High Evolutionary appeared in 1966 Marvel Comics called Thor. Dr. Herbert Edgar Wyndham was a brilliant Oxford educated scientist and a cosmic philosopher with an obsession for understanding the complexities of evolution. His journey began with a desire to explore the mysteries of the human DNA, which led him to create a serum that transformed him into the High Evolutionary.
As the High Evolutionary, he possessed incredible powers and intellect, and he continued to study and explore the universe in search of the secrets of genetics. He established his base of operations in the Citadel of Science on Mount Wundagore, where he created his own race known as the New Men, uplifted animals given human level intelligence. The High Evolutionary played a key role in unlocking the powers of the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and Spider-Woman.
In addition to his work on Earth, the High Evolutionary traveled to Counter-Earth, a parallel world he created, in an attempt to create a paradise for his New Men.
Herbert Wyndham was born in Manchester, England but soon moved to the Welsh countryside with his parents.
As a student in the 1920s, Herbert Wyndham was inspired by the work of Nathaniel Essex to perform his own genetic experiments, evolving rats in his parents' basement. Later, when he attended a conference in Geneva, Wyndham was approached by a disguised Inhuman, who gave Wyndham the secrets for unlocking genetic codes. As a result, he created a serum that allowed for genetic alteration, but his controversial work got him expelled from Oxford University.
However, Wyndham joined with another fellow scientist, Jonathan Drew to continue his work, and they set up base in Transia on Wundagore Mountain in a futuristic citadel that his Inhuman contact gave him a workforce of Moloids to build.
Soon after this, aided by a new assistant named Miles Warren, Wyndham created the New Men by evolving animals into humanoid forms. Jonathan returned to Wundagore possessed by the sorcerer Magnus, who warned him that the mountain was the banishing place of the demon Chthon, though the scientifically-minded Wyndham scoffed at this - albeit Magnus convinced Wyndham to teach the New Men a chivalry code as ethics. One of the New Men was the Inheritor, an evolved cockroach who developed megalomania and, unlike his peers, refused to follow Wyndham's orders and chivalry code. Wyndham reacted by banishing him to outer space.
Russoff used the mystical book the Darkhold to try and cure his lycanthropy, freeing Chthon in the process. Wyndham, now known as the High Evolutionary, and the New Men, now known as the Knights of Wundagore, fought the demon and banished him again.
However, at that moment, a pregnant woman Magda gave birth to twins Wanda and Pietro on the mountain, in the citadel, and Chthon's power touched them, giving him a conduit into the world. The twins would grow up to become the mutant superheroes the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. The High Evolutionary's New Man Bova first tried to pass the twins on to Robert Frank, whose wife had died in childbirth, before giving them to a Romani couple who had lost their own children.
After clashes with the heroes Thor and the Hulk, the High Evolutionary decided to launch his citadel into space. There, Wyndham temporarily evolved himself into a disembodied intelligence. He was called back to Wundagore by a colony of New Men that had been left behind, it had fallen under the partial sway of the Man-Beast with the complicating factor of Wolverine and Kitty Pryde being there for a reconnaissance mission. Both god and beast were left with things to contemplate.
He later devolved himself back into his normal form, but now had internalized his powers, including the ability to evolve or devolve other creatures at will.
After his return to corporeality, the High Evolutionary took a ship disguised as an asteroid to the point in Earth's orbit on the opposite side of the sun and used his technology and abilities to advance a small chunk of terrestrial material into a nearly identical copy of the Earth. His goal was to create an Earth without the corruption of evil, but while he was resting, Man-Beast snuck onto his ship and tampered with the process to add that corruption himself. At the same time, the High Evolutionary had recovered the cocoon of Him and was taking care of it until its inhabitant would emerge again in a new form. When Him was reborn, High Evolutionary re-christened him as Adam Warlock, gave him the Soul Gem (which he had obtained by unrevealed circumstances), and enlisted him to protect Counter-Earth from Man-Beast and his evil New Men.
When Galactus discovered the existence of Counter-Earth, the High Evolutionary created another army of New Men and sent Gorr to acquire the help of the Fantastic Four against the world eater and its herald, the Destroyer.
Counter-Earth was soon after stolen by the Prime Movers of Tarkus at the behest of the Beyonders to be put in a cosmic museum. Wyndham pursued those responsible to reclaim his creation, but when he learned of the Beyonders' nature and how unfathomably advanced they were compared to his own conceivable potential, he fell into despair and sought to end his own life. His sealed armor foiled conventional suicide attempts, but by goading the Hulk into a fight, he damaged his armor enough to turn his de-evolution powers on himself, reducing himself to protoplasmic goo.
Powers and Abilities[]
The High Evolutionary was exposed to his Evolutionary Accelerator machine, giving him superhuman abilities by accelerating his personal evolution. The Evolutionary has shifted between various levels of evolution over the years, sometimes deliberately sometimes not, with different power levels as well. Often he maintains some level of superhuman power while incorporating the Evolutionary Accelerator machine into his armor, letting him evolve himself further at will. The unstable Isotope E caused the High Evolutionary to uncontrollably fluctuate between god-like powers and Neanderthal-level ability and intelligence.
Among the abilities the High Evolutionary has demonstrated thanks to the Evolutionizer are:
- Superhuman Strength
- Superhuman Intelligence: The High Evolutionary has evolved his own brain to its full potential; he has virtually unlimited knowledge and intellectual ability.
- Superhuman Durability
- Healing Factor: Augmented by his armor's automatic Evolutionizer equipment, the High Evolutionary is virtually unkillable. Even after being ripped to pieces and pulverized into organic jelly by the Hulk, the High Evolutionary evolved out of his injuries and was fully restored.
- Telepathic Communication
- Astral Projection: The High Evolutionary can separate his spirit from his physical form and can survive in this state for an indefinite period of time.
- Self-Levitation
- Mental Invisibility: Preventing detection by other powerful telepaths. Which he can extend to an entire world.
- Force Fields
- Mass Manipulation: increase and decrease his own size/mass, can grow at max to 300 feet.
- Psychokinesis
- Concussive Force Blasts
- Plasmatic Rays
- Total Recall Memory
- Artificial Evolution: Capable of forcibly evolving or devolving life-forms at an accelerated rate.
- Immortality: Allegedly, at one point Wyndham managed to alter his own genetic code to finally achieve eternal life.
- Super-Genius Intelligence: Skilled in science, especially relating to genetics and engineering. Brilliant theoretician.
- Master Geneticist
Arsenal[]
- Evolutionary Exoskeleton: Most of the High Evolutionary's powers are derived from his protective suit which also provides its wearer with amazing protection against all physical attacks and protection from energy, psionic, or magical attacks.
- Automatic Defense: The suit is designed to protect its wearer at all costs and, as such, works automatically to prevent disasters from affecting the High Evolutionary.
- Reconstitution Protocol: Body armor, including micro-circuitry containing his complete genetic information and thus capable of restoring him to life in the event of his death. Thus the suit can, in time, regenerate his body or even create a whole new body for Wyndham.
- Life-Support System: The suit provides complete life support for Wyndham, automatic recycling his air and providing him with water and food.
- Genetic Manipulation Technology: He frequently uses machinery to control evolutionary effects.