Enclave (comics)

The Enclave is a fictional subversive organization of dictatorially-minded scientists featured in comics published by Marvel Comics.

Publication history

The Enclave first appeared in Fantastic Four #66 and were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Fictional organization history

The organization that would eventually become known as the Enclave was founded by four scientists (each of whom was a world-class scientist in a different area of expertise) consisting of Dr. Jerome Hamilton, Maris Morlak, Professor Wladyslav Shinski, and Carlo Zota.

The goal of the organization was to use advanced technology to establish a benevolent world dictatorship under the rule of the scientists. The four scientists successfully faked their own deaths and disappeared from society, founding the Citadel of Science (a.k.a. the "Beehive"); on an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, using both their own technology and abandoned Deviant technology they had found. Their operations were initially funded by their own personal fortunes, and they hired mercenaries as additional personnel as needed. The scientists began their advanced scientific research and development, achieving various scientific breakthroughs and creating many advanced inventions. Before long, their level of technology was more advanced than most known on Earth.

The scientists' first major accomplishment was the creation of the superhumanly powerful humanoid being they referred to as "Him" (who would one day become known as Adam Warlock). In an attempt to "create a perfect race of human beings", "without evil - without sin", they created Him to be "the forerunner of a supreme new race". The scientists, who have lost control of Him, abducted Alicia Masters to sculpt his likeness as this would help them regain control in an unspecified way. Since she is blind, she would not be affected by "the blinding power he generates". She reached Him as he was about to emerge from a cocoon in his final metamorphosis. The Fantastic Four discovered the scientists' existence and came to rescue Alicia wrecking the citadel as they battle its security forces. Jerome Hamilton was killed by falling debris as a result of energy bursts that were released by the emergence of Him from the cocoon. The citadel is destroyed when Him builds up enough energy to escape.^[1]

The scientists were not discouraged by their failure with Him or the death of Hamilton. So they created another superhumanly powerful humanoid they called "Paragon" (who would later become known as Her and Kismet). Although they enlisted Doctor Strange to perform brain surgery on Paragon, they lost control of her as well and she destroyed the rebuilt citadel. The scientists battled the Hulk, Doctor Strange, and Paragon before she departed.^[2]

Taking the name the Enclave, the scientists financed Security College in New York State. The College was actually part of an information-gathering scheme, and the Enclave hired the Monocle to acquire industrial, military, and political information from students. However, the Security College operation was uncovered, and the Monocle was defeated by the Human Torch and Spider-Man. Monocle was later killed by the Enclave who abandoned the operation. Thanks to their efforts though, the Enclave learned of the Inhumans and abducted Medusa.^[3]

The Enclave made an alliance with Maximus and successfully infiltrated Attilan as part of an attempt to conquer the Inhumans' Great Refuge. The Enclave attacked the Inhumans, but were betrayed by Maximus and defeated.^[4] With Maximus again, they launched an attack on Earth from Attilan in an attempt to foment war between Earth and the Inhumans. This plan failed, and they instead battled the Avengers and Inhumans. Morlak and Zota were captured and imprisoned.^[5]

Morlak and Zota were later freed from prison by Shinski. All three were injured in an airplane crash, captured, and hospitalized.^[6]

The Enclave obtained both financial backing and an agent named Frank as an assistant from A.I.M. In exchange, they are to capture Kismet and turn her over to A.I.M. Shinski suffered a stroke and he required intravenous therapy after suffering heart and lung damage. The Enclave rebuilt their Transfer Grid in a new base somewhere in the American Midwest. Morlak and Zota traveled to Project Pegasus using the Transfer Grid to obtain a cocoon containing a healing Kismet. After removing Kismet from the cocoon, they used the cocoon to cure Shinsky. Shinsky was overjoyed to see Kismet, but Morlak and Zota planned to extract some of Kismet's DNA to give themselves superhuman powers. Morlak and Zota intended to betray A.I.M. once they gained their superpowers, but Frank assaulted them to stop their plans. Kismet stopped Frank from killing Shinsky, only for Frank to reveal that he was really an Adaptoid and took on Paragon's form and powers. As Kismet and the Adaptoid fight, Shinski infected and destroyed Paragon with a genetic virus. Kismet then made more cocoons to heal Shinski, Morlak, and Zota, and decided to stay with them to nurture them back to health.^[7]

