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History

Milos Masaryk was a Soviet intelligence agent assigned to security duty at the private laboratory of inventor Anton Vanko. Vanko was engaged in the development of advanced technological weaponry and armament. His first completed project was a full body suit of armor which he himself would later wear as the Soviet operative code-named the Crimson Dynamo. His second finished project was a helmet and harness into which offensive radiation-beam weaponry called a "power horn" was integrated. Vanko offered this invention to Masaryk, and with government approval, began to instruct the Soviet agent on its use.[1]

Some time after Professor Vanko defected to America,[3] the Soviet government dispatched Masaryk to avenge the disgrace caused by the inventor. Masaryk was given a special, heavily insulated costume and code-named the Unicorn because of the head-mounted discharge cone of the weapons system he wore. The Unicorn confronted Iron Man, the person instrumental in getting Vanko to defect, and coerced him into accompanying him back to the Soviet Union where the secrets of Iron Man's armor could be unlocked. Iron Man escaped, however, and permitted the enemy agent to go free.[1]

He was among the many costumed menaces assembled by Doctor Doom to disrupt the wedding of Reed Richards and Susan Storm.[4]

The Unicorn then entered a short-lived alliance with Count Nefaria in hopes of acquiring some funds for his subversive activities.[5] Their scheme, however, was thwarted by the X-Men.[6] Returning to his native Czechoslovakia, Masaryk voluntarily underwent a special treatment by the experimental "hyper-activator" device designed by the government to augment physical strength.[7]

Masaryk's several month delay in reporting back to his superiors had raised suspicions as to his loyalty, and so he was forced to undergo weeks of brainwashing before serving as a test subject for the hyper-activator device. The treatments not only endowed him with superhuman strength, but it also undid the effects of his brainwashing. Thus, as soon as the treatments were finished, Masaryk turned on the scientists who had empowered him and destroyed their machine so they could not create any more such as him. Donning a redesigned version of his power-horn weaponry he fled, hoping to find a means to cure himself of an unfortunate side-effect of the treatment, accelerated cellular deterioration. Returning to America, the Unicorn first tried to coerce the Congress of the United States into giving him funds to finance the investigation of the causes of his advanced aging. Iron Man managed to thwart this plan, but the Unicorn once again eluded capture. The Unicorn then sought the help of the renegade Soviet scientist, the Red Ghost.[8]

The Red Ghost attempted to use the Unicorn as a mere henchman, but the Unicorn ultimately managed to overpower him. When the Ghost proved incapable of curing his ailment, the Unicorn left him and sought the Mandarin. The Mandarin turned the Unicorn into his "body-slave" and used him in one of his many attacks on Iron Man. Through a mind transference device he had devised, the Mandarin was even trapped in the Unicorn's body for a short time.[9]

Unicorn from Captain America Vol 1 619

Unicorn was then anonymously contacted by the Titanium Man, who promised to find a cure for him if he defeated Iron Man. The disease having begun to affect his brain, the Unicorn readily agreed, referring to his patron as "The Other." For the first time Iron Man managed to apprehend his longtime foe. Iron Man placed the Unicorn in a cryogenic cylinder and gave him a chemical bath designed to arrest his cellular deterioration. By the time the Unicorn was accidentally freed months later, the treatment was apparently successful. However, the disease had damaged the Unicorn's mind enough so that he was now insane. After yet another battle with Iron Man, the Unicorn, deprived of his rocket belt, escaped. He was last seen heading out to sea, hoping to rendezvous with the Titanium Man, who, unknown to him, had been deported to the Soviet Union months before.[10]

The Unicorn eventually popped up again in a Siberian prison. Inside the prison he was used as a combatant in illegal fights run by the inmates. In a fight with "Bucky" Barnes, he was tricked into blowing up a large part of the prison by igniting the sewer system with his eye-beam. Bucky escaped, apparently leaving Unicorn behind.[11]

Unicorn later returned to the United States and was one of the many villains of Iron Man gathered by Spymaster in his plan to assault the Stark Tower after the Avengers left the Earth to battle the Builders.[12]

Once in the Stark Tower, Spymaster used teleporter discs to teleport some Iron Man Armors to his buyers, but he escaped and left Unicorn and the rest of his accomplices to be discovered by the heroes which were using the tower as a base. They managed to defeat the heroes, and they were offered to be taken to Spymaster by Titanium Man. When they arrived to a spaceship where Spymaster was, they were ambushed by him and Titanium Man, who revealed himself as Captain Atlas of the Kree, the buyer.[13] They managed to escape custody and started fighting Spymaster, Titanium Man and the army of Iron Men, controlled by the first. The actual Iron Man arrived to the spaceship, after having tracked down the armors, and helped Unicorn and his allies defeat the enemies. After winning, Blizzard froze himself along with Iron Man in order to let his friends escape.[14]

