Leader (character)

The Leader
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	Tales to Astonish v1 #62 (Dec 1964)
Created by	Stan Lee Steve Ditko
In-story information
Alter ego	SAC Billington
Team affiliations	A personal army of Humanoids The Chameleon Halflife II Rock and Redeemer Freehold Riot Squad U-Foes
Abilities	Superhuman intelligence Mind control Psionic blasts Illusionary disguises

The Leader (Samuel Sterns) is a fictional character, a Marvel Comics supervillain and the archenemy of the Hulk. The character first appeared in Tales to Astonish #62.

Fictional character biography

Samuel Sterns was born in Boise, Idaho. He was once an ordinary human being with average intelligence. A high school dropout, Sterns worked for a chemical research plant in a menial capacity. While moving radioactive materials into an underground storage area, some of the radioactive materials exploded, bombarding Sterns with gamma radiation. Sterns recovered, but found that the radiation had changed him from an ordinary human into a green-skinned, super-intelligent criminal with an oversize brain housed in a towering cranium. He embarked on various ambitious schemes, with the Hulk as his primary nemesis, consistently backed by a self-constructed army of super-strong, virtually invulnerable, plastic Humanoids. This included an attempt to rewrite the Earth's history by infecting the primordial ooze with gamma-radiation, recreating society in his image, with himself as a ruler.

After a period of time the gamma radiation in his body began to wear off. At first the Leader attributed his lapses in concentration to overworking his mind finding ways to defeat his greatest enemy (the Hulk). By the time the Leader realized what was happening, much of the intelligence that could have solved his plight was gone and texts that were once child's play to him were now hopelessly beyond him (he even forgot the access code of his secret base). In this period, he made cash however he could by means fair or foul, until he managed to convince the Gray Hulk to help him regain his intelligence by promising that he would help the latter to remain the Hulk full time (instead of only at night).

Rick Jones had been afflicted with a Hulk-like condition and the Hulk (using Bruce Banner's memories of gamma transfer) devised a machine to transfer all of the gamma radiation from Rick Jones to the Leader. However, this time the mutagenic process was slightly different resulting in a cranium that resembled an over-sized brain, rather than a towering forehead. He was also a lighter shade of green. As a side note this transfer also created a psychic link between the two.

Soon after this, the Leader would steal the seemingly lifeless body of General Thunderbolt Ross from the back of an ambulance, simply because it was there, and later managed to revive it as a mindless vegetable, which he used as an armored enforcer.

Following this the Leader engaged in a scheme to detonate a gamma-bomb in a small-town city, killing over 5000 people, and the few, now enhanced, survivors provided him with valuable research subjects and superhuman enforcers. With their help, he built a self-sufficient society called Freehold in the Arctic, populated with civilians dying from radiation poisoning. Some time afterward he gave the Hulk information how to find his brother, Philip Sterns, the Madman, since he thought it would be best to put the latter out of his suffering, due to his original personality being slowly and painfully eaten away by the Madman persona.

After Jones' suffered a great mental trauma due to the death of his girlfriend Marlo Chandler, his pain was enough to cause the Leader considerable discomfort, motivating him to work towards the revival of Marlo. At this time Freehold was targeted by a rogue branch of H.Y.D.R.A terrorists, employing the U-Foes and his followers to invade the covert Pantheon organization, of which Hulk was a member, to coerce them to help him in defending it. He employed something he ironically called the Dues Ex Machina in conjunction with his follower, the gamma-enhanced reverend nicknamed Soul Man, who falsely believed himself to have been blessed by God with spiritual power, rather than given nearly godlike inherent abilities, in an effort to revive Marlo and siphon off Soul Man's power for himself. Rick Jones became convinced to accept the help after seeing the mindless, but mobile body of Thunderbolt Ross.

The Hulk, manipulated by the leader of the Pantheon leader Agamemnon, attacked the facility. At the same time, H.Y.D.R.A decided to storm the base, leading to a multi-sided battle. The Hulk eventually personally attacked the Leader himself, who, along with Soul Man, seemingly perished in the crossfire. The machine was likewise demolished, causing Marlo to enter a state similar to Ross, but both eventually fully recovered.

The death of the Leader left his follower Omnibus in control of Freehold. Omnibus used mind-control to manipulate several U.S. chiefs of staffs, and engineered many high-profile terrorist strikes to incite global warfare, as he reasoned that it was inevitable, and hurrying it along offered him opportunity to enable his personal society to survive and inherit the Earth. Omnibus was eventually exposed by his fellow Freehold citizens, judged to die in the cold, and was eaten by a polar bear. It was hinted that the Leader was influencing Omnibus somehow but it was never made clear how. At present the Leader has a body incorporating traits from both his previous incarnations.

