LIVING MONOLITH

BIOGRAPHY

Ahmet Abdol grew up in Al Jizah, a neighborhood in Cairo, Egypt. Ahmet was a dreamer as a child, creating elaborate fantasies where he was one of the pharaohs of old, and the other children were his subjects that he ruled as a benevolent god-king. Ahmet was quite a character and often drew attention from the other children with his antics, both good and bad. A local bully named Hassan was uncommonly cruel to Ahmet, ridiculing his playacting and physically tormenting the boy. Still, Ahmet had an admirer in Filene, a beautiful girl from the neighborhood who became his best friend growing up.

As he got older, Ahmet's playtime fantasies became a serious hobby, and he dedicated himself to the study of the pharaohs and their great power. In high school, Ahmet reacted with glee when his genealogy studies supposedly found a direct link between his family line and the pharaohs themselves, making him a modern day "son of Horus and Osiris." The ridicule and derision he received from his teachers and classmates did little to stifle Ahmet's joy.

Time passed, and Ahmet and Filene fell in love. Filene loved Ahmet despite his quirks and obsessions, and believed in his research. They enrolled in the American University at Cairo, where Ahmet became a professor of Egyptology. Ahmet's professional recognition was soon overshadowed at home by the birth of his beautiful daughter, whom he and Filene named Salome. Unfortunately, Ahmet's happy home life and his research were on a collision course.

Ahmet's investigations led him to the conclusion that the pharaohs and gods of ancient Egypt were actually early mutants, who used their powers to dominate the people of Egypt and build their remarkable civilization. Ahmet unveiled his findings at a symposium of scientific and religious figures, but his audience turned into a mob over the sacrilegious ideas he was proposing. Ahmet and Filene were forced to flee with baby Salome as the crowd attacked them. Manic with fear, Ahmet drove away from the pursuing mob at a dangerous speed. He nearly ran over a group of children playing in the streets when Filene spotted them, and Ahmet flipped over their car trying to avoid the kids. Ahmet and Salome were thrown clear of the burning wreck, but Filene was still trapped inside the car. Ahmet begged the mob to help him save his wife but they refused, leaving him alone to pry open the burning door and rescue the woman that he loved. Ahmet's efforts failed and the car exploded, burning Filene alive inside.

Furious by the dark face of human ignorance he was confronted with, Abdol instinctively lashed out at the crowd, manifesting his mutant abilities for the first time by firing a bolt of cosmic energy from his fingertips. As the mob fled, Abdol was approached by a mysterious man in a fez who called him "master." This man represented the Cult of the Living Pharaoh, an ancient order who still worshipped the pharaohs of Egypt as gods among men. The cult had been following Abdol's work, he said, and agreed with Abdol's findings about his own heritage and the mutant power of the pharaohs. With the respect he had craved since childhood handed to him on a silver platter, Ahmet Abdol quickly took to the role of Living Pharaoh, acting as lord and master of the cult. Abdol directed the cult to take Salome away to Malta so that she could be raised safely and in secret, as he turned the cult's resources to a quest for even greater power and recognition. In the meantime, Abdol maintained his public facade and rose to become his country's premiere archeologist and Egyptologist. [Marvel Graphic Novel #17]

Unbeknownst to Abdol, however, the Cult of the Living Pharaoh were actually a smaller sect of the Children of the Sun, a hereditary line of pharaoh worshippers created millennia ago by En Sabah Nuhr when he ruled Egypt. Thousands of years ago, Apocalypse's divinations of the future revealed to him the secrets of the Fabled Twelve of Power, mutants who would provide him with the key to ultimate power. Over his long life, Apocalypse worked to manipulate the legend of the Twelve with obfuscation and false details so that their true use to him was kept a mystery. Apocalypse's plans required one of the Twelve to serve as a conduit for the energies of the others, and he apparently knew this mutant would one day rise from the blood of the pharaohs. He created the Children of the Sun to stand watch over Egypt in anticipation of the birth of this "Living Pharaoh," who would be a key player in the Gathering of the Twelve. (It is unclear if the Cult of the Living Pharaoh were fully aware of Apocalypse's role in their history or the Living Pharaoh's true intended destiny. They may merely have been told Abdol was a living god and to serve him, while only the high-ranking Children of the Sun knew the truth.)

Apocalypse was that mysterious man who introduced Abdol to the cult and he worked to engineer the Living Pharaoh into the conduit he required. With the assistance of Mister Sinister, the disguised Apocalypse used Celestial technology to modify and increase Abdol's abilities by mixing his genetic material with that of Alex Summers, at the time still an infant from the powerful Summers bloodline Sinister had been grooming. This procedure was initially successful in magnifying the Living Pharaoh's abilities, letting him draw from a broader range of energy wavelengths to generate more power for himself. However, an unexpected symbiotic link also developed between Abdol and Summers, binding their energy-absorbing abilities to the same well of power. The Living Pharaoh was more powerful now than he could have been before, but he also could not reach his full potential so long as Alex Summers was alive and diverting some of their shared power to himself. Indeed, as time passed, Abdol found his initial power boost waning and he grew weaker and weaker over the years as Alex Summers grew older and began soaking up more and more cosmic energy. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #376]

[Note: Apocalypse once referred to Ahmet Abdol as a "non-mutant variant," suggesting his powers were artificial in some way. However, all references before and since have called the Living Monolith a genuine mutant, and he did demonstrate a natural power bolt on his own before being introduced to En Sabah Nuhr. Therefore, this reference was likely an error.]

How much conscious knowledge the Living Pharaoh had about his ties to Apocalypse, Sinister and Alex Summers has not been specified. Roughly two decades after he first assumed the role of the Living Pharaoh, however, Abdol decided to intervene in Alex Summers' life. In New York, the Pharaoh's men assaulted Alex at his graduation from Landon College. They were interrupted by the unexpected appearance of Alex's brother Scott, alias Cyclops of the X-Men. The Living Pharaoh was forced to intervene directly in the kidnapping but, even as he did, it was clear time was running out. As Alex's mutant abilities drew closer to manifestation, Abdol's own powers continued to weaken. During the struggle with the X-Men, the Living Pharaoh lost the ability to direct his cosmic energy naturally, and was forced to rely upon amplifying equipment hidden in his ankh. After a hit-and-run battle with the X-Men, the Pharaoh finally succeeded in capturing both Alex and Scott, transporting them back to Egypt and his headquarters at the temple ruins Professor Abdol was "excavating" for the Egyptian government. Abdol sealed Alex in a sarcophagus specifically engineered to block all cosmic energy from reaching his body. 

Once Alex's natural interference was ended, the Living Pharaoh felt the full power of the cosmic forces come to him. The accumulated cosmic energy transformed him in a way it never had before, causing Abdol to continually grow in size and strength, until he walked the Earth as a Living Monolith.

The X-Men had tracked their missing comrades to Egypt, but were too late to stop Abdol's transformation. The Living Monolith effortlessly shrugged off the X-Men's attacks and was on the verge of total victory. However, while Abdol's sarcophagus successfully blocked any cosmic energy from reaching Alex Summers, he failed to take into account the cosmic energy Alex had already stored up, even while his X-gene was still latent. Entombed alive and running low on air, the stress of the situation triggered Alex's mutant powers. He consciously accessed the cosmic energy in his system and released it, destroying the sarcophagus. With Summers free and in full possession of his mutant abilities, the Living Monolith immediately suffered the consequences. The Monolith reverted back to Professor Ahmet Abdol, truly powerless and no longer able to access cosmic energy for any purpose thanks to Alex's awakening. [X-Men (1st series) #54-56]

Although he was beaten, Professor Abdol remained a cunning opponent. Naked after his Monolith attire fell away, Abdol convinced the X-Men to dress him in normal clothing while they awaited the Egyptian authorities to deliver him into custody. When the officers arrived, however, the Living Pharaoh used his "secret identity" as renowned archeologist Professor Abdol to bluff his countrymen, claiming he had been on an innocent dig when the unstable mutant Alex Summers arrived and destroyed the tomb of their ancestors. Professor Abdol easily turned the police against the X-Men, and avoided jail time or any revelation of his secret cult. [X-Men (1st series) #57]

Abdol continued to milk the opportunity for all it was worth, decrying the X-Men as violators of international law. Elsewhere, however, the X-Men were soon captured by Larry Trask and his Mark II Sentinel mutant hunters. During that distant conflict, Alex Summers (now called Havok) was immobilized and cut off from his cosmic radiation source by Trask's technology. At that moment, Abdol was at a public meeting when their shared power began to flow into him, changing him once more into the Living Monolith. The thrill of power quickly faded for the Monolith when Sentinels arrived to subdue him just as they subdued Havok. Before the Pharaoh fully became the Monolith, the robots coated Abdol with inhibiting gel that blocked the cosmic radiation emissions from reaching him. Abdol was imprisoned alongside most of the other known mutants on Earth until Cyclops convinced the Sentinels' Number 2 to lead his robot brethren into space. He was released in the aftermath by Judge Chambers. [X-Men (1st series) #58-60]

Somehow, Abdol managed to remain a public figure despite his transformation and capture by the Sentinels. While on an archeological expedition, Professor Abdol discovered a ruby scarab gem. Abdol was pleased to learn the unique properties of the scarab restored his lost mutant powers to their Pharaoh levels regardless of Havok's current status (although he apparently still could not achieve Monolith levels even with the gem). Unfortunately for Abdol, the ruby was the bane of extra-dimensional deity-sorcerers known as the Elementals, who were driven from the Earthly plane thousands of years ago by the gem and its creator. Seeking to return and rule humanity, the Elementals wanted the gem disposed of and manipulated N'Kantu, the Living Mummy into attacking the Living Pharaoh's temple to recover the ruby. N'Kantu fought his way through the cultists and battled the Living Pharaoh directly. Ultimately, the fight between the Mummy and the Pharaoh distracted them both long enough for a third party, the thief known as the Asp, to steal the scarab for his own purposes. Crushed by the loss of his personal power again, the Living Pharaoh collapsed and gave no further resistance to N'Kantu. [Supernatural Thrillers #9]

Eventually recovering his confidence and some of his power, the Living Pharaoh used his connections at the Halwani embassy to establish a base of operations in Manhattan. Abdol conceived a new plan to unleash the power of the Monolith. He dispatched one squad of loyalists to capture Havok on Muir Island while another squad raided Empire State University for a small ankh talisman that held unique properties. Although Alex Summers was taken with little incident, the ESU burglary caught the attention of Spider-Man, who followed the cultists back to the embassy. Spider-Man freed Havok, and the two heroes confronted the Living Pharaoh and his minions. Abdol easily swatted the spider, blasting him through the side of a building. The Pharaoh and Havok turned their cosmic powers against each other, but remained evenly matched until one of the cultists used Abdol's stolen ankh on Summers. Somehow, the ankh was capable of inhibiting Havok's power and turning it against him, leaving him paralyzed.

The Living Pharaoh had devised a new use for Havok in their time apart. Instead of killing the boy or blocking his cosmic energies, the Pharaoh's sarcophagus technology would amplify Havok's cosmic absorbing abilities to their maximum and transfer that energy directly into Abdol. Spider-Man returned just as the Pharaoh prepared to close Havok in the sarcophagus, propping open the lid with his webbing. Spidey was prepared for Abdol's power blasts this time, and avoided them long enough to get in a good right cross. Unfortunately, the legendary "Parker luck" sent the Pharaoh flying backwards into the sarcophagus, breaking the webline holding open the casket and trapping Havok inside. As the power circuit was completed, the Living Pharaoh revived and began his awesome transformation into the Living Monolith before the eyes of the wistful wall-crawler. [Marvel Team-Up (1st series) #69]

Fortunately for Spider-Man, his plight caught the attention of the Mighty Thor. As Spidey tried to safely free Havok from the sarcophagus, Thor turned his efforts towards stopping the rampage of the Living Monolith. This was no easy task, and the notoriously difficult to impress Thunder God even compared the might of the Monolith to Thanos himself. He managed to dispatch the Living Monolith into the east river and created a mighty hurricane to keep Abdol occupied. Despite his efforts, Thor failed to stop the Living Monolith with all of his strength. Only when Spider-Man worked out the means to remove Havok from the sarcophagus did the Monolith revert back to human form, and vanish in the storm before Thor could retrieve him. [Marvel Team-Up (1st series) #70]

Eventually recovering from his defeat, Professor Abdol decided to seek other methods of unlocking his Monolith power. He used his credentials with the Egyptian government to associate with the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. The staff archeologists recently uncovered the mysterious Cheops Crystal and needed an Egyptologist like Abdol to study it. Abdol theorized that the crystal's unique properties could unlock his full potential under the proper circumstances, and arranged to steal the full Egyptian display of the museum, replacing them with forgeries. To cover his tracks, Abdol convinced the museum's curator Merridew to hire private security from Heroes for Hire, while Abdol also hired Senor Suerte to steal the forged artifacts the same night. Power Man and Iron Fist captured Suerte's men, but when the museum staff checked the artifacts and discovered the forgeries, they blamed Heroes for Hire for bungling the security.

Meanwhile, Abdol kidnapped Merridew and his fellow archeologists and used their bodies to harness the energies of the Cheops Crystal within a pyramid of power. By placing the men in sarcophagi at equidistant points around Manhattan, Abdol could become the Living Monolith within the perimeter of the triangle they formed. The Living Monolith intended to eliminate Heroes for Hire and their staff in order to ensure no one could connect Ahmet Abdol to the thefts. Sure enough, Cage and the Fist had realized Abdol set them up and tracked him to his lair just as the Pharaoh became the Monolith. Heroes for Hire joined forces with the Daughters of the Dragon and the X-Men to stop the Living Monolith from murdering their secretary, Jenny Royce. While the Daughters and the X-Men desperately tried to keep the Monolith distracted, the Heroes located the cult hideout in the Halwani embassy and the Cheops Crystal. They reasoned its purpose and worked with the NYPD to locate Merridew and the archeologists in their sarcophagi at the corners of the triangle. With the archeologists freed, the Living Monolith lost his power and once again reverted back to Ahmet Abdol. [Power Man and Iron Fist (1st series) #56-57]

It appears Abdol was no longer able to explain away his criminal activities after his capture in New York, for he was taken into custody and transported back to Egypt, where he was incarcerated for his crimes. In a karmic joke, Abdol found himself imprisoned on a cell block with his childhood tormentor, Hassan, as a guard. The two men picked up as if the intervening decades hadn't occurred, with Hassan taunting Ahmet about his silly dreams of power. Hassan bragged constantly about the real power he had, authority, thanks to his badge. Hassan should not have been so confident in the inhibitor gauntlets that restrained Abdol's power, though -- while his full power was still denied him, the Pharaoh could produce enough low-level cosmic force to slowly wear away the gauntlets from the inside, eventually freeing his hands and his powers. With his renewed power, Ahmet blasted his childhood tormentor so hard, Hassan was embedded in the wall where he struck. As the Cult of the Living Pharaoh arrived on cue to free their master, Abdol ordered Hassan's unconscious form brought along with them.

The Cult of the Living Pharaoh had not been idle in Abdol's absence. Still seeking ways around his connection to Alex Summers, the Pharaoh's scientists devised a means of harnessing the cosmic energies of the Fantastic Four as an alternative for unleashing the Living Monolith. A cultist called Fayah Sahid infiltrated the Baxter Building by pretending to be a defector from the cult when the Human Torch "rescued" her from cultists on the streets of Manhattan. She was then able to position three of the Four within a pyramid teleportation trap, sending them into Abdol's clutches in his catacombs lair under Cairo.

The plan then called for Fayah to break the glass on the Baxter Building and leap to safety in a passing cultist air-ship, but she hadn't counted on the super-resistant glass of the FF's headquarters. With Fayah trapped by the FF's remaining member She-Hulk, cult protocols insisted she be electrocuted to death by the collar around her neck. Without a second thought, Abdol had done the same thing to two cultists earlier that day when they fell behind during his prison escape. Upon seeing "Fayah Sahid" on the surveillance monitors, however, Ahmet was shocked -- Fayah was actually his own daughter, Salome Abdol. He quickly learned that Salome had returned from school during his imprisonment, and insisted on taking a key role in the operation, hoping to prove her worth to her father and the cult. With the blood of the Living Pharaoh running through her veins, the cultists were incapable of denying her request. Abdol hesitated to follow his own protocols, recognizing Salome as the last remnant of his old life and his connection to his beloved wife. Tragically, his prisoner Hassan was nearby to overhear this exchange, and began mocking Ahmet for still being the same "wimp" on the playground from years ago. With a glint of madness in his eyes, the Living Pharaoh responded to Hassan's taunts by triggering the collar, electrocuting his own daughter to death before she could reveal anything of his plans.

With the Fantastic Four firmly secured in the latest power-siphoning sarcophagi, the Living Pharaoh began his transformation into the Living Monolith. Looking to vent his rage for Salome's death, the Monolith had himself transported to Manhattan, growing out of his own Concord SST when he arrived and rampaging through the city. This proved to be the longest incident of the Monolith's manifestation to date and Abdol continued to soak up more and more cosmic energy, passing from thirty to sixty to over one hundred and fifty feet tall. Captain America, She-Hulk, Spider-Man and even the American Air Force proved incapable of halting the Living Monolith's progression. Abdol only hesitated when his path of destruction carried him to a school, like the one where he and Filene first met. Sensing his reluctance, Cap got Abdol's attention and tried to reason with him. He urged Ahmet to see the good in humanity and not judge them just based on Hassan or the men who let his wife burn. The Living Monolith might have listened, if the Armed Forces's men on the ground hadn't taken the distraction as a chance to fire a bazooka at him. Enraged by the apparent trick, the Living Monolith began rampaging once more.

Meanwhile, Spider-Man decided he was no use in the battle and returned to the Baxter Building where he recreated Abdol's pyramid teleportation device. Materializing in Cairo, the web-slinger fought through the Cult of the Living Pharaoh and found a way to overload the device holding the Fantastic Four captive. At that moment, back in New York, Captain America and She-Hulk managed to shock the Living Monolith with the entire ConEd power grid. Together, these events seemed to be enough to topple the Monolith. Though he fell, the Monolith did not revert to his human form. It seemed Abdol had passed the point where his transformation could be reversed -- even without the Fantastic Four as a power source, his body would continue to absorb cosmic energy and grow larger and larger. Indeed, he had already reached the point where he could no longer support his own mass, leaving him in Central Park where he fell.

Captain America summoned Thor and the Avengers, who attempted to remove the still-growing Monolith from Earth by wrapping him in an Adamantium cable and using the power of Mjolnir to launch him skyward. The Cult of the Living Pharaoh arrived on the scene to protect their master, and engaged the Avengers. Nearly motionless but still aware, Abdol watched as the normal citizens of New York rose up in defense of their heroes, fighting against the cultists. He witnessed an average man die in a cultist's ray blast because he pushed a small child out of the way, a stranger to him. Finding truth in Captain America's words, the Living Monolith called for the cultists to stop. Abdol placed himself in Thor's hands and, with all his strength, pushed off from the ground in time with Mjolnir's throw. The added force gave the hammer the lift it needed to carry the Living Monolith to escape velocity, sending him on a journey through space. Over time, the Monolith continued to expand until he reached planetary proportions, and life and vegetation began to grow over his vast surface, sustained by the energy of his cosmically-charged cells. The Living Monolith found a measure of contentment as he evolved to become the Living Planet. [Marvel Graphic Novel #17]

The Cult of the Living Pharaoh continued in Abdol's absence, gathering distant relatives of the Pharaoh and indoctrinating them into their ways. They hoped to trigger god-like powers in others of Abdol's lineage and lured Havok into a trap so that these "Trackers" could be exposed to his power. Of the Trackers, only Abdol's niece, Leila O'Toole, manifested any abilities, becoming a new leader in the Cult as Plasma. [Marvel Comics Presents (1st series) #25-31] Sometime later, a piece of the Living Monolith broke off in space and made its way back to Earth as a meteorite. The Monolith fragment projected a portion of Abdol's psyche into the teenager Akasha Martinez, temporarily transforming her into a new incarnation of the Living Pharaoh. [Sensational Spider-Man (1st series) #18-20]

Years passed but, while the Living Planet may have been content with his new lot in life, Apocalypse was still focused on his own destiny and the Fabled Twelve of Power. With the help of the Children of the Sun, Apocalypse made alliances with the alien Skrulls and Deathbird of the Shi'ar, locating the Living Planet as it drifted through deep space. Deathbird collected the essence of Ahmet Abdol in a specially prepared sarcophagus and brought him back to Earth, where the Children of the Sun restored Abdol in his massive human form as the Living Monolith once more. With Alex Summers lost in space-time and believed dead, the Living Monolith's powers were at their peak... just as Apocalypse intended. The Monolith emerged triumphantly from his sarcophagus, massively charged with stellar energies from the void of space, and ready to lead the Children of the Sun into a new era of conquest. As En Sabah Nuhr re-introduced himself, however, he shut down the Living Monolith's mind with a wave of his hand, proving that Abdol now existed only to serve him.

The Gathering of the Twelve was completed with little incident, despite the efforts of the X-Men and their allies to prevent Apocalypse from getting his hands on the mutants. The pieces were arranged in Apocalypse's Celestial machine -- the elemental forces of Storm, Iceman and Sunfire; twin poles of electromagnetic power from Magneto and Polaris; the raw power and genetic potential of Cyclops, Phoenix and Cable; power over time and space from the temporal energy-saturated Bishop and inter-dimensional transits of Mikhail Rasputin; all bound by the psychic power of Charles Xavier. The Living Monolith was Apocalypse's conduit for all these diverse energies, his augmented energy conversion abilities letting him soak up the various power sources and channel them into Apocalypse for his Ascension. As luck would have it, however, Apocalypse did not account for Magneto's recent reduction in power, after trying to invert the planet's electromagnetic field. This destabilized the Celestial matrix, causing the power to "back up" in the circuit at the Living Monolith.

Abdol turned the power to his advantage, breaking free of the machine and freeing the rest of the Twelve in the process. The Living Monolith proved to be no help to the Twelve as they struck back against Apocalypse. Drunk with power and reeling from the revelation that decades of his life and his only daughter had been sacrificed in someone else's pursuit of power, Abdol was overtaken by madness. His destructive tantrum only ended when Bishop turned his own energy-absorbing power against Abdol's, knocking him out.

Apocalypse was still able to harness the Twelve's energies already put into the Celestial machine but, instead of claiming Nate Grey as his host body as intended, his essence fell into the body of Scott Summers. Using the vast power at his fingertips, Apocalypse reclaimed control of the Monolith and warped reality around the Twelve several times, trying to create alternate universe scenarios that would trick them into feeding him the extra mutant energies necessary to fully complete his Ascension. Failing time and again, Apocalypse was eventually forced to flee from the X-Men and the Twelve, taking the Living Monolith with him. [Gathering of the Twelve crossover]

Apocalypse did not retain control of Cyclops's body, eventually reducing to an amnesiac Scott Summers before his essence was completely cleansed from the X-Man months later by Cable and Phoenix. Without Apocalypse's propping him up, the Monolith reduced to his near-powerless human form as Ahmet Abdol. Adrift without his cult, his followers, or his kingdom, Abdol faded from the modern world, disappearing for years. He was wandering alone in the Sahara Desert when he heard the call of power again. The demonic entity known as Cyttorak sent out a siren song, luring potential candidates to his temple in Southeast Asia where they could claim the Crimson Gem and become the latest in his line of avatars as the human Juggernaut.

Galvanized back into action, Abdol acquired funding and hired a team of mercenaries to help him kill his way through the temple and reach the gem. They faced the gem's demonic protectors, other prospective avatars, and the X-Men, who sought to stop the rise of another Juggernaut. Fate worked in Abdol's favor, for all these diverse parties got in each other's way long enough for him to claim the Gem, and with it Cyttorak's favor. The power of the Gem transformed Abdol into the Juggernaut and restored his powers as the Living Monolith at the same time. He was enspelled with the armor of Cyttorak and charged with enough cosmic energy to reach hundreds of feet tall. Colossal, unstoppable, the X-Men were unable to stand against the Living Monolith, this Human Juggernaut. Instead, two of their number who previous held the power of Cyttorak, Cain Marko and Piotr Rasputin, propositioned Cyttorak himself in the Crimson Cosmos. Cyttorak removed the power of the Juggernaut from Abdol and returned it to Marko. Without Cyttorak's energy, Abdol could not even maintain his Monolith form, and reverted back to his Pharoah state. Abdol slunk away in the aftermath, once again forgotten by his opponents until the next time his powers return and the Living Monolith stalks the earth again. [Amazing X-Men (2nd series) #16-18]