Hyperion (comics)

Squadron Sinister

The Squadron Sinister are assembled by the cosmic entity the Grandmaster to battle the champions of the time-traveling Kang, the superhero team the Avengers. Hyperion (Zhib-Ran) is apparently brought from a microverse. The Avengers defeat the Squadron and thwart the Grandmaster, with Thor shrinking Hyperion and trapping him in a glass sphere.^[6] The Squadron reappears in the title Defenders, reunited by the alien Nebulon. The villains receive greater power in exchange for the planet Earth, and create a giant laser cannon in the Arctic to melt the polar ice caps, which would cover the entire planet in water. The superhero team the Defenders prevent the scheme and defeat the villains (and Nebulon), with the Hulk overpowering Hyperion.^[7] ,After this defeat Hyperion and his two remaining teammates are teleported off world by Nebulon, and later return to Earth. Acquiring an energy-draining weapon, the villains plan to threaten the Earth once again but are defeated by the Defenders and the Avenger Yellowjacket.^[8]

The character battles Thor once again and encounters the Earth-712 version of Hyperion.^[9] He becomes involved with Thundra, but the relationship ends when she discovers a means of returning to her own dimension.^[10] The Earth-712 Master Menace transports Hyperion to his universe and informs him that he is an inorganic duplicate created by the Grandmaster modeled on the Earth-712 Hyperion. The Squadron Sinister Hyperion then impersonates the Squadron Supreme Hyperion for several weeks before dying in battle against the original.^[11] The Grandmaster briefly resurrects the character as part of a group called the Legion of the Unliving to combat the Avengers.^[12]

A new Hyperion is made when the Grandmaster reforms the Squadron Sinister. He is joined by a new Doctor Spectrum (Alice Nugent, former lab assistant of Henry Pym); the Whizzer (now called Speed Demon), and Nighthawk. This Hyperion originated from the Microverse, as the original Hyperion had believed himself to have been. The Grandmaster increases the Squadron Sinister's powers and they battle the New Thunderbolts. Thunderbolts team leader Baron Zemo defeats the Grandmaster, and in the ensuing chaos Hyperion and his teammates scatter and escape.^[13]

Squadron Supreme (Earth-712)

Hyperion, also known as Mark Milton, is a founding member of his reality's Squadron Supreme and the last known Eternal left on his Earth.^[14]. Four Avengers from the Earth-616 universe accidentally arrive in this Squadron's reality, and the two groups first battle and then work together to stop the global threat posed by the mutant Brain-Child.^[15]

Hyperion and the Squadron Supreme are manipulated by the Serpent Crown into battling the Avengers.^[16] The Defenders travel to their world to fight the villain Overmind and his ally Null, the Living Darkness, who have placed the Squadron under their control.^[17]

Following the societal instability caused by Overmind's takeover of the planet, Hyperion and other Squadron members resolve, against their teammate Nighthawk's advice, to assume control of their United States government, instituting programs aimed at increasing quality of life; for instance Hyperion helps establish a behavior modification program,^[18] which the team uses to brainwash the Institute of Evil and numerous other criminals.^[19] He becomes trapped in an inter-dimensional zone and is impersonated by the Squadron Sinister Hyperion (Zhib-Ran). Forced to ally himself with Master Menace to escape, Hyperion battles Zhib-Ran to the death; although he wins, he is blinded in the fight.^[11] After a battle to the death with Nighthawk and the Redeemers, a team formed to stop the domineering Squadron, Hyperion relents and relinquishes power.^[20]

Hyperion and the other surviving members of the Squadron Supreme travel into space to protect their planet from the expanding Nth Man, and are exiled to the Earth-616 universe.^[21] The team encounters the hero Quasar, and take up residence at the government facility Project Pegasus.^[22] Quasar and the Eternal Makkari rescue the Squadron when the team is captured by the cosmic entity the Stranger; Makkari realizes that Hyperion as an Eternal and teaches him how to restore his eyesight.^[23] The entire Squadron later assists the Avengers against the villain Imus Champion before finding the means to return to their universe.^[24] Once home, the team disbands, but Hyperion reunites them when he discovers a corrupt government has filled the power vacuum they left.^[25] With the aid of inter-dimensional adventurers the Exiles, Hyperion and the Squadron expose the government to a global audience.^[26]

Supreme Power

This Hyperion was sent to Earth in a spacecraft, and seized shortly after by U.S. government agents who raised him in a tightly controlled, isolated environment.^[27] As an adult, he became a covert agent used in strict secrecy, but eventually a reporter came too close to the truth, and the decision was made to make his existence public,^[28] largely so he could be used as a distraction from the government's even more closely guarded secret super-operative, Joe Ledger.^[29] He briefly allies himself with Nighthawk and Blur to find and defeat the super-powered serial killer Michael Redstone.^[30] As Hyperion discovers that he has been systematically lied to his entire life,^[31] he becomes disillusioned with the government and eventually openly rebels.^[32] When the government attempts to blackmail him into returning by revealing his alien status to the public, he responds by smashing into the North Pole from space, creating a 10.5 seismic event.^[33][34]

