Marvel is recognized for its numerous continuities and timelines, and Marvel’s Phase 4 and films like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness are proving this fact even more.
In 1993, Stan Lee unveiled a futuristic Earth in which certain new superheroes had assumed the mantles of their traditional namesakes from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Spider-Man, Venom, Daredevil, Doctor Doom, and others were among the most well-known.
Lee, on the other hand, intended to maintain this version of Earth in a different universe when he came up with the concept. However, as time passed, the concept evolved into these futuristic superheroes existing in the year 2099 on Earth 616. The majority of these heroes and villains from the twenty-first century have super-awesome biological and technical advancements.
Spider-Man 2099, for example, has fangs and can immobilize someone with a bite. And believe me when I say this is just the top of the iceberg. So, in this video, we’ll look at the top ten superheroes and villains from the year 2099, as well as their tragic backstories and superpowers. Let’s get this party started, shall we?
Spider-Man 2099
One of the strongest heroes of the futuristic version of Earth 616 was Spider-Man. And well, he wasn’t just strong in his superhero form but was one of the most influential humans of his time. I mean, if they had a Forbes list of the most influential people on Earth, he’d probably top the list. So, Marvel’s 2099 Spider-Man was Miguel O’Hara, a scientific genius who served as the geneticist for Alchemax. His boss, Tyler Stone, who was later revealed to be Miguel’s estranged father, was working on a project that would give people superpowers.
Miguel was the lead on the project, and after a test subject passed away during the trials, Miguel confronted Tyler about the ethical questions that arose and the methods of the project; the latter sneakily made Miguel consume a drug called Rapture. This life-threatening drug changed the consumer’s DNA and made them dependent on continuous consumption. Stone wanted Miguel to keep working on the project and to keep the test subject’s death a secret, but once Miguel learned what his boss had done, he rushed to his lab to re-write his DNA and bring it back to its original form.
However, office politics led a jealous colleague to switch Miguel’s DNA sequence with an experimental DNA sequence that was being developed by Alchemax to replicate a certain superhero. Do you care to take a guess? Well, yeah, this superhero happened to be our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Although Miguel got cured of Rapture, half his DNA was that of a spider’s. Empowered by the newfound abilities of Spider-Man, Miguel launched a quest to destroy the monopoly that Alchemax held over Neuva York and strived to save the city.
While most of his powers resemble the original Spider-Man, Miguel O’Hara’s Spider-Man got a few much-needed enhancements. While he doesn’t have the good old spidey sense, Miguel possesses telepathic abilities. To compensate for the spidey sense, he also has enhanced hearing and vision. In fact, he can zoom in on subjects and can see clearly in pitch dark conditions.
However, his highly enhanced vision results in him being extremely sensitive to bright light, and he has to wear a pair of tinted glasses to protect his eyes from bright light, including sunlight. But the most interesting feature about Spider-Man 2099 is his venomous glands and canine teeth and fangs, which he uses to bite his enemies and paralyze them. It can be said beyond doubt that Spider-Man 2099 is one of the coolest and most powerful versions of the friendly neighborhood superhero, but do let us know your thoughts on the subject.
Venom 2099
Where there is light, there is darkness; where it is good, there is evil, and, where there’s Spider-Man, there’s Venom. With Spider-Man 2099 becoming a popular version of the bug-themed superhero, he had to face a 2099 version of one of his archenemies, Venom. The mantle that Eddie Brock once held so infamously was taken over by Kron Stone, the son of Tyler Stone, and by extension, Miguel O’Hara’s half-brother. Naturally, this rivalry between Spider-Man and Venom was further pronounced because of the personal relationship they shared.
SO, how is it that one of the brothers became an all-good superhero, while the other became an equally bad villain? Well, Kron had a troubled childhood and was left to fend for himself despite having a well-established father. It wasn’t before long that Kron turned into a bully, something which eventually led to him becoming a sadist. Once, he even tried to kill his brother, Miguel. Stone was given orders to kill Jake Gallows, Punisher of the year 2099.
However, Jake fatally wounded Stone and left him to die in a sewer. But Stone was a tough old but and wasn’t going to crack this easily. His weakened body bumped into a black ball of sorts and bonded with it, hence becoming Venom 2099. Evidently, this black ball was a symbiote that had mutated over the years, ever since the days of the original Spider-Man. As of 2099, the symbiote could give its host dangerous features such as acidic saliva and blood.
