First Appearance:
Journey Into Mystery #86Origin Issue: Journey Into Mystery #86
ZARRKO
First Appearance:
Journey Into Mystery #86
Origin Issue: Journey Into Mystery #86
Real Name: Artur Zarrko
Aliases: The Tomorrow Man; Impersonated Boris
of Latveria for an extended period
Height: 5' 11"
Weight: 285 lbs
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Bald
Distinguishing Features: None
Occupation: Conqueror, dictator
Citizenship: United States of America, in an alternate
future of the 23rd Century
Place of Creation/Birth: Old New York
Known Relatives:
Possible descendant of Charles Czarkowski
Known Allies: (all former) Loki, Spider-Man, Iron Man,
Thor, The Warriors Three (Hogun, Volstagg, Fandral), Mercurio, Uroc, Demonstaff, Grey
Gargoyle, Cobra, Tyrus, Shatterfist, Executioner, Gladiator, servant of
Hyperstorm
Known Enemies: Thor, Kang, the Time-Twisters
Intelligence: Genius (7/10)
Strength: Normal (2/10)
Speed: Normal (2/10)
Stamina: Normal (2/10)
Durability: Normal (2/14)
Agility: Normal (2/7)
Reflexes: Normal (2/7)
Fighting Skills: Minimal hand-to-hand combat skills
Special Skills/Abilities: Advanced scientific and
technological skills
Superhuman physical powers: None
Superhuman Mental Powers: None
Special Limitations: None
Source of Superhuman Powers: Inapplicable
Personal Weaponry: Various including force field
projectors and radiation guns
Other Accessories: Zarrko is a genius inventor
with 23rd century science at his command. He has built and used a time
machine, time cube, time displacement dial, and handheld time machine, a time
scope and calozephic receptor bridge to view the past, a delta electron gun, a
room of magnetic mirrors, a refrigerato-beam, time bombs which emitted radiation
that regressed time and an ultimate time bomb powered by his radical time
stabilizer to consolidate timelines. He used 23rd century worker robots as
an army; altered a mining robot into a super-strong servant armed with
destructive eyebeams; later transformed this robot into his giant,
lance-wielding Servitor; constructed a second Servitor; and designed the
Nullitor robot to face Thor. He has employed a stolen cobalt bomb and a
personal spaceship. he has also used time travel to draw heroes and
villains from other eras to his side as his champions. His personal
imagizer allowed him to pose as Boris for an extended period.
Origin: An ambitious genius living in the peaceful, weaponless 23rd century of Earth-6297, Artur Zarrko constructed a time machine so that he could procure nuclear weapons from the past and rule his world. He traveled back to the modern era of Earth-616 to a site where Thor was assisting in a cobalt bomb test, stole the device, and returned to 2262AD before the Thunder God could stop him. There he threatened to trigger the c-bomb unless he was given power. For one month, he ruled as an evil dictator until Thor used his mystic hammer to arrive from the past and confront him. When his delta electron gun failed to send Thor to another dimension and his reprogrammed worker robots short circuited in a Thor-created flood, Zarrko fled to his spaceship with the c-bomb, intending to destroy the world. Thor seized the bomb and forced the spaceship to crash. Zarrko emerged unhurt but with amnesia. Considering him harmless, the authorities gave him a civil service clerking job. He remained there until Loki, who had convinced Odin to halve Thor's power as punishment for loving Jane Foster, magically restored his memory. Zarrko immediately built a time cube, converted an indestructible mining robot into a slave, journeyed to the past, and rampaged through New York until Thor arrived. His robot staggered the power-halved Thor and Zarrko swore to continue the destruction unless the Thunder God joined him in the 23rd century and helped him take over the world. Honoring his vow, Thor fought for Zarrko at the World Council and at the secret site of the world-ruling Master Machine until the Tomorrow Man achieved his goal. Now free of his oath, Thor triggered the Master Machine's defenses, which encased Zarrko in a semi-solid energy matter ball.
The World Council imprisoned Zarrko in a maximum-security area but was unprepared for an attack from the 40th century of Earth-6311 ("Other-Earth") led by Kang the Conqueror (using a simulacrum of himself) and his temporal fortress. Freed as the only man who could fight back, Zarrko caused a disruption in Earth-616's modern era Avengers Mansion to try to bring Earth's Mightiest Heroes to his time, but they were intercepted and imprisoned by Kang. Trying again, Zarrko attracted Iron Man and Spider-Man and sent them against Kang, while attempting to seize the fortress as a beachhead from which to send "time bombs" into the past and rule all of time; however, Spider-Man escaped and returned to his present where he and the Human Torch defused the bombs. Spider-Man returned with the Inhumans, freed the Avengers and captured Zarrko.
After this defeat, Zarrko wallowed in misery before converting his mining robot into the first of his Servitors and traveling to the 50th century of Earth-7613 which he conquered and ruled by monopolizing all energy, doling it out sparingly to an impoverished population. Zarrko learned of the Time-Twisters, a race of beings who moved backward through time, ravaging Earth every 30 centuries by the turmoil of their presence, and he witnessed the destruction of the 80th century. Realizing the 50th century was next, he sent his Servitor to the past to seek Thor's help and offered one month's unlimited energy to any of his people who could defeat the Time Twisters. Shortly after the Thunder God, Warriors Three (Fandral, Hogun, Volstagg) and Jane Foster (imbued with Sif's spirit) arrived, the Time-Twisters murdered all 50th century opponents except a man named Derek. Thor's group fared no better and the Earth was destroyed. Thor suggested Zarrko transport them to the end of time to prevent the Time-Twisters' creation. There, the Servitor sacrificed himself protecting his master while Thor and Jane convinced the elderly guardian "He Who Remains" to terminate the Twisters before their births. Zarrko returned to a restored 50th century (actually a divergent Earth-7635 never destroyed by the Twisters), discovering that Derek became ruler in his absence.
