. Led primarily by a joint partnership of the Leader and MODOK, the group was responsible for the creation of Red Hulk and his subsequent female counterpart Red She-Hulk as well as transforming Rick Jones into A-Bomb and Marlo Jones into the Harpy. MODOK replaced Egghead who was a member of the group before his death.^[1] Red Hulk was originally a member of Intelligencia until he was betrayed and devoted his efforts to taking them down.

The Plan

The Intelligencia's plan has a wide influence on the Marvel Universe as a whole. The first part of which involves capturing the eight smartest minds in the Marvel Universe to remove all their remaining opponents:

• Wizard led the Frightful Four (consisting of himself, Lyra, Trapster, and Klaw) to attack the Baxter Building and succeeded in capturing Reed Richards at the cost of Red Ghost's gorilla Mikhlo who is killed by Red Hulk.^[2]
• Leader activated the Cosmic Hulk Robot and its "Poison Pill" to disable former Intelligencia member Doctor Doom (who turned against the group) during his fight with Bruce Banner and Skaar. The Hulk Robot then made off with Doctor Doom.^[3]
• Red Ghost and his Super Apes captured both T'Challa and Hank McCoy adding two more. During that time, Red Ghost lost his Super-Ape Miklo the Gorilla when it was killed by Red Hulk.^[4]
• Red She-Hulk captured Hank Pym leaving only three more including Bruce Banner.^[5]

When Bruce Banner and Red Hulk each attack Intelligencia's Helicarrier, Red Hulk is subdued by MODOK and the Hulk Robot who use Red Hulk as a power source to create a small army of Hulks to attack the United States and "Hulkify" every hero.^[6] Bruce's part doesn't go well as some of the heroes he was leading (consisting of A-Bomb, Amadeus Cho, Korg, Namor, Spider-Man, and Wolverine) end up hulked out and Bruce gets captured.^[7]

When it came to World War Hulks, MODOK, Samson, and Leader are seen watching the fights between Red Hulk and the Hulkified heroes. Samson tells MODOK and Leader that transforming the heroes into Hulks was not a good idea. He then deduced that Leader has feelings for Red She-Hulk. Samson then attacks Leader, but is beaten by MODOK.^[8]

When Bruce Banner realizes that the Hulked-Out Heroes will 'burn out' within twenty-four hours unless the gamma radiation is removed from them, he releases Beast, Mister Fantastic, Black Panther, and Hank Pym to help him devise a machine that can draw the gamma radiation out of them while the mutated Amadeus Cho kept the Intelligencia members busy. Unfortunately, it is only after he has activated the machine that Banner reveals that he is transferring the gamma energy into himself as he is the only person capable of physically handling that much power transforming back into the Hulk as the Intelligencia's Helicarrier, the "Hellcarrier" is destroyed.^[9]

After destroying the Hulk Robot, Red Hulk approaches the Leader and gets close enough to him to completely drain the body-altering gamma radiation from the Leader's physiology. Red Hulk does this as a punishment for the Leader's altering of Ross's/Red Hulk's daughter into the Red She-Hulk. Red Hulk leaves Sterns alive to suffer, reminding him that as the person he has been reverted to with his original, well below average intelligence, Sterns will never be able to duplicate a gamma-infusion and return his powers as The Leader....at least not on his own. Amadeus Cho did the same thing to MODOK regressing him back to George Tarleton while the other Intelligencia members to get away.^[10]

A powerless Leader is later seen in custody demanding "gamma" (the one thing no one is willing to give him) if he was to divulge any information on stopping Intelligencia's fail-safe doomsday plans.^[11]

Lyra and She-Hulk went around hunting for the remaining members of Intelligencia. Wizard was the first to be apprehended by Lyra and She-Hulk, brought to Bruce Banner, and imprisoned.^[12] Red Ghost and his Super-Apes (with an empowered baby gorilla named Grigori replacing the late Mikhlo) were the next to be captured even though they nearly escaped by damaging the ship carrying them, forcing an emergency landing. Klaw and Mad Thinker fled to Switzerland and were taken down by Lyra and She-Hulk after fighting a bunch of Gammadroids and Mad Thinker's creation Byte.^[13] Wizard managed to escape from Bruce Banner's detention cell and attacked Lyra during her prom. His surprise attack had Lyra on the defensive until She-Hulk arrived and defeated Wizard with his own weapons.^[14]

The Avengers end up fighting Intelligencia (who are now led by MODOK Superior) when they find the body of a Spaceknight that Intelligencia hopes to exploit. Although the Avengers interrupt their attempts, the body activates revealing it was containing the consciousness of Ultron (who had escaped destruction after the events of Annihilation: Conquest). The new Ultron escapes and Iron Man gravely foresees that when he returns, it will bring the apocalypse for mankind as he states this to everyone present,^[15] but Hank Pym managed to activate the failsafe program to destroy Ultron once for all.^[16]

Intelligencia later is shown in the possession of the Zero Cannon when the Sinister Six attacks. Intelligencia ends up fighting the Sinister Six which leads to the apparent deaths of Mad Thinker, Red Ghost, Wizard, and Awesome Android upon being hit by the Zero Cannon while Klaw is revealed to be Chameleon in disguise.^[17]

MODOK Superior managed to revive the other Intelligencia members and make room for Trapster to join them. Intelligencia then began to formulate their plans after their predicted shatter of the superhero community. Their meeting was interrupted by Deadpool (who tried to sink the ship they were in), but he was defeated by Trapster.^[18]

Members

Current members

• MODOK Superior
• Mad Thinker
• Red Ghost and his Super-Apes
• Wizard

Former Members

• Doctor Doom
• Egghead
• Leader
• MODOK

Operatives

• Awesome Android
• Frightful Four
  • Klaw
  • Trapster
• Gammadroid
• Hulk Robot

In other media

Film

• The Intelligencia is referenced in Avengers: Age of Ultron. It is mentioned to be Ulysses Klaue's former affiliation as seen on his file.^[19]

References

External links

• Intelligencia at Marvel.com