The resemblance was almost absurd.
Red-and-blue uniform.
Flowing crimson cape.
No giant "S" on the chest, sure, but the golden triangular emblem wasn't fooling anyone.
You could drag Gladiator straight out of the Marvel universe and drop him into almost any DC tiline, and nobody would question him being so alternate-universe Kryptonian.
The mont Drex Valen saw Gladiator through his super-vision and heard him speaking aboard the Shi'ar vessel, genuine surprise crossed his face.
Gladiator?
If Kryptonians were a species born with cheat codes enabled, Gladiator's race wasn't any less outrageous.
Possibly worse.
At least Kryptonians still depended on yellow sunlight.
Gladiator's species operated on sothing far stranger.
Confidence.
That was it.
Their power scaled according to sheer self-belief.
The more convinced they were of their own superiority, the stronger they beca.
In simple terms:
If Gladiator believed he could do sothing, reality usually agreed.
According to Marvel lore, mbers of Gladiator's race possessed effectively limitless growth potential so long as their confidence remained unshaken.
And Gladiator himself happened to possess one of the most absurdly inflated egos in the cosmos.
To Marvel's credit, the writers still hadn't fully contradicted that concept yet.
At least as far as raw physical power went, Gladiator's upper limit had never really been shown.
The enemies capable of defeating him usually belonged to categories where brute force simply stopped mattering.
But in pure physical contests?
Very few beings in Marvel history could overpower him directly.
Even Thanos often ended up getting manhandled whenever Gladiator fully committed.
Drex Valen found Gladiator's species deeply fascinating.
Honestly, "fascinating" might have been putting it mildly.
He wanted samples.
Research data.
Dissection opportunities.
The race reminded him vaguely of Martian Manhunter from DC, though even that comparison fell apart eventually.
Gladiator's species was far more ridiculous.
As for how such an absurd civilization went extinct...
Drex could only shrug ntally.
Probably the sa way Krypton exploded.
A species powerful enough to challenge the universe sohow managing to destroy itself through catastrophic stupidity felt strangely universal.
"You are all exceptional warriors."
Gladiator clasped his hands behind his back beneath the crimson cape, every inch the untouchable grandmaster.
"You have earned the right to challenge ."
His gaze swept calmly across the gathered heroes.
"I give you my word. My soldiers will not interfere."
"You may use any thod you wish. Attack together if you prefer."
"If you defeat ... the Shi'ar Empire will leave Earth imdiately."
The superheroes stared at him.
Seriously?
It sounded too good to be true.
But for Gladiator, this had always been the point.
He ca to Earth seeking worthy opponents.
Rumors of a mysterious superhuman erging from the planet had reached the Shi'ar Empire, and the reports had imdiately caught Gladiator's interest.
He hadn't traveled across space to invade Earth.
Or conquer it.
Or destroy it.
He ca searching for battle.
Finding Earth's superheroes had rely been an unexpected bonus.
And Gladiator had no intention of wasting the opportunity to test himself against strong opponents.
As for the heroes...
The proposal fit perfectly into superhero logic.
Defeat the boss.
End the crisis.
Simple.
"Hulk fight you!"
Hulk charged first.
Nobody saw what happened.
A dull tallic impact echoed through the chamber.
Then Hulk flew backward.
The massive green body crashed across the floor, rolled twice, and smashed deep into the wall behind him.
Gladiator remained standing exactly where he started, cape drifting lightly in the heated air.
He had moved too quickly for most people to follow.
But the result was obvious.
A deep crater-like indentation had been punched directly into Hulk's chest.
"Hulk!"
Tony Stark reacted instantly.
The sheer violence of the counterattack shocked him, but he was more concerned Gladiator might press the advantage imdiately.
Iron Man rocketed forward at full speed, repulsors blazing toward Gladiator's face.
Gladiator casually swept one hand sideways.
Tony's repulsor beam scattered apart like shattered light.
The motion alone generated a violent pressure wave. Air currents exploded through the chamber as hurricane-force winds slamd into the advancing heroes.
Even Black Panther got blown backward by the shockwave.
Iron Man curved through the air at high speed, circled Gladiator, and launched a missile barrage into his flank. The explosion blossod upward against the ceiling in a roaring fireball.
At the sa ti, Tony's right arm transford.
Armor plates shifted and unfolded into a massive electromagnetic repulsor cannon. A blinding energy beam erupted forward, tearing straight through the flas toward Gladiator.
The recent flood of monsters, aliens, and cosmic horrors invading Earth had forced Tony to upgrade the Mark armor obsessively.
Every few months, he practically rebuilt the entire system from scratch.
The electromagnetic repulsor cannon was one of his newest weapons.
Three to five tis more powerful than standard repulsor technology.
And yet...
The funny thing about weapons developnt was that no matter how powerful Tony made his arsenal, reality always found a way to tell him it still wasn't enough.
Like now.
Because Gladiator was walking forward through the beam.
With his chest.
Tony's eyes widened behind the helt display.
He never expected the cannon to instantly kill opponents on Hulk or Drex Valen's level.
But at the very least, it should have slowed them down.
Even Hulk couldn't casually stroll through a direct electromagnetic repulsor blast without resistance.
Gladiator could.
The Shi'ar warrior reached out, grabbed the cannon barrel itself, and crushed it inward with one hand.
The symbiote armor imdiately began regenerating the damage.
Gladiator looked mildly impressed.
"Your armor is interesting," he said calmly.
"The technology is primitive, but the design philosophy has rit."
"ROOOOAR!"
Hulk ca charging back.
The green giant crossed the distance in an instant, fists swinging like artillery shells.
Gladiator shifted his attention away from Iron Man with a simple nod and casually swatted Tony aside before turning fully toward Hulk.
Then the collision ca.
BOOM.
The impact generated a pressure wave so violent it felt like the air itself had been ripped from the room.
The entire warship trembled.
Only the incredible structural engineering of the Shi'ar vessel prevented catastrophic damage.
And yet...
Gladiator stood there calmly with one hand raised, blocking Hulk's punch.
Just one hand.
His boots carved deep trenches through the tal floor as the force drove him backward half a ter.
Then he stopped completely.
Like a mountain rooting itself into the earth.
Hulk's fury exploded instantly.
Soone capable of resisting his strength only made him angrier.
He roared and unleashed a storm of punches rapid enough to distort the surrounding airflow itself. Each swing carried enough force to pulp ordinary beings into mist from the shockwave alone.
Nearby Shi'ar soldiers stumbled backward in terror.
But Gladiator t the barrage head-on without the slightest sign of strain.
Calm.
Controlled.
Effortless.
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