The Leader was recently captured by S.H.I.E.L.D's Hulkbusters, and brought to trial for his crimes. He was represented by Attorney Mallory at She-Hulk's firm GLK&H. During the trial, Mallory argued that Leader was not responsible for his actions since the Gamma exposure forcibly changed his personality. To prove her point, Mallory compared She-Hulk to Jennifer Walter, revealing that Jennifer was much more promiscuous in her She-Hulk form. In the second day of the trial, Leader's humanoid droids arrived to rescue him. Instead of escaping, the Leader called off the attack, opting to see the trial to its conclusion, as he correctly predicted that his defence was going to win. He was found "not guilty".

Now a freeman, the Leader teleported the Hulk's allies, the Warbound, to Nevada. There, he used Hiroim of the Warbound, harnishing his tectonic power to activate a Gamma powered shield, over a portion of the desert.

Powers and abilities

The Leader has superhuman mental acumen. As a result of the mutagenic process he has undergone he is (in theory) capable of knowledge and comprehension beyond the human ability to understand. He is potentially capable of mastering every worldly subject and capable of adopting concepts completely foreign to his environment. His ability to predict probable outcomes of tactical and strategic scenarios is so advanced that it borders on clairvoyance. His intuition is heightened to the degree that his hunches are almost always correct. The Leader has a perfect memory with the ability to recall every moment since the accident that gave him his powers.

In addition to his extraordinary intelligence, the Leader has psionic powers that enable him to mentally control non-gamma-mutated individuals upon touching them. He was once seen projecting a powerful psionic force blast capable of toppling over a severely weakened Hulk, as well as creating an illusion of himself in gigantic form, or disguising his appearance during the period he spent possessing Omnibus.

The Leader has also designed a large number of sophisticated weapons, vehicles, computers, androids, and synthetic humanoids. He is particularly adept at genetic engineering and manipulating radiation for various nefarious purposes. He has designed and constructed at least one space station and presumably space shuttles as well.

Despite the Leader's great intelligence, his effectiveness is greatly hampered by his great arrogance and immaturity, sometimes to the point of making rash and dangerous decisions that bely his great intellect. To many readers, the quintessential example of this is his continual desire to battle and/or exploit the Hulk who in turn keeps foiling his plans he otherwise would have likely ignored had he not been provoked. Also, despite his vast intellect, he seemingly does not have the desire or temperament to engage in globe-spanning plots of world domination (or at least not to the extent of other Marvel Universe geniuses such as Doctor Doom and Thanos), and rarely engages in such.

Although the Leader has on occasion transformed back into Samuel Sterns, he rarely does this due to the almost 'inverted Hulk' nature of this shift; just as Banner typically becomes less intelligent when transformed into the Hulk, when the Leader turns back into Sterns, he retains no memory of his life as the Leader because Sterns' brain is ill-equipped to cope with the evil and genius of his alter ego.

Other versions

Ultimate Leader

According to preview information, the Ultimate Marvel Leader shall appear in the next Ultimate Iron Man series, when he attempts to steal Tony Stark's nanotechnology as Banner and Stark work together to try and incorporate Stark's nanotechnology into Banner's physiology in the hopes that it will grant him control over his transformations into the Ultimate Hulk.

In other media

Film

• The Leader's alter ego, Samuel Sterns is set to appear in the upcoming The Incredible Hulk. The role has been cast to Tim Blake Nelson. [1]. It has not yet been said if The Leader will appear or if he'll just be shown as Samuel Sterns.

Television

• The Leader appeared in several episodes of the Hulk's adventures in the 1966 The Marvel Superheroes Show anthology series, based on the Hulk's adventures in Tales to Astonish comics.

• In 1982, the Leader appeared on Marvel Productions' The Incredible Hulk, in an episode entitled "Punks on Wheels" and voiced by Stan Jones. Uniquely, he was the only traditional Hulk adversary to ever be used on the series.

• The Leader appeared as a recurring villain in the 1990s UPN Incredible Hulk series, portrayed by Matt Frewer. His constant quote, "So says the Leader," became his trademark in the series.

• He also appeared as a villain in the episode, "Hulkbuster," of the 1994 Iron Man animated series, alongside The Incredible Hulk. The Leader became stuck in a portal and was never seen or heard from again. He was again voiced by Matt Frewer.

Video games

• The Leader appears in the 2003 Hulk video game as the main atagonist. He displays telekinetic and teleportation powers.

• The Leader also appears in the The Incredible Hulk (1993 video game),

Toys

• The Leader has appeared in Toyfare magazine's Twisted Toyfare Theater, portrayed as a frustrated and socially unaware genius who feels the Hulk has been allowed too much for his lacking mental capacity.

External links

• The Leader's Lair
• Project: Custom - Provider of the custom Leader figure featured in Twisted Toyfare Theater