Merge:Gravity

Gravity (Greg Willis) is a superhero in the, with the power to manipulate gravity. He first appeared in Gravity: Big-City Super Hero, part of the Marvel Next imprint, which was aimed at younger readers and published miniseries in digest format. Since the conclusion of his miniseries, Gravity has appeared in Marvel Team-Up alongside other new heroes such as Arana and X-23 and older characters such as Dagger, Speedball and Terror Inc.

Gravity
Greg Willis was born and grew up in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. During the summer of his High School Graduation, an as-of-yet unexplained accident granted him the ability to manipulate gravity.

He enrolled in New York University for Freshman year, intent on succeeding both academically and as the fledgeling superhero Gravity. During his first day in New York, Gravity fights with Black Death, a homicidal anarchist made of strange, black energy, and the hero Rage. Unfortunately, Gravity thinks Rage is the villain, and in the ensuing confusion Black Death gets away. Chastened, Greg reports to his dorm and meets his new roommate, Frog. Frog is an ADD-addled superhero fanboy who Greg finds difficult to deal with. That said, Greg does see a use for Frog's encyclopedic knowledge of superheroes. Later that night, Gravity patrols the city, but is unable to find Black Death. However, he does save an old woman who is having a heart attack by getting her to a hospital in time to save her life. The next morning, on the way to his English class, he meets Lauren Singh, a fellow freshman who picks up his spirits with a friendly race to class.

Lauren and Greg's friendship deepens, but his secret identity is a stumbling block, especially as Lauren dislikes superheroes. As Gravity, he defeats the Rhino, which brings him to the attention of the Daily Bugle. His chest icon, which somewhat resembles a letter X, causes the Bugle and many people to believe he is a mutant.

Gravity remains insecure about his heroism, but things look up for him when he meets a fellow hero named the Greenwich Guardian, self-proclaimed hero of Greenwich Village. The two team up and patrol together, but the Greenwich Guardian disturbs Greg with his violent tendencies, and he decides to operate solo instead. After another confrontation with Black Death, and in the light of his developing relationship with Lauren, Greg decides to stop being Gravity.

However, the Greenwich Guardian soon guilts Greg into teaming up with him so the two can take down Black Death. Greg misses his date with Lauren, who refuses to forgive him; Greg later sees Lauren with another man at a party. Later, Greg's student advisor tells him he is failing all his classes. When Greg meets up with the Greenwich Guardian to trap Black Death, the Guardian reveals himself to be Black Death. Black Death uses Greg's gravity powers to try to damage Greenwich Village and the university campus before Greg ultimately defeats him, though the villain does escape. After the fight, Spider-Man appears and congratulates him. Later, Greg meets Lauren in a café, where he tells her of his plans to quit school and return home. She expresses disappointment in this, giving him a pep talk to stay. The status of their relationship is left unresolved, as is the fate of Greg at NYU. He does decide to take her advice and stick with it for at least the rest of the semester.

The last pages show Black Death (in his civilian identity) doing a computer search for male NYU students from Wisconsin, and Greg (now much more confident in his role as Gravity) stopping the pyrokinetic villain, Brushfire.

Beyond!
Gravity returns in Beyond!, first defeating Brushfire (again), and then being teleported to a world, where he meets Spider-Man, Henry Pym, Wasp, Venom, Kraven, Firebird, and The Hood. Now in space, he narrates most of the first issue. It's also revealed that he's passed his first semester at NYU and decided to reveal his identity to Lauren, so they are now in a committed relationship. In #1, Gravity, contemplating their relationship, jokingly notes to himself that "nothing beats post-save-the-world sex," but whether Gravity has in fact literally defeated a world-threatening menace in the gap between his own miniseries and Beyond is uncertain.

Marvel Team-Up: League of Losers
Gravity features in an arc of Robert Kirkman's Marvel Team-Up (vol. 3), featuring a group of C-list heroes dubbed "The League of Losers". A group of heroes including Gravity, Darkhawk, Dagger, Araña, X-23, Sleepwalker and Terror (although Araña dies along the way) go to the future to prevent the villain Chronok from stealing Reed Richards' time machine, Chronok having come to the present and already having killed all of Marvel's major heroes.

It's revealed Chronok is from the same time period as Kirkman's Mutant 2099; the group stays with him and his mentor Reed Richards to wait for Chronok, and during this time Gravity sparks a relationship with X-23. The team defeats Chronok, but at the end of the story, Richards reveals they can't go back to their present, due to time-travel and alternate timelines. The group decides to stay in the future, satisified with the impact they made, however unnoticed. Mutant 2099 suggests reforming the Avengers or the "Fantastic Nine".

Note that due to Marvel universe's method for resolving time travel paradoxes, this story occurred in an alternate universe.