Origin
William Nguyen had everything a man could ever want; a well paying job at a financial firm called Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and (the last name was never revealed), a loving and caring girlfriend and a comfortable home and then, one day, while Juggernaut was trying to ditch Spider-Man, he came crashing through Williams office building and caused a great deal of damage to the structure.
Because of this, the company William worked for had to lay off a numerous amount of employees including William himself until they could get back on their feet again. Even though his boss assured him that things would get better, they didn’t. Slowly but surely his entire life began to unravel. His girlfriend dumped him, he was forced to work menial jobs for minimum pay just to stay alive, ended up being robbed on two different occasions and eventually lost his apartment due to his inability to pay the rent, thus forcing him out onto the streets alone and overwhelmed with despair.
Having completely given up on life, William attempted commit suicide by jumping off of a bridge tower overlooking the east river, but just when he started having second thoughts William slipped on the rain-soaked surface of the bridge tower and lost his footing. In that one single moment, William prayed for forgiveness, The Enigma Force heard these prayers and sent the Uni-Power to him, turning William into the new Captain Universe. As The Uni-Power coursed through his body he realized that with it at his disposal he could bring balance to the world and right all wrongs, William decided that he would start this “noble mission” by slaying Juggernaut.
Creation
William Nguyen was created by Roger Stern and Lee Weeks and first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #627.
Character Evolution
Nyugen hasn’t appeared since the story which introduced him and a subsequent Captain Universe has been introduced.
Major Story Arcs
Something Can Stop the Juggernaut
It only took a day for William to track down Juggernaut, whom he took by surprise, brought up into space, shredded his helmet and used his new psychic powers to rend Juggernaut’s mind asunder. Then, William tossed Juggernaut back to Earth for all the world to see his defeat.
After having presumably killed Juggernaut and realizing that the Uni-Power wasn’t going anywhere for a while, William began using his powers to deal with small things such as leaving a drunk driver hanging out to dry on top of the arch in Washington Square. But then, when he learned that Juggernaut had survived their fight, William stormed the Inwood Armory where Juggernaut was being held and was confronted by Spider-Man, who desperately tried to convince him not to kill The Juggernaut.
William ignored Spider-Man’s pleas and tore the table that the unconscious Juggernaut had been bound to out of the ground along with a huge chunk of dirt and concrete. Not caring that Spider-Man was standing on the table, William hurled both it and Juggernaut far across the city, past the Hudson and into The Jersey Palisades. He arrived shortly after the crash and found that Juggernaut had proved to be even sturdier than the table and had barely suffered any injury from slamming directly into the Palisades.
As Williams focus turned away from Juggernaut and towards the whereabouts of Spider-Man, William found himself being webbed in the face and jumped on by Spider-Man, causing William to fly from the Palisades and back towards Manhattan at blazing speeds, hoping that he could shake off the wall-crawler.
After finding themselves above Lower Manhattan, William used a full-body energy release to throw Spider-Man off-guard, but quickly realized afterwards that Spider-Man was no longer holding onto him. Taking a few moments to scan the area, William found Spider-Man clinging to the underbelly of a news-chopper and as he bounded towards him was once again webbed in the face, distracting him just long enough for Spider-Man to leap off the chopper and swing down into Manhattan.
After regaining his bearings, William pursued Spider-Man through the city and finally caught up with him and sent both of them flying straight through the walls of the Pier 60 Health Club, where Spider-Man managed to catch him off-guard once more by tossing a towel over his face. Enraged, William ripped the towel off of his face and, with help from the frightened club members, found Spider-Man and began pursuing him once more. The chase eventually ended at a demolition site, where Spider-Man webbed Captain Universe down once more in order to gain his attention and get him to talk in hopes of ending this madness. Before Spider-Man could get anywhere, the ground began to shake violently, which prompted William to go and investigate, but not before wrapping a metal beam around Spider-Man’s body and pinning it into the ground so that he would stay put so that William could deal with Spider-Man after his investigation was over.
As William ventured deep into the Earth, the Uni-Power spoke to him and tried directing his focus on fulfilling his true destiny, which was to fix dozens of giant fractures beneath the Earth but failed to keep his attention for long when Juggernaut arrived to rescue Spider-Man.
William quickly returned to the surface where he planned to finish Juggernaut off, but when Spider-Man distracted William once more by webbing his fist up, Juggernaut grabbed Nguyen and punched him in the stomach as hard as possible, which did not seem to have any real effect on Nguyen. Spider-Man then stepped in himself and started trying to convince Juggernaut not to kill William as they needed him to avert a crisis they themselves did not have the power to halt. This gave William more than enough time to take both men by surprise and trap them within an alternate dimension of his own making.
There, within that other reality, William told the tale of his tragic downfall, a tale which Juggernaut contested with his own tale about the events following the day his rampage through New York came to an end. William did not care for Juggernaut’s plight as he had always had the power to survive whereas William himself did not. William then recalled the events surrounding the mystery of how he had beaten Juggernaut the first time around. This enraged Juggernaut even further and compelled him to challenge William to a “real” fight. William accepted the challenge, but Spider-Man stood in their way, hoping that he could reason with the two and end the fighting.
It was then that the fractures beneath the Earth started to unleash their fury, causing massive shock-waves to rock the whole of Manhattan to it’s very core. Realizing that William did not fix the fractures, Spider-Man demanded that he go and complete his duty as Captain Universe. William, however, had decided that killing Juggernaut was more important than saving millions of innocent lives from total annihilation. This act of selfishness greatly offended The Enigma Force, who stripped William of The Uni-Power and transferred it over to Juggernaut. Juggernaut then encased both William and Spider-Man inside an energy field while he went to go deal with the fractures. When he returned, Juggernaut grabbed a hold of William and prepared to grind him into dust for what he had done and what he had refused to do.
Having realized that Juggernaut was now the hero and he was the villain, William fell back into a state of pure despair and demanded that Juggernaut end his miserable and worthless life. Spider-Man asked him not to and after Juggernaut mulled it over, he let William go and apologized for all of the pain his actions had caused William. The Enigma Force then departed from Juggernaut’s body and left to find its next host, Juggernaut himself departed from the scene shortly after and Spider-Man turned William over to the police.
However, with the help of his attorney, Matt Murdock, William was cleared of all charges for the damage he caused during his time as Captain Universe. William was last seen talking on a show called PM New York about his new book “I survived The Juggernaut” which had already become the number one hit on Amazon.com. William talked about his trial and about using most of his money to set up a foundation that would help those who are suffering like he once did get back up on their feet.
Powers and Abilities
As Captain Universe, Nguyen’s powers are virtually limitless and are only hindered by his own lack of imagination. As displayed, he possesses superhuman strength and speed and can will himself to fly. He also possesses the ability to fire concussive bursts of energy from his hands.He can control molecules of organic and inorganic matter and can transmute elements. Nguyen also used the Uni-Power to create an entire reality.