Is it just me, or do you smell Xenomorphs as well? Anyway, the final confrontation between Venom 2099 and Spider-Man 2099 was rather anti-climactic. Although Spider-Man won the battle after a great showdown, it turned out that Kron had bonded so well with the symbiote that Kron’s DNA had been re-written, which left Kron’s body amorphous, meaning that he could shapeshift at will. Although Spider-Man managed to separate the symbiote from Kron’s body, the symbiote escaped and merged with Roman, the Sub-Mariner.
Punisher 2099
As we mentioned in the previous entry, Kron Stone attempted to kill Jake Gallows, who’d later go on to become the Punisher. In the year 2099, the police and prison system had undergone drastic changes, so much so that even the police force had been privatized, and Jake Gallows worked for a force called the Public Eye Police Force. Furthermore, his deity was Thor himself, and he was a member of the Church of Thor, a group of people who worshipped the Norse god.
His family, including his mother, brother, and sister-in-law, were slain by Kron, while Gallows was grievously injured. After his recovery, Gallows came across the journal of the original Punisher, and its last page read the words, “You who find this, I charge you to carry on my work.” Gallows took it as a challenge and motivation in his fight against Kron Stone and the corrupt system.
He took up the mantle of the Punisher and started to walk the path of justice that went right through Kron. Upon his confrontation with Kron, Jake slowly stuck a knife into the sadistic man and threw him into the sewer, believing that Kron had died. In his later life, Jake would go after several groups of people, such as organ thieves and people who used their money to bypass the law.
But he’d also protect those who couldn’t protect themselves or those who were too poor to hire private police. Oftentimes, he partnered with Matt Axel, his technologically minded friend. In the year 2099, the concept of prison had been abolished, and criminals would be injected with certain chemicals that would shorten their lives by a desired number of years. Under these circumstances, Gallows built his own prison underneath his house.
Although Jake Gallows didn’t have any superpowers as such, his sheer indomitable will to fight against injustice and his crooked sense of righteousness made him a force to be reckoned with, and one of the most interesting heroes in the Marvel Universe.
Ghost Rider 2099
Despite not having enough representation in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, characters like Ghost Rider and The Punisher were one of Marvel’s most popular and financially lucrative characters. And when the opportunity presented itself, the creators didn’t shy away from creating Ghost Rider 2099 in the form of an expert hacker named Kenshiro Cochrane. He was a part of a group of hackers called the Hotwire Martyrs, who hacked into a trunkline and copied some heavily-encrypted data. However, they got attacked by a violent gang called the Artificial Kidz.
They killed most of the members of Kenshiro’s group and pursued him as well. In what seemed to be his apparent end, Kenshiro downloaded his consciousness into cyberspace. Although he soon passed away because of a poisoned flechette, his consciousness was found by a group of machine intelligence in a realm of cyberspace that was called Ghost works. These rogue machine intelligence believed that the human race was heading to their ultimate doom because of their absolute dependence on technological infrastructure.
The only way to save humanity was by sending an agent with the right temperament and zeal to serve as the harbinger of change. Kenshiro’s anarchist sensibilities and vengeful rage made him the perfect subject. Soon, Kenshiro’s consciousness was downloaded into a warbot named Cybertek 101, which was laced with advanced nanotech weaponry, camouflage capabilities, a self-repair system, etc.
But before Kenshiro could hit the streets in his new avatar, he had one more thing left to do. He used his robotic body’s holographic feature to create artificial flames around his skull. He had done so to commemorate his fallen brothers and sisters, but it also made him look quite similar to an age-old superhero called Ghost Rider. The new Ghost Rider’s reinforced carbon-steel silicon composite robotic body was nothing short of a powerhouse of uber-cool features.
For instance, his right arm could transform into a bladed chainsaw made of ceramic graphite, while his left arm could transform into a claw that could cut on a subatomic level. His camouflage was so strong that neither the naked eye nor electronic tools could spot him. Furthermore, his hologram feature was strong enough to impersonate just about anyone on planet Earth. Much like his namesake, Ghost Rider 2099 rode a motorcycle, more specifically, a juiced-up Ford Velociraptor 900.
