Nebula (Earth-199999)

Nebula
Name	Nebula
Aliases	Nicknames: Nebs
Affiliation and Relationships
Affiliation	Knowhere Formerly Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers, ally of Doctor Strange, Thanos, Ronan, Black Order
Relatives	Parents: Thanos (adoptive father, deceased) Siblings: Corvus Glaive (adoptive brother, deceased) Cull Obsidian (adoptive brother, deceased) Ebony Maw (adoptive brother, deceased) Gamora (adoptive sister, deceased) Proxima Midnight (adoptive sister, deceased)
Marital Status	Single
Physical Characteristics
Gender	Female
Eyes	Irises: Black
Hair	Bald
Skin	Blue
Unusual Features	Cybernetics
Origin and Living Status
Origin	Luphomoid Cyborg
Living Status	Alive
Reality	Earth-199999
Personal Information
Identity	No Dual
Occupation	Community leader Formerly Mercenary, adventurer, assassin
Base of Operations	Knowhere Formerly Benatar; Avengers Compound, New York; Sanctuary II
Creators and Appearances
Creators	James Gunn, Nicole Perlman
First	Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Prelude #1 (April, 2014)
First	Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Prelude #1 (April, 2014)

 You were the one who wanted to win, and I just wanted a sister! You were all I had... but you were the one who needed to win. Thanos pulled my eye from my head, and my brain from my skull, and my arm from my body... because of you. 

—Nebula

History

Origins

Sparring with Gamora

Nebula is a Luphomoid adopted and raised by the sociopathic Titan warlord Thanos to become a strong warrior and killer as part of his Black Order, and aid him in his plan to kill half of all life in the universe to maintain population control. As part of her training, Thanos forced Nebula to frequently spar in combat with her adoptive sister Gamora, who always bested her. In an attempt to mold Nebula into Gamora's equal, Thanos replaced a piece of her body with machinery in agonizing surgeries every time she failed in combat.

Nebula's cyborg body made her incredibly fast, strong, and durable, but the process to make it that way made her grow up to be cold, bitter, and loathing. A hatred for both her father and sister was seared into her mind for many years, wanting to kill them and erase her feelings of inadequacy.

Working for Ronan

Trying to prove herself

By 2014, Thanos had begun working with Ronan the Accuser, a Kree fanatic bent on destroying the planet Xandar for their war crimes against his people, and so Thanos tasked Nebula and Gamora to do Ronan's every bidding. Ronan had made an arrangement with Thanos that if he acquired a mysterious orb on Morag, Thanos would destroy Xandar for him, and so both sisters were set on getting it first. When the orb fell into the hands of the humorous Ravager Peter Quill, Gamora argued she was more skilled, and so was sent to get it, but was captured by the Nova Corps and imprisoned in the Kyln, along with Quill and the orb.

Nebula and Ronan made their way to the Kyln, but they arrived too late, as Gamora had escaped with Quill and some new allies she made while in prison, having betrayed Thanos and planning to sell the orb to a third party for a hefty bounty on the mining colony Knowhere. Ronan and his forces tracked the group down to Knowhere, and a battle began for the orb, with Nebula and Gamora engaging in an aerial battle that ended with Gamora's ship being destroyed and Quill having to save her from the vacuum of space, while Nebula retrieved the orb and brought it back to Ronan.

Joining Ronan against Thanos

Onboard Ronan's ship, the Dark Aster, Ronan and Nebula discovered the orb contained the destructive Power Stone, one of the six cosmically-powered Infinity Stones, and that Thanos was attempting to collect them all to more quickly accomplish his genocidal goal. Ronan decided to keep the Stone and use it to destroy Xandar himself, and when he revealed he also planned to kill Thanos, the vengeful Nebula gladly joined his side, willing to do anything to get revenge on her father for what he'd done to her body and mind. And so the Dark Aster set out for Xandar, with both Ronan and Nebula prepared to burn it to its core.

Descending on Xandar, the Dark Aster was intercepted by a fleet of Ravagers and Nova Corpsmen, whom Gamora and her allies had formed an alliance with to stop Ronan from destroying Xandar. Furious, Nebula ordered their troops to attack before the ship was boarded by Gamora and Quill, along with their other allies, Drax and Groot.

Nebula battles Gamora

Nebula attempted fighting them all, but was blasted back by Drax's cannon, and once she recovered, went after Gamora alone. The two fought long and hard, Gamora pleading with her sister to join her and her friends in their fight against Ronan, but Nebula ignored her and just fought harder. Eventually she was bested and was left dangling out a hole in the ship, but when Gamora tried to save her, Nebula allowed herself to fall on to a passing Ravager ship, which she then commandeered and fled the planet. Without her support, Gamora and her allies killed Ronan and the Nova Corps secured the Stone, while Nebula found herself on the run from both the law and Thanos' forces for the next few months.

Confronting Gamora

Captive of the Guardians

While on her travels, Nebula made her way to the planet of the Sovereign, where she was captured and held prisoner by them for trying to steal some of their anulax batteries. When Gamora and her crewmates, now a mercenary team known as the Guardians of the Galaxy, were hired by the Sovereign to stop an abilisk from feeding on the batteries, they collected Nebula as payment, intending to turn her over to the Nova Corps for a bounty on her head.

