Who is molecule man

Now Reece was conflicted--should he tell the Beyonder, or not? On the one hand, they had become friends of a sort, but on the other, the Beyonder's actions were now scaring him. This was new territory, because ever since gaining his new power, he had had no reaosn to be scared of anything.

He was now being driven back to his old territory of self-doubt and fear. Eventually, Mephisto's plan failed of its own accord, and the Molecule Man didn't have to make a decision, but it became more and more clear to him that eventually he was going to have to take a side.

Caving in to his old timid ways, he wanted it to "all just go away. The Beyonder came back to his apartment, however, to talk things over again, just like old times.

The Beyonder was incensed, and let out an energy bolt that caused "multiverse-wide destruction. Having had great personal success with therapy, Reece offered to take on the role of therapist for the Beyonder, who threatened several times to destroy the multiverse, so he could be alone again. Since therapy normally starts by talking about one's childhood, they went back to the Beyonder's earliest stage of development in his Beyond-realm, an empty white universe.

The Beyonder said that he had no memory of his own existence until he became aware of our existence, through a pinhole to our universe. Looking in, they saw that this pinhole showed Reece's original atomic accident--Reece's accident is what made the Beyonder self-aware! Later, the meaning of this event would be retconned, see below.

They then reviewed the Beyonder's existence on our plane, which in retrospect seemed to consist of one failure after another. The Beyonder just more got more and more angry at Reece's relative happiness, and they argued, getting very personal. Reece wanted the Beyonder to act more mortal, like him, while the Beyonder just wanted erase everything. Reece convinced him to wait 24 hours until he did, and the Beyonder left.

The Molecule Man tried to make the most of this time. First he tried to make a force-dome to protect Denver, but the Beyonder found out and effortlessly broke it. Then he tried to collect all the ambient energy in the universe to help him, but it wasn't enough. Finally he decided to make a small dome just for him and Marsha, which he would hide in the Beyond-realm. Volcana, however, was tired of Reece acting out of fear, and wanted him to fight rather than run; if he didn't, she resolved to take action herself.

The Beyonder came back, having decided to spare the universe after all, but Reece didn't give him a chance to explain, and at Volcana's urging attacked him immediately upon entering the apartment. The Beyonder said his blast could have "slagged several billion entire dimensions," but he wasn't hurt. He was now angered once again, but Rosenberg intervened, begging for her own life, no matter what he did to Owen.

Reece was shattered, and collapsed, believing that everything he had depended on had ended. Marsha, however, was just pretending, knowing that the Beyonder's anger stemmed from jealousy, and now that Reece no longer had a better personal life than him, the Beyonder would cool down.

The Beyonder realizing all this , left laughing. Some time later, Marsha returned to their apartment, only to find it completely trashed--even Owen's teddy was torn to shreds! She saw him sitting in a chair, seemingly lifeless, and feared the worst He explained that at first, he was utterly distraught at her leaving, because "for the first time since we met, you couldn't make it all better for me Then he had to "find the strength within [himself] that [he] had when [they] were together," and eventually learned that "two people who aren't okay by themselves aren't any good together.

This completed a period of growth in him, starting when they met, and she was able to take him outside of himself and care for others. Then Dr. Doom erased many of his subconscious blocks and fears, and he became even more self-confident. Finally when Marsha left, he learned to care about himself now matter what, and in so doing was able to cement their relationship in an even more mature way, finally truly overcoming all those bouts of self-doubt and loathing that had been hounding him since he was a child.

The two reconciled and went off to find the Beyonder. Meanwhile, the Beyonder had once again changed his mind, and decided to take Owen's advice after all. He made a machine to make himself truly mortal although still with his powers. He tried it a few times with mixed success, then found a final solution. However, Reece once again dressed in his Molecule Man suit and an army of superheroes arrived before he could go through the machine again. The Beyonder blasted all the heroes including Rachel Summers with the Phoenix away with one shot, leaving only the Molecule Man standing.

The Beyonder was now the one arguing for talking, rather than fighting, and tried to explain his plans, but Owen wouldn't listen. He was no longer meek and merely reacting, he was going to do what he set out to do. The "two mightiest beings in all existence" clashed, and their battle was felt throughout the multiverse.

The battle lasted long enough for the heroes to awaken and they attacked again, but Reece slowly started to lose ground and power. The Beyonder managed to toss him over with the heroes, and shot another enormous volley of power to destroy them all, blasting a groove in the earth's crust miles long.

The Beyonder now got back in his machine to recreate himself as a mortal. However, the heroes were not dead; Reece had saved them, and all other living things in the path of the blast he put them in sub-space , using some of the last dregs of his power, and injuring himself badly in the process. They all returned to the Beyonder's machine, and saw that he was now in the form of a fetus gestating inside. Some of the heroes were still willing to kill it, but others stopped them.

The Molecule Man circumvented their defenses, however, and killed the baby Beyonder with a blast of energy. As he died, his nearly-infinite energy began to escape and would have destroyed everything.

But Reece opened a portal to the Beyond-realm, and let the energy seep harmlessly inside. While no one was happy with the killing of a baby, even Captain America told Reece that he understood it had to be done. Reece cryptically replied to him that the ending was happier than Cap knew.

It turned out that the Beyonder's energy, as it exploded into the empty Beyond-realm, eventually cooled and created a new universe, complete with planets and stars and even evolving intelligent life, completing the Beyonder's original desire to bring about meaning within life. Later on, Volcana watched over Reece as he lay unconscious from all the strain in an Army field hospital. When he woke up, he turned the tent into a balloon and they floated up and away.

Meanwhile, the Beyonder's massive blast had destabilized the entire Earth, and it would fall apart quickly unless something was done. When she found them, Volcana reacted like a mother bear protecting her cub, and attacked her. With no other recourse, the Silver Surfer created gale winds to blow the two towards the Avengers. Volcana was once again protective of her honey-bunny, remembering how they attacked the two of them during Secret Wars I, but Owen stopped her.

He explained that he was already doing everything he could to hold the planet together, and couldn't help any more in his injured condition. He was just going to make a small survival capsule for him and Marsha to live in. However, the Avengers made him realize that if the world was destroyed, everything else he loved--like his favorite TV reruns--would be gone too, so he agreed to help, even though it might burn out all his power.

The Surfer aided him by giving him access to his Power Cosmic , which put Reece in a vulnerable position--the Surfer could theoretically push him too far. Between the two of them, they fixed the problem with the Earth's crust, apparently leaving Owen powerless and in his old form, with no scars on his face.

He then explained that he also returned all the living things from sub-space. The Avengers thanked him for his help, but also felt better knowing that he had lost his power. However, once the Surfer flew them back to their apartment, Owen changed his face back to its scarred form, and explained that he hadn't lost his powers after all. In fact, he had also been able to fix all the damage the Beyonder had caused over the past weeks, plus he fixed their apartment.

The Surfer had been so generous with his powers that it had all been much easier than he had thought. The Surfer was impressed that Owen had left himself open to him, which was an act of courage, so he felt that Reece must be innately good after all, and thus did not tell the Avengers that Reese still had his powers. And so this storyline ended with Reece retaining his powers and his love, while getting respect from the Avengers and the Surfer for his heroic acts and character.

Doom ambushed him and tried to kill him, leaving him in a coma in an alley. Doom had a plan to usurp the Beyonder's power, and knew that Reece would interfere unless he was taken out of the picture.

He was taken to the hospital and later took a taxi back with Marsha. It seems that his power saved him automatically. Meanwhile, Doom traveled to the Beyond-realm with the Fantastic Four. There he confronted the Beyonder who was now something akin to a sentient god to his newly-evolved universe, somewhat different from what happened at the end of Secret Wars II and tried to get him to return some of his memories that had been lost in a time-travel incident.

The Beyonder was going to give him the memories back when Kubik and the Shaper of Worlds both sentient Cosmic Cubes showed up. They battled the Beyonder, who was surprised to find that he could not defeat them. Then the Molecule Man and Volcana appeared. After more fighting and arguing amongst them all, the Shaper and Kubik finally explained that the Molecule Man and the Beyonder got their powers from the energy of a Cosmic Cube, just like they themselves did.