Hulk 2099
Well, Hulk 2099 followed a much different approach than his namesake from the main timeline. In the 2099 version, John Eisenhart, the man who later became the Hulk, was not a scientific genius or the world’s greatest expert on gamma radiations. In fact, he was a studio executive who worked for a firm called Lotusland Productions. He was tasked with researching a group called Knights of Banner, who were vagabond worshippers of the incredible Hulk.
During his investigation, he learned that the Knights of Banner had been experimenting with gamma radiations to recreate the Hulk. However, when they refused to give the rights of their story to John, he became enraged, and in a fit of vengefulness, he reported the Knights of Banner to the cops. The confrontation between the cops and the members of the Hulk cult turned violent, and the Knights were either being slaughtered or captured. Guilty over his recent activities, John joined the cause of the Knights.
However, a young boy named Gawain set off the gamma-ray devices in a bid to end the tussle between the cops and the knights. It wasn’t before long that John found himself in the middle of the resulting explosion, and was subjected to huge levels of gamma radiation. He transformed into the Hulk and put an end to the battle. Funnily enough, Lotusland Productions later sent him on a mission to find out more about a mysterious monster in the desert, who turned out to be none other than himself.
Much like his namesake, John Eisenhart was nearly invulnerable, and his physiology was equipped with a healing factor. He could leap hundreds of miles in one jump, and his powers only increased with his rage. Unlike the original Hulk, John possessed razor-sharp claws and deadly fangs that could even penetrate steel. However, the most pronounced difference between Hulk and Hulk 2099 was their psyches.
While Bruce’s Hulk became an almost mindless beast, Eisenhart’s transformation made him more and more heroic. Bruce Banner, in his human form, was a courteous and humble man, but Eisenhart’s encounter with all the gamma rays turned him into an aggressive and sour human being.
Moon Knight 2099
Moon Knight left the desert of obscurity and landed in the meadows of fame after the recent live-action show starring Oscar Isaac. However, Moon Knight was still a famous and interesting character in the comics, and when it was time to create some interesting heroes in a futuristic Earth, Moon Knight couldn’t stay far behind. According to the comics, the Moon Knight of 2099 was a woman named Tabitha, who took up the mantle and fought crime.
She joined hands with a few other vigilantes and hid in the Sanctum Sanctorum of Doctor Strange and other sorcerers. Tabitha expelled a demon possessing the sorcerer supreme by using the Soulsword or the sword created by the very life force of a mutant sorceress named Illyana Rasputin, who was also the ruler of the Limbo. It’s evident that Tabitha was not only a skilled warrior but an intelligent human. Furthermore, she was responsible for the protection of the innocent and the punishment of the guilty in Attilan, which was a lunar city.
Ravage 2099
Paul Phillip Ravage, who’d later become a new superhero named Ravage, was born with a silver spoon, but that didn’t remain the case for long. Although he became the CEO of a subsidiary of Alchemax, he was framed for a murder he didn’t commit. The reason was simple, Ravage had been asking too many tough questions regarding his company’s operations and the violent methods that were put to use. Now a fugitive, Ravage armed himself with a blaster, a cog, and a Kevlar vest and served as a pseudo-mercenary.
In fact, he also got two sidekicks in the form of an orphan named Dack and his former secretary named Tiana. However, Ravage would oftentimes get attacked by killers from his former company, Eco. To evade these attacks and save the lives of his sidekicks, he found himself in, Hellrock, a land of irradiated and mutated people, who were ruled by a despotic man named Lord Dethstryk.
This iron fist ruler wished to launch an attack on all of humanity, and naturally, he would become Ravage’s nemesis. Over a period of time, Ravage would come under heavy doses of radiation, which transformed him into a mutant. His hands had turned radioactive and emitted blasts of lethal forms of energy.
But this new form was just the tip of the iceberg because the prolonged exposure to radiation further transformed him into a beastly humanoid with horn-like protrusions on his face and head. Furthermore, he developed taloned feet and hands, fangs, etc. He had also become extremely powerful by the time these transformations reached their full potential. Interestingly enough, Ravage could transform back to his human form whenever he desired. Although Ravage was an interesting character, his portrayal in the animated world has been fairly minimal.