While leaving the Sovereign in the Milano, the Guardians found themselves attacked by Sovereign craft in retaliation of one of their members, the cynical genetically-enhanced raccoon Rocket, stealing their batteries. After a long dogfight that resulted in Nebula nearly getting blown out of the ship into space, the Milano was nearly destroyed, but the Sovereign craft were destroyed just in time by a mysterious man, who allowed them to crash land on a nearby planet. Soon after landing, their savior arrived and introduced himself as Ego, Quill's long lost father, as well as his assistant, the empath Mantis. Ego invited Quill to his planet to learn more about his heritage, and so he left with Gamora and Drax, leaving Nebula the prisoner of Rocket and the second Groot, the offspring of the Groot who had died in the battle on Xandar.

A few hours later, the trio was ambushed by a Ravager clan led by Yondu Udonta, Quill's adoptive father, intent on capturing the Guardians of the Galaxy for the Sovereign. Rocket attempted to fight them off, but he was quickly subdued by the Ravagers. However, when Yondu revealed that they wouldn't be turning in the Guardians and planned to instead take the anulax batteries, the Ravagers turned on him, allowing Nebula to convince Groot to free her from her restraints to help Rocket. Instead, she shot Yondu's cybernetic head fin that controlled his powerful yaka arrow, incapacitating him and convincing the Ravagers she was on their side. Thus, the Ravagers took Rocket, Groot, and Yondu prisoner and gifted Nebula a Ravager ship as thanks for aid in their mutiny.

Patching things up

Nebula, still focused on Gamora, took her ship to Ego's planet to ambush her sister. She entered the atmosphere to find Gamora on the ground and began firing at her, and the two engaged in a chase. When Nebula crashed her ship in a cave, Gamora pulled her out of the wreckage, saving her life, but Nebula still fought back. She found herself unable to kill Gamora, and the two talked over their differences and patched up their rivalry.

Facing Ego

While walking out of the cave, Gamora and Nebula discovered hundreds of skeletons in one of the caverns, and promptly ran to Ego's palace to warn the others. When they arrived, Mantis explained that Ego was a Celestial who had been trying to use the children he'd fathered across the universe to power the expansion of his biomass across the universe and kill everything, with Quill being the first one to hold the power to make this possible.

Standing with the Guardians against Ego

Nebula, Gamora, Drax, and Mantis broke into Ego's throne room to see that Yondu, Rocket, and Groot had arrived in a Ravager mining craft, and were rescuing Quill. When they all got on board, Quill insisted they burrow through to the planet's center, where Ego's Celestial brain was, and destroy it. After a long and intense battle at the core, the Guardians managed to defeat Ego and escape, although Yondu was lost in the fight. For her efforts helping the team, Gamora offered Nebula a place on the team, but Nebula declined the offer, instead taking a pod from the Ravager ship to pursue her vendetta against Thanos.

War with Thanos

Thanos tortures Nebula with the Power Stone

Sometime later, Nebula snuck aboard Thanos' ship, Sanctuary II, to kill him, but he caught her and held her hostage in a torture chamber. In 2018, Thanos ramped up his quest for the Infinity Stones, and forced the Dwarves of Nidavellir to make him a special gauntlet to hold and use all six Stones. During his quest, he read Nebula's memory banks and learned that Gamora had found the Soul Stone years ago but didn't tell him. Once he had three of the Stones, he kidnapped Gamora and watched him torture Nebula further to force her to reveal the Soul Stone's location. She revealed it was on Vormir, and soon after she and Thanos departed for there, Nebula broke free and hijacked a ship to make her way to Titan, contacting Mantis to have the Guardians meet her there.

When Nebula arrived on Titan, she found Thanos had made his way there after collecting the Soul Stone, and the Guardians, sans Rocket and Groot, were battling him with Earth's superheroes, the Avengers. When they managed to restrain Thanos, they learned that he had killed Gamora to get the Soul Stone, and Quill attacked him in rage, ruining the plan and letting Thanos break free. After a grueling battle, Thanos claimed the Time Stone from the Avengers' sorcerer Doctor Strange, and teleported to Earth to claim the Mind Stone and complete the gauntlet.

Soon after, Thanos claimed the final Stone and, with a snap of his fingers, turned half the population of the universe to dust in an event later known as "The Blip", including Quill, Drax, Mantis, and Groot, and most of the Avengers. As such, Nebula and the Avengers' leader, Iron Man, , were left alone on Titan. Nebula and Iron Man took the Guardians' new ship, the Benatar, off of Titan, and spent a month stranded in space before they were rescued by the powerful Captain Marvel. Captain Marvel brought them to Earth, where Iron Man reunited with the rest of the Avengers, and Nebula was reunited with Rocket, the only survivor of the Guardians.