The Molecule Man's original atomic accident sparked the influx of Cosmic Cube energy from the realm of the Beyonder s not related to the Beyonder, see their entry for a detailed explanation of the difference. Some of the energy from the accident went into Reece, and some went into the Beyond-ream and became the Beyonder. Because of this, the power of the Molecule Man and the Beyonder together was only equal to the power of either the Shaper or Kubik on their own. Reece and the Beyonder were both still powerful, but nowhere near as powerful as before Reece says here, after the revelation about their origin as Cosmic Cubes, that on his own he is "not quite up there with Eternity or the Tribunal".

Kubik was actually able to hold the entire Beyond-realm in his hand. The Beyonder's continual need to understand desire was really just the same as a Cosmic Cube's desire to fulfill the wishes of the person who controlled it. In another sense, the Beyonder's singular evolution from pure energy to a sentient being mimicked the Beyonders' plural desire to experiment with evolution throughout our universe. It is unclear whether Reece knew all this in advance, or whether he learned it only after trying to figure out Doom's plan, or whether he learned it all at the same time as the Beyonder.

Based on the conversation, it seems that he somehow knew at least some of it ahead of time, and certainly adapted to this new truth much more easily than the Beyonder, who didn't like to have to reconceive his understanding of himself as the most powerful being in existence.

Doom somehow knew all of it, and if he had gotten his memories back from the Beyonder he could have used it to control the Beyonder's power. Ultimately, Reece and the Beyonder were convinced to merge together and form a new, unified Cosmic Cube, leaving a tearful Marsha behind without her Owie. It later transpired that Owen had left a small portion of his power with Marsha, to help protect her and perhaps to act as a remembrance.

She wasn't aware she had this power, but it eventually arose in response to her needs during a battle, and allowed her to take on new volcanically-themed forms, including a rock form and an ash cloud form. Kubik took Kosmos under his wing and began educating her about the universe. They fell in love of a sort, and she no longer bothered with the troubles of Earth for a time.

Later on, the A. M sent in their agent, Klaw , to capture her in the hopes of exploiting her. Volcana, however, had other things to deal with--when she arrived home, she found a bedraggled Owen in the apartment. He had been there for three weeks, but hadn't contacted her. He now felt somewhat estranged from her, saying he didn't want to intrude on her new life. He no longer had his powers, and seemed to feel that without them, he didn't deserve her. This was a very different approach to their relationship from the previous stories, especially considering how the climax of his story in Secret Wars II was precisely that he learned to understand how they could live as mutually-respecting equals.

Klaw attacked, and knocked Owen out temporarily, leaving Volcana to fight on her own, using her new powers. She did well, but Klaw was too powerful. Then, suddenly, the power that Owen had left with her transferred back to him. He now wore a variant on his old costume as well. He used his new power to fight Klaw. However, there was now tension between him and Marsha. He explained that she had just unconsciously wished the power back to him.

She felt that he was being secretive and distant, both because he hadn't contacted her when he returned understandable , but also because he hadn't told her about the power until he regained it from her. This last bit is somewhat confusing, because he never had a chance to do so--they only just met when Klaw attacked, and then he was unconscious pretty much until he regained the power.

However, Reese then goes on to explain that he did seem to do this somewhat on purpose, because he felt unworthy of her, and because it was only with the power that he could provide for her. Again, this is in the face of everything he learned in Secret Wars II. However, as can be seen later, it may be a portent of the "evil" side of his personality coming through. At the end, Marsha left him, feeling that what they had together was now gone for good--a fairly dramatic reversal. Reece, however, was still dedicated to proving his love for her.

After this, he lost all the peace of mind he had developed and once again became a sad, pathetic man. This led to a few situations in which he began to travel down his previous path. There were significant alterations in the way he was visually portrayed at time as well. During his early appearances, Reece was often drawn as a scrawny man with an obviously ugly or nerdy face.

During Secret Wars I , this portrayal changed to a fairly typical, non-muscled man. In Secret Wars II , he was drawn as a fairly svelte, good-looking man with nice clothes. In other words, as he gained in his heroism, he became better looking. However, after he began to slide back to being evil, or at best misguided, he was drawn more and more often as a short, scrawny, large-nosed nerd again.