Daredevil 2099
With the likes of Spider-Man and Venom getting their 2099 versions, Daredevil couldn’t be far behind. Instead of Matt Murdock, the legendary blind advocate, the year 2099’s Daredevil was, Samuel Fisk, the grandson of the nefarious crime lord and Marvel villain, Wilson Fisk or Kingpin. Samuel grew up listening to stories about his family’s involvement in crimes all across the continent, but the final nail was the death of the original Daredevil which was due to a scheme that Kingpin had hatched. Samuel was disgusted by this; he chose to do things otherwise.
He gained control of his family’s empire and sought to make a difference. Nevertheless, Daredevil’s death had taken a toll on him, so when the appropriate moment came, he took the mantle of his family’s greatest enemy. The young man lacked any real combat skills and, of course, didn’t have any superpowers. Therefore, he used his family’s tainted fortune to get himself a highly-advanced exo-suit to fight crime.
Despite all his efforts to fight crime, Samuel became a victim of jealousy and obsession. He started to spend a great deal of time moonlighting as Daredevil, this enraged and hurt his wife Elain, who believed that Fisk should have been spending more time with their young child. Eventually, she left him and started dating another man. Heartbroken and frustrated, Fisk kidnapped the man Elain was sleeping with, and killed him in cold blood. Samuel Fisk could have achieved greatness, but it seems that the ghost of Christmas past did come to possess him.
Iron Man 2099
Much like Daredevil was the grandson of a famous character from the original timeline, Iron Man 2099 was the grandson of Tony Stark. Interestingly, Tony Stark had created a piece of artificial intelligence named Vortex, which was to help humanity. But much like Ultron, the technology gained sentience and went out of control. Vortex took over the SHIELD computers and practically the entirety of the internet.
After going through the history of mankind, Vortex decided that humanity was evil and caused the mass extinction of mankind. All this sounds way too similar to Age of Ultron, doesn’t it? Anyway, Andros Stark traveled back in time, to the past or the original timeline to find Tony Stark, and kill him. Andros knew very well that killing his grandfather would, in fact, remove the possibility of his own existence, but Andros was so determined to save humanity that he didn’t care about his own life. Now, that’s a Stark right there.
As far as Andros’ powers are concerned, he was far superior to Tony Stark in terms of his suit and technology. However, Andros suffered from the common problem of youthful angst and short-sightedness, which caused him to act impulsively without thinking about the consequences. Iron Man 2099 possessed the Extremis 16.5, an advanced form of genetic manipulation technology based on nanotechnology. It connected his mind with his suit. So, unlike Tony’s suit, Andros’ suit behaved the way he thought.
Furthermore, his suit was equipped with the Hyperpulse Mark 9 and an operating system called Jarvis, which was far more advanced than Tony’s. If we are to quote Andros, according to him, Tony’s armor was much like a calculator competing against a supercomputer. His armor not only enabled him to move at superhuman speed, but was more durable than anything the 21st century had seen. It had an energy field that repelled or evaporated any weapon attacking it.
As far as his gauntlets are concerned, they were charged with ultra-pulsors that could generate balls of energy and extremely durable force fields. But the most important aspect of Iron Man 2099’s suit was its ability to travel through time and space. I mean, how else did you think that Iron Man 2099 traveled back in time to kill his own grandfather.
Doom 2099
After disappearing in the middle of the 21st century, Doctor Doom abruptly materialized in the year 2099. He found himself in what remained of the town of Latveria. Doom came face to face with a cyborg mercenary named Tyger Wylde, and was instantly defeated. However, he found refuge with what remained of a gypsy tribe called the Zefiro.
With their aid and that of a few others, he created for himself a highly advanced silver-blue armor that was capable of taking on despotic rulers such as Tyger Wylde. It was not long before Doom became a freedom fighter, or even an anti-hero if you will. Doom stole a large shipment of an unstable radioactive mineral called Tritonium. It was so powerful that a handful of it could provide energy to an entire town for more than fifty years. But of course, the mineral could also be weaponized.
Frustrated with this, Tyger Wylde launched a full-fledged attack on Doom, but the latter came out triumphant. He took back his hometown of Latveria and rebuilt his Castle Doom. Now that he had achieved his first objective and liberated Latveria, he wished to liberate the world. And the only way Doom thought he could bring global liberation was through annexing it. Well, that’s classic Doctor Doom.