When the hyper-intelligent cyborg Korvac set out to become God, he manipulated Tony Stark into giving him funding, disguising his plans as a lightning harvesting project. In order to prevent Iron Man's potential interference in his future goal, Korvac enlisted Unicorn to serve as one of his three disciples along with the Controller and Blizzard.[15] Unicorn pledged his loyalty to Korvac, and started referring to him as "The Other." When stealing a Gutenberg Bible from the New York Public Library on behalf of Korvac, Unicorn was defeated and apprehended by Iron Man and his new crime-fighting partner, Hellcat.[16] Unicorn was subsequently hospitalized, but he managed to escape.[17] Masaryk reunited with Korvac at the Tielhard Lightning Site I, where his master later set a trap for Iron Man and Hellcat, pitting them against his disciples, and leaving them for dead after electrocuting them himself.[15] Iron Man and his allies then raced Korvac and his acolytes to Taa II, the worldship of Galactus, where Korvac intended to reabsorb the Power Cosmic.[18] Once inside Taa II, the two factions came into conflict, and Unicorn was defeated alongside the rest of Korvac's acolytes.[19] Korvac managed to tap into the Power Cosmic, but was later defeated by Iron Man.[20]

Unicorn was then seen participating at the audition for Count Nefaria's Lethal Legion and was eventually accepted into it.[21] His first mission was to defeat some members of the New Mutants in Nefaria's mansion.[22]

Attributes

Power Grid[24]
:Category:Power Grid/Fighting Skills/Experienced Fighter:Category:Power Grid/Energy Projection/Single Type: Medium Range:Category:Power Grid/Durability/Enhanced:Category:Power Grid/Speed/Superhuman:Category:Power Grid/Strength/Superhuman (800 lbs-25 ton):Category:Power Grid/Intelligence/Slow or Impaired

Powers

Superhuman Strength: The Unicorn is superhumanly strong and can lift about 15 tons at his peak.

Superhuman Stamina: The Unicorn's advanced musculature produces less fatigue toxins during physical activity than the musculature of an ordinary human. He can physically exert himself at peak capacity for several hours before the build up of fatigue toxins in his blood begins to impair him.

Superhuman Durability: The soft tissues of the Unicorn's body are dozens of times harder than those of an ordinary human, making him highly resistant to physical injury. His body can repel .50 caliber machine gun fire, withstand open flame to 900 degrees Fahrenheit, and resist Iron Man's repulsor rays at maximum blast at a distance of 20 feet without sustaining injury.

Superhuman Senses: His senses have been sharpened to superhuman levels.[23]

Accelerated Healing Factor: The Unicorn can recover from injuries at an accelerated rate.[23]

Superhuman Speed: The Unicorn is lightning swift.[23]

Power Beam: Unicorn seems to have recently internalized his power beam. It now manifests as powerful blasts, which come from a large third eye in the center of his forehead.

Abilities

As a former Soviet intelligence agent, the Unicorn has been trained in hand-to-hand combat, is proficient with numerous types of weaponry, and is skilled in the arts of espionage.

Paraphernalia

Equipment

  • Power Horn:(formerly) The Unicorn wears headgear equipped with an energy projector that tunes to various frequency and power levels including infrared and ultraviolet lasers, microwaves, laser-path guided electron and neutron beams. The power supply is a flat array of nuclear powered thermoelectric cells in Unicorn's belt which turn out about 1.2 kilowatts.
    • Force Blasts - The e-beam and n-beam have tremendous concussive power (on the order of 50 pounds of TNT at effective ranges of 75 feet).
    • Magnetic Levitation - The Unicorn can magnetically raise objects.
    • Force Field - The Unicorn can generate a protective force field.
    • Thermal Beam - The Unicorn can project a beam of infrared radiation.
  • Rocket Belt: The Unicorn also wears a rocket belt equipped with twin, high-efficiency electric micro turbines which use a small supply of very volatile fuel that enables the wearer to cruise at 180 miles per hour (or with its maximum take-off weight of 450 pounds: 75 miles per hour) to an altitude of about 3,000 feet for a maximum of 200 minutes. The dense osmium gyroscopes located in the rear of the belt provide some stability and allow navigation through computer-aided terrain-following mini-radar.

Trivia

  • The Unicorn had been suffering from a degenerative cellular condition that had seriously affected his mind. In his last confirmed appearance he was seen attempting to walk to the Soviet Union from New York and was assumed to have drowned.
  • As a Czechoslovakian, his birth name would presumably have been Miloš (pronounced Me-losh), and his surname appears to be that of the first President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk.

See Also

Links and References

References

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