Quasar - Wendell Vaughn - and Robert Grayson - the Uranian - should team up!

[Quasar's Bands]

*At some point in history, the Eternals decided to send their prisoners to Uranus and made it into Prison Planet. An odd bunch of aliens lived there and became essentially the Guards for the Prison Planet

*The prisoners were able to send communications to Earth in the 1950s and trick a crazy scientist, Professor Grayson, to come to Uranus. They shared with him how to build a space ship, and then he decided it was a good idea to bring his infant son, Robert, along.

*The Professor and his son lived on Uranus, still clueless that they were being duped.

*At some point in time, the Protector of the Universe's Quantum Bands had ended up on the Prison Planet.

*The Prisoners made a cheap copy of the Quantum Bands that basically shot lights and made explosions. They put it on Bob, and sent him back to the Earth with a headband that would share everything he learned with the Prisoners. Oddly, Bob's crazy father went along with this, and we know this because sometimes Bob would communicate with his father from Earth. He became the Hero "Marvel Boy."

*The Prisoners altered a Prisoner Eternal to look like Bob (?), put the real Quantum Bands on him, and sent him to Earth. In the meanwhile, they let Bob know his father was dead (murder?) and he got on his ship and headed back to Uranus.

*The Guards found out about all these shenanigans and slaughtered the Prisoners. When Bob got there, everyone was dead, and the Guards essentially changed his body chemistry to live on Uranus with them.

*The Eternal woke from hibernation and thought he was Bob on Earth. He freaked out and took on the name "The Crusader." He fought the Fantastic Four, then when he couldn't use the Bands properly, they evaporated him! The Bands went to SHIELD for research and safekeeping. Everytime someone tried to put them on and use them, they were evaporated.

*Eventually, Bob awoke, looking like a stereotypical Area-51 alien. He decided to head back to Earth, now with telepathic powers in addition to his light-altering (rip-off) bands. When back on Earth, he rejoined his friends from the 50s and became an Agent of Atlas. Presumably, he's still on Earth. He goes by the name "Uranian."

*Meanwhile, at one point SHIELD was under attack and SHIELD Agent Wendell Vaughn put on the Quantum Bands his father, also a scientist, was studying. He gave himself up to the Bands (he didn't fight back) and they permanently affixed themselves to him. He fought the bad guys and took on the name "Marvel Man."

*He took on a job, fought in a battle with Hulk and Captain America, and decided after a group of people laughed at the name "Marvel Man," that it was too hokey. He took on the name Quasar.

*He later learned that the Quantum Bands are supposed to be given to the Protector of the Universe. He befriended Eon, and became the Protector of the Universe for many years.

*After his father died, and mother overcame cancer, he headed to space and became the Captain America of space - helping people, being strong but polite, and using the very powerful bands in creative ways - like hard light constructs, teleportation, and flying at crazy speeds. Note: His Best Friend happened to be Makkari - the Speed Eternal who actually fought crime in the 1950s as the "Hurricane" and "Mercury." Neither had any clue of their "Eternal/Quantum Bands" connection through Robert Grayson!

*He died in battle in Annihilation! Phyla-Vell, a daughter (through science) of the former Captain Marvel took on the mantle of Quasar after she put on the Bands, but never seemed very comfortable in the role. Eventually, she took on the name Martyr and, you guessed it, was killed.

*Wendell then came back to life (as he had done before in his own series), and took up the Mantle, again of Quasar. He fought in space for a few more years.

*Then, for some reason, Wendell decided he had to retire - thought he was in his early 30s at best. He trained another SHIELD Agent to be Quasar, Avril Kincaid, and she found that she had a "universal understanding/sense" thanks to the Bands, which Hydra Captain America manipulated her to use to his benefit. Anyway, she eventually sacrificed herself to save the planet, once again leaving the Bands without an owner.

*Clearly, Wendell decided to yet again put on the Bands when a call to go to space was issued and try to stop the resurrection of Thanos. While at a meeting in Guardians of the Galaxy #1, he was sucked into a black hole. He will appear in a future annual of GoG.

Now, I don't believe Quasar (Wendell Vaughn) who is the rightful owner of the Bands and Protector of the Universe and the Uranian have ever met. They should, and I think it would be an interesting series to star both of them - the old man who looks like an alien and eats with his throat coming out of his mouth and is telepathic, and the Captain America of Space who has died and been resurrected multiple times and has a big fan base. We could find out many things, such as whatever became of those aliens on Uranus, and why were all those Eternals sent there, and how did the Quantum Bands end up there in the first place?

Let's make it happen!

[Phoenixx9]

I love how these two characters were interwoven. Marvel did a good job there!

[Quasar's Bands]

I love how these two characters were interwoven. Marvel did a good job there!

