Hive (comics)
| Hive (comics) | |
|---|---|
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| Publication information | |
| First appearance | Secret Warriors #2 (May 2009) |
| Created by |
Brian Michael Bendis Alex Maleev |
| In-story information | |
| Team affiliations | Hydra |
Hive is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Hive was an experiment made to physically embody the ideals of Hydra, the fictional terrorist group. The entity is composed of untold numbers of genetically-engineered parasites.
Hive appears in the third season of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. where he is an ancient Inhuman possessing character Grant Ward, portrayed by Brett Dalton, with various abilities.
Publication history
Hive first appeared in Secret Warriors #2 (May 2009) and was created by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev.
Fictional character biography
The Hive was created in the Hydra laboratories in their home base of Gehenna. An unknown and unwitting Hydra agent was offered/fed to these parasites as a host around which they could merge into a singular being. Grotesque and menacing in both stature and appearance the Hive had no identity of its own, per se, as its collective will dominates the human host it engulfs.[1] However, it possesses a quiet and cunning intelligence and as a result of its conditioning is completely dedicated to the Hydra cause to the extent that Baron Strucker appointed it as a figurehead alongside himself, the Viper, Gorgon, Kraken, and the new Madame Hydra in the form of triple agent Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.[2]
When Hydra went to war against a rival organization called Leviathan, Valentina revealed her true allegiance and murdered her predecessor Viper. When Baron Strucker and the other heads discovered her corpse, the Hive shocked and appalled them all by merging with the deceased woman's body—re-animating her, but with the parasites themselves gathering into a bulbous mass atop her head with four prehensile tentacles.[3]
Taking back her title as Madame Hydra, she and Gorgon subsequently broke away from Baron Strucker's weakening grip on Hydra and formed an alliance with the recently-escaped Norman Osborn and his H.A.M.M.E.R. organization.[4] During this brief and fragile union, Osborn arranged for Madame Hydra to undergo surgery to remove the Hive from her in a way that would keep her alive.[5]
Powers and abilities
The Hive's body, while bipedal, is not a solid figure but a writhing congregation of its many parasites. As such, these parasites can actually latch away from the mass and attack others at high speed—making them effective projectile weapons. As one, the Hive is capable of asserting itself as an individual, albeit without name or personality. In this form it is capable of speech—the language; however, is unknown, though spoken also by other Hydra agents—suggesting it is one of their own design, created for strategic secrecy when in the field. The Hive is capable of breathing both on land and underwater.
Hive's strength level is never actually revealed but it is implied that the Hive possesses a greater than average physical strength from the combined efforts of its parasites.The Hive's only weakness is that despite the deadliness of its parasites it still has the physical limitations of its human host; in other words, whilst it can improve upon the host's strength and skills it cannot perform impossibilities such as flight if the host cannot. Also, any ailments afflicting the host prior to absorption will still be present and will affect the Hive—for instance, its original human host possessed a minute blood disorder and was also a diabetic—hence, why the Hydra heads deemed him as fodder for the Hive experiment and would have also made him weak enough to be absorbed. These maladies would have also been present within the Hive afterwards. When the Hive later merged with the Viper, these ailments would no longer be present.
In other media
In Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Hive is the first Inhuman from ancient times who was a Mayan warrior before he was captured by the Kree for experimentation. After undergoing Terrigenesis, Hive's body became composed of cellular parasites able to possess a corpse and absorb the host's memories. Additionally, besides using them as a means to feed, Hive's parasites can infect Inhumans and dominate their will as part of the Kree designating him as leader. But Hive was eventually banished to a planet called Maveth by the other Inhumans, rendering the world barren and devoid of other forms of life. But Hive's remaining followers, deeming him a god and desiring to bring him back to Earth, founded a secret society that would evolve into Hydra.
For centuries, Hive lived off countless people sent to Maveth through a Kree artifact in Hydra's possession before he returned to Earth in the cadaver of Grant Ward (Brett Dalton) after he was killed by Phil Coulson. Later arranging a meeting with Hydra's inner circle, revealing his true tentacled form and later infecting Daisy Johnson, Hive takes over Hydra operations after Gideon Malick's death and reveals his plan to recreate the Kree experiments in order to transform all of humanity into Inhumans.
References
- Secret Warriors #2-6, 12, 15, 16, 20, and 24, Marvel Comics.