Makkari

Makkari is an Eternal of Earth who has many roles over his immortal life, such as an adventurer, a servant of the Celestials, a doctor, a racer, technologist, monster hunter, government agent, and reporter, and that’s just the ones that are known.

Eternal Origins

Makkari is one of the Eternals, an evolutionary offshoot of humanity created by experiments performed by the enigmatic Celestials, and born around 2500 BC in the capital of Olympia to Verona and Mara of the Technologists’ Guild. At an early age, he takes an interest in speed, allegedly learning to run before he could walk. While Makkari learns engineering from his parents and receives tutoring by the human philosopher Plato (423-348 BC), he primarily applies the sciences to his passion for speed, designing various high-speed vessels for travel. 

Makkari often helps his fellow Eternals combat their enemies, the Deviants, and makes an appearance during the Trojan War in 13th century BC. During the time of ancient Greece and Rome, Makkari is often mistaken for the Olympian god Hermes (Roman name Mercury). 

Makkari saves Sersi, a fellow Eternal, from the Great Fire of Rome (64 AD), and in the 6th century AD, Makkari serves some time as charioteer to Darius, governor of Persia. Makkari witnesses other events in human history, such as the reign of Vlad the Impaler, now the vampire Dracula (1448-1476), and the Battle of the Alamo (1836).

Fastest Eternal in Existence

Makkari possesses the conventional abilities of the Eternals of Earth. His body is augmented by cosmic energy and he has total mental control over his entire molecular structure. He is virtually immune to injury, can regenerate his entire body as need be, and is immune to disease, aging, and extreme temperatures. Only total molecular dispersal can kill an Eternal. Makkari alters his physical features over the years, including alterations to his pigmentation, hair and eye color, musculature, and gender.

Makkari is the fastest Eternal known to exist. Prior to his regeneration by the Dreaming Celestial, Makkari could travel beyond the speed of light, but risked placing himself out of sync with normal space-time by reaching his highest speeds. Makkari sacrificed most of his powers (including molecular rearrangement, flight and energy projection) to achieve these higher speeds. Since his regeneration, Makkari’s optimum speed is not known, but is likely Mach 3. Makkari normally wears a bodysuit with a helmet that can withstand the rigors of high velocity movement. Via pure manipulation of gravitons, he can levitate himself and others at up to 850 mph. Additionally, he can teleport, but seldom utilizes this power because of the discomfort it causes him.

Makkari is telepathic, able to cast low-level illusions, and can rearrange the molecules of other substances, including his uniforms. In combat, Makkari can wield cosmic energy to enhance his physical strength—lifting up to 50 tons—and durability and can release energy from his hands and eyes in the form of heat, light, or concussive force. At maximum intensity, he can vaporize solid matter. 

Like most of his fellow Eternals, thanks to Sprite’s manipulation, Makkari becomes mortal with reduced powers, though they remain formidable compared to most superhumans. He regains his full abilities after subsequent regenerations since he’s reborn in an Eternal body.

Forever Foes

Makkari often joins his fellow Eternals in clashes with their enemies the Deviants—another evolutionary offshoot of humanity created by the Celestials. Their most common foe among them is the Deviant warlord Kro and their Priest-Lord Ghaur.

Eternal Allies

Makkari is closely allied to the Eternals of Earth. Makkari is occasionally diverted by a repeated romantic involvement with Sersi.

Over his long lifetime, he joins the National Security Agency for the United States and recruits the Monster Hunters, Ulysses Bloodstone, Anthony Druid, AKA Doctor Druid, and Zawadi to stop Kro’s schemes in breeding monsters. This team would later become known as the First Line. 

Interested in life, and the humanity of Earth, Makkari watches the planet grow for millennia. He finds that Earth has the most unique and profound distillation of life on it, and never gets involved in any of their wars. He feels that if they didn’t concern his race’s ongoing conflict with the Deviants, it wasn’t right for him to insert himself. Though he does involve himself in Earth’s World War II but disguised so as to protect his race.

Speeding Through History

In 1940, the Deviant Warlord Kro had taken up various guises amongst humanity to sow discord, including the role of Rudolph Hendler, dictator of Prussland. The leader of the Eternals, Zuras, assigned Makkari to guard humanity from Kro’s schemes. To conceal his true nature Makkari at first called himself Mercury, but soon adopted the alias Hurricane and pretended to be one of the Olympian gods. During his 1940s adventures, Makkari used the human guise “Harry Kane” and befriended the rotund “Speedy” Scriggles, who admired his friend’s superhuman speed. 

In addition to his repeated clashes with Kro, Makkari also investigated a crooked carnival, held back criminals with designs on the Midville Daily Star newspaper, halted construction saboteurs, and defended heiress Florence Grey from would-be killers. Makkari continued his pursuit of Kro into the 1950s, taking a brief respite to educate the soon-to-be-famous performer Elvis Presley. By the late 1950s, Makkari became Jake Curtiss of the National Security Agency and gathered Ulysses Bloodstone, Doctor Druid, and Zawadi into the Monster Hunters in order to halt Kro’s schemes to breed armies of rampaging monsters. At one point in this adventure, Makkari claimed to be Adam Clayton, a man afflicted with superhuman speed which ultimately claimed his life, but later revealed himself to the Monster Hunters as Hurricane. The Monster Hunters remained active as late as 1958 when they aided the heroes who would later become the First Line in battling super-criminals hired by the Skrull invader Zuhn. In the late 1960s, Makkari was invited to join the First Line by team member Pixie, a fellow Eternal, calling himself Major Mercury during this time. 

In recent years, Makkari joined the Eternals in probing the Fourth Host of the Celestials, which had come to judge humanity’s worthiness. As tensions over the Celestials’ presence flared, the Olympian Gods were led into a war with the Eternals, during which Makkari clashed with Hermes. The battle was ultimately called off and the Fourth Host eventually judged in mankind’s favor. 

Soon after, many Eternals elected to leave Earth and seek a new destiny among the stars. Makkari was among those who remained behind and sought out the Eternal philosopher Master Elo to teach him how to challenge the limits of his speed abilities; Makkari eventually streamlined his abilities, sacrificing many of his powers to become faster. In his first test run after increasing his powers, he encountered the hero Quasar, who later helped him rescue Master Elo from the Deviants. Makkari took the human guise of Mike Khary in order to move amongst Quasar’s civilian friends. During this time, Makkari was among the speedsters recruited by the Runner, an extraterrestrial racing enthusiast and Elder of the Universe. The Runner pitted many of Earth’s fastest runners against each other in a race to the moon; though he outraced other notable speedsters such as Speed Demon, Stanley Stewart, AKA Whizzer, and Quicksilver, Makkari narrowly lost the contest when the extradimensional racer “Buried Alien” appeared and claimed victory. 

In Makkari’s time with Quasar he aided his friend against menaces including Maelstrom and K’rll, AKA Soul-Eater, but eventually departed so that he could investigate the herd-like people of Grosgumbeek, among the fastest species known to exist. Schooling at the feet of native Huyenneyuh, Makkari unlocked new secrets to increase his speed. He enlisted in another of the Runner’s races and was reunited with “Buried Alien,” now called FastForward. In this race, Makkari was challenged by the Runner himself but won using the Grosgumbeek technique. Unfortunately, Makkari found that due to a side effect of this power, he had difficulty returning to the normal speed of the space-time continuum. En Dwi Gast, AKA the Grandmaster, one of the Runner’s fellow Elders of the Universe, offered to cure Makkari’s condition at the cost of 3,000 years of servitude. Makkari declined, instead receiving aid from FastForward in monitoring his condition. 

In recent years, the mischievous Eternal Sprite sought to become mortal by tapping into the power of the Dreaming Celestial, AKA Tiamut the Communicator, a rogue Celestial that slumbered beneath San Francisco for 20,000 years. Using the Celestial’s power to warp reality, Sprite transformed himself into a mortal and simultaneously converted the rest of the Eternals’ population into human-like forms with no memory of their prior lives. Makkari became Dr. Mark Curry, a physician. Makkari’s old friend Ikaris retained some sense of his true self and sought out “Curry,” but did little more than intrigue him. While attending a party at the Vorozheikan Embassy alongside fellow amnesiac Eternals Druig, Sersi and Thena, Curry’s life was threatened by terrorists, resulting in a partial reactivation of his powers. 

Curry then pieced together a link between himself and Sprite and sought answers from him. Sprite led Curry to the Dreaming Celestial and tricked him into attacking it, setting off a feedback system that prevented Eternals from harming Celestials. Awakened, the Dreaming Celestial established a telepathic rapport with Makkari, restoring his memories. The Dreaming Celestial claimed that it had personally created Makkari in ages past and thus retained an interest in him, choosing him to communicate with rather than Ajak, the Eternal who normally conversed with Celestials. The Dreaming Celestial warned Makkari that a species of extraterrestrial “locusts” called the Horde were on their way to Earth and that only a judgment from the Celestial in Earth’s favor would save it. Makkari elected to remain as the Celestial’s communicator as his fellow Eternals continued to seek out and awaken the remainder of their ranks. Makkari took up residence with Sersi in her San Francisco loft for the duration, and they re-entered a romantic relationship. While his communion with the Celestial placed a great physical and psychic strain on Makkari, the Celestial insisted he would not harm the speedster and that he had specially modified Makkari for this task, also enhancing Sersi’s powers so she could serve as Makkari’s protector. Meanwhile, jealous of Makkari’s new rapport with this Celestial, a treacherous Ajak sought Makkari’s destruction, aided by his pawn Gilgamesh the Forgotten One. 

When the Eternals were given the dismantled Gods’ Whisper—a Kree-created device capable of controlling the gods themselves—for safekeeping by Aarkus, alien detective and the original Vision, it rendered the possessed Ikaris free for Makkari to rescue. The Eternals then used the God’s Whisper to control the world-eater Galactus and exact revenge on the Kree. Makkari then met with Tanalth, Grand-High Pursuer of the Kree, who was hunting down the God’s Whisper. They met in a remote location, on a play-board for a race of space titans, and discussed how their respective peoples seemed to be acting out of the norm. Suddenly, the play-pieces came to life and attacked Makkari and Tanalth. They seemed to defeat them and then they shapeshifted into strange octopus-like creatures, then burst into flames. Makkari surmised that their sudden combustion was to avoid anyone examining the corpses. The mystery deepened and the pair agreed to maintain their secret counsel, and share what they learned.

When dead Celestials fell to Earth, it was the beginning of the Dark Celestials. This event marked the Celestials’ Final Host on Earth. Makkari and the other Eternals learned that the Celestials favored humans and that their original purpose for the Eternals was to help humanity. This news threw the Eternals into a tizzy, driving them mad which led them to turn against each other or commit suicide. Makkari perished but was later restored into a female form and sought out her now dead god, the Dreaming Celestial. In her pursuit, she lost her speech, hearing, and telepathy. Along with the other Eternals, Makkari faced a new threat in the form of Thena’s cousin, the Mad Titan Thanos, whom they eventually defeated.