Null (comics)

Null, also called Null the Living Darkness, is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Null is a demon and enemy of the Defenders and the Squadron Supreme.

Publication history

Null first appeared in Defenders #103 (January 1982) and was created by J.M. DeMatteis and Don Perlin.

Fictional character biography

Null was spawned by the desires for revenge on the cosmos that lay in the collective unconscious of the S'raphh, a now extinct race of winged humanoids that once lived on Earth's moon. Null is a nihilist and destroyer.

Null first became known to humans when it terrorized the town of Christianboro. There, it battled and was defeated by the Defenders.^[1]

Null next possessed Adam Henderson, and battled the original Ghost Rider.^[2]

Behind the scenes, Null enabled the Over-Mind to take over the United States of Earth-S and defeat the Squadron Supreme. Alongside the Over-Mind, Null battled the Defenders and the Squadron,^[3] and then drained the Over-Mind's psychic powers. However, when the good of the S'raphh race was reawakened, Null ceased to exist and was seemingly destroyed.^[4]

Powers and abilities

Null is a mystic life-form created over the ages from the collective unconscious of the 500,000 members of the extinct S'Raphh race, and as such has an almost unlimited ability to manipulate the forces of magic. Null normally has no corporeal form, and usually takes the form of a multi-eyed, multi-tentacled cloud of an unknown purple gaseous substance. Its intelligence is immeasurable, and it has incredible stamina and durability. Null has the ability to manipulate the forces of magic for a wide variety of effects, including physical malleability, intangibility, levitation, inter-dimensional teleportation, restoration of spirits to the physical plane, reanimation and control of corpses, possession of the bodies of physical beings, telepathy, illusion-casting, and the ability to project powerful psychokinetic concussion blasts.

Null is vulnerable to the mystic energies controlled by certain beings, such as the Gargoyle and Ghost Rider.

In other media

Television

• The Null appears in the Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. episode "Fear Itself", voiced by John DiMaggio. In the series, Null is an entity that thrives on fear and uses his victim's phobias to manifest a physical form before attacking the nearest planet. While on the path back to Earth, the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. find Silver Surfer fighting the Null until he is knocked out. The Null uses its powers to bring the fears of the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. to life: using Hulk's fear of losing control in the form of Dark Hulk, A-Bomb's fear of clowns in the form of Obnoxio the Clown, She-Hulk's fear of the cold by slowly encasing her in ice, Red Hulk's fear of losing his strength by rendering him weak and extremely scrawny and Skaar's fear of robots by manifesting robots. The Null also brought Leader's fear of losing his intelligence to life by shrinking his large head until he is reduced to a babbling idiot. When Silver Surfer regains consciousness, he helps the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. fight the Null after gaining physical form with plans to invade Earth through a wormhold and feed on the fear of its inhabitants. After the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. defeat the Null, forcing the entity to become non-corporal and powerless, Silver Surfer closes the wormhole from the other side as he vows to the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. that he will tell Earth about their heroic actions in their fight against the Null.

References

External links

• Null at the Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe