Immortus

## Nathaniel Richards

Nathaniel Richards was born in the 30th century of Earth-6311, a reality where humanity never went into the Dark Ages. After centuries of advancement and warfare, peace was brought to the land by a time-traveler from Earth-616 named Nathaniel Richards. Because Richards brought peace to this war-torn future, he became known as the legendary benefactor. The Nathaniel Richards born to this reality is said to be an ancestor of the Benefactor, although other records also indicate that he may also be an ancestor of the Latverian monarch known as Doctor Doom. As an adult, Nathaniel discovered a time machine and having grown bored of his peaceful time, traveled back in time to ancient Egypt on Earth-616. There he set himself up as a Pharaoh Rama-Tut until he was ousted from this position by the Fantastic Four. Rama-Tut tried to flee back to his own era, but he was caught in a time storm and was forced to appear in the modern era of Earth-616. A chance encounter with his possible ancestor Dr. Doom, inspired Nathaniel to abandon his Rama-Tut guise and assume one similar to Doom. In his first attempt, Nathaniel created the identity of the Scarlet Centurion, but abandoned this identity after being defeated by the Avengers. He later took on the guise of Kang the Conqueror for many decades.

After achieving many conquests over various galaxies and time periods, he had become less and less involved in the battles that expanded his empire and, by his 60th year, he had begun to view himself as nothing more than an administrator. Deciding to return to a more simpler time, Kang turned his vast empire over to his lover Ravonna and returned to ancient Egypt, resuming his guise of Rama-Tut. He eventually returned to the modern era and attempted to stop his past self from tampering with the Celestial Madonna, meeting his future self as Immortus in the process and assisting the Avengers in stopping Kang. Future struggles between Kang and Immortus would eventually have an impact on the destiny of Rama-Tut as well as during the so-called Destiny War at the end of time between the Avengers and the Time-Keepers. During this battle they attempted to speed up Kang's destiny to become Immortus in order to eliminate him from the battle. However instead they merely diverged their destinies so that both men now existed autonomously from each other. The branching point of this divergence occurred during Rama-Tut's travels through the time stream. Growing old, Rama-Tut began seeking a way to achieve immortality and began studying the realm of Limbo and learned that it was a timeless place where he could live forever and decided to retire there to learn mastery of time. Breaching the barrier into Limbo, Rama-Tut later reinvented himself as Immortus and began following this destiny. However, the barrier between the time stream and Limbo is not only a point where every moment in time can be seen, but it is also a place where divergences can occur. This is the case with Rama-Tut. While one version of Rama-Tut went on to Limbo to become Immortus, yet another looked into the time stream and saw Immortus' eventual servitude to the Time-Keepers. Furious at the prospect of becoming a slave, Rama-Tut found a new fire for conquest and returned to his empire in the 40th century, and resumed his Kang identity.

### Mastery of Limbo

When in Limbo, Nathaniel discarded his Rama-Tut guise and took on that of Immortus. He soon constructed a fortress and began to study time and tried to master the realm of Limbo, and observing alternate realities and timelines. He was greeted by the so-called Time-Keepers who had selected him to be tutored on their secrets of time and as their apprentice he was given seven millennia to watch over from 3000 BC to 4000 AD. His primary objective was to untangle the temporal disturbances caused by his own self. He was also to shepherd the course of history so that it ended with the Time-Keepers at the end of time. They had also gave him technology that would prevent him from turning into a Phantom, beings who were trapped and transformed by Limbo itself. These Space Phantoms became servants of Immortus himself, who did his bidding whenever direct intervention or misdirection was required in the time stream. Immortus also became a singular being in the time stream, and as such, there are no divergent versions of Immortus that exist, unlike his past incarnations. Another servant of Immortus was the being known as Tempus, although accounts differ as to how Tempus came to be. One account states that Tempus was created by Immortus directly, while another states that Tempus was created by the future version of Immortus and sent back in time to aid his past self.

Immortus also wanted to ensure that his past self followed his proper course of destiny to ensure that at the end of all time it would be Immortus, and not any of his past counterparts that would have mastery of time. His first step in doing so was to create the time storm that prevented his past self, as Rama-Tut, from reaching his native 30th Century which would ensure his meeting with Dr. Doom, and later disturbances that caused Rama-Tut to end up in the 40th century. While the Time-Keepers usually demanded swift elimination of any threats to the timeline, Immortus avoided violence or killing whenever possible and instead chose manipulation and trickery whenever possible to manipulate events in a more desirable direction. The first situation wherein the Time-Keepers' wishes were not followed was when it was determined that the Scarlet Witch was considered a nexus being in at least one reality, her children would become a threat to the timeline. While the Time-Keepers asked Immortus to kill her outright, he decided more subtler means were required.Immortus had stated in one account that he intended to manipulate events in order to take control of the Scarlet Witch and use her probability altering hex powers to manipulate all time that was under his custodianship. To this end he initially attempted to break up the Avengers before she joined the group to this end.

### Early Manipulations

Whatever the motivation was, Immortus sent his agent the Space Phantom to Earth shortly after the formation of the Avengers to try and split the team up, by using his powers to take the shape each of the Avengers, shunting the real hero temporarily to Limbo in order to sow dissent among their ranks. Posing as a supposed alien invader, the Space Phantom nearly succeeded until he attempted to take the shape of the Asgardian thunder god Thor. Thor's body proved to be immune to the Space Phantom's powers, and the Space Phantom was shunted to Limbo instead. Although the Space Phantom failed to break up the team, it caused the hulk to quit the team. Immortus soon began monitoring the early exploits of the Avengers, including their battles with the Masters of Evil and his past self, Kang the Conqueror. Immortus eventually decided that the best way to shepherd the Avengers was to get personally involved. To this end, Immortus mentally contacted the Masters of Evil through their member the Enchantress and offered his "allegiance" to them, agreeing to their leader Baron Zemo's orders to destroy the Avengers. Immortus did so by kidnapping both Rick Jones and Captain America and imprisoning them in England circa 1709 AD. He then had Space Phantoms disguised as beings from other eras such as Merlin, the biblical Goliath, and Hercules. But the Avengers managed to defeat Immortus' minions and Immortus was forced to return the heroes to their proper era. When the Masters of Evil joined the battle, they were easily trounced by the Avengers and in order to avoid defeat, the Enchantress cast a spell that brought them back in time so they could cut off contact with Immortus, thereby preventing the entire conflict from ever happening.

Immortus continued his observations of the Avengers, but when he witnessed their first reorganization, he vowed to crush them. However, when the Time-Keepers actually ordered their elimination, Immortus chose to continue shepherding them.He also observed the meeting between Rama-Tut and Dr. Doom. Immortus eventually found a means of preventing the Scarlet Witch from having children after noticing a romance forming between her and the Avengers' newest addition, the android Vision, believing that a romance between the two would prevent her from having children. Immortus was keenly interested in the Kree-Skrull War which ended when Rick Jones unleashed the Destiny Force within him to halt the two warring alien races. Initially seeing this as a possible danger to the timeline, when Jones proved incapable of tapping it anymore Immortus considered the threat over. However the Time-Keepers knew otherwise, showing Immortus three different futures: Earth-9970, 9971, and 9812 where the Avengers were responsible for the human race taking over the entire universe, particularly on Earth-9812 where, thanks to the Destiny Force, the future Avengers Galactic Battalion would reign supreme. The Time-Keepers then ordered Immortus to stop the Avengers, or they would obliterate not only the team itself, but the entire Earth as well. Seeing that the Vision was reluctant in pursing his romance with the Scarlet Witch, Immortus sent the Space Phantom to Earth once again and had him team-up with the Grim Reaper to offer the Vision a human body, by placing his mind into that of Captain America. The Vision refused, giving him the confidence to continue his romance even though he was an android, as Immortus intended. Immortus then began courting alien races such as the so-called Martian Masters and the Badoon providing them with information that led to invasions of Earth in various futures shattering the ability for the human race to leave the planet due to catastrophic wars. Immortus then began working on reining in his past counterparts who were running amok through time.

### Celestial Madonna

At this time in the modern age, Kang was attempting to claim the so-called Celestial Madonna for himself so he could sire her son, who was foretold to be the most powerful being in the universe. When the Madonna was identified as being among the Avengers, Kang attacked them. He was later opposed by his future self Rama-Tut and it was revealed that the Avenger known as Mantis was the Madonna. Opposed from claiming her, Kang attempted to kill her but instead slew her lover, the Swordsman. Both Kang and Rama-Tut struggled and knocked each other into Kang's time machine and found themselves trapped in the time stream. Posing as a potential ally, Immortus plucked both Kang and Rama-Tut out of the time stream and brought them to Limbo. Imprisoning Rama-Tut, Immortus then allowed Kang to use his time travel devices. Kang used it to summon a number of super-humans from various times just moments before their deaths including, Frankenstein's Monster, Wonder Man, the original Human Torch, Midnight, the Ghost, and Baron Zemo. Dubbing them the Legion of the Unliving, Kang then plotted to use them against the Avengers. When Immortus balked at this, Kang seemingly imprisoned him along with Rama-Tut, then used a device to transport the Avengers to Limbo.

While Immortus appeared to apparently be helpless, this was all part of a long running plan to manipulate the Vision and the Scarlet Witch. This all played out during the battle between the Avengers and the Legion of the Unliving, as it was soon learned that the Vision and the original Human Torch were both the same being. Ultimately the Avengers defeated their foes and Kang fled into the time stream once again. When Immortus was freed, he used his mastery over Limbo to restore those who were injured or killed in the battle. He then returned the Legion of the Unliving to their proper fates. He then revealed to the Avengers and Rama-Tut that he was the future incarnation of Kang before Rama-Tut left to meet his own destiny.

In "thanks" Immortus offered to show both the Vision and Mantis the secrets regarding their pasts, such as both the Vision's connection to the Human Torch and how Mantis became selected as the Celestial Madonna. He gave them synchro-staffs that allowed them to travel through time and space to learn these secrets. However this was yet another deception of sorts on the part of Immortus as the synchro-staffs were really Space Phantoms in disguise, and at least in the case of the Vision he was shown only selective images of the past that confirmed his connection to the original Human Torch of the 1940s. When Mantis was later to be joined with her chosen mate, a member of the Cotati race that took on the form of the deceased Swordsman, Immortus offered his assistance in stopping Kang from attempting to capture her once again. He hid the real Mantis by having one of his Space Phantoms pose as her, and when Kang believed he had won, the Space Phantom revealed his true self. While Kang was away, Immortus officiated a wedding between Mantis and the Cotati as well as the Vision and the Scarlet Witch who, thanks to his manipulations, were now completely in love. Mantis and the Cotati then left to find their destiny in the stars, and Immortus departed as an apparent ally of the Avengers.

#### Battle of Time-space

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