- —Voyager[src]
History
Va Nee Gast was the daughter of the Grandmaster, one of the Elders of the Universe. She grew up exploring the cosmos by her father's side, taking part in his gambles and games, and learned from him in the process. While the Grandmaster focused on the contests themselves, he used to leave the winnings to Va Nee.[4] Eons before the birth of Va Nee, En Dwi Gast had usurped the mantle of Grandmaster from a fellow Elder of the Universe. When he returned under the alias of the Challenger to reclaim his title in a rematch,[5] the Grandmaster decided to use Va Nee as an ace in the hole. He granted her the power of teleportation, to the extent it derived into the ability to alter people's memories. Under the alias of Voyager, she was sent to Earth, the chosen battleground for the contest, which was plucked away from its place in the Solar System for the purposes of the contest.[4]
Voyager convened the Avengers at the Avengers Mansion[6] and used her powers to insert herself into their memories,[7][4] making them believe she was Valerie Vector, a beloved founding member of the team who had seemingly perished in battle against the Squadron Sinister's Victory the Electromagnetic Man. Voyager claimed that this incident had removed her from existence and memory, having spent roughly a decade in a dream-like state outside of reality, and that the Earth's sudden abduction had jolted her back to existence, and with her, people's memories of her. To make her story more convincing, Voyager tied it to Arthur Vector,[4] one of the first scientists to devote his work to quantum entanglement, a theory that held that every atomic particle has a twin somewhere linked to it by faster-than-light forces. Claiming to be his daughter, Voyager told Toni Ho that she had gained her powers after causing an accident in his laboratory when she was a child. These powers manifested in the ability to use the lines of quantum entanglement to teleport anywhere on Earth.[7]
While many Avengers expected Voyager to take the lead, she deferred to the Avengers teams' leaders Rogue, Falcon, and Citizen V. In preparation for the contest, the Challenger's Black Order bombed the Avengers Mansion by surprise.[2] Voyager saved the heroes in the nick of time, teleporting them to the Avengers Auxiliary Headquarters.[2] When the Grandmaster and the Challenger placed two Pyramoids on different places of Earth for each of their teams to seize, Voyager was tasked with teleporting a group of Avengers to investigate the Pyramoid in Rome, Italy, then return and teleport a second team to attend to the Pyramoid in Cusco, Peru.[8] Throughout the Avengers' eventual confrontations against the Black Order and the Grandmaster's Lethal Legion, Voyager continued providing transport.[9]
The final Pyramoid was specifically placed by the Grandmaster in a hospital where Beast and Wasp were treating the Avengers' long-time butler Edwin Jarvis, who had collapsed due to an illness shortly before Voyager's arrival.[10] When Voyager arrived to the scene, Jarvis had just woken up, and in horror he exposed the truth, that Voyager had never been an Avenger. Before Beast and Wasp could do anything, Voyager used her teleportation powers to escape with the Pyramoid.[11] Upon arrival at the Avengers Auxiliary Headquarters with the Pyramoid, a weakened Voyager locked herself inside a secure room where no one else could get in, not even the Avengers themselves. Tired of being used as a pawn in her father's games, she planned to use the last Pyramoid to change her position in the board. The Auxiliary HQ was soon attacked by the Hulk to claim the Pyramoid on behalf of the Challenger.[4] Voyager witnessed the Hulk's fight against the Avengers from the vault, and became inspired by the heroes' selflessness, determination and heroism.[12] She made the decision to fight for them when the Hulk finally reached the vault, but he swiftly knocked her down before destroying the Pyramoid. The Avengers confronted her afterwards, angry that she had lied to them both verbally and mentally, and she explained the entire situation to them, telling them that the lies were her father's idea, as a means to turn the odds in his favor.[13]