His taste in costumes became more and more fantastic, a lavish overcompensation for his diminished self-image. He built an enormous and grandiose shrine to Marsha in the Rockies. His ability to do anything with even a degree of competency also decreased dramatically. For instance, since he was temporarily unable to control organic molecules again, he was able to be controlled by the Puppet Master and used as a tool against the Aron, the rogue Watcher.

He battled Aron while under the Puppet Master's control, and Aron defeated him by placing him in a vacuum bubble, in which Reece could not get ahold of any molecules to control; he passed out from lack of oxygen.

However, Dr. Doom showed up and stole Aron's power. Reece woke up, free of the Puppet Master's control and unsure of what was going on. He decided to simply fly away. Reese continued to practice with his power, and could now control organic molecules again.

Eventually, his dark side, which now functioned as an independent personality, took over completely due to his despondancy over Marsha; this was signified by a change to being bald and wearing a grandiose costume.

Previously, he had been protrayed as a weak man who eventually learned to be good. Now, his evil side the "Molecule Man" side, as opposed to the "Owen Reece" personality was almost a second spirit living in his body, waiting to get control.

Living for revenge for his past humiliations, he pulled the Beyonder's personality out of Kosmos and they battled. It turned out that he now far surpassed his previous power levels through practice, and was now more powerful than the Beyonder. Much about this was confusing, because of anything had ever been constant in their relationship, the Beyonder was always said to have the majority of the power between them.

Also, Reece had been far weaker just a few appearances before. Also, his power was theoretically only what he took back from Marsha, which was just a small portion of his old power. The Beyonder in this issue also seems unaware of the Cosmic Cube retcon, as he seems to believe he is still the most powerful being in the universe. It must be surmised that his power was through his human potential, as described by the Watcher earlier on, and that he never lost that potential, and that the power from Volcana just jumpstarted his potential again.

This battle was enormous, and Reece was winning. It affected distant galaxies, time periods, and dimensions, showing that even though they no longer had the degree of power they had during Secret War II, they were still extremely powerful. Eventually Kubik, who had fallen in love with Kosmos, intervened and was able to coax the good side of Reece to once again take over, saving Kosmos.

Kubik explained that Reece was more deeply tied into his existence, since he would still live even if he lost his power, while they would be nothing without their power. This meant that "though our power is theoretically equal, your [Reese's] potential dwarfs our own.

Reece parted with them on good terms, wishing Kubik and Kosmos well in their future "life" together. He was lonely and sad, but seemed somewhat buoyed by his discussion with Kubik, and was perhaps heading in the right direction. However, in his next appearances, the dark side took over again. He appeared at the all-super-villain wedding of the Absorbing Man and Titania , where he was portrayed as a nose-picking geek. She tried being friends but he rejected her as she had rejected him.

Soon after he kidnapped Doc Samson , who he thought was chasing him Samson was actually looking for Bruce Banner. Reece was once again bald. Once he ascertained that Samson was after Banner, and was a therapist, he started asking him questions about how he could get over Marsha.

She-Hulk soon broke in, and Reece mistook her silhouette for Marsha's. When he did so, his evil side disappeared, and he physically changed from the taller, bald man with a chiseled face to a short, dweebish man with hair. Surprisingly, She-Hulk said she knew the Molecule Man, and this wasn't him, indicating that perhaps neither the bald form nor the dweebish form seen here were the real faces of Owen Reece.

The evil side came out again, however, and was going to attack, when once more Owen's nice side took over after looking at She-Hulk. He returned to his short nerdy form. After talking with Samson and Walters briefly and misunderstanding everything they said, with a quite different level of comprehension than the philosophical Reece of Secret Wars II , he seemed to feel better, telling Samson that he might call on him again for his therapy services, and telling She-Hulk that he now knew that he had to win Marsha back to be happy again.

He then left, and fixed a number of world-wide problems caused by a terrorist organization, presumably as a gesture of good will. He also added a new face to Mt. Rushmore--Marsha Rosenberg's! A short time later, Onslaught perverted some of Franklin Richards' dream forms to make it seem like many of the Fantastic Four's old foes were attacking the Baxter Building. The Molecule Man was one of these many illusory forms. The illusions were dissipated by one of Reed Richards' inventions. After this, he did not make any appearances for a long time.