In the Supreme Power: Hyperion miniseries, a hastily assembled team of superhumans is sent by the government to retrieve him, and the resulting battle—through an interaction of Hyperion's "flash vision" eye-beams, Nuke's radiation blast, and Arcanna's reality manipulation—sends the combatants into what appears to be an alternate timeline^[35] where Hyperion and the Squadron Supreme rule a dystopian world. This causes Hyperion (on his counterpart's advice)^[36] to rethink his ideas about power, humanity, and teamwork, leading him to surrender to the Squadron from his world.^[37] \Emil Burbank later deduces that it was not an alternate world they traveled to, but their own future; Burbank tells no one of his discovery.

Hyperion is apparently killed during the 2015 Secret Wars event.^[38]

Squadron Supreme (Earth-616)

This Hyperion was sent to his reality's Earth as a baby, the only survivor of a race of Eternals from a dying world. He was raised by a man named "Father", who named him Marcus Milton and taught him the morals of society. As an adult, he became the superhero named Hyperion and protected the world alongside the Squadron Supreme. When his reality collided with another, Hyperion was the only survivor, floating around in the void that had been his universe until a group of A.I.M. scientists pulled him into the Earth-616 reality. Hyperion was in the captivity of A.I.M. until he was freed by the Avengers and offered a place amongst them.^[39] Hyperion is among the superheroes that joined the Avengers due to the threat of Ex Nihilo on Mars.^[40] Hyperion was with the Avengers when A.I.M. was sighted in the Savage Land trying to extract the formula from one of the Garden's evolution pods.^[39] Hyperion later joins the Earth-616 version of the Squadron Supreme along with other various heroes who survived their home realities' destruction. This new incarnation of the Squadron Supreme are more dangerous than the Earth-712 and Supreme Power versions as they swear to protect Earth by any means necessary. Their first public battle is the destruction of Atlantis which Hyperion enacts himself as well as severing Namor's head with his atomic vision, killing him instantly in retaliation for the King of Atlantis' role in the annihilation of Doctor Spectrum's home reality. After the public death of Namor the Squadron Supreme become a very controversial team which puts them at odds with the Avengers. Hyperion is convinced to take on a secret identity and later decides to take a job as truck driver.

Exiles

King Hyperion was a member of the reality-hopping team known as Weapon X. He is incredibly ruthless and seeks to conquer alternate Earths, but is eventually defeated by Blink and an alternate version of Gambit. Although his body is blown to pieces, Hyperion survives, regenerating and eventually regaining his full power. He seeks revenge on the Exiles, only to be engaged in battle by two alternate versions of himself, including the Earth-712 version. King Hyperion is then exiled to his home reality, where Earth was completely destroyed by nuclear weapons in an attempt to destroy him years prior. He somehow escapes, and is later seen in the mainstream Earth-616 reality's Russia, battling the Winter Guard and the Blue Marvel.^[41] He is imprisoned in the Raft, and Luke Cage nominates him for the Thunderbolts program.^[42] King Hyperion tells to the team that he is a heroic iteration, and that the Hyperion who fought Blue Marvel had switched places with him upon defeat. This is a lie, and he turns on the Thunderbolts during their first mission together.^[43] He is soon brought down by Ghost, who uses the nanites in King Hyperion's spine to dose him with argonite. Moonstone, Juggernaut and Man Thing savagely beat the weakened King Hyperion.^[44]

Marvel Zombies Supreme

Scientists in the mainstream 616 reality graft the DNA of the Earth-712 Squadron Supreme members to normal human corpses and zap them with radiation in an attempt to create a Squadron Supreme for their reality. The bodies are reanimated as zombies, and, believing themselves to be the original Squadron Supreme, attempt to escape the lab facility. Hyperion is the only one to escape, going on an eating rampage, but this eventually ends when he dies of mad cow disease, which he contracted when eating cattle.^[45]

Paradise X

In the Paradise X miniseries, a version of Hyperion is recruited by X-51 for his squadron of interdimensional heralds. in his reality, almost all superheroes perished in a nuclear attack by Earth's governments. He later kills Kulan Gath, who is responsible for the deaths of many of another reality's heroes.^[46]