When the Earth started to crumble, Va Nee teleported some of the Avengers to the Grandmaster's Cosmic Game Room off-planet on the deduction that the Challenger had sabotaged the World-Engine sustaining Earth's condition over her father's cheating. While the Avengers there tried to keep the World-Engine from failing, Voyager transported the Avengers that were freed from stasis by Quicksilver's actions to Manhattan, where the Challenger was on a rampage.[14] Even though the Avengers managed to stand up against the villain, Voyager noticed they were growing weary. At Beast's suggestion, Voyager used her powers of memory manipulation to bring forth within every hero the memories of what it meant for them to be an Avenger. This morale boost, combined with a spell cast by the Scarlet Witch to augment her teammates' powers gave the heroes the necessary strength to take down the Challenger and put an end to his rampage. Shortly after the Earth was returned to its location in the Solar System,[1] Voyager bid the Avengers farewell and took the Challenger to the Far Shore in hopes to rekindle the kindness he had before being driven mad by his rivalry with the Grandmaster. Before leaving, the Avengers offered Voyager a membership. She declined, but declared that one day she would earn her place in the team. She also vowed to return if the Grandmaster ever threatened Earth again. In the Far Shore, Va Nee had the Challenger shackled in front of screens monitoring the Avengers' subsequent adventures, in hopes they could inspire him like they inspired her.[3]
Voyager would soon discover that her father and the Challenger's contest jeopardized reality, since their short-lived abduction of Earth unwittingly fulfilled the requisites to break an imprisonment spell confining the Greek goddess Nyx and her children, who proceeded to cast a blackout across the universe.[15] After observing Nyx's slaughter of Olympus and feeling responsible for her indirect role in Nyx's escape, Voyager left the Far Shore to assemble a team of Avengers to stop her from reclaiming the source of her powers, the Night Shards. These heroes were the Hulk, the Vision, Spectrum, the Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, Rocket Raccoon, and the Olympian demigod Hercules.[16] During their first encounter against Nyx, Voyager used her powers to scatter her allies to intercept Nyx's children from retrieving the shards, inadvertently throwing herself at the mercy of Nyx.[17]
Nyx quickly caught up with the heroes, with the captive Voyager in tow, to reclaim one of the pieces in Omnipotence City.[15] Voyager broke free from Nyx's thrall long enough to teleport the Scarlet Witch and that Night Shard into the Hyborian Age for safekeeping,[18] but the plan ultimately failed and Nyx absorbed the fragment of her power.[19] The Goddess of the Night took off to the sentient planet Euphoria, leaving Voyager behind, and Va Nee was able to use her lingering connection to Nyx to teleport herself and the Avengers to her.[20] Nyx overpowered the heroes, achieved godhood once again, and left to investigate the mysterious House of Ideas, which shone the last light in the dark universe. The dying words of Euphoria inspired Voyager to muster her strength to follow Nyx to the House of Ideas, which turned out to be the dwelling space of the fundamental creative force of reality. The only hero to make it inside was the Vision,[21] but he managed to channel the House's power against Nyx, killing her and ending the universal blackout. Following Nyx's defeat, the Voyager returned to the Far Shore, only to find the Challenger gone and his shackles broken.[22]Attributes
Powers
Portal Field: Voyager possesses the ability to generate a field surrounding herself that allows her and whomever she wishes to travel instantly along the lines of quantum entanglement, effectively teleporting anywhere.[7] However, using her powers cause strain on Va Nee's body. She can only use her powers a handful of times before she has to rest.[23] Additionally, the strain is proportional to the amount of people she carries. For instance, mass-teleporting roughly twenty people caused her to collapse.[8] Va Nee can also generate portals to teleport people other than herself.[18]
- Time-Travel: Voyager's portals allow her to send people back time time, such as when she cast a portal to send the Scarlet Witch to the Hyborian Age.[18]
Memory Manipulation: Va Nee possesses the power to manipulate memories. She can insert herself in people's memories,[4] make them experience remembrances of specific memories,[1] and even fabricate entirely new people such as Victory the Electromagnetic Man.[2] This ability is limited to organic beings, since it couldn't affect a synthezoid such as Vision. Any alterations made to the memory of a person fade away if said person is made aware of the alterations' nature as such.[24]
Flight: Voyager is additionally capable of lifting herself off the ground to fly.[6]Notes
- In Avengers #676, Voyager's meddling of the Avengers' memories is shown by being inserted into various key moments of the Avengers' adventures, and was given roles and slightly modified lines from other characters:
- From Avengers #1, after defeating Loki, she confirmed the Avengers' name instead of Thor.