For some reason, however, he was apparently incarcerated on the Raft at some point. They were apparently able to effectively incarcerate him by taking advantage of his unstable mental state. He escaped during the mass break out of many other villains, and eventually ended up in the town of Dinosaur, Colorado. Many people from the town of Dinosaur mysteriously went missing. After a politician's daughter disappeared, Norman Osborn and his Dark Avengers were called in to investigate.

Sentry scouted the area and didn't find anything. He landed and saw someone walking towards him and began to ask him a question.

However, he immediately began to turn into pure energy, and eventually exploded in a huge blast. The person--Reece--stood there and watched. The other Dark Avengers immediately scambled to the town. When they arrived, Osborn suddenly found himself transported to another hell-like dimension, where the Molecule Man sat on a pile of bones, surrounded by the Beyonder, Enchantress, Mephisto, and Zarathos. It should be noted that Reece is physically portrayed here in a manner closer to Secret Wars II, being taller and with a normal, semi-handsome face, rather than having a beaked nose, etc.

His Molecule Man costume was also in his classic design, rather than being outfitted with extravagant armor and helmets, like in some other recent appearances. Reece introduced himself to Osborn, explaining his situation and powers: he said, "I have the ability to break the rules of physical science. I control the very molecules of the world. Well, the ones around me.

It also turned out that the Beyonder, Enchantress, Mephisto, and Zarathos were only illusions, created to provide Reece with conversation. Reece told Osborn he only wants to be left alone; apparently he grew up in Dinosaur. But Osborn won't do it, so the Molecule Man started to torment him telepathically, making him relive past situations and digging up fears about the present.

Simultaneously, he went around and tormented each of the Dark Avengers. The Sentry picked himself up in a basketball court. He was in pain. Reece seemed particularly interested in him, partly because of his similar mental state--he said, "We could have been friends"--but also because Reynolds seems to be made of something different than everything else.

Reece ended up in the town of Citrusville where the Ben Grimm and Ted Sallis attempted to stop his rampage. The Molecule Man reverted them back to their monstrous forms and tried to pit them against each other. During the battle the Thing tossed a clump of the Man-Thing's muck at the Molecule Man, knocking his wand out of hand. It was too far out of his reach and before Owen could recover the wand, he aged so rapidly his body crumbled to dust. With the wand apparently powerless the Thing gave it to a young boy named Sanford as a souvenir.

The Molecule Man was not dead as his mind remained inside the wand, although it was dormant for many months. During this time, the boy played with his friends in the swamps near Citrusville, pretending to be superheroes and villains.

During their games, Sanford's friend Cynthia McClellan knocked it into the swamp. Going to retrieve it, Cynthia was chased by a alligator and ran into a pit of quicksand and seemingly drowned.

However due to the radioactive properties of that particular area, Owen's mind was awoken from within the wand and used his powers to take control of Cynthia's body, saving her life and transforming her into Molecule Person. Trying to reshape her body into a muscular male form, Owen found that Cynthia's mind resisted the change preventing him from changing genders while in her body. Struggling with her mind, Reece attacked the home where Cynthia and her mother lived.

When the Iron Man happened to encounter her, a battle between the two began. Later, the Molecule Man resurfaced as Iron Man was assisting in the reconstruction of Omegaville and attacked.

During the fight the wand was knocked out of Cynthia's hand freeing her from his control. A nearby snake happened to touch the wand, allowing the Molecule Man to take possession of its body and transmute it into a humanoid form and resumed his attack. Iron Man tore the wand from the creature's hand and fought against his own possession long enough to hand the wand off to the passing Man-Thing.

Since the Man-Thing did not possess a mind the Molecule Man could not take control of its body and he was helpless as the Man-Thing wandered off into the swamps. Shortly thereafter, the super-villain known as the Klaw materialized in the Nexus of All Realities after his battle with the hero Ka-Zar. He appeared just moments after the Man-Thing discarded the Molecule Man's wand.

Recovering, Klaw was immune to possession by Reece due to his inorganic form and agreed to help Reece obtain a permanent body. This body was fond in New York city when the pair happened upon a punch-drunk boxer and forced him to handle the wand allowing the Molecule Man to take control of him.

