Chitauri (Marvel)

Revision as of 14:36, 11 December 2021

The Chitauri in Infinity Countdown: Champions v1 #1.

The Chitauri are an alien species that feature in Marvel Comics.

History

Sam Alexander surrounded by Chitauri in Nova v5 #4.

The Chitauri were an alien race native to the planet Chitauri Prime that was a harsh world that was also home to the galaxy's most brutal gladiatorial games. (Nova v5 #20) This world had an unusual and erratic orbit causing the surface to be several hundred degrees below freezing for years at a time. It was in this environment that the despotic Chitaurian people evolved and ruled their homeworld. Chitauri Prime became home infamous gladiatorial contests whereby enslaved combatants fought to the death. From their homeworld, the Chitauri developed into an ancient line of warrior butchers that carved the name of their planet across the stars for hundreds of thousands of years. (Thanos v2 #13) Millennia ago, a Chitauran arrived on the planet Earth where he left a relic that was divided into three components. (All-New, All-Different Avengers v1 #1)

A covert group from the Nova Corps was responsible for acquiring a Recorder that contained sensitive data within it. The vessel carrying the android was attacked by the Chitauri where Titus of the Novas surrendered the Recorder in exchange for his life. He joined the Chitauri forces where he rose in the ranks and they deciphered the encrypted data within the machine which was revealed to contain the means to make an Ultimate Nullifier. (Nova v5 #4)

Nova Sam Alexander later travelled to the heavily defended world of Chitauri Prime in order to find his father. Once there, he came to learn that Jesse Alexander led a revolt among the prisoners who escaped in a ship. (Nova v5 #25)

Nebula led a band of Chitauri where they pursued the Guardians of the Galaxy to Earth who were defeated alongside the Avengers as she was operating on behalf of her master. (Guardians Team-Up v1 #1)

As the Inhuman ship Astarion departed Earth's system to find the secrets of the Terrigen Mists it encountered the Chitauri swarm and managed to fight through them past Pluto. (Royals v1 #2) On an unknown alien world, the Chitauri began to invade that planet leading to the world's emperor taking the Tactigon that was in his possession to fight off the invaders. Due to the number of enemies, he decided to use the weapon to generate a black hole above his world in order to fight his foes. Thor and Hulk were brought to this planet with the goal of recovering the Tactigon. (Thor vs. Hulk: Champions of the Universe v1 #5) The Red Skull orchestrated a plot whereby Chitauri eggs were deposited on Earth in order to draw their people to the planet to attack it. This was an attempt to bring the planet under the rule of Hydra. (Captain America: Steve Rogers v1 #10)

Thanos came upon the Chitauri homeworld where he brutally slaughtered their army in search for a challenge and killed their king where he took the throne. At that time, a time displaced Ghost Rider emerged who captured Thanos and took him to his master after the undead warrior slew a great many Chitauri warriors along with ships. (Thanos v2 #13) Around this time, the Chitauri sought the location of an Infinity Stone in order to use its power to free their homeworld from the Mad Titan's control. (Guardians of the Galaxy v1 #150) Under the leadership of Warbringer, they attacked the Fraternity of Raptors during their attempt at acquiring the Power Stone. (Infinity Countdown v1 #1)

After the failure in acquiring the Stone, the Warbringer decided to bring his warship back to Chitauri Prime where he aimed to kill off his people rather than allow them to continue to serve Thanos. (Infinity Countdown: Champions v1 #1) In the aftermath, the Chitauri of their homeworld gathered under Thanos to conquer the universe only for the Mad Titan to be attacked and slain by the mysterious Requiem. The Chitauri pledged to serve his attacker only for Requiem to release a gas and killed them as well. (Infinity Wars Prime v1 #1) A representative of the Chitauri named Peacebringer attended a diplomatic conference at the newly created Proscenium space station. (Guardians of the Galaxy v6 #7) In reality, he was sent to detonate a hidden explosive as part of the Chitauri's efforts to sabotage the peace conference. (Guardians of the Galaxy v6 #8)

During the Final Annihilation, the cosmos was invaded by the Mindless One armies of the Dread Dormammu who manifested in the dimension through a ritual conducted where he possessed Ego the Living Planet. In this onslaught, he looked to enact a cosmos spanning ritual to secure his domination by targeting five special worlds with these being Hala, Skrullos, Spartax, Aerie and Chitauri Prime. This would allow the placement of a pentagram that would allow the universe to be merged with the Dark Dimension. The Guardians of the Galaxy looked to stop this by travelling to these particular worlds but found that Chitauri Prime had already fallen under the sway of Dormammu who used his magic to dominate the Chitauri hive mind. (Guardians of the Galaxy v6 #17) Doctor Doom managed to circumvent his power through the hive mind where he stole some of the great Faltine's power. Meanwhile, Dormammu was defeated when the Guardians fired a Mysterium projectile through Ego thus banishing the Faltine back to his dimension and shattering the living planet in the process. In the aftermath, the Skrull Sister Talonis took control of the Chitauri as per her deal with Doctor Doom which she intended to use as a powerbase against the Kree/Skrull Alliance. (Guardians of the Galaxy v6 #18)

Overview

As a species, the Chitauri were said to be simple minded creatures that were dogged and somewhat similar to insects that travelled light years to overcome obstacles to find a queen. (Captain America: Steve Rogers v1 #8) Drone-class Chitauri did not have minds of their own and simply followed the commands of a Queen that were beamed across galaxies to them. Such members of their kind thus could not make decisions themselves but blindly followed commands and even engaged in mass suicidal attacks in order to achieve the command. (Ultimates 2 v2 #7)