Nebula closes her dead father's eyes

Nebula and Rocket joined the Avengers and helped them track down Thanos on a planet called the Garden, and joined them on a journey there to take him down and force him to reverse the Blip. When they arrived, however, they discovered he had destroyed the Infinity Stones, leading to an enraged Thor Odinson decapitating him. The Avengers returned to Earth, and for the next five years mourned their lost friends and loved ones while trying to keep order in a chaotic world.

Time Heist

The Avengers spent the next five years mourning the fallen and trying to move on until Scott Lang escaped the Quantum Realm and realized that they could time-travel to reclaim the Infinity Stones from the past. After reassembling, the Avengers built a time machine, intent on claiming the Infinity Stones to reverse the snap. Nebula joined War Machine, Black Widow, and Hawkeye in traveling to 2014, where Nebula and Rhodey went to claim the Power Stone while Romanoff and Barton went to collect the Soul Stone. Nebula and Rhodey were successful in getting the Power Stone after knocking out the past Star-Lord, but Nebula's time-traveling caused her to synchronize with her past self, alerting the past Thanos of her actions. The past Thanos abducted Nebula and had her past self impersonate her to infiltrate the Avengers, seeking to claim the Infinity Stones. However, after reasoning with the past Gamora, Nebula broke free and killed her past self. Nebula then fought in the Battle of Earth and eventually joined the Guardians, along with Thor.

Adventures with Thor

After Iron Man's funeral, Nebula officially joined the Guardians, this time with Thor and his friend Korg, and Kraglin as a full time member, and went searching the cosmos for the alternate Gamora. After Thor and Korg left the Guardians, the team bought out Knowhere from the Collector and made it their new base of operations, acquiring a new, much larger spacecraft called the Bowie. They even took on a resident of Knowhere, a stubborn but enthusiastic telekinetic dog named Cosmo, as a member of the team.

Nebula found herself more accepting of the Guardians as her friends, and even formed a friendship with Rocket and even respect for Quill, but still maintaining her aggressive and standoffish attitude. At one point, Rocket gifted her with a nanotech left arm capable of transforming into various weapons and tools. Throughout all of this, she maintained contact with the alternate Gamora, who had joined the Ravagers, forming a mutual respect between the two.

Saving Rocket's life

Examining Rocket in the med bay

Around 2026, Rocket was attacked and mortally wounded by the evolved Sovereign Adam, who Nebula and the Guardians barely managed to fight off and drive away. Rocket was left in critical condition, and by running diagnostics on him, Nebula discovered they were unable to perform life-saving operations on him due to a kill switch implanted on his heart. Rushing his unconscious body to the Bowie's medical bay, Nebula traced his kill switch's development to OrgoCorp, and so the Guardians made their way to their base, the Orgoscope, to try and get the code to disarm it from their archives.

Personality

Nebula is aggressive and bad-tempered, stemming from her harsh upbringing. She holds grudges and does not forgive easily, but her time with the Guardians of the Galaxy and the Avengers made her much more compassionate and empathetic. Her high expectations of her teammates and irritability often brought her into conflict with her peers, but she eventually came to be heroic and noble enough that she became a proper superhero, willing to sacrifice herself for her friends and the less fortunate, and even became a community leader after leaving the Guardians.

Attributes

Powers

Cyborg Luphomoid Physiology: Nebula's body has been systematically torn apart and replaced with machinery. Much of her skeletal structure includes some degree of technology supporting her musculature, and her left arm is entirely robotic. Nebula's voice is also rendered in a synthetic quality.

• Enhanced Strength
• Enhanced Durability: The mechanisms supporting Nebula's limbs and jaw can realign these body parts in the event of severe damage. Multiple internal fractures or dislocations appear to be restored to a fully functional state in a matter of seconds when compromised.
• Nanotech Arm: Nebula's left arm is built from nanotechnology, having been upgraded by Rocket after she officially joined the Guardians of the Galaxy. Primarily just in the shape of a humanoid arm, she can reconfigure it with thought alone, transforming it into various coils, a laser beam emitter, a suction cup, an energy cannon, and more weapons and tools to help on missions.

Abilities

• Master Combatant
• Master Assassin

Paraphernalia

Transportation

• Bowie (Formerly)
• Benatar (Formerly)
• Sanctuary II (Formerly)

Notes

• Karen Gillan portrayed Nebula in Guardians of the Galaxy, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Thor: Love and Thunder, The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
  • Gillan also portrayed a divergent Nebula variant in Avengers: Endgame.
• In an early draft of Guardians, Nebula was going to be killed off, but co-writer and director James Gunn decided not to, realizing the character's potential for future stories.

Trivia

• Nebula once stated that she hated Gamora the least out of all of their siblings, later considering her a friend.
• Nebula's black eyes are replacements implanted by Thanos to torture her. It is unknown what color her original were.

See Also

• 12 appearance(s) of Nebula (Earth-199999)
• 4 appearance(s) in handbook(s) of Nebula (Earth-199999)
• 2 minor appearance(s) of Nebula (Earth-199999)
• 90 image(s) of Nebula (Earth-199999)
• 4 quotation(s) by or about Nebula (Earth-199999)
• 1 victim(s) killed by Nebula (Earth-199999)

Links and References

• Nebula (Earth-199999) on

• Nebula (Earth-199999) on the