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Kobik (Earth-616)

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Not to be confused with Kubik.

I'm sorry I got it wrong. I know what to do now. Thank you.

—Kobik[source]

Kobik is a sentient Cosmic Cube, but unlike the Shaper of Worlds or Kubik, she is the fusion of fragments from many different Cosmic Cubes, each with their own history. As a result of the confusion from her origin, she takes on the form of a naive little girl.[1]

S.H.I.E.L.D., who had gathered the Cosmic Cube fragments, raised her at Pleasant Hill and attempted to utilize her immense reality-warping abilities, turning Pleasant Hill into the perfect town and forcibly rehabilitating villains.[1] In the aftermath, she left Pleasant Hill to be with Bucky Barnes,[2] forming a new Thunderbolts team with him.[3] However, because one of Kobik's fragments once belonged to the Red Skull, she had met with him in secret and became infatuated with Hydra.[4]

Kobik rewrote reality so that Captain America was a Hydra agent.[5][6] From his perspective, this reality was the original reality and Kobik's cube had turned it to Earth-616, with him being shielded by Hydra's Father, Isaac Newton.[7] Regardless, her actions led to the Hydra Captain America taking over the United States, but his true mission was to use the Cosmic Cube to restore the Hydra reality.[8] This was complicated by Kobik having been shattered.[9] Though the Hydra Captain America managed to gather most of her fragments, Kobik's will returned with the last fragment and she brought back the original Steve Rogers, correcting her errors and ending Hydra's reign.[10]

History

Origins and Pleasant Hill[]

The being known as Kobik originated from the proposal of the global defence agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D. for a project to use fragments of the ultra-powerful Cosmic Cube objects to reshape reality as the agency would deem necessary.[11] During the course of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s experiments, the fragments unexpectedly and violently merged together, resulting in a new sentient being. That being, Kobik, suffered from a damaged and splintered sense of consciousness, and decided to adopt the form it felt it most resembled in its confusion, a human child.[1]

Kobik (Earth-616) from Avengers Standoff Assault On Pleasant Hill Alpha Vol 1 1 002

Kobik shortly after her initial "birth"

Following the death of the program's leader, Dr. Karen Fowler, another expert in Cosmic Cubes named Erik Selvig was called in to help S.H.I.E.L.D. understand and control Kobik. Motivated by the desire of being truly loved, Kobik decided to go to the one person whom had held dear one of the Cosmic Cubes that now partially composed Kobik, the villain known as Red Skull.[citation needed] The Red Skull took advantage of the child's affinity and naivety and taught her the ways of his evil organization Hydra. Kobik began to lead a double life, using her omnipresence to be in the company of both S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Red Skull at the same time, while keeping this dual-precense a secret from S.H.I.E.L.D.[citation needed]

Kobik's innocently deranged set of values caused her to rewrite the past of Selvig's life, inserting a life-long loyalty to Hydra into it, believing that turning a person into a Hydra zealot was something positive. Red Skull's discovery of what Kobik had done to Selvig inspired him to put into motion a plan to have Kobik unknowingly rewrite the history of his greatest enemy, the heroic Steve Rogers.[citation needed]

Under the command of the Red Skull, Erik Selvig proposed to S.H.I.E.L.D. the creation of Pleasant Hill, a picture-perfect town inhabited by super-villains whose appearances and memories would be tampered with using Kobik's power to have them forget who they were.[4] The plan was secretly greenlit by S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill, hiding it from the rest of the world, and for some amount of time they began shipping super-villains to the town where the villains were transformed into ordinary, harmless citizens without memories of their pasts.[1]

Kobik sent two villains, transformed into versions of S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill, to prevent the two current superhero Avengers teams (the Avengers and the Avengers Unity Division) from coming to Pleasant Hill.[12] However, both teams discovered that Pleasant Hill existed and arrived anyway, so Kobik captured them upon arriving and turned them into inhabitants of the town.[13]

