Agent Axis (Marvel Comics)
Agent Axis is the name of three fictional comic book supervillains, two from DC Comics and the other from Marvel Comics.
DC Comics
| Agent Axis | |
|---|---|
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | Boy Commandos #1 (Winter 1942) |
| Created by | Jack Kirby Joe Simon |
| In-story information | |
| Notable aliases | Sigrid |
| Abilities | None |
Boy Commandos
The first Agent Axis is a Nazi spy and foe of the Boy Commandos in DC Comics. She appears in issues # 1 and 3 of Boy Commandos comics; the stories were reprinted in 1971 in issues #6 and 7 of Mister Miracle.
In one appearance, she lays a trap by approaching the team as 'Sigrid' and claiming that Agent Axis is after her. The team believes her story and promises to protect her. After some time of nothing happening, they find that Nazi forces have ransacked their headquarters. They also find a note claiming Sigrid had been kidnapped.
Clues lead the Boy Commandos to the Radcliffe Estate, where the Nazis spring a trap and capture the young heroes. Rip, the team's leader, had suspected something and brought reinforcements. The Boy Commandos manage to escape and turn the tables on their assailants. All but Sigrid are captured.
World's Finest Team
| Agent Axis | |
|---|---|
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | World's Finest Comics #250 (April/May 1978) |
| Created by | Gerry Conway (script) Jim Aparo (pencils) |
| In-story information | |
| Abilities | None |
The third Agent Axis first appeared in World's Finest Comics #250 (April/May 1979), and was created by Gerry Conway. He is a foe of the World's Finest Team: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow and Black Canary. The heroes travel to Earth-One in the year 1942 to repair damages to the time stream caused by Ravager, a being with the ability to travel through time. Agent Axis is a Nazi agent who kills Professor Ronsom, an American scientist working on a time travelling device, who is in fact a younger incarnation of the Ravager himself. He later joins forces with the Ravager in order to bring the secrets of time travel to Nazi Germany. During a battle in Bavaria the World's Finest Team manages to activate the chronal transponder near the Ravager, returning the heroes to their proper time and place with no memory of the prior events. Presumably agent Axis is also returned to his correct place and time.[1]
| Agent Axis | |
|---|---|
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | The Invaders Annual #1 (1977) |
| Created by | Roy Thomas (script) Frank Robbins (pencils) |
| In-story information | |
| Full name | Hiroyuki Kanegawa, Aldo Malvagio, and Berthold Volker |
| Notable aliases | Pterorist |
| Abilities | Ability to speak three languages, physical attributes of three men, combined knowledge, skills, combat ability and experience of three top fascist agents. |
Marvel Comics
Publication history
The second Agent Axis was created by Roy Thomas as a foe of his World War II-era superhero team The Invaders; his first appearance was in The Invaders Annual #1 (1977). The character appeared several times during the Invaders series. Agent Axis also appears in Marvel Comics Presents #34 (November 1989).
There is an earlier appearance of a character referred to as "Agent Axis" but he has no real dialog, plot or significance. The appearance is in Tales of Suspense #82 (1966), a split-book that featured two 10 page installments of Iron Man and Captain America respectively. Published in 1966, this predates the second character by some eleven years earlier than the Roy Thomas creation.
In the Captain America story, Cap has been slipped a drug in his coffee by a new villain who has impersonated Tony Stark's butler, Jarvis. Cap begins to hallucinate, and sees old foes from WWII emerge from the shadows to attack him in Avengers Mansion. The first of these he identifies as "Agent Axis... but I saw you die in World War II... How can this be?" The figure is only shown from behind, wearing a large flowing forest green cloak, with wide brim hat, similar to Lemont Cranston (The Shadow). The figure vanishes as Cap staggers backwards out of the room, recognizing that it cannot possibly be real.
Fictional character biography
Agent Axis was created when a freak lightning storm merged the bodies of three Axis agents (Hiroyuki Kanegawa, a Japanese agent; Aldo Malvagio, an Italian agent; and Berthold Volker, a Nazi agent) into one body. The accident gave Agent Axis the strength of three men and ability to speak Japanese, Italian and German, but also left his mind in a fractured state. He fought the Invaders several times.
Agent Axis reappears after the war. Former Invaders member the Thin Man, after discovering that Agent Axis was responsible for killing all the inhabitants of the village of Kalahia, spends the next several decades hunting for the former Nazi agent. In the 1980s, the Thin Man tracks down Agent Axis to America, where he has been given sanctuary by the CIA. The Thin Man enlists the aid of his former ally Captain America to help bring Agent Axis to justice. When Agent Axis brags to the Thin Man that he is under protection of the US Government and cannot be brought to trial, the enraged Thin Man snaps the neck of Agent Axis with his pliable body. Captain America later hands the Thin Man over to the authorities.[2]
The soul of Agent Axis is revealed to have been used as the genetic template for producing the Pterorists clones, utilized by the Axis Mundi to assault the New Invaders.[3]