List of Marvel Comics characters: P

Pathway (Laura Dean) is a fictional mutant in the publications of Marvel Comics. She first appeared in Alpha Flight #53 (December 1987), and was created by Bill Mantlo and Jim Lee.

Laura Dean's parents were extremely mutaphobic and decided to abort Laura's twin fetus because it was obviously a mutant. While still a fetus, Laura protected her twin sister by using her mutant abilities to send her to another dimension, dubbed "Liveworld".

Laura grew up withdrawn from the world. In an attempt to cure her, her parents sent her to the New Life Clinic, which was actually run by the insane villain Scramble. Laura managed to escape, but was later caught by Bedlam and forced to become a member of his team of Derangers. During the clash with Alpha Flight, Laura swapped places with her twin in Liveworld, whom she had named Goblyn.

After Alpha Flight defeated Bedlam, Goblyn and Laura were admitted into Beta Flight under the misbelief that they were the same person. However, this was all sorted out when Alpha Flight travelled to Liveworld and there encountered the Dreamqueen. When they returned to Earth, and Alpha disbanded, Laura and Goblyn went to live with Purple Girl.

They re-joined Beta Flight when Talisman dispatched them on a quest for Northstar, thanks to Laura's ability to open portals to other dimensions. The two stayed on when the team was once again funded by the government and Department H was re-formed. However, both were severely injured when Wild Child went insane and attacked them. Laura sent Goblyn instinctively to Liveworld and had to return with Beta Flight to save her.

Petra is a fictional character appearing in the comic books published by Marvel Comics. Petra first appears in the limited series X-Men: Deadly Genesis #1 (2006), and was created by writer Ed Brubaker and artist Pete Woods. She is one of the "Missing X-Men". The word "petra" means "rocky" in Latin, and "stone" in Greek.

Petra was the first of her family to be born in the United States. Her mother, father and brother emigrated from Denmark while her mother was pregnant with Petra. They lived the typical American life in the suburbs of New York City for most of Petra's childhood. Shortly after her thirteenth birthday, Petra's family was killed by a rockslide while on a camping trip. Unknowingly, Petra used her mutant powers of earth manipulation to avoid getting hurt.

After spending weeks in Child Protective Services, Petra was sent to live in New Jersey in a foster home. She was placed in a home that had five other children that were forced to share the same bedroom. Her foster mother was old and uncaring, and her foster father was too caring, trying to hold and touch Petra all the time. One day on an outing to Central Park, Petra's foster father tried to touch her but sank knee-deep into the ground. It was then that Petra realized that she was a mutant, and she ran away. She found a cave and hid there for days crying, knowing that with her abilities she could have either killed or saved her family.

She camped in Central Park for a couple years, using her power to manipulate rock caves into shelters to avoid being arrested and sent to juvenile detention centers. When she was sixteen, she discovered another useful aspect of her ability: she could turn coal into diamonds by concentrating hard enough. For a year, she used this aspect of her power to make diamonds of varying size to sell to pawn shops so she could buy food and survive.

One day, however, a pawn shop employee said he was going to call the owner of the store, but he really called the police. Running to her rock shelter, the police found Petra before she could hide, and took her into custody after a brief battle. When she awoke, a female guard informed her that she was being released into the custody of a woman, later revealed to be Dr. Moira MacTaggert, who was there to help Petra. This at first frightened Petra because she had never known anyone to try to help her because of her abilities, only hurt her.[1]

After some time with Dr. MacTaggert, Professor Charles Xavier took Petra and the other children within custody (Sway, Darwin and Vulcan) to rescue the original X-Men team trapped on the mutant island Krakoa. Petra instinctively used her powers to bury Vulcan and Darwin, and then gets incinerated by the volcano creature that was created by Krakoa.[2]

When the X-Men establish Krakoa as a mutant paradise, Petra was among the revived mutants living there, She, Sway, and Vulcan were residing in the Summer House.[3]

During the "Empyre" storyline, Petra and Sway have a drink with Vulcan at the Summer House on the Moon. After Vulcan defeated his Cotati attackers, Petra and Sway catch up to him.[4]

Petra was a "terrakinetic" or "geo-morph",[5] having the ability to psychokinetically manipulate, control, levitate and reshape the classic element of earth—sand, stone, rock, lava, and/or dirt—and could even transform the consistency of earth and rock, such as turning a lump of coal into a diamond.[6] She also could use this power to cause minor earthquakes and create shapes out of solid rock.