For many years, it wasn't that way. We all thought Grayson had gone mad, was the Crusader, and died. Thankfully Jeff Parker in Agents of Atlas added a lot more color and history to the story. Here's a summary from many years ago on the web of what we did know for a long time before Parker changed things a bit:

[I]
SuperMegaMonkey's Marvel Comics Chronology

He finds that the colony's protective dome was shattered, and all of the (human looking) people inside have died from exposure.
Inside a museum, he finds evidence that the colonists had fought off a Kree sentry.
He also explains his purpose in a much more straightforward way than we've ever seen in the past, and he also provides a history of the Uranian colonists. They were Eternals...that eventually got bored after discovering an equation that explains the universe. I'll never understand these immortals that get so bored they want to die. Had they already finished cataloging their entire Marvel comics collection?

At that point they contacted Dr. Grayson (aka Horace Grabsheid), father of the original Marvel Boy. And while they provided him technological advances, it turns out they were really studying his body for the secret of removing their own immortality. But in the end it was Deathurge who, (according to him) with their blessing destroyed their dome.The original Marvel Boy wasn't aware of Deathurge's involvement, and that's why, after finding his father and the Uranians all dead, he came back to Earth and rampaged before his death, blaming Earth for the fact that he wasn't there when everyone died.

And he finds himself face to faces with Eon, the character that granted Captain Marvel his Cosmic Awareness.
It turns out that Captain Marvel was just the latest in a long line of Cosmic Protectors. You'll also note that all of the previous Protectors are wearing the bracelet that Quasar has, except Captain Marvel. The reason for that is not just that Mar-vell already had different bands of his own. It's because at the time Mar-vell was being made the Protector, the bands had accidentally wound up with Robert Grayson despite the fact that he wasn't worthy to be a Protector (which is why he burnt out).

Eon tells Quasar that he wants to make him the latest Cosmic Protector, and that there's a specific crisis brewing that Quasar will need to face. All Eon knows about the threat is 1) it will come from space, 2) it will manifest on Earth, and 3) it will try to slay Eon and gain his secret of cosmic awareness.

Eon doesn't seem to actually grant Quasar Cosmic Awareness the way he did for Mar-vell, but he does open his mind to "total mastery" of the quantum-bands, along with a new costume emphasizing his sexy armpits and, more sadly, a shave.

Quasar takes Eon back to Earth so that he can guard him from the comfort of home instead of in Eon's "backwater dimension". Luckily, Eon is able to warp space so that it doesn't take another "several years" to get home.

That page, in a faux-interview with Quasar, also defines Cosmic Awareness, saying it's not the same as being omniscient and:

I think "cosmically aware" means you have access to all the knowledge in and of the whole universe. Think of it as like having a computer with every single bit of data stored inside it. Just because it's in there, doesn't mean you can instantly sift though and find the particular datum you're looking for. It takes time to wade through the sum total of all the knowledge in the universe even at the speed of thought! And it's not like you can call up an infinite amount of information an concentrate on it all at once.
So basically, it's a lot like having a smartphone.

[Quasar's Bands]

Gruenwald revealed a lot of the stuff about the Uranians (including their encounter with the Kree Sentry) in the "Untold Tales of the Marvel Universe" back-up stories from What If? #23-28 (not covered on this site as they are all very very pre-WW II).

In summation:
Back before man had came about in the Marvel Universe, Kronos and Uranos fought over what direction the Eternals should take (Uranos wanting to rule Earth as it's superior race). There was a war between the two factions which Kronos won. Uranos and his army were exiled from Earth as punishment.

They eventually arrived on Uranus where they discovered a Kree outpost. They were attacked by the Kree Sentry stationed there and during the fight Uranos begins to lock horns with a fellow exiled Eternal called Astron. Although Astron urges caution about destroying the Kree Sentry, the bigger debate between the two is to do with seeking revenge on the Eternals on Earth. Honestly, I think Gruenwald is great but Astron is a troublesome idea. He was supposedly exiled from Earth alongside Uranos for siding with him in his desire to rule the planet... but upon arriving on Uranus he is depicted as a peaceful knowledge seeker who seems to abhor violence. I suppose maybe he's meant to have made some realizations or atonement during the journey to Uranus but none of that is said in the comic.

Anyway, at this point, Astron's unnamed lover discovers the Quantum Bands in the Kree outpost. This is either something Gruenwald purposely choose to ignore in Quasar or which posits an interesting connection no one has picked up on since: are the Quantum Bands of KREE design? And therefore do they share a greater connection with the Nega-Bands than we've all thought? Or alternatively what the hell are they doing at the Kree outpost? We're still before the dawn of man, so the idea Eon is bequeathing these to his Protectors either means he didn't have a Protector for some 65 million years or that he returned them to Uranus in time for Robert Grayson and later Thelius to use. (mind you, there is a LOT of awkward things where the story seems to forget it's actually before the dawn of man, particularly stuff with the Kree).

Anyway, eventually Uranos leads almost all of the exiled Eternals off planet in a spaceship headed to Earth to battle the Eternals on Earth. Astron, his lover and a few others stay behind. They are the more peaceful ones and founded what would actually be the Uranian race of peaceful science nerds.