As a part of the Red Skull's plans, one of the incarcerated and transformed villains, the Fixer, subconsciously created a device that returned him to his true self, and he then proceeded to use it on several other inmates, who, being led by the villain Baron Zemo, unleashed a coordinated assault on the town to wreak havoc in revenge for having their lives tampered with.[14]

Scared by the sudden destruction being sown by the villains, Kobik ran away and took refuge in her favorite bowling alley. Through the machinations of the Red Skull disguised as one of the town's inhabitants, Kobik was found by Steve Rogers, who at the time had been drained of the Super-Soldier Serum that traditionally gave him powers and made him the hero Captain America. Steve attempted to persuade Kobik to her to use her powers to end the villains' assault but was brutally attacked by a criminal.[15] With Rogers on the brink of death as he fought the criminal, Kobik intervened, and attempted to restore Rogers to his prime condition, before he had been drained of super-soldier serum. However, just as Red Skull had planned, due to Kobik's unwittingly deranged values, she also decided to turn Steve into a Hydra loyalist, creating a new version of history in which that was possible due to Steve undergoing Hydra brainwashing since he was a kid. Kobik subsequently replaced the real Steve with the twisted version of himself she had created.[4] the real one became nothing but a memory inside Kobik's mindscape.[16]

Kobik (Earth-616) from Uncanny Avengers Vol 3 8 001

Kobik's original human form

Nearly directly after this, the two Avengers teams Kobik had trapped in Pleasant Hill began to regain their memories of who they were.[17] Kobik appeared and tried to put the heroes back to "sleep" but they avoided her. As the Avengers were escaping Kobik, however, the newly-awakened villains of Pleasant Hill began mercilessly attacking the de-powered heroes. During the carnage, the hero Deadpool came alongside a distressed Kobik, who was watching with horror as the villains assaulted the super heroes. Deadpool empathized with Kobik over on their shared past of being manipulated by other people outside of their control, and convinced Kobik to do right thing by reviving and healing the heroes, returning them to their full powered selves.[12]

After helping the heroes, Kobik disappeared once again, lured to a trap elsewhere in the town by the villain Kraven the Hunter who had set up a "birthday tea party" for her as bait for her childlike personality.[18] After getting Kobik to trust him, Kraven had her walk into a containment device created by the Fixer that trapped her, and Kobik was brought to the rebellion leader Baron Zemo. Luckily, the Avengers managed to arrive and stop Zemo from stripping Kobik of her sentience in an attempt to utilize her in the form of a regular Cosmic Cube.

Upon being freed from the containment device through a blast from the heroes, Kobik erupted in a rage. The reformed hero known as the Winter Soldier tried to take her out with a gun but Kobik instead used her powers to send him sailing through a window and outside of the town. She also teleported both Baron Zemo and Erik Selvig to the other side of the world as punishment for lying to her and trying to use her, and she then disappeared in her rage.[2]

While the heroes rounded up the now-leaderless villains, and sad and confused Kobik teleported herself to the Winter Soldier to apologize for throwing him.[2] The Winter Soldier and Kobik began sticking together, and Kobik brought the Winter Soldier together with the a group of friends who were all reformed villains. Together, they became the newest iteration of the Thunderbolts.[3]

Friends with the Thunderbolts[]