Phage is the name used by a symbiote in Marvel Comics. The symbiote, created by David Michelinie and Ron Lim, first appeared in Venom: Lethal Protector #4 (May 1993), and was named in Carnage, U.S.A. #2 (March 2012) after an unrelated character from the Venom: The Hunted comic storyline and Venom: Along Came A Spider toyline.[7] The Phage symbiote is one of five symbiote "children" forcefully spawned from the Venom symbiote alongside four other symbiotes: Agony, Riot, Lasher and Scream.

Phage's first host was Carl Mach, a mercenary hired by Carlton Drake's Life Foundation in San Francisco. Carl bonded with the Phage symbiote in conjunction to Scream (Donna Diego), Agony (Leslie Gesneria), Lasher (Ramon Hernandez) and Riot (Trevor Cole). Phage and his four symbiote "siblings" are defeated by Spider-Man and Venom.[8] The symbiotes "siblings" later kidnap Eddie Brock out of prison in an attempt to communicate with their alien symbiotes in Chicago. When Eddie refused to aid, Carl was killed with a sonic knife after Leslie; the others were initially mislead into thinking Brock was picking the group off but Scream, having snapped from Donna's schizophrenia and the Scream symbiote's influence, was the killer.[9]

The Phage symbiote later merged with three other symbiotes (Riot, Lasher and Agony) into the Hybrid symbiote,[10] until a military group later separated the four symbiotes for the U.S. Government.

Phage's second host was Rico Axelson, a Lieutenant assigned the Phage symbiote within the Mercury Team special force. When Carnage is loose in Colorado, Rico trained with the Phage symbiote for months for specific tasks alongside Riot (Howard Odgen), Lasher (Marcus Simms) and Agony (James Murphy).[11] Rico and his teammates are eventually killed by Carnage in their secret base.[12] The four symbiotes bond to Deadpool to fight Carnage, and then bond with Mercury Team's dog (the sole survivor of Carnage's attack against the taskforce).[13]

During the "Absolute Carnage" storyline, the symbiote-infected dog comes across a family who keep fighting. After the dog is invited inside their house, the boy Billy is there when the Knull-possessed symbiotes erupt as the Agony and Riot symbiotes take over Sadie's parents. Horrified, the kids try to escape but the Phage symbiote bonds to Billy and the Lasher symbiote later bonds with Sadie. The family then decide to go to New York and help Carnage's quest.[14]

Chester Phillips is a World War II general in the Marvel Universe. The character, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, first appeared in Tales of Suspense #63 (March 1965).

Within the context of the stories, General Chester Phillips is one of the army officers overseeing subject selection for Project: Rebirth. He takes a personal interest in Steve Rogers as the best candidate for the first test.[15] Both he and Abraham Erskine refuse to allow General Maxfield Saunders to have Clinton McIntyre receive the first full treatment. When Saunders steals the serum and apparently kills McIntyre, Phillips has the body shipped away and Saunders arrested.[16]

Plague was originally a member of the Morlocks before joining the Horsemen of Apocalypse.

Poison (Cecilia Cardinale) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by writer Steve Gerber and artist Cynthia Martin. Poison first appeared in Web of Spider-Man Annual #4 (1988).

Kevin Tremain was a mutant captured and studied by the Mandarin. His first appearance was in X-Men v2, #50. On a secret mission, the Six Pack attacked the secret base Tremain was held in. Tremain was mortally injured; Cable tried to save his life, first by using his telekinesis to keep Tremain's body together, and finally by giving him a blood transfusion. Although it seems he survived this trauma, Cable seemed to think Tremain had later died.

Years later, Tremain resurfaced as Post, the lowest of Onslaught's emissaries. Post had superhuman size, strength, stamina, and sturdiness. He was also a mathematical genius. After being infected with the T-O virus via blood transfusion from Cable, Post became a cyborg, who was also able to generate energy discharges, cloaking fields, biogenetic scanners and teleport himself to remote locations.

Malcolm Powder first appeared in Alias #6 (April 2002), created by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos. Powder was a high school student that was a fan of Jessica Jones.

He makes his first appearance in the most unusual way possible: breaking into Jessica's apartment and answering her phone. Jessica, understandably, kicks him out. Later, while Jessica was looking for a Rick Jones (not the famous one) Malcolm shows up again asking for a job as her personal part-time secretary; he is kicked out once again.[18]

Malcolm arrives again, this time asking Jessica about the secret identities of Captain America and Daredevil. Once again, he asks for a job and Jessica finally agrees under the condition that he find information on Mattie Franklin, who is missing.[19] To Jessica's surprise, Malcolm shows up with a girl named Laney, who claims that her brother was dating Mattie around the time she disappeared.[20] He is last seen answering Jessica's phone, this time as her secretary.[21]

Presence is the name of a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics.

As a younger man, Sergei was a Belarusian nuclear physicist born in Minsk, BSSR. His twin children, Nikolai Krylenko and Laynia Petrovna, were taken from birth by the Soviet government to be trained as soldiers, after their mutant natures manifested.