However the tide of battle began to change when the Impossible Man recovered from their previous attack and fought back. When the Molecule Man attempted to enter the Psi-Amplifier, Reed Richards had enough time to pull the power cable and the feedback caused Reece to retreat back into his wand freeing the boxer from his control.

In the aftermath of the battle Reed Richards foolishly picked up the wand, laving himself totally open for the Molecule Man to take over his body. When Reed was knocked out in the fight this allowed the Molecule Man take full control and he attempted to unleash the full force of his powers to destroy his enemies.

However this plan backfired as his powers could not affect their costumes which was constructed out of Unstable Molecules , causing sufficient feedback to shunt the Molecule Man's consciousness back into the wand and it dropped into a smoke stack where it was seemingly destroyed. However it survived and later when the smoke stack was cleared the ashes were dumped in a landfill in upstate New York. Months later a drunken homeless man accidentally came into contact with the wand during an encounter with the Micronaut known as Biotron.

Although he was distracted by the fact that he was in possession of the body of an African-American, the Molecule Man sought to capture Biotron and examine him. Their battle took them to a nearby river where Biotron managed to down some power lines. The resulting electrical shock separated the wand from the Molecule Man's most recent host body and was swept down river.

Sometime after this the wand was found by the Silver Surfer , but when the Molecule Man attempted to possess him, the Surfer's silver skin protected him and he discarded the wand. By this point, Owen decided to try and form a new body through the wand and was surprised when it worked to create him a new body.

Restored to human form, the Molecule Man now had the same limitations he had before -- he could not affect organic matter. Intrigued by the Surfer the Molecule Man heard the space-faring hero's origin and was inspired by the tale of Galactus that Owen decided to consume the Earth.

Creating a Galactus inspired costume, Owen easily overpowered the Surfer and then went to the outskirts of Netoon, New Jersey and constructed a massive fortress to carry out this task. The Surfer then attempted to contact the Fantastic Four with his surfboard. However when they were not home, the board was found by the Avengers who then freed the Surfer and went after the Molecule Man.

With a barrier blocking their way, Earth's Mightiest Heroes smashed a hole large enough for their new member Tigra to slip through. She confronted the Molecule Man first, and finding that he was an emotionally stunted and insecure man, she promised to get to know him before deciding if she liked him or not. However this did not prevent the Molecule Man from striking back at the other Avengers when they arrived.

He destroyed Captain America 's shield , Thor 's hammer , Iron Man's armor , and the Silver Surfer's board before placing them in a crusher device and seemingly slaying them. The Avengers secretly survived thanks to the Surfer's Power Cosmic, but they were underpowered without Iron Man's armor and a mystical enchantment that forced Thor to revert to his civilian identity of Donald Blake once away from his hammer for more than a minute.

Thinking her fellow Avengers were dead, Tigra attempted to murder the Molecule Man in his sleep but could not bring herself to do it. Despite the fact that they mostly lacked super-powers, the Avengers managed to attack the Molecule Man who fled in fear after being hit by Blake. Ultimately, Captain America incapacitated their foe.

As the heroes debated on what to do with him, Tigra managed to convince Owen to get help instead of taking out his anger on the world, and instead use his powers to help people. These words got through the Reece who agreed and used his powers to restore everything to the best of his abilities and surrendered to the authorities promising to go see a therapist to help him with his troubled life. Owen soon found himself pulled back into the life of a super-villain when he was one of the many villains gathered by the Beyonder to battle a group of heroes in a conflict that later became known as the Secret Wars.

He soon found himself aboard a ship along with Galactus, Latverian monarch Dr. They witnessed as the Beyonder wiped out an entire galaxy and created a patchwork world dubbed Battleworld. They were suddenly attacked by Ultron who sought to destroy all living beings on their ship, but Dr.

Doom convinced Owen to use his powers to lift Ultron up to Galactus, who drained the robot's energies making it inert. The Beyonder then spoke, telling the gathered superhumans to slay their enemies and they will be given what they desire most. Galactus and Dr. Doom attempted to confront the Beyonder directly and were rebuffed while the others were transported planetside. The villains soon found a headquarters and were reunited with Doom who suggested that they don't follow the Beyonder's decree and instead find a way to steal his power.

