SCARLET SCARAB
note: Bio taken from Marvel Universe Handbook vol 1 (1983)

First Appearance:  Thor #326

Real Name:  Mehemet Faoul
Aliases:  none

Height:  6' 1"
Weight:  230 lbs
Eyes:  Brown
Hair:  Black

Occupation:  Archaeologist 
Place of Creation/Birth:  Aswan, Egypt

Known Relatives:  Abdul Faoul (father, deceased)

Powers:  The Scarlet Scarab possesses various superhuman powers granted him by contact with the mystical ruby scarab.  He can employ the ruby to enhance his physical strength, enabling him to lift (press) about 60 tons.  The scarab also provides him with a certain degree of mystical immunity to physical harm.   By enveloping himself in a nimbus of mystical energy, he can protect himself from physical harm up to the concussion of a small anti-tank missile.  He can also project this mystical energy, the precise nature of which is unknown, as bolts of force.   These bolts have a maximum concussive force of 300 pounds per square inch, sufficient force to overturn a diesel locomotive.  The Scarlet Scarab can also project the mystical energy earthward, enabling him to counteract the pull of gravity and fly.  He can travel at any speed at which he is still able to breathe (due to his augmented musculature, a maximum of 370 miles per hour).  It is not yet known the amount of mystical energy the Scarlet Scarab can employ before temporarily depleting his ruby power-object.  The ruby scarab also enables him to sap the strength of any person whom he touches.  This strength-draining occurs at a rate partially determined by the Scarab and partially by the nature and extent of the strength of his opponent.   It is not yet known whether the Scarab can drain energy from a human being to the point of his or her death.  The Scarlet Scarab's major weakness lies in his dependency on his mystical talisman.  Separated from it by force, he reverts to his normal human levels of ability.
Personal Weaponry:  The ruby scarab is a 5-inch long stylized figurine of a scarab beetle constructed to be a receptacle of mystic energies.   Employed by superhuman users, it can be used for even greater mystical feats than those accomplished by humans like the Scarlet Scarab and his predecessor.

Origin:  Mehemet Faoul was the son of Dr Abdul Faoul, a famous archeologist who unearthed the ruby scarab, a mystical power-object, from its tomb and used it to become a champion of Egypt during World War II.   The elder Abdul, working as a liaison between the Allied Forces and the Egyptian government, led the original Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner to a recently excavated pyramid where he supervised their inspection of the tomb's interior.  Although the two believed they were helping to search for the secret hiding place of the fanatical nationalist group, the Sons of the Scarab, they were actually being tricked into opening the vault where the ruby was being kept.  When the elder Faoul seized the fist-sized artifact, he revealed himself to the Torch and Sub-Mariner as the leader of the Sons of the Scarab.  Granted superhuman powers by the ruby, Faoul called himself the Scarlet Scarab and used his abilities to oust first the British, and then the Nazis, from his homeland.  Following the war, the Scarab battled criminals until on e day in the 1950's, the ruby disappeared from the strongbox in which he kept it.  The ruby scarab, an artifact of the powerful pre-dynastic Egyptian sorcerer named Garret, was original created to battle the Elementals, four humanoid extra-dimensional sorcerers who attempted to subjugate Egypt around 3500 BC.  After vanquishing the Elementals, Garret, knowing he was soon to die, enchanted the mystical talisman to return to its resting place in his tomb whenever it had exhausted its sore of mystical power.  When the Scarlet Scarab used its power to near depletion, it disappeared.  Dr Abdul Faoul, unaware of its enchantment, spent the next twenty years of his life fruitlessly searching Egypt for the ruby, never thinking to look in the place where he originally recovered it.   Some decades later, the Elementals dispatched N'Kantu to fetch the ruby from its tomb in order to use it to free them from the dimension in which its power ha d imprisoned them.  The ruby passed into the possession of a number of people including Prof. Ahmet Abdol, a thief named Daniel "The Asp" Aspen, the Elementals, and the extradimensional traveler named Hecate.  After a concentrated period of extensive use, the ruby disappeared once more into its tomb.  Unaware of the ruby's activities ever since losing it, Dr Abdul Faoul searched for it up until the eve of his death.   As his dying act, he gave his son Mehemet, whom he had trained as an archaeologist, the strongbox where he had kept the ruby.  Inside it was the costume of the Scarlet Scarab, a journal of his exploits, and a photograph of the lost ruby.  Feeling duty-bound to continue in his father's footsteps, Mehemet set out to find the ruby.   For years he searched,d finally coming to its original resting place.  With the ruby scarab in hand, Faoul gained the powers that his father had possessed, designed a new uniform, and set out to become Egypt's new champion , the Scarlet Scarab.  Among his foremost goals was the protection of the priceless artifacts of ancient Egypt.   In one of his missions to recover some stolen artifacts, he encountered and held his ground in combat with Thor.