Abner Jenkins
Abner Jenkins is a male comic character who features in Marvel Comics.
Contents[hide] |
Biography
Abner Jenkins
By adulthood, he came to be a skilled master mechanic. (Strange Tales v1 #123)
He began to buy, trade and steal parts that he used to create a suit and equipment for himself to be used as a costumed villain. This led to him creating his Beetle costume and embarked on a crime spree where his initial forays led to an encounter with the Human Torch Johnny Storm and the Thing. He had planned that the defeat of two members of the Fantastic Four would make him an overnight sensation. As the Beetle, he went to rob a business but this was done only to draw out the two heroes into a confrontation. He would manage to evade them in order to catapult the name of the Beetle to infamy. It was then he planned a further fight in order to defeat the superheroes. The Beetle would defeat the Human Torch in their next encounter and made a trail easy for the hero to follow to his next heist where the police were unable to stop the armored supervillain. The two nearly managed to corner the villain who escaped by burrowing underground and escaped his pursuers. The next day, he targeted the New York World Fair where he stole cash from the head cashier's office. The Torch once more chased him but the Beetle managed to outsmart his foe and sent the hero plummeting into the Thing. The Beetle then caused more chaos by stealing money and throwing it into the crowd to create a distraction for his escape. Confident at his victory, he then burrowed underground again planning to evade detection once more. However, Johnny Storm noticed the ground being disturbed and guessed the supervillain was hiding once more. He heated the ground around the area to force the Beetle to emerge again where he was tackled by the Thing. Having been caught, he was arrested and taken in by the authorities where he vowed revenge against the Human Torch. (Strange Tales v1 #123) Paroled a short time later, he sought revenge on Human Torch, but found himself in battle with Spider-Man instead. He kidnapped Human Torch's girlfriend, and Human Torch briefly battled Spider-Man, thinking he was in league with Beetle. Once again, with Human Torch's help, he was defeated after a cage of high-temperature flame was created around him. This led to him being arrested and jailed once more. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #21)
The Beetle later came to form the Sinister Syndicate consisting of costumed supervillains that would hire their services to other parties. Among his team included Hydro-Man, Speed Demon, Boomerang and the Rhino where they looked to earn their reputation by targeting Silver Sable. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #280)
He assembled a gang for a heist but his criminal compatriots ended up abandoning him leading to the Beetle wanting to get revenge on them. However, his attempted vengeance was thwarted by the intervention of Daredevil with the Beetle only barely managing to escape from unseen aid. It turned out that this was Baron Helmut Zemo who was looking to recruit Jenkins for a venture with the Beetle accepting. (Thunderbolts Annual #1997)
Overview
Personality and attributes
Jenkins later decided to go by the supervillain identity of the Beetle. (Strange Tales v1 #123)
He had considered himself an expert in insect lore such as those concerning beetles. (Strange Tales v1 #123)
He came to seek a new and more dangerous career as a costumed supervillain. In battle, he often looked to outsmart his foes. (Strange Tales v1 #123)
Powers and abilities
It was noted that he was a mechanic and one skilled enough to produce a suit with various gadgets in it. (Strange Tales v1 #123) He was an aviation engineer and crack pilot who had unusual ideas about the potential use of aviation technology. (Thunderbolts Annual #1997)
As the Beetle, he had an advanced suit of armour and other equipment linked to it. Central to it was the Beetle helmet which was an electronic power source that took Jenkins years to create. Upon wearing it, the raw current surged through his suits body that provided him strength that was double or triple his own. However, there was a maximum output stage that could be reached with Abner having to shut it down or risk blacking out from the surge of power. Jenkins also created magno-suction Beetle Grippers that allowed him to lift almost anything. These could be used to lift and object whereupon his grip could detach allowing him to hurl them at targets. (Strange Tales v1 #123)
In addition, he crafted a pair of wings allowing him to fly though he was not as fast as a bird nor could he reach as a high but offered him a degree of mobility. It was only through the enhanced strength provided by the suit that allowed him to handle the great strain of manipulating the two solid steel wings. These steel wings initially had an outer coating of asbestos that protected them from flames. Though able to protect him from the flames, he could not endure the constant heat. They were also bullet proof with him able to wrap himself around with the steel wings to protect from gunshots making him impervious to small arm fire. It was said that the wings of his first armor were heavy making it difficult for him to fly very fast. However, he could increase his speed but plummeting down then using his momentum to launch himself up again faster than before. (Strange Tales v1 #123)
The Beetle Armor had the ability to dig underground allowing him to hide from others. It was designed in imitation of the ability of beetles with him making shovel-edged wings to help burrowing beneath the earth. (Strange Tales v1 #123)
The armor was water-tight and carried its own air supply allowing the Beetle to operate submerged. (Thunderbolts Annual #1997)
After joining the Thunderbolts, he and the Fixer worked on creating a new set of armor for Jenkins to pilot with this being the MACH-1. (Thunderbolts Annual #1997)
Notes
- Abner Jenkins as the Beetle was created by Stan Lee and Carl Burgos where he made his first appearance in Strange Tales v1 #123 (August, 1964).
