| |
Background
Born and raised in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Greg had lived a relatively ordinary
life until the fateful day of a family boating trip on Lake Michigan. A freak
wind storm started up, caused by a miniature black-hole singularity in the sky,
and sucked him in. He was found by his parents soon after unharmed. However,
in the following weeks, he discovered he had gained the ability to manipulate
the Earth's gravity to his will.
Coming to New York to attend New York University, Willis adopted the
identity of Gravity with the hopes of joining the super hero community and
maybe marketing his image. However, his first outing wasn't so great as upon
stumbling into a fight between a villain called Black Death and the New
Warrior's Rage, Gravity took down Rage after mistaking him for a villain.
Later, Gravity would eventually come up against and take down the Rhino and
meet a hero calling himself the Greenwich Guardian. The Guardian took Gravity
under his wing to show him the ropes of being a hero, but Gravity soon learned
that it was harder than he thought to balance a double life.
When the Guardian disappeared for a while, Greg gave up being Gravity
for a bit in order to focus on the budding relationship between him and fellow
student Lauren Singh. Unfortunately, the Guardian returned and led to
Gravity's return in order to help in defeating the Black Death, effectively
running Greg's chances with Lauren. The Guardian had Gravity "borrow" a
graviton trap device from a lab to use against the Black Death, only for
Gravity to learn that the Guardian himself was the Black Death and the device,
combined with Gravity's powers, would create a singularity that could destroy
NYU. Gravity managed to escape the device and stop Black Death.
Continuing on as a hero, he had befriended Spider-Man and gotten an
invitation to the new Avengers' Christmas party at Dr. Strange's Sanctum
Sanctorum. There, he aided the more experienced heroes in defeating an Ultron
robot reprogrammed to think it was Santa Claus and calling itself "Santron".
Gravity's truly shining, albeit unknown, moment came when a madman named
Chronok came from an alternate future and proceeded to decimate the Earth's
superhero population. Teaming up with a group of second stringers, he traveled
into the future with them to stop Chronok before he could set his plan into
motion. Succeeding, the time line was split before the heroes could go back;
leaving them stranded in the alternate future while Earth-616 was spared its
fate where Gravity still patrols the city and everyone is completely unaware of
his role in saving their lives, himself included.
Back in the present, Gravity had finally revealed to Lauren Singh his identity
to allow them to have a chance at a relationship. He also managed to pass his
first semester at NYU. However, all that was short-lived as he and several
other heroes including Spider-Man, Hank Pym, Wasp, the new Venom ([[Mac
Gargan]]), the new
Kraven (Alyosha Kravinoff), Firebird and The Hood were whisked away to the
Beyonder's battle planet
from the Secret Wars, the Beyonder supposedly having returned to conduct his
experiments once again. There, they learn Spidey was truly the Space Phantom
and encounter Deathlok who had been stranded on the planet for some time.
In an act of deception, the Beyonder was revealed to actually be none other
than the Stranger. The heroes fought against him, and a stalemate as well as
fear over the appearance of Uatu the Watcher causes the Stranger to agree to
send them back. As the planet disintegrates around them, Gravity uses his
powers to get his allies to their escape craft and then pushes his powers to
the limit by holding the planet together long enough to allow them to get
away. The strain seemingly kills him, but Uatu hints that a cosmic destiny
awaits the fallen hero.
Gravity returned as Uatu had predicted, reborn as a protector of the universe at
the entity Eon's bidding. Eon was also acting in self preservation, as the
planet like creature was next on Galactus's menu. Along with the Fantastic Four,
Black Panther, Storm and the Silver Surfer, Gravity saved Eon.
Thanks To:
Some of the above information is extracted from the various
versions of the Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe and the more recent
Marvel Encyclopaedias.
The assistance of the
Marvel Chronology Project is gratefully acknowledged.
|
|