The Known History Of Ulysses Bloodstone
The Way It Began
The man who would one day call himself Ulysses Bloodstone was born approximately ten thousand years ago, at the dawn of the Hyborian Age. He was raised as part of a small nomadic tribe inhabiting Northern Vanaheim, on the continent of Europe, in the area which would one day be called Scandinavia. Eventually becoming one of his tribe’s foremost hunters, he was hunting for food one day when he encountered a being called Ulluxy’l Kwan Tae Syn, guardian of the Bloodgem. The Bloodgem was an unearthly crystal that had only recently materialized on Earth. It housed the Hellfire Helix, an evil non-organic life form from another continuum that, while possessing great mystical power, needed to encase itself within the protective crystal to exist within Earth’s continuum. Having a great desire to conquer Earth, yet needing a native life form as its agent, it convinced Ulluxy’l to lead the hunter to the cave where it had materialized. There, it granted the hunter super-human strength. Returning to his tribe, the hunter demonstrated his power and told his awe-struck people how they too might receive the gift. But once they had gathered before the Bloodgem, the Hellfire Helix evilly psychically absorbed their minds whilst killing their bodies. When the horror-stricken hunter realized what was happening to his tribe, he lunged upon the Bloodgem, which caused it to explode into hundreds of geometrically perfect fragments. One of these fragments lodged itself into his sternum; the others were scattered across the planet. Though the evil power of the Helix had destroyed his tribe, the hunter himself became virtually immortal. He dedicated himself to destroying the being he held responsible for his people’s deaths, and eventually adopted the name Ulysses Bloodstone. Ulluxy’l devoted himself, in the meantime, to gathering the many fragments of the Bloodgem so that, one day, he might reassemble it.
The Major Story Arcs
The Quests Of Two Enemies
For a hundred centuries, the two adversaries pursued their goals. To keep Ulysses Bloodstone away from him, Ulluxy’l dispatched hordes of extra-dimensional monsters against him. Bloodstone, for his part, managed to triumph over the numerous enemies his foe sent to keep from reaching Ulluxy’l and became renowned as a monster hunter as a direct result, but he only succeeded in locating Ulluxy’l himself a handful of times over the millennia. Whenever he lost Ulluxy’l’s trail entirely, and was not engaged in learning new skills, languages, or knowledge, Bloodstone would induce a sleep akin to suspended animation that he would impose upon himself, sometimes sleeping for up to a century at a time.
Early History
Many millennia ago, Ulysses Bloodstone faced off against, and won over, Orrgo the Unconquerable when the monster attempted to take over the Earth. In the late 1700s, he met Captain Rogers, the ancestor of Steve Rogers, and fought alongside him and General Wallace Worthington, ancestor of Warren Worthington III, during the Revolutionary War. Later, in the 19th century, Bloodstone fought a possible ancestor of Giganto aboard a ship called the Pequod, and this encounter led to the creation of the legend of Moby Dick, which the writer Herman Melville compiled into a novel that would eventually become a classic of American literature.
In the 20th Century
By the 20th Century, Ulluxy’l Kwan Tae Syn had gathered and assembled all but four of the Bloodgem fragments, while Ulysses Bloodstone himself had acquired a multimillion-dollar fortune through mercenary work and shrewd investments. By the latter half of the 20th Century, Bloodstone had established bases in six different locations on Earth, each of which was equipped with operatives whom he had hand-picked. His main base of operations was a small island in the South Pacific Ocean which he called Bloodstone Island. His identity had become public knowledge, and he had become one of the most renowned of soldiers of fortune ever to ever exist. His legal status was never actually officially resolved beyond him never having a criminal record in any country on Earth.
Around 1910, Bloodstone assisted Robert Hellsgaard in escaping from prison after hearing Hellsgaard’s story about how werewolves had killed everyone else in his village. Having lost his own tribe to the Hellfire Helix, Bloodstone could relate to Hellsgaard. The two would spend years together, hunting monsters untill Dracula caused Hellsgaard to be lost in Limbo. Sometime in the 1930s, Bloodstone faced off against, and won over, Nosferatu in an airship battle which would later come back and haunt his future daughter, Elsa. In 1933, he gained a “junior” partner, in an individual called Fat Cobra, and encountered menaces ranging from mummies to Fin Fang Foom. By 1935 and through the Second World War, Ulysses Bloodstone was a member of The Covenant which consisted of, in addition to himself, Vanessa Baker, Murderous Lion, Wyatt Crowley, Jefferson Chambers, and The Menace. The members of that group had set aside their differences to stop universal threats to Earth. Then, in the 1950s, Bloodstone became a member of the Monster Hunters, alongside Doctor Druid, Makkari, Zawadi, and Namora. As a team, they fought the Deviant called Kro and a monster whom the Skrulls had created. Sometime later, they disbanded for unknown reasons. In 1959, Bloodstone was contacted by Nick Fury to take part in the Presidential-appointed “Avengers Initiative.” He, along with Kraven The Hunter, Namora, Dum Dum Dugan, Dominic Fortune, Sabretooth, and Ernst Sablinova (the father of Silver Sable), became a part of the first Avengers. After that, Bloodstone became acquainted with a woman named Elise. They had a daughter, whom they named Elsa Bloodstone. After her father died, Elsa Bloodstone would continue his legacy as a monster hunter. In the middle-to-late 20th century, Ulysses Bloodstone himself fought Possessor and became friends with Brad Carter, who would become an ally until his death sometime later.
Other Happenings
Sometime during the 20th century, Bloodstone was transported, along with other heroes and villains, to the 21st century by a younger version of the being called the Sphinx, to help fight heroes whom an older version of the Sphinx had gathered in The Fault. He was pitted against Mr. Fantastic, leader of the Fantastic Four, but lost to them when Mr. Fantastic caused his shotgun shells (see Weapons, below) to explode prematurely. Later, he helped the gathered heroes and villains defeat the older Sphinx, who had acquired super-humanoid powers. He was then transported back to the time from which he had originally come.
Resolution: The Final Battle And Revenge Of Ulysses Bloodstone
The Conspiracy
Ulluxy’l Kwan Tae Syn, for his part, had been contacted by a group, then four members in number, that called itself the Conspiracy; however, unknown to the extra-dimensional being, the very Hellfire Helix that he served had organized this group. Though he was suspicious of the four Conspirators and how they had learned of the Bloodgem, he had no choice but to cooperate with them and become the fifth Conspirator; one of the other four Conspirators was a surgeon named Dr. Juden Bardham. With the resources of the Conspiracy assisting him, and by this time needing only two Bloodgem fragments, including the one on Bloodstone’s chest, to complete his reassembly of the Bloodgem, Ulluxy’l stepped up his attacks on Bloodstone. But an evolved human scientist named Centurious, who sought Ulluxy’l’s place in the now five-member Conspiracy, killed Ulluxy’l during an unsuccessful attack that the latter made on Bloodstone Island.
The Capture And Death Of Ulysses Bloodstone
Eventually, Ulysses Bloodstone was taken prisoner and held captive in the New York City headquarters of the Conspiracy, near where Dr. Bardham had his offices and where he exercised his hospital admission privileges. There Bloodstone’s will was subverted, and he learned that the Helix had deliberately chosen him to receive one of its pieces ten millenniums before, so that it might have a human host through which it might observe the evolving human species; to that end, Ulluxy’l had served as his perpetual nemesis, giving Bloodstone occasion to wander Earth and come into contact with all walks of humanity. But the Helix had become convinced that it no longer required Bloodstone for that purpose, and so it had organized the Conspiracy with promises of power in order to dress the stage for the next phase of its evil plans. Because of the subversion of his will, Bloodstone submitted to a surgical operation which Dr. Bardham conducted. This operation removed the Bloodgem fragment from his chest, killing him in the process–but his long centuries of symbiosis with the gem fragment had left high levels of residual energy in his body, and these prevented his spirit from actually fully leaving his corpse.
The Way It Ended: The Revenge Of Ulysses Bloodstone
The five Conspirators then took the remaining piece of the Bloodgem and joined it to the mystical gem in a magical ceremony–but the Helix, evil to an atrocity, proved to have deluded and deceived the Conspirators with its promises of power, and it simply used their special natural energies to bond its fragments together; in the process, the bodies of the Conspirators were destroyed. This caused the dead body of Bloodstone to rise, zombie-like, from the operating table on which he had died in the course of Dr. Bardham’s operation and instinctively seek out the restored Bloodgem, which he eventually found. Mystically entering the consciousness of the Helix, Bloodstone instinctively found the Hellfire Helix itself, and managed, by sheer psychic strength, to destroy it. The Hellfire Helix, upon finally being totally and permanently destroyed, dissipated, the crystalline body that it had been building for itself shattered into worthless dust and pebbles that retained none of the extra-dimensional mystical energy the completed Bloodgem had possessed, and the essences of the Conspirators died. This finally freed Ulysses Bloodstone’s spirit from his body, so that Ulysses Bloodstone was now truly dead at last; once freed of his spirit, his dead body instantly resumed its true age and crumbled into dust. All that remained of him in the second that his corpse resumed its true age was his bones.
Ulysses Bloodstone died knowing that, at his death, he had finally obtained his justice and avenged himself upon the true being who had extincted his entire tribe ten thousand years before.
After The Death Of Ulysses Bloodstone
Years after his death, Ulysses Bloodstone’s bones were stolen from the Museum of Natural History by Batroc’s Brigade for the purpose of finding any intact pieces of the Bloodgem. Baron Helmut Zemo had recruited Batroc’s Brigade to do this, having hoped to employ the Bloodgem to resurrect his father, Baron Heinrich Zemo.
The Abilities And Equipment Of Ulysses Bloodstone
The Known Super-Human Powers Of Ulysses Bloodstone
Ulysses Bloodstone was possessed of several super-human powers that were all derived from his symbiosis with the fragment of the Bloodgem that the Hellfire Helix had deliberately chosen him to receive.
1. His Strength Level. Ulysses Bloodstone possessed enough super-human strength to lift (press) approximately 5 tons. This particular super-human power that he possessed was the only one the Hellfire Helix had directly conferred upon him.
2. The Suspension Of His Animation. Ulysses Bloodstone was able to induce suspension of his animation upon himself at will and emerge from it without harm. The upper limits on how long he could safely remain in this state were never determined; the longest period of time he ever attempted was approximately one hundred years. He would use this power so that whenever he had to regenerate injured or missing body tissue, this would occur without interruption. More often, he would employ it whenever he had completely lost the trail of Ulluxy’l Kwan Tae Syn and was not, otherwise, engaged in the learning of new skills, new knowledge, and/or new languages.
3. His Virtual Immortality. The Bloodgem fragment lodged in his chest enabled Ulysses Bloodstone to recover from any injury up to the dispersal of a large percentage of his body molecules, thereby rendering him virtually immortal, almost totally immune to disease or aging, and able to regenerate injured or missing body tissue. The period of such regeneration would vary according to the severity of the injury he had sustained, and he would often induce suspension of animation upon himself to permit this regeneration to take place without interruption. Regeneration of one of his legs, when he lost it, once took him approximately ten years, during which time he was in such self-induced suspended animation.
4. His Invisible Third Eye. Ulysses Bloodstone had an invisible “third eye” on his forehead, granting him such extra-sensory perceptions as the ability to see human auras, which enabled him to see people in the dark, and the ability to travel mentally to one of the astral planes of existence.
The Other Known Abilities Of Ulysses Bloodstone
Over the millenniums, Ulysses Bloodstone had mastered virtually every form of combat and martial art that the human species is known to have devised. This knowledge of combat and martial arts served him well in his career as a soldier of fortune.
The Known Preferred Weapons Of Ulysses Bloodstone
Ulysses Bloodstone became an expert, over the course of the approximately ten thousand years he lived, with virtually every weapon the human species is known to have artificed; he used these extensively as a soldier of fortune. In modern times, he relied mostly on a knife, .45-inch-caliber semi-automatic pistols, and a specially designed shotgun with a sawed-off barrel. This shotgun carried five rounds of ammunition between reloadings; once he had fired any of its rounds, he could then detonate the ammunition by psychic means. Dr. Reed Richards, Ph.D., “Mister Fantastic” of the Fantastic Four, once caused all the rounds in Bloodstone’s shotgun to detonate prematurely.
The Parallel Existences, In Alternate Realities And Continuums, Of Ulysses Bloodstone
Earth 9997 (Earth X) –
In this continuum, Bloodstone was still dead. At one point in his earlier life, he had been able to defeat Mephisto, but had proven to be unable to kill him. He commenced to aid other undead heroes in an attempt to defeat Mephisto and Thanos.
Earth 11418 (Captain America Corps) –
In a continuum in which the villain Superia had found a way to alter reality by removing Captain America from it, Ulysses Bloodstone was found to be alive and, indeed, to be a member of Nick Fury‘s rebel forces opposing her rule. While aiding the Captain America Corps and rebel forces in an assault on Americommand‘s Valhalla Mountain base, Bloodstone was transformed into a lifeless skeleton by an entropy wave that was wreaking havoc across all of the realities.
Earth 98091 (The Supernaturals) –
In a continuum where all mutants and scientifically-created heroes had magically been taken away from existence, Ulysses Bloodstone was alive, and he helped The Supernaturals fight an outbreak of monster attacks around the world conjured up by the villain Jack-O-Lantern. He was seen fighting Groot.
The Creation And Design Of Ulysses Bloodstone
Created and designed by the Marvel Comics team of John Warner, Leonard “Len” Wein, and Marvin “Marv” Wolfman, Ulysses Bloodstone first appeared in Strange Tales Annual #1–“I Unleashed Shagg Upon The World!”
The story in which Bloodstone was destroyed was published in The Rampaging Hulk #8–“A Gathering of Doom.”