Nikola Tesla (Marvel)
Nikola Tesla is a male comic character who features in Marvel Comics.
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Biography
Nikola Tesla was a male human born in Smiljan, Austrian Empire where he became an inventor who was best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current electricity supply system. (S.H.I.E.L.D. v2 #1) Tesla was experimenting with ionizing the Earth's atmosphere, and realized that his 'scalar technology' could produce giant bolts of lightning around the globe. It was explained that Tesla was responsible for the Tunguska Event in 1908, as a test run for his new weapon. (Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu v1 #2)
Tesla was deemed a mad scientist by the scientific community due to his eccentric ideas, which included directed-energy weapons. He invented a suit which he wore as the Night Machine that allowed him to fire bolts of electricity. His research and notes were deemed global security risks, and he disappeared in the year 1943. During this period, Tesla was recruited by Michelangelo to raise a special boy. Tesla found the Sinkhole and met a humanoid shape-shifting pigeon named Mina as well as the boy, Leonid. Together, the three of them became a loving family. Leonid's biological father was actually Sir Isaac Newton who had since risen as the corrupt leader of the Brotherhood of the Shield. (S.H.I.E.L.D. v2 #1)
When Tesla resurfaced in around 1951, the Brotherhood sent agents Nathaniel Richards and Howard Stark to track him. During their search, they eventually came to find him in New York City. Their orders were to retrieve his Forever Machines, but there was also a personal aspect to it namely his adoptive child Leonid himself. When the duo confronted the Night Machine and Mina in her pigeon form, they requested the location of the child but Tesla attacked them and told Mina to flee. Nathaniel Richards shot Tesla and seemingly killed him, though Richards did not mean to do so. Tesla's corpse was retrieved by the omnipresent Michelangelo, the Forever Man, who brought him back to life but he was fused to his suit as a result. (S.H.I.E.L.D. v1 #6)
At some point, Tesla was noted to had encountered the gigantic subterranean supercomputer which he came to name the Terranometer. This world computer was designed millennia before humanity had even imagined a computer where it was able to predict future events with complete accuracy. After connecting with it, a fragment of his personality remained within its programming. The long-standing organization to which he belonged to would later take up the maintenance over this supermachine. Its ability to predict the future of the planet was responsible for keeping Tesla's private group in power. (Red She-Hulk v1 #60)
While Tesla was gone, Leonid had been taken to the Immortal City beneath Rome by Nathaniel Richards and Howard Stark. He was indoctrinated into the Brotherhood of the Shield and made a home for himself there. After three years of absence, in 1956, Tesla and Mina infiltrated the Immortal City and visited him while he was sleeping in his room. Leonid questioned his father what took him so long to which Tesla replied that he had died and came back. He guided Leonid to the Iter, the door that cannot be opened, and gave him the key to open it. (S.H.I.E.L.D. v1 #1) After using his suit to reduce of some the city's guards to ash, Tesla was once again attacked by agents Nathaniel Richards and Howard Stark, who were surprised to see him still alive. Tesla was trying to take down the High Council of the Shield, but before he could, he suit was damaged, exposing his quantum core. As Tesla was about to self-destruct, Nathaniel Richards attempted to displace the core, but direct exposure bestowed Richards time-travelling abilities. Coupled with the explosion, Richards uncontrollably sent himself, Stark, Tesla, and Mina roughly 600,000 years into the future to a ruined Earth supervised by Immortus. (S.H.I.E.L.D. v1 #2) Tesla was dying and being taken care of by Mina. Days later, they were found by Stark and Richards. In order to get home, the parties called a truce and the two agents replaced Tesla's damaged core. They then worked together to use Nathaniel Richards' newfound power to travel back to the past. (S.H.I.E.L.D. v1 #6)
By the modern day, Machine Man came to track the activities of the Red She-Hulk after she was behaving erratically. He tracked her to the home of Eleanor Bennett who was the current terminal to the Terranometer. Making contact with her, he connected with the world computer and encountered the ghost of Tesla who initially hid his identity. However, Aaron Stack was able to discern his true identity within that machine-space and the ties to S.H.I.E.L.D. where he complimented Tesla as it was through his work that allowed the Machine Man to exist. This echo of Nikola felt no fear that his identity was discerned as he determined his real self was long dead within the real world and he now resided in the line that divided human and machine. (Red She-Hulk v1 #60)
Overview
Personality and attributes
After going rogue, he came to be known as the Night Machine. (S.H.I.E.L.D. v1 #1)
According to Nikola, every man had a purpose and fate that could not be dictated to by others. (S.H.I.E.L.D. v1 #1)
In time, Leonid came to see the Night Machine as his father with Tesla seeing the boy as his own son. (S.H.I.E.L.D. v1 #1)
Accompanying Tesla was a pigeon that he came to name Mina. She would be altered by the cosmic powers held by the infant Leonid. This allowed Mina to assume a human guise where she could switch between that and her pigeon form. (S.H.I.E.L.D. v2 #1)
Powers and abilities
As the Night Machine, he wore a special all black-suit that covered his body which allowed him to generate, direct and control electrical discharges. (S.H.I.E.L.D. v1 #1)
After being fatally injured, his chest was fitted with a core unit to maintain his functions that was connected to a secondary system as his body was partly cybernetic by this point. (S.H.I.E.L.D. v1 #6)
One of his noted paraphernalia were his Forever Machines. (S.H.I.E.L.D. v1 #5)
A fragment of Tesla's mind came to reside within the gigantic supercomputer known as the Terranometer. This world computer's superstructure was the Earth itself and powered by its endless rotation. On the surface, mankind built many power pyramidions around the world some of which were famous landmarks though most were deeply hidden. This allowed the Terranometer to become incredibly precise in being able to predict with great accuracy the cyclical solar path of the world itself. Thus, the Terranometer was able to predict future historical events. Terminals to the machine were born in each generation of mankind that became ideal human repositories able to process information in a manner that the human mind could understand. Following contact with the supermachine, an echo of Nikola came to reside there long after the death of the original. (Red She-Hulk v1 #60)
Notes
- Nikola Tesla was created by Roy Thomas, Rich Buckler, and M.C. Wyman where he made his first appearance in Captain America: The Medusa Effect v1 #1 (March, 1994)
- The character was based on the real world Nikola Tesla.
Alternate Versions
- In Secret Wars v1 #5 (2015), an alternate version of Nikola Tesla appeared in the Battleworld reality that was designated as Earth-15513 in the Multiverse.
Appearances
- Captain America: The Medusa Effect v1: (1994)
- S.H.I.E.L.D. v1:
- Red She-Hulk v1:
- S.H.I.E.L.D. v2:
External Links
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