Mercurio the 4-D Man

Mercurio the 4-D Man is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.

Mercurio the 4-D Man
Mercurio battles Captain Marvel in Captain Marvel #51 (Jul. 1977) Art by Al Milgrom and Irv Watanabe.
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	Thor #208 (Feb. 1973)
Created by	Gerry Conway (Writer) John Buscema (Artist)
In-story information
Species	Gramosian
Place of origin	Gramos
Partnerships	Thor
Notable aliases	The Fourth-Dimensional Man, Karl Sarron
Abilities	Enhanced strength and durability Flight Intense heat and cold generation Interplanetary teleportation through his mind

Publication history

Mercurio first appears in Thor #208 (Feb. 1973) and was created by Gerry Conway and John Buscema.^[1]

Later, he comes back in issue #214, where he faces Thor inside the Black Nebula.

Fictional character biography

Mercurio is a native of the planet Gramos, a world threatened with extinction when a gravitational distortion blocks out all sunlight. In a bid to save Gramos, Mercurio was chosen as a government psycho-explorer to project his consciousness across the galaxy to Earth, where he takes control of a wealthy landlord and uses his resources to build a device to siphon off Earth's electro-magnetic field. Mercurio also detects strange energies coming from the offices of Donald Blake, the alter-ego of Thor. Witnessing a transformation from Blake to Thor, Mercurio siphons some of the magical energy in an attempt to transport his body across space to Earth. However, this fails and gives Mercurio the additional ability to generate ice.^[2]

Several weeks after returning to Gramos, Mercurio leads an army to find the God Jewel, a gem containing enough energy to sustain Gramos forever. The God Jewel, however, proves to be sentient and evolves into a humanoid form called Xorr, and is capable of sucking the life energy from any source. Coincidentally, Thor and several allies are also seeking the God Jewel as it has imprisoned two Asgardian goddesses, Sif and Karnilla. With Thor's help, Xorr is defeated, and Mercurio retrieves several fragments of the God Jewel for use on Gramos.^[3]

Some time later, Mercurio was among the extraterrestrial criminals exiled to Earth when it was transformed into a prison planet. In an attempt to escape, he again donned his Karl Sarron alias and lured Captain America to the Statue of Liberty, with the goal of using his shield to power up a machine to teleport off the planet. Sensing a trap, and hoping the device could help remove all the aliens from Earth, Captain America played along until he had an opportunity to foil Mercurio's plans. During the battle, Captain America regained his shield, causing the machine to overload. Mercurio began to overload as well, and though Captain America implored him to release the energies by using his powers, Mercurio neglected to do so, causing his apparent demise in an explosion.^[4]

Years later, Mercurio begins assembling an army with the intention of using it to establish a galaxy-spanning Gramosian empire. Agent Venom (Flash Thompson) foils his attempts to steal resources from the home planets of the P'qui and the Wugin, and to acquire chemical weapons derived from the blood of kidnapped Vvexians.^[5] Mercurio escapes and swears vengeance on Thompson.

Powers and abilities

As a native of the planet Gramos, Mercurio possesses an alien metabolism granting him the ability to generate intense heat, usually in the form of a fireball or wall of flame. As a result of his "accident" and transformation into a half-negative being, Mercurio can emit intense cold from the left side of his body. He is also able to use both abilities simultaneously. Mercurio also possesses enhanced strength and durability as well as flight and the ability to teleport.^[6][7]