Returning to the 23rd century, Zarrko created a new Servitor and built his radical time stabilizer, designed to collapse all alternate timelines into a single reality that he planned to rule. Requiring the energy from more than one enchanted hammer to power the device, Zarrko convinced Dargo Ktor - the Thor of Earth-8710's 2951 AD - that Eric Masterson, the Thor standing in for the Odinson, was a criminal who had stolen Thor's hammer, and Zarrko arranged a battle between the two which produced the required energy. Learning the truth, the two Thors, joined by Beta Ray Bill, pursued Zarrko, who retaliated by summoning various Thor enemies from the timestream but made the mistake of including Loki, who attacked him, destroyed the stabilizer and set him adrift.
Somehow finding his way home, Zarrko rebuilt his time stabilizer. Deciding to focus his attentions on Chronopolis, the time-patchwork city created by Kang, Zarrko chose a period when Kang was comatose and his former lover Ravonna (aka The Terminatrix) ruled. Zarrko planned to consolidate timelines by igniting his ultimate weapon, the time bomb, in the heart of the city, wiping out Kang's conquests, and ruling all time in his place. Wary of Darkhawk, who was, in some possible timelines, the most feared her of the future, Zarrko visiting him and the New Warriors, told them the future was in peril and promised them the chance to change a crucial moment in each of their pasts if they helped him. Zarrko then sent the Warriors on a wild goose chase in different time periods of Chronopolis, planning to strand them there but using the energy generated by their battles to power his time stabilizer which in turn energized his time bomb. Suspicious, Darkhawk pretended he planted a bomb in the time cube, bluffing Zarrko into recalling him. Darkhawk then forced Zarrko to bring back the Warriors and destroyed the time bomb. Defeated and regretting involving the Warriors, Zarrko sent them all home.
Soon after, Zarrko met Hyperstorm (Jonathan Reed Richards), the son of the alternate future Franklin Richards and Rachel Summers of Earth-967, a divergence of the Earth-811 "Days of Future Past" timeline. Cowed by Hyperstorm's power and seduced by partnership offers, Zarrko became his willing lackey. Hyperstorm also wished to conquer all timelines, warily keeping his eye on the past's Fantastic Four. He sent Zarrko back in time, disguised as Dr. Doom's faithful servant Boris, and Doom son placed him in suspended animation with his young disciple Kristoff Vernard. When Mr Fantastic and Dr Doom fought the alien Hunger, Hyperstorm teleported them to his stronghold, where he imprisoned Doom and sent Richards into the distant past. Reed's unreliable time-traveling father Nathaniel Richards freed Kristoff and "Boris" and they joined the Fantastic Four in adventures involving the Inhumans, the Watchers and Sub-Mariner. Caught out as a spy by Cassie Lang, the daughter of temporary FF member Ant-Man (Scott Lang), Zarrko revealed himself and fought the FF with heroes and villains drawn from other times until teleporting away by Hyperstorm. (The Thing referred to Zarrko as his old sparring partner, indicating they have met before in an untold adventure). The FF followed and eventually saved Reed as the immobilized Dr Doom succeeded in swapping minds with Zarrko. Finding equipment to free his body, Doom switched back and attempted to steal Hyperstorm's power. Worried that Hyperstorm would destroy his master, Kristoff forced Zarrko to return Doom to his own time. Fearing Hyperstorm's wrath, Zarrko fled into the timestream.
From his future perspective, Zarrko knew that Thor would one day create an Asgardian dictatorship on Earth. He sent his robot Nullitor and then the Shi'ar Imperial Guardsman Gladiator (Kallark) to kill Thor, but both met defeat. With Odin's death, Thor's assumption of the Odinforce and separation from his human host Jake Olson, and the relocation of Asgard over New York, Zarrko's feared future took shape. After writing a book describing all that would come to pass, he contacted the god-killer Desak, allied himself with the United States government, and send the Dark Gods Perrikus and Adva against Asgard, but Thor tracked him down and threw him into an Asgardian dungeon where, spying Jake Olson, he realized that Thor needed to be rejoined with his humanity. When the government attacked and destroyed Asgard, Zarrko was apparently killed. Thor, however, survived and conquered the world, initiating the Reigning, a century of oppressive rule. The underground of that world considered Zarrko a seer, employing his book to guide them. Thor eventually realized his mistakes and used Zarrko's handheld time machine to return to the past and force a merging of his younger self with Jake Olson, thereby diverging Earth-616 from the Reigning's future (Earth-3515). Zarrko's subsequent fate is unrevealed.
NOTE: Any relationship to Charles Czarkowski of Czarko Industries - who became the 9th wealthiest man in the world via stock tips from his future self before unwittingly shooting his disguised future self in the head, rendering him comatose - is unconfirmed.
Significant Issues:
