Jovians (Humans)

Jovians
Name	Jovians
Affiliation and Identity
Identity	Public
Physical Characteristics
Body Type	Humanoid
Number of Limbs	4
Origin and Status
Origin	Human
Reality	Earth-691
Galaxy	Milky Way
Star System	Sol
Home	Earth
Base of Operations	Jupiter, Solar System
Creators and Appearances
Creators	Arnold Drake, Gene Colan
First	Marvel Super-Heroes #18 (October, 1968)
First	Marvel Super-Heroes #18 (October, 1968)

History

The Jovians were a sub-species of humanity who had been artificially adapted to make it possible for them to colonize Jupiter. They possessed superhuman strength to enable them to withstand Jupiter's gravity that was three times that of Earth.

In the Earth-691 timeline, after the last of the Techno-Barons was executed in 2525 A.D., a new World Federation was established and mankind began to reach for the stars. In order to colonize some of the other planets in the solar system, humans used genetic engineering techniques developed during the reign of the Techno-Barons to create Jovians, Mercurians and Pluvians by transforming normal humans into the first generations of these sub-species. By the year 2800 A.D., Mercury, Jupiter and Pluto had all been colonized.

Since it was too difficult to colonize the surface of Jupiter, the Jovian colonies were giant plastiglass city-spheres that floated in Jupiter's poisonous atmosphere.

In the year 3007 A.D., the inhabited worlds of the solar system were attacked by the military forces of the aliens known as the Brotherhood of Badoon. The only known Jovian survivor was Charlie-27, a fifth-generation Jovian who had been away from Jupiter performing six months of solitary space-militia duty when the invasion took place. Charlie-27 fled from Jupiter after discovering that it had been conquered by the Badoon and soon met up with three others who were the last survivors of their races: Martinex, Major Vance Astro and Yondu. These four joined together as the Guardians of the Galaxy, a team dedicated to overthrowing the Badoon and freeing the conquered planet Earth.

In the year 3019 A.D., while on a remote planet, Charlie-27 and his partner Nikki were told about a colony of Jovian slaves who were supposedly living near the Lava Mines of Auriga VII. They went to investigate but their search seems to have been unsuccessful.

Miscellaneous

Representatives

• Charlie-26 (deceased)
• Charlie-27

Notes

• In Marvel Super-Heroes #18, Jupiter was presented as a planet with a solid surface on which the Jovians lived and where Harkovite was mined. However, since the real world Jupiter is a gas giant which has no solid surface, it was revealed in Defenders #26 that the men and women of Charlie's race actually lived in giant city-spheres that hung in Jupiter's poisonous atmosphere.

• The fact that the Jovians did not live on Jupiter's (non-existent) solid surface where the gravity was supposedly three times that of Earth somewhat undercuts the idea that they had been genetically engineered to withstand that gravity. Since the floating cities in which the Jovians lived were shown to have Earth-normal gravity in Guardians of the Galaxy Annual #1, an explanation for why they were engineered to have superhuman strength is needed.

• In the "Origin of the Guardians of the Galaxy" feature that was presented in that annual, Starhawk stated that the race who lived on Jupiter were "eleven times more massive then normal humans." This statement is inconsistent with the fact that Charlie-27's weight (on Earth) has always been listed at 555 pounds which is about three times the average weight of an adult human living in modern-day North America. This mistake is presumably based on a claim in the original Guardians of the Galaxy story that Jupiter had eleven times the mass and three times the gravity of Earth.
  • However, that initial claim was itself mistaken because, in reality, Jupiter is 11 times as wide and 318 times as massive as Earth. Having said that, Jupiter's surface gravity is just 2.4 times that of Earth but, as a gas giant, that is actually the measurement of the force of gravity at its cloud tops rather than its surface.

• Although the "men and women of Charlie's race" were mentioned in Defenders #26, only men were actually depicted. So far, the only Jovian woman ever seen was half of a generic Jovian couple who appeared in that "Origin of the Guardians of the Galaxy" feature.

See Also

• 99 appearance(s) of Jovians (Humans)
• 10 minor appearance(s) of Jovians (Humans)
• 2 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Jovians (Humans)
• 1 image(s) of Jovians (Humans)
• 17 representative(s) of Jovians (Humans)