As a species, they were known to make use of a hive-mind and waged conflict against those that had a single-mind. (Guardians of the Galaxy v6 #8) The Chitauri were said to be a race that lived for war. (Nova v5 #3) The Chitauri were known to engage in vicious gladiatorial combats with enslaved warriors forced to fight to the death. During these fights, the blood spray erupted froze in the air creating flurries of beautiful red snow flakes that came to be called war snow. These were given to Chitaurian children to eat and was considered a first step into becoming brutal butchers. (Thanos v2 #13)

Chitauri dragon scale was noted for a valuable commodity in space with it fetching a nice price on the Rimworlds. (USAvengers v1 #6) They could create a bio-explosive that formed a bomb within the body of one of their warriors with this capable of bypassing weapon scanners. (Guardians of the Galaxy v6 #8)

They were noted as the only species that had instant warp drive capabilities for quick movement. (Guardians Team-Up v1 #1) They were widely known for their vast armada of stolen and repurposed warships. These were equipped with full complement of sentient devourer-class burrowing torpedoes. A signature vessel within their fleets were the Leviathans that were weaponised biomechanically engineered Acanti/Starshark hybrids. Each of them housed hundreds of Chitauri soldiers that piloted lightweight eclipse-drive attack skiffs that could outmanoeuvre Shi'ar corvettes. (Thanos v2 #13) Chitauri fleets were difficult to detect as they tended to be cloaked and impossible to see allowing them to ambush unsuspecting worlds. (Nova v5 #3)

Their language had one hundred and ninety two words for hate. (All-New, All-Different Avengers v1 #1)

Members

• Warbringer : a Chitauri warlord. (Nova v5 #29)
• Peacebringer : a diplomat-drone assigned as a representative of his people on the Proscenium. (Guardians of the Galaxy v6 #7) He had a bio-explosive installed within his body that threatened to kill everyone at the conference but was taken away for study by the Profiteer who was intrigued by the bomb within him. (Guardians of the Galaxy v6 #8)

Notes

• The Chitauri first appeared in the Ultimate Marvel universe but were adapted to appear on the Avengers live-action movie. Since that time, the movie version of the Chitauri have appeared within the comics and other media.

Alternate Version

• In Avengers World v1 #9, a possible future indicated that the universe suffered from the Fourth Chitauri War which saw Earth become a stopover destination for intergalactic mercenaries and traders.

In other media

Television

• In Ultimate Spider-Man, the Chitauri appeared in the animated television series in the episode "Guardians of the Galaxy". The Chitauri were shown to be a barbaric horde that ruled much of the galaxy and headed by the warlord Korvac. They approached Earth as they were threatened by its various superheroes but were opposed by the Guardians of the Galaxy. This led to them chasing down Rocket Raccoon though he sought the help of team member Sam Alexander who operated as Nova. With Spider-Man's help, they assisted the rest of the Guardians who destroyed the Chitauri flagship before they could use their dark matter cannon to annihilate Earth.
• In Avengers Assemble, they were referenced in the episode "The Arsenal" when alien fighters began attacking Earth whereby J.A.R.V.I.S. commented that scans did not indicate they were Kronan, Chitauri or Spartax creations.
• In Guardians of the Galaxy, the Chitauri featured in the animated series with their first appearance in "The Backstabbers". These Chitauri were shown as being the footsoldiers of Nebula and piloted the Dark Aster.
• In Hawkeye, the Chitauri were briefly seen in a flashback in the setting of the live-action television series set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. A young Kate Bishop and her family were shown to had resided in one of the buildings in New York City when the alien invaders attacked which was an event that led to the death of her father.

Films

• In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Chitauri made a number of appearances in the shared continuity setting.
  • In Avengers, the Chitauri featured in the live-action film where they were an extradimensional horde of alien beings that serve Thanos and dispatched by him to invade Earth after Loki uses the Tesseract to open a gateway to New York City. After the portal is opened, they begin their invasion but face opposition from the newly formed Avengers. Despite this resistance, the Chitauri would have overwhelmed the superheroes so long as the portal remained opened. This led to Iron Man taking a nuclear warhead that had been launched at the city and sending it through the dimensional barrier where he sent it towards the Chitauri mothership and destroyed it. The loss of the control signal from the mothership killed all the alien invaders and the portal to the other world was shut down thus ending the invasion.
  • In Guardians of the Galaxy, the Chitauri make only a cameo appearance with one being present in a caged cell as part of the collection of the Collector.
  • In Spider-Man: Homecoming, the Chitauri were referenced in the live-action film where much of their technology from their invasion on Earth was scavenged by Adrian Toomes salvager group that they reverse engineered to make weapons for their criminal operations. These were also being sold on the black market with Chitauri power cores being dangerous energy sources that detonated upon exposure to radiation.
  • In Avengers: Infinity War, the Chitauri returned in the live-action film set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They were shown in the past to had accompanied their master Thanos to the planet Zen-Whoberis where they massacred half the population as per the Mad Titan's commands. A Chitauri was responsible for guarding the tortured Nebula but she killed him and freed herself whereupon she escaped Thanos's ship.

Video games

• In Marvel Avengers Academy, the Chitauri appeared in the setting of the mobile video game. A large number of them were shown as being members of the Cosmic Conservatory's student body.
• In Marvel: Future Fight, the Chitauri appeared as antagonists in the setting of the mobile video game. Loki summoned the alien race to Earth using the Chitauri's Scepter with heroes stopping their invasion.

Appearances

• Nova v5:
• Nova v6:
• Captain Marvel:
• Royals v1:
• Thanos:
• Infinity Countdown: Champions v1:
• Infinity Wars Prime v1:
• Guardians of the Galaxy v6:

External Links

• Marvel Database Entry
• Comicvine Entry
• Wikipedia Entry

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