Alternate Versions
- In Old Man Hawkeye v1 #4 (2018), an alternate version of Abe Jenkins appeared in the Wastelands reality that was designated as Earth-807128 in the Multiverse. MACH-I was a member of the Thunderbolts who betrayed the Avengers for the Red Skull and killed them. Forty five years later, Jenkins worked in a Doombot factory and went by his old alias of the Beetle. Hawkeye tracked him down and the pair had a brief fight, during which Beetle revealed he did it to save the life of Songbird and would do it again. Hawkeye eventually killed Beetle.
In other media
Television
- In Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, the Abner Jenkins Beetle appeared in the setting of the animated television series in the episode "Origin of the Spider-Friends".
- In Iron Man, the Beetle made a brief appearance in the 1990s animated television series in the episode "Armor Wars" Pt. 1 where he was voiced by actor John Reilly.
- In Avengers Assemble, the Beetle appeared in the setting of the animated television series. He joined the Masters of Evil along with Goliath, and Screaming Mimi. The team however was easily defeated by the Avengers. The team expanded to include Fixer, Moonstone but after an initial defeat they are later contacted by Baron Helmut Zemo who teleported them to his base in Brazil where he plans to improve the Masters of Evil. They start by attacking Avengers Tower while Hawkeye is the only one there during the time when the Avengers were handling a diversion at where the Masters of Evil were teleported to. Upon the Avengers returning, they help Hawkeye defeat the Masters of Evil. Baron Zemo escaped while the rest of the team was arrested. Baron Zemo disguised the team as the Thunderbolts taking one new identities becoming Citizen V, Mach-IV, Songbird, Atlas, Meteorite and Techno. They have been the debut super hero team that has been doing some heroics where they had a woman named Gabby as their publicist. The Thunderbolts are first seen when they help the Avengers take down Growing Man. The press ends up giving the Thunderbolts the credit. Iron Man later tracked them to their headquarters and had a brief altercation with them until a bomb sent by Justin Hammer nearly wiped them out. When it comes to three possible bunkers of Justin Hammer, each members of both teams went to them and fought each Mandroid. It was through one of them that Iron Man and Citizen V found that the Thunderbolts' publicist Gabby has connections with Justin Hammer. At the latest bunker, the Avengers and the Thunderbolts fought Justin Hammer in his Mega-Mandroid which had force field abilities. Thanks to Moonstone phasing through, the Mega-Mandroid was defeated with Justin Hammer being handed over to the authorities. Citizen V took the opportunity to fire Gabby as Iron Man is believed to think that the Thunderbolts are good guys after all.
Video games
Appearances
- Strange Tales v1: (1964)
- Incredible Hulk v1:
- Thunderbolts v1:
- Old Man Hawkeye v1:
External Links
This article is a stub. You can help Multiversal Omnipedia by expanding it.