- From Avengers #16, during the press conference of the new team roster, she exclaimed "Avengers Assemble" for the crowd instead of Captain America.
- From Avengers #58, she declared that "even an android can cry" when Vision joined the team instead of Hank Pym.
- In the events from Avengers #70, she was given a completely new scene, in which she battled Victory the Electromagnetic Man.
- As explained in Voyager's profile in The Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe, her fabricated origin and the alterations she made to the memory of the Avengers reflect a reality in which her fake past did happen, this reality being Earth-17122.[25]
Trivia
- Victory, the character Voyager was fighting when she was supposedly wiped from existence, is based on DC Comics character Triumph, who was also co-created by Mark Waid. Like Voyager originally seemed to be, Triumph was a character retconned into the early history of his team (in this case the Justice League of America), also having been wiped from existence and memory during an adventure only to come back years later.
- It was specifically Mark Waid who brought the elements of quantum entanglement into Voyager's origin.[26] He additionally came up with the idea of having Voyager link her fabricated origin to an existing (though newly established) scientist that some of the other Avengers might have heard of.[27]
- The concept of introducing a "faux-founder" during No Surrender was possibly suggested by editor Tom Brevoort. The idea of implementing an actual retcon was never on the table, as Mark Waid had no interest of doing it again after he had already done it with Triumph.[27]
- Jim Zub came up with Voyager's powers being teleportation since it hadn't been used much in the Avengers and it wouldn't intrude on other characters' expertise. Zub originally suggested her alias to be "Vector." While that name was dropped in favor of "Voyager," it was used for her fabricated civilian identity.[27]
- Due to her introduction during Marvel Legacy, one of Voyager's suggested names was "Legacy."[24]
See Also
- 23 appearance(s) of Va Nee Gast (Earth-616)
- 2 minor appearance(s) of Va Nee Gast (Earth-616)
- 2 mention(s) of Va Nee Gast (Earth-616)
- 1 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Va Nee Gast (Earth-616)
- 57 image(s) of Va Nee Gast (Earth-616)
- 4 quotation(s) by or about Va Nee Gast (Earth-616)
Links and References
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Avengers #689
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Avengers #676
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Avengers #690
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Avengers #684
- ↑ Avengers #679
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Avengers #675
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Avengers #681
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Avengers #677
- ↑ Avengers #678–682
- ↑ Avengers #682
- ↑ Avengers #683
- ↑ Avengers #685
- ↑ Avengers #686
- ↑ Avengers #688
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Avengers No Road Home #4
- ↑ Avengers No Road Home #1
- ↑ Avengers No Road Home #2
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 Avengers No Road Home #5
- ↑ Avengers No Road Home #7
- ↑ Avengers No Road Home #8
- ↑ Avengers No Road Home #9
- ↑ Avengers No Road Home #10
- ↑ Avengers #678
- ↑ 24.0 24.1 Avengers #687
- ↑ Voyager (Va Nee Gast, Elder of the Universe) The Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe. Retrieved on July 15, 2018.
- ↑ Richards, Dave (February 22, 2018) Avengers: No Surrender Writers Talk Month 2’s Returns & Revelations CBR. Retrieved on February 23, 2018.
- ↑ 27.0 27.1 27.2 Richards, Dave (March 14, 2018) Avengers: No Surrender Writers Talk Hulk’s Return & Voyager’s True Identity CBR. Retrieved on March 19, 2018.