Joseph Conroy (Earth-616)

A worker at a Pittsburgh steel mill once visited by Thor,^[1] Joseph Conroy found a flake of the Thunder God's magical uru hammer, incorporating it into a good luck charm keychain. Damaged battling the Destroyer, this fragment of Mjolnir was accidentally left behind when the mortal forges were appropriated in its repair.

Falling under Maggia control a few years later, Conroy threatened to expose the mill's crooked puppet boss, Mr. Paretta, to the police. Paretta ordered another employee to push Conroy into a vat of electrified, white-hot liquid metal. Originally thought incinerated, Conroy's ever-present uru chip instead mutated him into a superhumanly strong creature composed of flaming molten "living slag", capable of radiating intense heat and draining energy from available sources.

Avengers Wonder Man and Iron Man, coincidentally visiting the facility on a Stark business venture, opposed "Inferno" but he defeated them, single-mindedly chasing Paretta through Pittsburgh as more Avengers were called in. Finally cornering his old boss, Paretta confessed his wrongdoings. Having overheard, Captain America promised that the criminal industrialist would see justice. Satisfied, Conroy walked into a nearby river, seemingly dissipating himself.^[2]

A zombie facsimile of Conroy was created by the Grim Reaper as part of his Legion of the Unliving against the Avengers.^[3] Inferno attacked Crystal, but before he could kill her, the Reaper lost control of his undead pawns as the entire Legion was drawn into a dimensional vortex by demonic entity Lloigoroth.^[4]

Attributes

Powers

Conroy became a huge creature of molten steel & slag, and radiated great heat at all times as a result. He could increase the amount of heat he radiated at will, and could project molten steel from his body. Inferno possessed great superhuman strength, at least class 50, and possibly reaching class 100, and was sufficiently durable to withstand several blows from Wonder Man with ease, although at times he also appeared semi liquid and could allow bullets to partially pass through him (and presumably melt). Due to the Uru flake embedded within his right palm, he was also endowed with Mjolnir's energy re-directing properties, and was able to absorb and re-direct electrical energy from Iron Man's armor. He also seemed to be mysteriously able to sense the whereabouts of Vince Paretta and Tim Turpin, though this was never explained.

Weaknesses

Conroy was mute in his Inferno form, and also possibly suffered from reduced decision making processes, acting more out of pure vengeance than any obvious cognitive mental faculties.

Notes

Joseph Conroy's mutation was heavily implied to be due solely to the flake of Uru from Mjolnir that he carried as a good luck charm key-ring, which after the attempt on his life, became part of his right palm.

Trivia

Conroy was unnamed in his first appearance when he met Thor.^[1]

Links and References

http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/infer2.htm

References

[Journey_Into_Mystery_Vol_1_120-1] 1.0 ^1.1 Journey Into Mystery #120

[Avengers_Vol_1_193-2] Avengers #193

[Avengers_Vol_1_353-3] Avengers #353

[Avengers_Vol_1_354-4] Avengers #354

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