Kelex
Kelex is a comic robotic character that features in DC Comics.
Contents |
Biography
Origin
Kelex
It was noted that the machine had served his master Jor-El all his life. During the final days of Krypton, Kelex had placed Kal-El's Birthing Matrix in the third laboratory level. He informed Jor-El of this to which his master commanded Kelex to tell Lady Lara that he was going to the laboratory. (Man of Steel v1 #1)
With the Fortress of Solitude destroyed, Superman sought out to John Henry Irons aid in rebuilding his headquarters. Kelex had determined that the atomic memory echo of the headquarters was still present and existed as a disembodied Ghost Fortress. Thus, Kryptonian science was coupled with Steel's engineering to re-create the Fortress inside a pocket dimension accessed by a Tesseract with Kelex providing his expertise. During this time, Natasha Irons altered parts of Kelex's personality program making him use slang in his speech and had a more hip persona. (Superman: Man of Steel v1 #100)
When Fernus emerged, John Stewart disappeared with Superman requesting an update on the Green Lantern and asking the robot to keep searching for him. (JLA v1 #86)
Kelex accompanied the Superman Family as they sought to stop the fighting in Pokolistan. They were, however, drawn into a trap by General Zod who broke Superman's jaw with Kelex teleporting them away at the last moment. The robot was later involved in treating Superman for the injuries he sustained in the battle. (Action Comics v1 #799)
The Kryptonian robot was present within the tesseract Fortress when it was attacked by the recently freed Eradicator. A repeated attack was expected to eventually break the tesseract sphere with Kelex attempting to decide on how to respond. When Superman arrived, he told Kelex and Super Robot that he was proud of their preprogrammed selves. (Superman: Man of Steel v1 #119)
When NRG-X entered the Fortress, Kelex stood present alongside a Superman Robot that he sent to deal with the intruder. The villain managed to easily destroy the Robot and damaged Kelex whereupon NRG-X waited to ambush Superman. (Superman/Batman v1 #70)
A construct brought back to life was responsible for taking over numerous robotic entities across the world and turning them against Earth. Among them was the Fortress of Solitude's caretaker Kelex who attempted to reactivate the stockpile of alien weapons in order to commit mass destruction of the world and wipe out the planet. Kelex was aided in this task by a number of Superman Robots stationed within the Fortress of Solitude that did battle with Supergirl and Jessie Quick. Ultimately, Supergirl was able to stop the plan and destroyed Kelex. (Justice League of America v2 #60)
Post-Flashpoint
Following the Flashpoint, a new version of reality was created with a different series of events.
After the Science Council banned his work, Jor-El continued to receive funding from his father-in-law Lor-Van who served as a benefactor. Jor-El ultimately decided that the only way to save their race was through his Project Stardrive that sought to create arks to escape Krypton. However, Lor-Van opposed this view as he wanted Jor-El to save Krypton and commanded Kelex to have all the research data erased with the robot complying as he was built to serve Lor-Van. Afterwards, Jor-El modified Kelex to ensure that the robot obeyed the orders of his creator. (Action Comics v1 #988)
A second such robot named Kelex II was stationed at the Himalayan refuge in order to watch over the cache of deadly weapons and prisoners stored there. (Action Comics v1 #979) Steel brought Superwoman to the Fortress of Solitude after her powers were slowly killing her with Kelex monitoring her condition. (Action Comics v1 #974) After his encounter with Mister Mxyzptlk, Superman consulted with Kelex and the Fortress of Solitude's records to see any discrepancies in reality with his historical archives. (Action Comics v1 #978) He later examined Superman after the Man of Steel lost his eye-sight following exposure to the Black Vault and contacted his allies when the Superman Revenge Squad attacked the Fortress of Solitude. (Action Comics v1 #982)
Simon Baz was tricked into breaking into the Fortress of Solitude by the Cyborg Superman under the mistaken belief that he was freeing the real Superman. After entering the Kryptonian structure, he came under attack from Kelex with Baz being forced to destroy the service robot. (Green Lanterns v1 #54)
After nearly being killed by the Shazam! Who Laughs, Batman was taken to the Fortress of Solitude to be placed in a stasis tube for recovery. Batman managed to awaken and broke himself out where he damaged Kelex after the machine tried to restrain him. (Batman/Superman v2 #2)
Kelex detected a temporal anomaly as Saturn Girl came to the present to recruit Jon Kent and take him into the future to be a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes. (Superman v5 #16)
Overview
Personality and attributes
He stated that it was beyond the range of his programming to understand why organic beings were distressed. (Man of Steel v1 #1)
Due to Natasha Iron's changes, Kelex for a time developed the use of slang and had a more care free attitude compared to his previous self. (Superman: Man of Steel v1 #100)
Powers and abilities
Within his memory, he contained the complete computer files on the Fortress of Solitude. (Superman: Man of Steel v1 #100) He was able to access information from news outlets and private networks allowing him to keep updated on global events. (Action Comics v1 #989)
Notes
- Kelex was created by John Byrne and Mike Mignola where he made his first appearance in World of Krypton v2 #3 (February, 1988).
In other media
Television
- In Supergirl, Kelex featured in an episode in the live-action series where he appeared in "For the Girl Who Has Everything". He was shown as being a medical attendant robot that served Zor-El's family in the hallucination created by the Black Mercy that had attacked Kara Zor-El. The actual Kelex was shown to operate at the Fortress of Solitude in the episode "Solitude" where Supergirl consulted him for information on the Coluan Indigo. Kara later returns to the Fortress to speak with Kelex about information on "Myriad".
Films
- In Man of Steel, Kelex was shown as being a robot on the planet Krypton who served the House of El and was voiced by actor Carla Gugino. He served Jor-El along with another Kryptonian robotic aide known as Kelor where they aided in helping in placing the newborn Kal-El onto an escape ship so that he would survive their world's destruction. Kelex was destroyed when the planet Krypton exploded along with all the others on their world.
Video games
- In LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham, Kelex appeared as a DLC character and resembled the incarnation from Man of Steel.
Appearances
- World of Krypton v1:
- The Man of Steel v1:
- Action Comics v1:
- Superman: The Man of Steel v1:
- Superman/Batman v1:
- Justice League of America v2:
- Green Lanterns v1:
- Batman/Superman v2:
- Superman v5:
External Links
This article is a stub. You can help Multiversal Omnipedia by expanding it.