Some time later, Shinkski, Morlak, and Zota were transformed into powerful superhumans just as they had hoped. Now, their advanced minds focused on helping humanity rather than conquering the world, although they differed on how to best achieve this goal. They found that they could not travel very far from each other without suffering power loss and great pain. The Enclave tested their powers through actions such as stopping a tornado, saving dying patients, bringing rain to a drought region, curing deadly jungle diseases, disposing of nuclear wastes, and revitalizing rainforests. Their actions brought about long-term effects that they were unaware of, and some places suffered even worse fates due to the Enclave's over-compensations. Although Kismet tried to stop them, their actions caused a volcano to erupt, but they averted disaster with her aid. They accepted Kismet's advice to learn more about their powers by investigating their source, and Kismet accompanied the Enclave into space. They encountered Khatylis during a battle against the Silver Surfer, and the Enclave attacked Khatylis who quickly destroyed them. Kismet caused a dangerous inter-dimensional rift by attacking Khatylis, but Khatylis healed the rift before they were all destroyed, and restored Kismet, Silver Surfer, and the Enclave. ^[8]

The Enclave's superhuman powers eventually faded. The Enclave later hired Tinkerer to repair their Transfer Grid in order to get their operations running again.^[9]

The Enclave operated out of a building in the South Bronx where they have implanted control chips in criminals to use as drones. They also created a robot called Remote which they used to acquire technologies from other companies. While looting Micron Labs, Remote killed a security guard and his silhouette made others think that Spider-Man was responsible. Spider-Man and the Thunderbolts came to investigate, with the Thunderbolts following Remote back to the Enclave and Spider-Man following them. The Enclave completed the Transfer Grid and the Bio-Modem (a beam that would be able to control the minds of others). When the heroes arrived, the Enclave used the Bio-Modem on them. Spider-Man and MACH-I set up interference to the Bio-Modem's power which freed the others. The heroes then destroy Remote and the Enclave fled through the Transfer Grid taking the Transfer Grid and their equipment with them.^[10]

Morlak and Shinski created a device to usurp the creative genius of Mister Fantastic to advance their efforts to bio-engineer the human race. They travel to the Tibetan monastery of the Tibetan "Monks of Doom" (the sect that had constructed Doctor Doom's armor) and slaughtered many of the monks, enslaving the rest of the monks to forge a pair of armor suits.^[11]

Reporter Isabel Aguirre and photographer Gordon Clay traveled to the monastery to learn why these monks associated with Doctor Doom. They found the monks slaughtered and also find the armored Crucible.^[12] Crucible forced Aguirre and Clay on a plane and they are flown to Europe while Crucible states that he was the crucible from which would a new world would be formed.^[13] Crucible transformed them into stone gargoyles to smuggle them through immigration. In Stockholm, Sweden, Crucible restored them to life, and coerced them into serving him be turned back into stone gargoyles. Crucible then attacked a science symposium to draw out Mister Fantastic. While using a decoy device disguised as a bomb to draw away the Thing, Crucible fought Reed Richards and activated a device that would drain his inventive genius and transfer it into himself before escaping.^[14]

Morlak and Shinski relocate to Genosha and began using the war-torn nation to test their weapons and tactics, gathering and experimenting on the Genoshan people in hopes of transforming them into a master race. The two captured Kismet and brainwashed her into serving them. They altered her appearance and powers, and renamed her Ayesha. The Genoshan government sent Trapster to capture Mister Fantastic not knowing that Crucible had stolen Mister Fantastic's inventive genius.^[15] The remaining members of the Fantastic Four followed Mister Fantastic's kidnappers to Genosha only to be defeated by Ayesha. She brought them to Crucible who swapped their minds with that of Crucible's three Genoshan accomplices. The powerless heroes escaped from Crucible, but when one of the Genoshans tried to use Human Torch's powers it resulted in an explosion that destroyed the several top floors of a building which killed some civilians.^[16] The powerless heroes reunited with Mister Fantastic. Along with Genoshan Chief Magistrate Anderson, the four storm Crucible's base. Thing, Invisible Woman, and Human Torch fought their super-powered counterparts and reclaimed their bodies. Mister Fantastic entered the inner sanctum and discovered the Genoshans that the Enclave were experimenting on. Morlak revealed his face and confronted Mister Fantastic but Morlak became overwhelmed under the stress of the influx of ideas from Mister Fantastic's stolen inventive genius. Shinski appeared in the Crucible armor and apparently killed Morlak, who died happily released from the torment of seeing the world's fate. Shinski pronounced Morlak unworthy of claiming the cosmos and serving as Ayesha's consort, naming himself the true Crucible with Morlak as his lackey. Mister Fantastic was able to stun Crucible and flee with the rest of the repowered Fantastic Four. Crucible found Ayesha but Genoshan Chief Magistrate Anderson surprised both of them with a black hole generator creating a miniature black hole that pulled all three of them in.^[11]