When they refused, Doom attacked them and fled. Owen joined the other villains in hunting down Doom and found him and the gathered heroes meeting together and attacked. Doom escaped in the battle, and Owen and most of the others were forced to flee the battle when the heroes incapacitated and captured the Enchantress, Kang and the Wrecking Crew.

When they returned to their base they found Doom waiting there with a body guard -- the reprogrammed Ultron and they were all forced to ally themselves with him and follow his scheme. Doom discovered that the city of Denver , Colorado was also part of Battleworld and selected two women Mary "Skeeter" MacPherran and Marsha Rosenberg to endow with superhuman powers to bolster their ranks.

MacPharran became the powerhouse known as Titania, and Rosenberg the plasma channeling Volcana. Volcana was instantly attracted to Owen and the found themselves forming a fast relationship. Recognizing the Molecule Man's great power, Doom made him his right-hand man and launched a counterattack on the gathered heroes at their headquarters freeing their captured comrades and forcing the heroes to flee.

Similarly when Thor reappeared with the Enchantress, Owen and the others attacked and the thunder god was seemingly slain by Ultron. However the heroes survived these attacks and regrouped at a nearby village near where Galactus was standing atop a mountain. When Galactus summoned his massive worldship Taa II to Battleworld to consume the planet, Doom sought to find a means of using the technology aboard the ship to defeat the Beyonder.

Meanwhile Owen's relationship with Marsha began to blossom and when the Wrecking Crew attempted to bully the couple, Owen stood up for himself his display of powers frightening the power-houses and convincing them to respect Reece.

Doom managed to board Taa II, he ordered his minions to create a series of volcanic eruptions to distract Galactus so Doom could continue to search the ship unnoticed. The Molecule Man joined Dr. Octopus, the Absorbing Man, and Titania on this mission. After they completed plugging up a volcano they were confronted by the X-Men, and during the fight Owen was savagely wounded by the X-Man known as Wolverine and they fled the scene.

They were once again attacked by the X-Men but this time they forced the mutants to retreat and when they returned to base, Owen was rushed to the medical lab to be healed. This prompted the other heroes to come to her rescue. The villains were quashed in battle and the injured Molecule Man and his colleagues were captured and imprisoned at the heroes base. Doom managed to first absorb the power of Galactus when he was forced to consume Taa II, [23] He then attacked the Beyonder head on and stole the majority of his powers.

Doom then attacked the heroes base and in the ensuing chaos, the villains broke free and escaped. The Molecule Man swatted the heroes away and then confronted Doom directly. However now that he had gained the power of the Beyonder, Doom used his powers to remove the mental blocks that Owen placed on himself for years, allowing him to finally control all molecules. At Volcana's suggestion the villains regrouped at her Denver apartment to consider their next move.

Deciding to return to Earth, Owen used his powers to erect an air tight dome around Denver and pull it into space. Owen stopped an attempted mutiny led by Dr. Octopus and then prevented the Enchantress from sacrificing Volcana to complete a teleportation spell, sending her back to Battleworld. While the villains escaped back to Earth, the heroes on Battleworld managed to defeat Doom. The Beyonder took back his stolen power and then returned them home as well.

Back on Earth, Owen and Marsha decided to retire from being supervillains and moved in together in Marsha's Denver apartment. There they lived in relative anonymity and for many months until the Beyonder came to Earth seeking to understand the nature of human desire. Drawn to Owen, the Beyonder appeared to him in his apartment. Owen suggested that the Beyonder go out and seek out experience as that will teach him the meaning of desire, but suggested that he take on a new form than the composite form of the various heroes and villains he encountered on Battleworld.

This tampering was detected by the Molecule Man, who was himself immune, and he used his powers to prevent Marsha from being tampered with. Eventually the Beyonder found ruling the entire Earth unfulfilling and released it from his control. I didn't realize it really was as simple as Tigra yelling at him and then his personality changed for good. Oh well, it made for an interesting character study in a nebbish guy with ultimate power, so I'm willing to go with it.

Okays, folks, I am sure that you all have other examples for this feature, so feel free to send them to me at brianc cbr. Prev 1 2.