Moses Magnum

Moses Magnum is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He is an arms dealer and terrorist.

Publication history

Moses Magnum first appeared in Giant-Size Spider-Man #4 (April 1975), and was created by Gerry Conway and Ross Andru.

The character subsequently appears in Power Man Annual #1 (1976), The Uncanny X-Men #118-119 (February–March 1979), Marvel Tales #212-213 (June–July 1988), Classic X-Men #25 (September 1988), Deathlok #11 (May 1992), #22-25 (April–July 1993), The Avengers #8-9 (September–October 1998), and Exiles #26-27 (July 2003).

Moses Magnum received an entry in the All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #6 (2006).

Fictional character biography

Magnum was born in Ethiopia, but sided with Benito Mussolini's occupying army against his own people. Magnum later became a naturalized American citizen.

Moses Magnum battling Daken, Art by Stephen Segovia, Jay Leinstein and Cam Smith

He became president of the Deterrence Research Corporation (or DRC), the world's foremost independent weapons manufacturing firm. As an arms expert, Magnum battled Spider-Man and the Punisher. Magnum surprisingly survived after the Punisher exposed him to chemical weapons.^[1] Then, he seemingly fell to his death after a battle with Luke Cage.^[2] However, Magnum was rescued by Apocalypse and granted superhuman powers which Magnum dubbed his "Magnum Force."^[3] His powers included superhuman strength and geologically-based powers to cause earthquakes and sense disruptions in the Earth.

Tyrannus and his allies, They Who Wield Power, secretly gave Magnum technology which enhanced his superhuman strength and the power to focus vast amounts of energy so as to trigger earthquakes.^[4] Magnum next threatened to create earthquakes to sink Japan unless he was named the nation's ruler. His plan was foiled by an assault by the X-Men and Sunfire on Magnum's Kuril Islands headquarters. Banshee disrupted Magnum's earthquake beam, but suffered a long-term loss of his own sonic powers in the process.^[5]

Magnum later became an adversary of Deathlok and Black Panther.^[6]

Later, Magnum's efforts to regain control of his power and destroy a floating resort using a stolen experimental seismic cannon were foiled by the combined efforts of the Avengers and future Avenger Triathlon. His own powers opened a fissure beneath him, seemingly sending him falling to his doom.^[7]

Magnum somehow survived the fall, though how has not been revealed. At that time. He was present at the Pan-African Congress on the Treatment of Superhumans.^[8]

He next encountered Spider-Man.^[9]

During the Dark Reign storyline, Moses escaped from prison through a plot by Norman Osborn to give Daken good publicity and was almost killed by a massive explosion intended by Osborn to clean up the resulting mess.^[10]

Magnum next appeared in Iron Man/Thor attempting to sell a special satellite he invented.^[11]

Powers and abilities

Moses Magnum’s body generates seismic force which amplifies his natural strength, gives him an unknown degree of durability and attunes him to seismic vibrations. He can unleash this energy to cause vibratory shockwaves, minor tremors or devastating earthquakes. These waves will emanate from his body in all directions unless he purposefully tries to channel them in a single direction, usually along the length of his arms and through the tips of his fingers.

In other media

Television

• Moses Magnum appears in the Iron Man: Armored Adventures episode "Panther's Prey." This version is responsible for T'Chaka's death (thanks to a coup with a group of mercenaries) and does not demonstrate any super powers. He manages to steal a piece of Vibranium from Wakanda and plans to give it to A.I.M. for them to make into a harness for their MODOK project. This was thwarted by Black Panther and Iron Man. Magnum was later taken back to Wakanda to face justice.

References

External links

• Moses Magnum at the Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe