Mauler Twins

The **Mauler Twins** are a criminal scientist duo in *Invincible*, serving as the secondary antagonists of Season 1, and episodic characters in Season 2.

## Background

Contrary to the name, the Mauler "Twins" are not really twins. In truth, Mauler was a mad scientist who perfected a process to clone himself, intending to have someone around that shared his intellect and could competently help with his fringe science experiments. Since it's never stated how many times the cloning process had occurred and there's no evidence to suggest that the Twins' first appearance included the true original, in all likelihood, the Mauler who provided the genetic template for every clone may have died well before the start of the series.

One sticking point of the Twins' methodology is that every new cloning must conclude with the creator and the new clone being mindwiped so that neither one of them knows who’s the clone and who’s the original. They themselves have admitted that it never ends well when a clone knows they are one since it inevitably leads to infighting and resentment toward the original as the clone is considered to be inferior. Consequently, this could drive the clone to terminate the original for its position.

The Maulers commit crimes to fund their insane science experiments, usually threatening people in the process. The fact that they once laid siege upon the White House in an attempt to target the POTUS shows that they don't even fear the potential ramifications of destabilizing whole countries and/or upsetting global politics in accomplishing their goals.

## Appearance

Due to the cloning process, each pair of Maulers are physically identical, with no noticeable differences that would set one apart from the other. The Maulers are blue skinned humanoids with a highly pronounced muscular body and very tall, easily dwarfing most humans, aliens and other sentient beings. Each one has broad shoulders and shaved heads with square facial features. Their main article of clothing is a black, sleeveless leotard with a white "M" stretching from the chest all the way to their legs. The pair always walk barefoot. They will sometimes put on a long, white lab-coat and wear safety goggles during an engineering operation. They also have Black colored fingernails and toenails.

As of A Lesson For Your Next Life, the surviving Mauler had the right side of his body melted by the destruction of Angstrom Levy's somatic encoder, rendering it uneven and marked with pocks and ridges. His skin has turned a discoloured grey-ish colour, with visible, bulging purple veins. The skin on his face is visibly sloughing downwards, at some parts exposing the bone underneath, including his teeth and part of his jawbone. His right eye is missing, with the empty eye socket partially obscured by his sloughing brow.

## Personality

The pair come across as callous, opinionated and overconfident until they're confronted with adversity. And due to them being literally of one mind, with one's consciousness technologically copied and then transferred into the other, their coordination whenever it counts is borderline seamless allowing them to achieve undeniable efficiency when working in tandem. Such that it is not even uncommon for them to finish each other's sentences back-and-forth, even when the two Maulers are in conversation with someone else. Contrary to what is seen, they are not downright evil and are simply driven by a dangerous thirst for knowledge as well as privacy. They can be convinced to work for anyone who offers them sufficient payment, incentive or a chance to further that urge. Despite their high intelligence the Maulers tend to be short-sighted and arrogant, often making mistakes that they never predicted.

Despite their behavior, they are not completely heartless. This is demonstrated when the two seemed genuinely saddened upon seeing Rudolph's clone interacting with his original self, explaining in no uncertain terms the issue with knowing which one is the clone; and before that, they even solemnly explained to the original Rudy that the memory transferal he was about to undergo will not transfer his consciousness into a new body, but rather awaken a new version of himself that is completely separate and perhaps very different from the predecessor.

Their encounters with Robot and Angstrom Levy resulted in the surviving Mauler never wanting to work for anyone else. This could be what prompted him to elevate himself above the clone using his scars, which went against the nature of the Twins, effectively creating a Mauler that was seen as inferior amongst the two.

## History

### Attacking the White House

From underground, the Mauler Twins rise, but one complains that he should have checked his clone's calculations, since they were supposed to be inside the building. The other one gets angry and complains that he is not a clone; they are shot at, but they are unfazed. From the twin's left, Steve shoots the him, and shakily orders him to back off. The twin approaches him, and Steve shoots him once again, injuring him this time. Before he could kill Steve, the Guardians of the Globe arrive and evacuate the civilians while they fight the Mauler Twins. The twin whose eye was missing asks War Woman if she could not have sat this fight out and let them kill the president, but she tells him that it was not her style.

The heroes help civilians evacuate while the twins broke through the walls to make it inside. One of the twins throws a woman, so Darkwing catches her. However, when they fall to the ground, the twin throws a tank, which forces him to use his strength to protect them both from being crushed. He was not able to get them both out, so he managed to get the woman out using a grappling hook. When it appeared he would be crushed, Omni-Man lifted the tank and helped him get out.

The Mauler Twins kept on fighting the heroes, while they helped every civilian escape the White House. Soon it was just the heroes against the twins, who were swiftly defeated once they had no more civilians to distract the heroes with.

### Breakout

At the GDA, a guard called Pete moves through various cells containing many monsters. He hands one of the Mauler Twins chicken pot pie. He hands the other one the same, but Robot makes the food compartment open all the way, allowing the twin to grab the guard and injure him, using his hand to break out. He goes to his twin's door, who is enjoying his chicken pot pie until he sees him. The one in his cell asks how he had done it and his twin mentions that as the original twin, his intellect had not been affected by the cloning process. He asks him to open the door, but the other one mentions he will not until he admitted he was a clone, which he admits to. They start running and are chased by guards, who leave after one of them receives a punch. As they move forward, a ladder falls.

In the desert, the two twins exit and look towards the city, but are shot at by a powerful weapon. One uses his twin as a shield and takes the weapon down. He looks at his twin and tells him that he would miss him, but could always make another one and leaves him to die.

### Working with Robot

The Mauler Twin opens a warehouse and gets to work, by setting up a lab. He drills his arm until he gets blood and finds a cell, which starts to duplicate. He puts it into a big pod, which closes, and proceeds to supply the containment, with proteins from preserved burger patties, to sustain the life growing from within. He greets his brother and tells him that he must be hungry, giving it food.

The Mauler Twins get a delivery by a hologram. When the truck opens up, Robot walks out and tells them to step back. He unveils the real Robot and asks to see their work, which he finds satisfactory except for a few details. He tells them to implement some fixes so they could discuss their payment, but the Mauler Twins want to talk about the payment first. Robot tells them that he will give them the schematics for an obedience collar for their payment and the Mauler Twins get to work.

The Mauler Twins work on Robot, who tells them he wanted to change his appearance because he had met someone. He leaves his pod and tells the Mauler Twins to hurry with him since air was toxic to him. They put a mask on him and place him on a bed so that the copy of his mind would start on the new body. The cloning process begins, but they run into some problems because his brain is different. The machines explode, but the process is completed in the end.

Rudy gets up and does not recognize if he was the clone or the original. He mentions he did not expect a feeling of continuance. The Mauler Twins explain that not knowing who the original was, was part of the process, but Robot's process appeared to have taken care of himself. Rudy tells the original he was sorry that it had not been him, but is told not to worry and be happy, changing the world. The clone cries and lets the original die. The Mauler Twins ask for their payment, so Robot gives it to them and tells them it was time for them to return to prison.

The Mauler Twins realize he is serious, but was only a teenager, but Rudy tells them that he was a 30-year old genius in a teenager's body, with a neural link chip, which allowed him to summon many robots. The Mauler Twins take care of the normally sized Robots until a bigger one emerges.

The Mauler Twins are mad at Robot since he had double crossed them. They fought the giant robot when Robot got a call from Cecil, saying that he needed the Guardians back at the GDA with a priority level of Apocalypse. The Mauler Twins plot how to defeat Robot, but he was already gone.

The Mauler Twins comment that Robot was a dick as they try to bring The Immortal back to life. One of the Twins mentions that even Cecil could not bring him back to life, but the other tells him that Cecil was an idiot and The Immortal was not called that for nothing.

The Mauler Twins finish working on The Immortal, who does not immediately wake. One of the Mauler Twins starts pounding on the Immortals chest many times, believing it would revive him and finding it to be enjoyable. The Immortal suddenly awakes, remembering everything that had happened. The Mauler Twins try to control him with the obedience collar and tell him to murder Robot and the new Guardians for them. However, the collar does not work due to bad schematics that Robot had given the Mauler Twins; or perhaps The Immortal, in his freshly revived state, was simply too powerful and furious to submit to the neck-worn device. The Immortal promptly rips the collar off and demands to know where Omni-Man is before flying off.

The Mauler Twins burn down their lab and leave until they are approached by stealth-suited GDA agents. They surrender and raise their hands, and are taken to prison later.

### Allying with Angstrom

The Mauler Twins were seen again in prison, with Pete the guard. They begin to berate Pete for giving them bad food and apologize for nearly fracturing his skull. They give Pete fair warning that if they give him good food, they won't kill him, their talk is interrupted when portal emerges from their cells. Taking their chances, the Mauler Twins once again leave, and meet with Angstrom Levy, a multiverse portal hopping scientist who takes them to his ocean warehouse. Where they learn of his plan to connect with hundreds of himself to learn of their knowledge of the multiverse by using a machine. Angstrom and Mauler Twins make deal to create the machine in return the Twins will stay in a universe where heroes don't exist, food is placid and they are Gods. As they begin the plan, Invincible arrives and fights the twins, the situation forces Angstrom to summon other Mauler Twins from other universes, the main Mauler Twins are infuriated that Angstrom summoned alternate universe Mauler Twins, remarked they thought that they were special. The alternate twins become erratic to the point where they pin down Invincible and nearly kill him, resulting the machine exploding and most of the twins, and Angstroms all killed in the process.

However one of the main Mauler Twins (albeit skin burned and skeleton exposed) survived and found the nearly grotesque Angstrom Levy, who is now shrouded with countless memories of Invincible slaughtering millions of innocents. Mauler tries to tell Angstrom the accident that he caused must've scrambled his mind, not aware of which memories. An enraged Angstrom demands vengeance on Invincible and leaves his former partner, who mutters to him, of the sacrifice he made for his new look, he leaves the wrecked warehouse swearing to never work for anyone else ever again.

### King Mauler

Having retreated to the very same dilapidated warehouse that held the cloning and memory-copying equipment used to clone himself, beforehand, and also internally torched down from weeks back, the surviving Mauler cloned himself yet again. While the clone had attempted to dismiss the original as being the clone, the original Mauler used his physical disfigurement from the explosion as definitive proof. Recalling the incident, the clone realizes to his horror what is happening: there is now an answer as of who the clone is.

The original Mauler, having been dubbed "King Mauler", used his position as leverage, forcing the clone into service and berating him endlessly; from things like how the clone poorly maintained their laboratory to even the meals he prepared for the both of them. King Mauler had planned to create even more clones beyond the original twins, putting himself above all of them with his status as the original Mauler. However, this was cut short when the clone killed him with lemonade laced with a modified mycotoxin, stating that this is why neither one is supposed to know they are a clone. And the Maulers' circumstances are much better off that way. It was implied that he intends to create another clone, with no intent of telling the resulting clone of which of them was the original.

## Powers and Abilities

### Powers

* **Superhuman Strength**: The Maulers exhibit tremendous physical strength, endurance, and stamina. They are capable of effortlessly lifting industrial-grade objects made of solid metal and other dense materials that are equal to or even larger than their own size, without experiencing fatigue. Additionally, they handle military-grade firearms, such as mounted cannons and machine guns, with ease. Despite their slower movement due to their massive frames and considerable weight, their legs possess a high muscle-mass, enabling them to leap impressive distances and heights within a few seconds, as demonstrated during their prison escape.

> **Twin**: Refreshing. Kind of tickles.
>
> **Twin**: Mm, I prefer a higher caliber.
>
> Mauler Twins in in *It's About Time*

* **Superhuman Durability**: The Maulers display an exceptional degree of resilience, granting them a significant level of immunity against gunfire and explosive forces. They have the ability to endure a series of successive gunshots and explosions without incurring any form of harm or impairment. While they do perceive the effects of such attacks, they characterize it as a minor tingling sensation rather than encountering substantial discomfort. Nevertheless, there are boundaries to their ability to bounce back from adversity. If an individual is targeted at close proximity in a vulnerable area, such as the eye, they may encounter pain and endure observable injuries. Furthermore, formidable entities such as Omni-Man, Immortal, or War Woman possess the capability to administer impactful strikes that, albeit non-fatal, have the potential to induce bleeding and distress. In order to showcase their resilience, one of the twins went as far as employing a drill press in the process of extracting a blood sample, thereby emphasizing the difficulty encountered while  piercing through their considerably thick skin. Nevertheless, their bodies can be penetrated by more sophisticated armaments such as the Multi-phase fusion generator turret. The occurrence of this became apparent when, subsequent to their  escape from imprisonment, one of the twins was fragmented by the utilization of said weapon.
* **Regenerative Healing Factor**: The Maulers exhibit an augmented capacity for healing, empowering them to expeditiously heal gunshot injuries, even when inflicted upon their eyes, in a more rapid manner when compared to humans. Nevertheless, despite their impressive regenerative abilities, these beings are incapable of regrowing severed limbs, rendering them susceptible to sophisticated armaments such as the Multi-phase fusion generator turret, capable of penetrating their anatomies. Massive explosions, such as the destruction of the massive somatic encoder caused by Angstrom Levy, are powerful enough to reduce the Maulers into ash and carbonated bones. If shielded significantly enough, they could survive. This was the case of the sole survivor of the explosion on the pier, although the last Mauler had the entire right side of his body severely deformed from the fires.

### Abilities

> As I was trying to say, I need your expertise in tissue growth and DNA replication.
>
> Robot in *That Actually Hurt*

* **Genius-Level Intellect**: The Maulers have demonstrated profound levels of intelligence in several scientific fields and technological prowess, with each pair at the time being capable of creating advanced pieces of tools and machinery to their personal advantage, even from out of seemingly unimpressive means as well as eclectic and on-the-spot resources.
	+ **Cloning Expertise**: The Maulers devised a cloning method via rapid mitosis (cell division) of certain blood cells. After having isolated a proper cell, distinguishable from the other red blood cells, one of the Maulers uses a syringe to introduce a serum into and then channel an electric discharge on that cell, causing it to multiply en-mass. The cell sample is then placed inside a vat-machine which further multiplies the cells into a exact copy of his body in a matter of a few days. While the clone is growing, the currently living Mauler feeds them in order to ensure cell growth. As was seen with Robot, this cloning methodology is not limited for the Mauler's use alone.
	+ **Memory Duplication Expertise**: One of the Mauler's most important inventions is a device that can copy the entirety of someone's memory and transfer it inside a nascent body, such as that of their clones. After a new clone body has been completed the currently living Mauler uses a this device to copy the entirety of his mind and then places it inside the clone's brain. In doing so, the clone typically awakens fully believing himself to be the original, hosting the latter's duplicated recollection, while the original cannot physically differentiate himself from the his creation. The machine is, however, susceptible to brains with abnormalities. In the case of Rudy Connors's over-sized cerebral cortex and sub-developed motor, occipital and peripheral lobes, the machine overloaded and overheated, thus bursting into flames and forcing the Maulers' to surreptitiously improvise during the procedure. Even the Maulers' brains, having neurons less dense than Rudy's, caused the somatic encoder to overheat, causing smoke to burst out do to the sheer strain of coping their memories, making such devices strictly single-use and implemented very sparingly by virtue of the Maulers seeing to it that neither twin gets easily killed in battle.
	+ **Medical Expertise**: In addition to their knowledge of cloning, the Maulers are exceptionally talented in the fields of surgery and diagnostic observation; made even more impressive for surgical expertise generally demands extensive anatomical knowledge along with peerless manual precision in respect to their scalpelwork. And given the size of their hands, it's a miracle that a Mauler can even hold an instrument as small and fragile as a scalpel to actually create accurate incisions, with it, into a patient's body. Or, conversely, to masterfully mend together damaged bodily tissue as seen when one of them used a laser and some staples to impeccably reattach the Immortal's decapitated head. They were able to place more than a dozen hazardous devices inside the cloned younger body of Rex-Splode without any noticeable knife marks and then later could even insert a device the size of a lace-bracelet inside the nape of clone's neck without any neurological damage being made. But most outstandingly, they were able to ensure a successful memory encoding of recollections from Robot's original organic mind and into that of his newly-cloned body, in spite of the unseen technical complications from only moments before that.
	+ **Engineering Expertise**: Aligning with their aptitude for cloning and memory transferal, the Maulers are also very adept when it comes setting up the necessary tools and equipment to satisfactorily meeting not just those endeavors, but also in respect to other fields of applicable science and research which they, time and again, indulge in. With that, they were able to adjust, with record time, Angstrom's sizable memories-transferring apparatus (which he modeled from the Mauler's design) for it to accommodate a near-multitude of other Angstrom Levy's from alternate dimensions in order to meet its intended function, literally "funneling" all their worldly knowledge (in respect to their native dimensions) into their counterpart with the dimension-hopping abilities. And before that, one Mauler alone was able to convert and fully equip a forgotten warehouse into a working makeshift laboratory to not only clone himself with, but also as a site for later advanced experiments. Such as manufacturing an obedience collar from the digital blueprints supplied to them by Robot, then later installing so around the Immortal's neck right before reviving the fallen hero.

## Trivia

* The Mauler Twins do not seem to reference any pre-existing comic book character. Rather, they are an example of the dopplegänger, a literary trope of a look-alike who seeks to undermine or even replace the original in the same vain of the evil twin trope.
* As seen in "A Lesson For Your Next Life" some of The Mauler Twins alternate selves have blue hair of varying lengths, confirming that the mainstream Maulers can likely grow hair despite the cloning process not growing any on its own.

## Appearances

* Season 1
	+ 01. "It's About Time"
	+ 03. "Who You Calling Ugly?"
	+ 04. "Neil Armstrong, Eat Your Heart Out"
	+ 05. "That Actually Hurt"
	+ 06. "You Look Kinda Dead"
	+ 07. "We Need To Talk"
	+ 08. "Where I Really Come From"

* Season 2
	+ 01. "A Lesson For Your Next Life"
	+ 204