Thunderbolts Vol 3 7 Checchetto Variant Textless

Kobik and the Winter Soldier

After several adventures,[19] Baron Zemo reassembled the Masters of Evil to make Winter Soldier pay for creating his own team named the Thunderbolts and to retrieve Kobik. Kobik was confronted by Zemo and shown a battered Winter Soldier to make her comply with his wishes. Instead, Kobik vanished with Winter Soldier.[20] To save Winter Soldier from being killed by Zemo, Kobik attempted to change his history to make him an agent of Hydra. However, Winter Soldier refused to serve Hydra, forcing Kobik to confront him. The two got into an argument over Kobik's disturbing views on Hydra. After being told off by Winter Soldier, Kobik lost it and threw a tantrum.[21] This caused her powers to go out of control, threatening to destroy all of reality. Fixer prevented this from happening by blasting Kobik with laser beams, but he also unintentionally destroyed Kobik's human form and reverted her back into Cosmic Cube shards.[22] Zemo had his minions gather up Kobik's shards so he could combine them into a Cosmic Cube. Erik Selvig was supposed to put Kobik back together, but this would have required him destroying Kobik's sentience, something Selvig refused to do as he saw Kobik as a daughter. After safeguarding the pieces away from Zemo, Selvig killed himself.[23]

Even though Kobik's physical form was shattered, Kobik herself survived, and sheltered herself in her own mindscape, scared and remorseful after realizing what turning Captain America into Hydra really accomplished. Kobik eventually stumbled upon the real Steve Rogers, who had been trapped inside Kobik's mindscape ever since she replaced him.[24]

Meanwhile in the real world, the fascist Captain America conquered the United States,[8] and used Hydra's resources to hunt down the fragments of Kobik that were scattered all over the world so they could be fused back together.[25] Hydra and Steve Rogers eventually gathered all but one of the fragments, with the final shard being in possession of the Underground, a contingent of American superheroes fighting against Hydra's regime.[24]

When the Underground confronted Captain America, he used the majority of the Cube he possessed to rewrite the world to Hydra's image. The heroes managed to trick Rogers into completing the Cube, allowing the Winter Soldier to reach into Kobik's mindscape, leading to her to bring back to the real world the original Steve Rogers. Kobik also returned, using her powers to return the world to normality. Following the defeat of the fascist Captain America at the hands of the real one, Kobik erased the rewritten version of history she had created that made the twisted version of Steve possible in the first place.[26]

Attributes

Powers

Near-Omnipotence: Kobik was described as a being of near-absolute power. The way she uses her powers has been described as seeking what's pure and good in anything, and giving it life. Her abilities involved changing someone's appearance and reviving the dead.[1]

Omnipresence: Kobik was able to be in the company of both S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Red Skull at the same time.[4]

Weaknesses

Kobik had the mentality of a child, making her susceptible to manipulation and trickery. She also had the misguided view that Hydra was good and would transform certain people into followers of Hydra, always against their will. Furthermore, if she became extremely emotional, her powers could go out of control and threaten everything and everyone around her and even reality itself.

Notes

See Also

Links and References

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Avengers Standoff: Assault On Pleasant Hill Alpha #1
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Avengers Standoff: Assault On Pleasant Hill Omega #1
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Thunderbolts (Vol. 3) #1
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Captain America: Steve Rogers #2
  5. ↑ Thunderbolts #11
  6. ↑ Captain America: Steve Rogers #2–16
  7. ↑ Secret Empire #0
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Secret Empire #1
  9. ↑ Thunderbolts #12
  10. ↑ Secret Empire #9–10
  11. ↑ Captain America: Sam Wilson #2
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 All-New, All-Different Avengers #8
  13. ↑ All-New, All-Different Avengers #7
  14. ↑ Avengers Standoff: Welcome to Pleasant Hill #1
  15. ↑ Captain America: Sam Wilson #7
  16. ↑ Secret Empire #9
  17. ↑ Uncanny Avengers (Vol. 3) #8
  18. ↑ Captain America: Sam Wilson #8
  19. ↑ Thunderbolts (Vol. 3) #2–9
  20. ↑ Thunderbolts (Vol. 3) #10
  21. ↑ Thunderbolts (Vol. 3) #11
  22. ↑ Thunderbolts (Vol. 3) #12
  23. ↑ Captain America: Steve Rogers #16
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Secret Empire #8
  25. ↑ Secret Empire #2
  26. ↑ Secret Empire #10
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