As for Uranos? Well, his early orders to destroy the Kree Sentry result in the Kree launching an attack on Uranus just as they are departing and the result is all their ships are destroyed and the ones left behind on Uranos are spared (the Kree assume the entire race was leaving). The Kree abduct one of the Eternals call Arlok and experiment and study him and this actually leads to the Kree's creation of the Inhumans. It ends showing Uranos and some of his men survive in the rigors of space and end up on Titan. Which I don't actually get coz they already had set up Mentor departing for Titan, so the suggestion seems to be Mentor took in the disgraced Eternals and Uranos? I've not read the Starlin stuff or the Roy Thomas Thor stuff in ages, but that bit was the only thing that didn't really jibe for me.

The Uranian Astron from those stories seems to feature in the flashback depicting them unlocking the secret to life.

The (remains of a) Kree Sentry depicted here is Kree Sentry 213 and does have other appearances (in those What Ifs which are technically flashbacks anyway), if you want to track it.

Ha, I actually forgot to point out the thing that I was originally going to post before deciding to write up exactly what happened in those Gruenwald Untold Tales.

The dome on Uranus (which was actually erected by the Kree) was actually smashed by the Uranians. There is a whole sequence in What If? #27 with the Kree acknowleding that. This issue of Quasar on the other hand says that Deathurge was responsible for shattering the dome and doing so killed all the Uranians within:
https://40.media.tumblr.com/792fdd6b...s107o1_540.jpg

I'm guessing this is just Gruenwald doing some hardcore selective continuity. Which is a shame since he established the original idea anyway. Maybe he just decided not enough people had actually read the Untold Tales so that gave him the opportunity to retool it completely for Quasar.


Mark Gruenwald wrote five of the six Untold Tales of the Marvel Universe from What If? which explained how Eternals from Earth became the progenitors of the humanoids who had previously been shown to live on Titan and Uranus. It's a safe bet that he had them in mind when he expanded upon the back-story of the Uranians (now the Uranian Eternals) in Quasar #2.

As for the matter of when the Omni-Dome on Uranus was smashed, the obvious answer would be that it was actually smashed twice, once long ago when Uranos launched his crude spaceship through it and a second time, much more recently, when Deathurge destroyed it. I've always assumed that Astron and his three fellow exiles had repaired the dome after the Kree armada had investigated the ruins and left. In fact, until I just reread that issue, I could have sworn that it contained a scene in which Quasar thought to himself that there were signs that the shattered dome had previously been repaired but now I can't find it. Either I imagined it entirely or I'm actually thinking of some other story.

As for how the Quantum-Bands ended up on Uranus, in Quasar #10 Captain Atlas wonders if they are actually the legendary Power-Bands of Rinn which had last been seen in Earth's vicinity when Sentry 213 recovered them and placed them in a weapons depot "somewhere in (Earth's) system." Clearly Mr. Gruenwald was trying to tie into those earlier Untold Tales. However, there's a chronological conflict here, since Sentry 213 supposedly recovered the Power-Bands "several millennia ago" and yet that same Sentry was the one destroyed by Uranos and his followers in the much more distant past, millennia after the Eternals of Earth were created by the Celestials. Of course, the date when the Celestials first visited Earth is now also debatable. Early editions of the Official Handbook state that the First Host visited Earth approximately one million years ago but some more recent Eternals stories have tried to push that date back to between five and seven million years ago. I'm not sure which date is currently considered "canon" but I prefer the one million year theory. Unfortunately, that doesn't help with the fact that Sentry 213 supposedly recovered the Power-Bands of Rinn a very long time after it was destroyed and Astron's Eternals had taken over the former weapons depot.[/I]

[Phoenixx9]

I know the Crusader story. I mean after that, the way the 2 different people stories were co-mingled, while still keeping them as 2 different people. Similar but different.

[strathcona]

I'd love to see them team up and find out more about the Quantum Bands origins and how they ended up on Uranus. In my head canon, Quasar is still a being made of Quantum energy and doesn't even need the band's anymore. That's why he gave them to Avril Kincaid... but it doesn't explain his inactivity during that time.

I'd also like to see Blue Marvel, who was a duplicate of the Crusader created by Thanos during Infinity War, be involved in the story somehow.

[Quasar's Bands]

I'd love to see them team up and find out more about the Quantum Bands origins and how they ended up on Uranus. In my head canon, Quasar is still a being made of Quantum energy and doesn't even need the band's anymore. That's why he gave them to Avril Kincaid... but it doesn't explain his inactivity during that time.

I'd also like to see Blue Marvel, who was a duplicate of the Crusader created by Thanos during Infinity War, be involved in the story somehow.

I agree that a quest by the Uranian and Quasar to find out more about the origins of the Quantum Bands would be a GREAT storyline! There must be a story as to how they ended up without an owner on Uranus, yes. Also, a story not only about Blue Marvel but ALL the previous Quantum Band owners would be fantastic!

[strathcona]

Looks like we have an origin for the Quantum Bands now in Eternals: Thanos Rises. They were created by Chronos as wedding bands for Mentor and Sui San. It seems Eon was involved in their wedding also (though he was not mentioned, just shown in the art). After Thanos killed his mother, Mentor gave the bands back to Chronos. No mention of their powers or Protector of the Universe at all though.