Sergei eventually became one of the most influential men behind the scenes of the Soviet government. However, despite being a scientific genius, he was also quite mad. He caused a Chernobyl-like nuclear disaster in the "Forbidden Zone" using cobalt radiation baths and a nuclear blast, which transformed Tania Belinsky into his super-powered thrall as the second Red Guardian. The nuclear energy transformed Sergei into a superhuman being as well, and he could now generate nuclear energy within his own body for various uses. Sergi began calling himself "The Presence". The Presence and Red Guardian battled the Defenders when they came to find her. The Presence left when she regained her free will and spurned him.[37] Soon after, the Presence battled a giant mutated amoeba in the "Forbidden Zone", and was then reunited and reconciled with Red Guardian.[38]

The government now wanted the threat of the Presence eliminated. His own children had been trained by the government as super-powered soldiers and, unaware of their true relationship, were sent to kill him. Alongside the Red Guardian, Presence encountered the Hulk, Professor Phobos, and the Soviet Super-Soldiers in the "Forbidden Zone". Darkstar and Vanguard learned that the Presence was their father and turned against the Soviet regime, and saved the Presence from Phobos. In order to save the Soviet Union from the dangerous, spreading radiation of the so-called Forbidden Zone, an irradiated Soviet wasteland, the Presence and the Red Guardian absorbed all the radiation into themselves and left for outer space, where they claimed they would transform themselves into inert matter.[39] The twins became agents on their own, fighting for the good of the people, and sometimes working with their father.

The Presence was revealed to be held prisoner with Red Guardian (now calling herself Starlight) on the Stranger's laboratory world.[40] The pair returned to Earth with the Jack of Hearts. The Presence attempted to kill Eon, but was instead trapped in the "Quantum Zone" dimension by Quasar.[41] It was revealed in flashback how Maelstrom had persuaded the Presence to attack Eon.[42] The Presence was eventually rescued from the "Quantum Zone" by Neutron, and teamed with him to seek vengeance on Quasar. The Presence learned of the Soviet Union's collapse, and returned to Russia with the intent to create a "new order".[43] Later, the Presence sent Starlight to capture the Black Widow and Darkstar.[44]

Vanguard was ultimately killed in a battle while he and Darkstar were aiding the cosmic hero Quasar. Darkstar blamed Quasar for her brother's death and fled back to Russia. When she encountered her father, Darkstar shared her feelings with him, and the Presence forced Quasar to flee Earth on the threat of killing Quasar's loved ones. Sergei visited his son's memorial and sought to revive him by shifting his atoms to microscopically enter Vanguard's body. There he discovered a trace of Vanguard's mutant energy remained, keeping him faintly alive. The Presence managed to use this energy to resurrect his son, but nearly exhausted his own power, and was cast adrift in the subatomic reality he had entered.

While in subatomic exile, the Presence discovered new aspects of his power and atomic particles, and, when he had sufficiently regenerated, resumed his normal size and returned to the Forbidden Zone. There, he embarked on a plan to unite all of the former Soviet Union by transforming its people into a race of zombie-like radioactive beings living under a communal mind.[45] He managed to convert several Siberian scientists, Vanguard and the rest of the Winter Guard, and the Avengers, who investigated the disturbance, leaving only Thor and the seemingly-immortal Firebird to stand against him.[46] As Thor threatened to kill the Presence, Starlight, as the Presence's companion, ultimately offered their surrender and used her own power to revive those who had been transformed and remand herself and the Presence to Russian custody; she didn't share his vision, but their powers meant that they would only ever have each other for company, and so she wished to keep him alive.[47] In the final struggle of the Kang War, the Presence and Starlight aided in the struggle to destroy Kang the Conqueror's Damocles Base space station,[48] with Starlight blackmailing the Presence for assistance by threatening to leave him if he attempted anything more than simply doing his job and subsequently returning to his cell.[49]

In the 2010 Darkstar and Winter Guard limited series, The Presence was apparently destroyed permanently when the Russian superhero Powersurge sacrificed his life to defeat him after he once again tried to conquer Russia after Starlight left him for good to join the People's Protectorate, where she fell in love with his son, Vanguard.[50][51][52]

In Deadpool and the Mercs for Money, the Presence is briefly revived by Umbral Dynamics (a corporation secretly led by Caroline Le Fay) by harvesting the power of several superhumans with radiaction-related powers. After a fight with the new Mercs for Money and Deadpool, the Presence is killed again by Negasonic Teenage Warhead who drains out all his power.[53]

Protector (Thoral Rul) was the Prime Thoran of Xandar, whose duty was to protect the Xandarian's Living Computers (aka Worldmind). Protector was killed when Nebula's forces wiped out Xandar's population.[55]

Protégé is a cosmic entity from an alternate future of the Marvel Universe.

The character, created by Jim Valentino, first appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy #15 (August 1991) as the childlike ruler of the Universal Church of Truth of the alternate future of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Valentino modeled him after his son Aaron at seven years old.[56] He is depicted as a superhuman of unlimited potential, with the ability to duplicate not only super-powers, but also the skills of others simply by observing the ability being used; thus, he could acquire the psychokinetic powers of the Guardian Vance Astro as easily as he could the marksmanship ability of Astro's teammate Nikki, by watching them in combat.

Within the context of the Marvel Comics universe, Protégé is the deity and leader of Universal Church of Truth to which Replica, a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy, belongs. In order to save the lives of her teammates, she offers herself as a playmate to Protégé who is accompanied by Malevolence.[57]

Later, Protégé uses its abilities to duplicate the powers of the Living Tribunal, nearly usurping its place in Marvel's cosmology.[58] When attempts to defeat Protégé fail, The Living Tribunal states that any and all realities rest on Protégé's shoulders. Protégé itself claims to have become the new One-Above-All.[59] Scathan the Approver, a Celestial, saves all realities by judging against Protégé. The Living Tribunal then absorbed Protégé into itself to prevent him from endangering all realities again.[60]

Pulsar, originally code-named Impulse, is a member of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard. Created by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum, the character first appeared in X-Men #107 (Oct. 1977). An energy being in a containment suit, Pulsar is capable of flight and the projection of energy blasts. (Like many original members of the Imperial Guard, Pulsar is the analog of a character from DC Comics' Legion of Super-Heroes: in his case Wildfire.)[61]

Impulse was amongst the first of the Imperial Guard encountered by the team of superhuman mutants known as the X-Men who sought to rescue the Princess Lilandra from her insane brother emperor D'Ken. Following the orders of their emperor, the Guard clashed with the X-Men on a nameless Shi'ar Empire planet, and were on the verge of winning when the band of interstellar freebooters known as the Starjammers arrived to turn the tide of battle in the X-Men's favor.[62] After the battle, Lilandra takes over as Majestrix, and the Guard swears allegiance to her.[63]

He is with the Guard when they come into conflict with a rogue Space Knight named Pulsar and an alien named Tyreseus. After a large battle which also involves Rom and other Space Knights — which leads to the deaths of four new Guardsman — Pulsar and Tyreseus are defeated.[64]

Impulse is again part of the mission during Operation: Galactic Storm, an intergalactic war between the Shi'ar and the Kree. The Imperial Guard are integral to the Sh'iar creating a massive super weapon — the "Nega-Bomb" — using Kree artifacts, including the original Captain Marvel's Nega-Bands, which the Guard steals from the dead hero's tomb. This bomb is capable of devastating an area equivalent to that of the Kree Empire (which is supposedly located throughout the Large Magellanic Cloud). Ultimately, the Nega Bomb device is successfully detonated, devastating the Kree Empire, with billions dying instantaneously (98% of the Kree population).[65] The Shi'ar annex the remnants of the Kree Empire, with Deathbird becoming viceroy of the Kree territories.[66]

Ronan the Accuser subsequently leads the Kree in a surprise attack against the Shi'ar, using the Inhumans as an army to disrupt the Shi'ar control of the Kree. Appearing over the city of Attilan, Ronan seizes control in a surprise attack and forces the Inhumans and their king, Black Bolt, to obey, or he would destroy their only home and everyone in it. He compels Karnak, Gorgon, and Triton to covertly join the Imperial Guard, while Black Bolt and Medusa attempt the assassination of the Shi'ar ruler Lilandra at a ceremony ratifying an alliance between the Shi'ar and the Spartoi. Black Bolt manages to defeat Ronan in personal combat;[67] the attempt on Lilandra's life fails because the shapeshifting Imperial Guardsman Hobgoblin dies in her place.[68]

The character is seemingly killed by Vulcan in the Emperor Vulcan storyline. Vulcan, a powerful mutant intent on conquering the Shi'ar Empire, fights the Guard, killing Cosmo and Smasher (and seemingly Impulse, Neutron, and Titan) before he is defeated by Gladiator, who puts out his left eye.[69] It turns out that Impulse either survived Vulcan's attack or was replaced by someone from the Subguardian ranks, because he reappears in the War of Kings storyline.[70] Beginning with the Infinity crossover, the character's name was changed to Pulsar.[71]

Pulsar has many further adventures with the Imperial Guard, including being involved in the trial of Jean Grey[72] and the return of Thanos.[73]