The Enclave (with Shinski and Morlak turning up alive) posed as the motion picture company Beehive Productions hiring a young intern named Danny to design a female "Warlock" as a movie character. They created a fail-safe program to gain better control of her. Adam Warlock apparently sensed this new developing being and uploaded a scenario into her to teach her a sense of right and wrong, which allowed her to resist the Enclave's control and escape.^[17]

Members

• Dr. Jerome Hamilton - An American medical biologist. He was killed by Adam Warlock.
• Maris Morlak - A Lithuanian nuclear physicist. He briefly possessed cosmic power on the same level as Kismet and the Silver Surfer. He could rearrange matter, manipulate energy, manipulate weather, fly, survive in space, and project energy bolts.
• Professor Wladyslav Shinski - A Polish geneticist. He briefly possessed cosmic power on the same level as Kismet and Silver Surfer. He could rearrange matter, manipulate energy, manipulate weather, fly, survive in space, and project energy bolts.
• Carlo Zota - A Spanish electronics technician. He briefly possessed cosmic power on the same level as Kismet and Silver Surfer. He could rearrange matter, manipulate energy, manipulate weather, fly, survive in space, and project energy bolts.

Crucible

Crucible is the supervillain identity used by Maris Morlak and Professor Wladyslav Shinski, two members of the Enclave. Crucible went after Mister Fantastic in a plot to steal his inventive genius and kick-start the Enclave's genetics program. They wore identical suits of power armor, forged by the same monks who forged Doctor Doom's armor, which have the ability to transmute the shape and composition of materials.

Enclave II

There is another, unrelated Enclave in Marvel Comics that first appeared in the pages of Tomb of Dracula vol. 2 #2 in December 1979. The group consisted of Damian Burnemissza, Druig, Satas, Kirk Druker, and Sondra. This Enclave was an organization of occultists dedicated to the worship of the demon Asmodeus. They were enemies of the Dimensional Man and Dracula.^[18] This group was created by Marv Wolfman and Steve Ditko.

Other versions

Ultimate Marvel

In the Ultimate Extinction miniseries in the Ultimate Marvel universe, it was revealed that a group of scientists rented a radio telescope, applied their own algorithms to it, and were able to see a 'processional entity' (the creature known as Gah Lak Tus) which would arrive within 20 years. To fight the entity when it arrived, they hired Heather Douglas, a contract killer, cloned her, and raised the clones to be an army against Gah-Lak-Tus. The clones refer to the scientists as 'the Enclave', but it also operates as the Paragon Corporation.^[19]

In other media

Video games

• The Enclave appears in The Incredible Hulk video game. The leaders of Enclave are depicted as four mysterious scientists masked in full, high-tech, body armor. The organization is divided into four sectors: Ceres, Minerva, Vulcan, and Jupiter. Each one has its own research focus, territory, and private army. They use Manhattan and its citizens to test their weapons and devices on. The Enclave use a front company called the "Paragon" Corporation to conceal their activities. Their leaders are referred to as Ceres Leader (voiced by Simbi Khali Williams), Jupiter Leader (voiced by S. Scott Bullock), Minerva Leader (voiced by Courtenay Taylor), and Vulcan Leader (voiced by Dave Wittenberg). The Ceres Sector is Enclave's biotech group, which makes chemical bombs filled with poison, does genetic enhancement for their soldiers, produces weapons for biowarfare, and manufactures Bi-Beast to fight the Hulk. Minerva Sector is the psych-ops branch that deals in artificial intelligence, mind-control techniques, illusion generation, energy-siphoning machines, and telekinetic projection and psychic-backlash shields for their soldiers. Jupiter Sector researches weather manipulation, into which they build earthquake generators, and weapons for their soldiers that project wind, lightning, and meteor attacks. Vulcan Sector is the mechanical design corps which creates advanced weaponry, giant Kyklops robots, orbiting laser satellites, and a giant weapon called the F-Pod to destroy the city. Their troops consist of normal Legionnaire soldiers, flying Centurion soldiers, and giant mutated soldiers called Barbaria. After the Hulk has thwarted their schemes, they decide they need to personally deal with the Hulk, or let the Army take care of him for them if they're lucky. Bonus levels involve destroying the remaining Enclave bases and defeating their leaders. After a sector's headquarters has reached their limit, their leaders send updates that will lure Hulk where they want him, essentially calling him out. Besides having tough armor, flight ability, and using staffs that manipulate energy, each one of the leaders will attack in different ways. Vulcan Leader will attack Hulk with orbital satellite lasers, Ceres Leader will attack Hulk with mass-produced Bi-Beast androids, Minerva Leader hides behind illusions while she recovers health, and Jupiter Leader will call forth lightning from the sky.

References

External links

• Enclave at Marvel.com
• Enclave at Marvel Wiki
• Enclave at the Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe
• Enclave at MarvelDirectory.com