EDITORIAL: Who is Drax the Destroyer?

Real Estate Agent Art Douglas, his wife, Yvette, and daughter, Heather, were on their way to Las Vegas to see Elvis Presley. It just so happened that the same moment Thanos flew over their car on his first scouting mission to Earth. A miscalculation allows for the possibility of the car far below to see Thanos. Whether they see him or not is irrelevant to Thanos; they were humans and therefore expendable. Mentor, Thanos' father, had been monitoring his dangerous son, and witnessing the murder of Heather's parents, took Heather to titan to be raised into Moondragon. Mentor called on his own father, Kronos, to capture Arthur Douglas' soul just before it moves on to it's next existence. Merging his soul with an “earthen-enforced body”, Drax the Destroyer was born! Mentor hid the memories of his past life from Drax, which laid dormant for nearly a year after Drax's first appearance in IronMan # 55 in 1973, until Captain Marvel #32 in 1974, where during a battle with Thanos, Thanos revealed Drax's past in hopes of Drax feeling used and manipulated by Mentor. The plan backfired and remembering his family drove Drax to merely hate Thanos all the more. More after the jump!

Drax's original attitude and personality most resembled his present-day incarnation than most any other version of Drax between then and now. Drax was designed to kill Thanos. It's all he thought about and all he desired. However, his powers were dramatically different. While still strong and incredibly resilient, he also displayed energy-based powers such as flight, energy-blasts from his hands, and psychic detection of others outside of just Thanos. In the company of the Avengers, Captain Mar Vell, and Moondragon, Drax helped to destroy Thanos. Drax wandered space without a purpose or direction for a time. Thanos rematerialized himself, but by the time Drax learned of it, Thanos had been defeated once again, this time turned to stone.


Drax was eventually contacted by his daughter, Moondragon and invited aboard Moondragon's personal starship Sensia to join her in her journey through space in search of knowledge. They happened upon Ba Banis, a planet of humanoid aliens caught in a civil war. Moondragon decided to end the war using her mental powers, subduing the planets population and setting herself up as their goddess. Drax, disagreeing with her actions, sent their ship to Earth with a holographic message. The Avengers responded and arrived on Ba Banis to help. Drax had been taken by Moondragon's mental influence completely by the time the Avengers arrived. Helping him break free of her mental hold, Drax and the Avengers confronted Moondragon. Drax moved to subdue his daughter on his own, forcing Moondragon to will Drax's life essence to vacate his body. The rest of the Avengers take out Moondragon, Thor takes her Asgard to receive a proper punishment for a goddess. The Avengers put Drax's body into the ship Sensia and send it to outerspace to self-destruct, destroying Drax's body.

Later, Mistress Death resurrects Thanos. The Titan Kronos, in turn, resurrects Drax. But he doesn't take into account the state in which Drax previously died, and Drax comes back brain damaged. At this point fans start to refer to Drax as Space Hulk. Drax speaks broken English, has no memory of Moondragon (now a good guy again), and has the temperament and personality of a small child. Despite his mental impairment, Drax fights alongside the rest of the Marvel Universe against Thanos in the Infinity Gauntlet. After defeating Thanos, Adam Warlock chooses Drax to be a part of his Infinity Watch, intrusting the Power gem to Drax, who thought it was a jelly bean and ate it.

Eventually an energy vampire by the name of Rune steals the Infinity Gems and the Infinity Watch go their separate ways. Drax and Moondragon return to Titan and asks Kronos to restore Drax's mind at the cost of some of Drax's power. Some time later, Drax is accused of several murders and is pursued by Adam Warlock, but is cleared when it is discovered that the creature named Syphon was committing the murders and framing Drax. After defeating Syphon there is little heard of Drax for the next four years. Then, in 1999, at the beginning of Captain Marvel's 3rd volume, Drax shows up on Earth looking for Moondragon, who's returned to Earth to help Captain Marvel. Drax seems to be once again struck with diminished intelligence, though not quite to the extent he was before. Moondragon tries to distract him with menial tasks (an encounter with a girlscout who's unfortunately out of mint cookies for Moondragon is highly amusing). He turns to find Captain Marvel and Moondragon having a verbal argument and attacks Captain Marvel for threatening his daughter. In the course of this struggle, they're both transported to the Microverse on the planet K'ai. After defeating a telepath using Drax as her slave, Captain Marvel returns home with Drax opting to stay behind and help the Microns.

Again, Drax is all but forgotten for years. It's not until 2005, in his own mini-series as a precursor to Annihilation that we find Drax again. Without explanation as to his whereabouts or how we left the Microverse,, Drax is still at his larger size and duller intellect, but not to the extent of his previous brain damaged state. He's found on a prison transport vessel, passing Earth en route to Kyln prison station, along with other galactic class criminals. Due to complications with the transport vessels diagnostics functions part of the ship explodes and crashes lands on Earth. Drax lands with four other criminals, one of which is Paibok, a Skrull, who leads the others in trying to take control of the nearby small town of Coot's Bluff, Alaska. Paibok's plan is to force the populace into slave labor so they can repair enough of the ship to give them off world; Paibok wants off the planet as soon as possible to avoid running into Earth's heroes. Meanwhile, Drax runs into a girl, Cammi. In his confused mental state he thinks Cammi is his daughter, Heather, whom was the same age as Cammi when Thanos first attacked Drax and his family. Cammi uses this to her advantage and convinces Drax that the other fugitives attacked her. Drax rushes in to defend his “daughter”, but the fight ends when Paibok transforms into Thanos, disorientating Drax just long enough to transform his arm into a spike and put it through Drax's skull.


One of the Blood Brothers, an alien fugitive, tosses Drax's body over a cliff. The body begins to smoke, lying at the bottom of the cliff the rest of the day and well into the night. A smaller, smarter Drax erupts from the inside of the corpse. Noting the loss of energy abilities, this Drax is the Drax we know today. Drax and Cammi defeat the fugitives, save for Paibok, who uses a salvaged “folded space distress beacon” and activates it as Drax confronts him. The next we see Drax, him and Cammi are on another prison transport ship, headed to Kyln.

Surviving Annihilus Wave attack on Kyln, Drax and Cammi team up with the last surviving member of the Xandarian Nova Corps, Richard Rider. Drax teaches Richard the power of concentration so that he can contain the entire Nova force, but Richard asks Drax to teach him an even more important lesson: How to destroy. During the battle between the Annihilation Wave and the United Front on Daedalus 5, Drax tricks Cammi into evacuating with the others and stays behind to fight off the invaders while everyone else evacuates. Drax fights his way to an Annihilus Wave warship and heads for Thanos, who's held Moondragon captive. Moondragon telepathically shows Thanos that he's been manipulated by Annihilus, and Thanos decides to free Galactus and keep Annihilus from using him to destroy the universe. Just as Thanos is about to release Galactus, Drax, ignoring his daughter's pleas (even going so far as to throw the hilt of one dagger into her head to keep her from stopping him telepathically), shoves his hand through Thanos' back and pushes his heart out through his chest, killing the Mad Titan.


Realizing his mistake, as if the bloodlust driving him to kill Thanos was finally sated, he comes up with a plan that uses the power of the Silver Surfer to save Galactus. Once freed Galactus teleported both Drax and Moondragon to an undisclosed location. Moondragon claims not know what happened to Drax after that, though Richard Rider doesn't believe her. Cammi is last seen with in the company of Thanos' fairy-looking companion.

After the Annihilation war, the Kree homeworld was invaded and the entire empire cut off from the rest of the universe by the Phalanx, led by Ultron. Drax was hunted down and captured by Gamora and Richard Rider, who were assimilated into the Phalanx by the transmode virus into “Selects”, a high-ranking group of transmode infected super beings chosen by the Phalanx. Drax was likewise infected with the same virus and, along with Gamora, was sent to hunt down Richard Rider after Richard regained control of his mind thanks to the Nova force inside him. The two of them tracked Richard all the way back to the Phalanx's home world, Kvch, where they are all cured of the virus by the Technarch mutant Warlock (of the New Mutants) and his ward Tyro.

Armed with the knowledge of how to beat the Phalanx and cure the virus, Richard, Gamora and Drax, along with Warlock and Tyro breach the barrier surrounding the Kree empire and assist a recently resurrected Adam Warlock and Phyla-Vell, Peter Quill and his Dirty Half Dozen, Wraith, Ronan the Accuser, The Super-Skrull and Praxagora in destroying Ultron.

Next we find Drax as a member of the new Guardians of the Galaxy led by Star-Lord (Peter Quill) and serves alongside Phyla-Vell, Adam Warlock, Rocket Raccoon, Bug, Mantis and Gamora. During the War of Kings, Drax and Phyla-Vell learn that Moondragon is alive. They go to Mentor for help, who tries to kill them and sends them to Oblivion. There they met Maelstrom who brought them to the Dragon of the Moon, a creature with a connection to Moondragon. (What connection? READ THE BOOKS.) There, he betrays them, takes control of Phyla's Quantum Bands and feeds Phyla-Vell to the Dragon. Shortly after, Wendell Vaughn, the previous Quasar to Phyla-Vell appears due to a connection to the Quantum Bands, giving time for Drax to cut Maelstrom's hands off. Phyla bursts through the Dragon's chest holding Moondragon. They return to Mentor who claims to have sent them to Oblivion in an attempt to help them rescue Moondragon.

With a brief stop at a favorite bar to celebrate the return of Moondragon, and the inevitable bar fight that followed, the Guardians set out to handle the War of Kings. Peter took a portion of the team to speak to Black Bolt of the Inhumans, while Rocket took the rest of the team to negotiate with Vulcan. Things didn't go well, both teams retreated back to their headquarters, only to be followed by both warring parties. Once the Inhumans retrieved Crystal, Phyla having brought her back as a hostage, and they promptly left, leaving the Guardians to deal with the Imperial Guard. In the course of taking out the Imperial Guard, Starhawk, from the future, who was at the time held captive in the Guardian's base and considered dangerous, broke free and transported the Guardians to her future.

Well, most of the Guardians. The rest, Warlock, Groot, Rocket, Phyla, Moondragon, Major Victory and Drax, receive Peter's message from the future and go to Attilan, the Inhuman capital, to enlist their help in closing the fissure to the Cancerverse. As they convince the Inhumans of the threat, a tentacle monster emerges from the fissure and humanoids burst from pustules on the tentacles and begin attacking the city. Drax, Phyla and Major Victory go with the Inhuman Elite to defend the city. The rest of the Guardians return just as Warlock becomes Magus, kills half the Guardians, and Peter is forced to use his Cosmic Cube to revert Magus back to Warlock, and shoot him before he can return back to Magus, seeming to end the threat.

While still trying to find a way to close the fissure and stop the monsters coming from the Cancerverse, Moondragon learns that the other Guardians, presumed dead, were very much alive, as was Magus. While trying to escape Magus' imprisonment, the group of Guardians presumed dead find a cocoon, holding a resurrected Thanos. The rest of the Guardians show up to rescue their teammates and Peter uses his cosmic cube to knock out Thanos. While trying to figure out a way to kill Thanos, Magus blows up planets in an effort to force the fissure open even wider and opens a rift to the Cancerverse, a parallel dimension who's super-powered beings have killed the avatar of death, essentially making themselves un-killable. Peter and Nova are forced to team up with Thanos, whom as the avatar of death for our universe is the only one who can kill and stop the Cancerverse beings from doing the same thing to our universe than they've done to their own. Drax, in his original style of costume, is allegedly overloaded by the major universal abstract of Life as one of Life's avatars ( being created to destroy Thanos, an avatar of Death) and seizes an opportunity to place an anti-matter bomb on Thanos' chest, reducing him to a corpse of burn bones. Thanos rematerializes a moment later, claiming to be rejected by Death herself. In retaliation, Thanos disintegrates Drax.


Which brings us up to date. Drax doesn't appear again until the new Guardians of the Galaxy (2013) series, alive and well, still in the same incarnation he was last seen in (though back in his shirtless outfit, instead of the more classic version he was murdered in). He's retained his intelligence, still lacking his energy abilities, but shows higher-than-average strength and resilience. Though we don't have an official explanation as to why Drax has returned, it's safe to assume it's another resurrection by Mentor or Kronos as we're aware that Thanos too has returned from his death in the Cancerverse. Of course, as an alleged Avatar of Life, there could be another explanation. It does seem that this Drax came back even darker, more brooding, this time around. And now we're gearing up for Infinity, with Thanos at center stage, we can only hope for more Drax and even another throw-down with Thanos. We're also able to look forward to Dave Bautista (a mixed martial artist, bodybuilder, actor, and former professional wrestler of WWE fame) playing our Destroyer in the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Bautista seems to have a healthy respect for the character and the source material, so it's my opinion that we'll see an amazing performance from Bautista, and finally get to see Arthur Douglas, Drax the Destroyer, come to life.