Secret Wars 2015

Another version of Hyperion appears on Battleworld during Secret Wars in the four issue mini-series Squadron Sinister. He and his Squadron have been annexing other domains of Battleworld. Nighthawk secretly works against Hyperion, framing the Whizzer for treachery so that Hyperion incinerates him, and causing Doctor Spectrum to flee when he is also framed. Nighthawk later shoots Hyperion with an argonite gun, and holds his own in a fight with him using Doctor Spectrum's power prism until Hyperion is so weakened by the argonite that Nighthawk simply strangles him to death with his bare hands.^[47]

Television

• Hyperion appears in The Super Hero Squad Show episode "Whom Continuity Would Destroy!", voiced by Travis Willingham.^[48] He, Nighthawk and Power Princess are pulled from their reality by the Grandmaster to fight Iron Man, the Hulk and the Scarlet Witch. Hyperion fights the Hulk in Egypt and loses.
• Hyperion appears in the Avengers Assemble animated series,^[49] voiced by Brian Bloom.^[50] This version is an alien from another planet who attempted to end corruption with his team. However, their ways of ending corruption involved enslaving their own people in an effort to create order. When the people of the planet refused to blindly obey them, they used the Power Prism to destroy the planet, leaving Hyperion to search for another planet to inhabit.

Introduced in season one, he first appears in his self-titled episode "Hyperion" when the Avengers attempt to stop a cluster of planet-sized meteorites from striking the East Coast. First saving Manhattan from a meteor classified by J.A.R.V.I.S. as an 'Earth-Killer' and when crashing the Avengers' battle with Wrecker, Hyperion introduces himself to the Avengers when they encounter him in his citadel above the city. Though Hyperion orders his computer Quagmire to show his origin story, he leaves out the part where he enslaved his people, and claimed that his home world's destruction was the population's own fault. When he tried to kill Wrecker on the Golden Gate Bridge as he was trying to escape, the Avengers stood in his way, believing that killing the bad guys was against the law. In a fit of rage, Hyperion fought the Avengers. While the other Avengers fought him, Iron Man used J.A.R.V.I.S. to hack the citadel's computer and found out about what Hyperion left out when he told the Avengers his origin, confirming that Hyperion was insane. Though defeated by the Avengers and placed in a special cell stating, Hyperion is later freed by the Iron Skull while offered a membership in the Cabal at the end of "Bring on the Bad Guys". In the episodes "The Ambassador" and "By the Numbers", Hyperion serves as a member of the Cabal while having the chance to take revenge on the Avengers, taking on either Thor or the Hulk. But in the events of episodes "Exodus" and "The Final Showdown", he saved by Iron Man when he is almost killed by Iron Skull's trap, to which Hyperion and the other Cabal members aid the Avengers in defeating Red Skull.

Season two revealed that Hyperion's team did not perish, but instead, resided on ther planets waiting to reassemble again. In the episode "Nighthawk", Nighthawk appeared on Earth and mentioned about knowing of Hyperion's time with the Cabal and considered him the 'hammer' of the group. Hyperion later appears on the S.H.I.E.L.D. Tri-Carrier and frees Nighthawk with the intent to reform their group. In the episode "The Dark Avengers", the Squadron Supreme have become Earth's guardians thanks to the power of the Reality Stone with Hyperion as leader and the Avengers are wanted felons. Hyperion attempts to use his super-breath to incapacitate the heroes. He realizes that reality is being rewritten again after a power anomaly causes Captain America's shield to reverts and throws the shield at Captain America in an attempt to kill, however, Iron Man saves Cap from falling to death and one of Hawkeye's exploding arrows to the face soon takes out Hyperion. In the episode "Avengers' Last Stand", Hyperion joins the Squadron Supreme into enacting Nighthawk's plot against the Avengers. In the episode "Avengers Underground", Hyperion annihilates the Atlantean soldiers that have been sent by Attuma while throwing one of them back into the ocean to tell Attuma what he just saw. Ant-Man later transfers the Power Prism's powers to Captain America to turn the sun blue, which renders him powerless, so that Black Widow can defeat Hyperion. Nighthawk then teleports Nuke and Hyperion to the tower where Hyperion absorbs Nuke's powers with the intent on destroying Earth. As Nighthawk prepares to leave Earth (yet, he is confronted by Iron Man), the rest of the team stops Hyperion from reaching the planet's core by fighting him until he fully runs out of power. With the Squadron Supreme defeated, Hyperion and his teammates are mentioned to have been remanded to a special section of the Vault.

Video games

• Hyperion is an unlockable character in the Facebook game Marvel: Avengers Alliance.
• Hyperion is an unlockable character in the IOS/Android game Marvel: Future Fight.
• Hyperion is available via DLC in Lego Marvel's Avengers.
• The Earth-13034 version of Hyperion is a playable character in the IOS/Android game Marvel: Contest of Champions.^[51]