Shroud
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- real name:Maximillian Quincy Coleridge
- publisher:Marvel Comics
- debut:Super-Villain Team-Up #5, (April 1976)
- creators: Steve Englehart (writer)
Herb Trimpe (artist) - alliances:Night Shift, Cult of Kali
- aliases: Master of Darkness, Michael Wyatt
- powers: Transform Darkforce dimension energy into anything imaginable "See" through walls and darkness
Shroud (Maximillian Quincy Coleridge) is a superhero in the Marvel Comics universe. He first appeared in Super-Villain Team-Up #5, (April 1976), and was created by Steve Englehart and Herb Trimpe.
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Conception
Englehart has acknowledged that the character was intended as a "mashup" of DC Comics' Batman and The Shadow.*Cronin, Brian. "Comic Book Legends Revealed" #179, Comic Book Resources (Oct. 30, 2008). Accessed Mar. 17, 2009.*
Fictional character biography
At the age of 10, the child who would grow up to become The Shroud saw his parents gunned down right before his eyes. He decided to dedicate his life to fighting crime. Upon graduation from college, he joined the mysterious temple called "Cult of Kali", where he studied various styles of martial arts. After seven years of intense training, he graduated from that temple. During the celebration ceremony, he was branded with the "Kiss of Kali," a red-hot iron. He had the image of the goddess Kali imprinted in livid scar tissue on his face from nose to hairline and from cheek to cheek. Following a period of intense pain and hospitalization, he realized that his eyesight had been replaced by a mystic extrasensory perception. Traveling back to America, he adopted the masked identity of the Shroud.*origin revealed in Super-Villain Team-Up #7*
His first appearance as a hero was in Latveria, where he encountered the Human Torch.*Super-Villain Team-Up #5* He invaded Latveria, intending to kill Doctor Doom for his crimes against humanity. The Shroud recounted his origin to Namor the Sub-Mariner, and the two secretly entered Latveria disguised as members of the Ringmaster's Circus of Crime. The Shroud joined Prince Rudolfo's revolution against Doctor Doom, and came close to his revenge.*Super-Villain Team-Up #6-10* However, the Shroud shifted gears in order help Doom and Captain America oppose someone else with a longer track record of crimes against the humanity: the Red Skull. In outer space, The Shroud was shot by a ray built by the Red Skull while Doom battled the Skull on the moon. The Shroud was rescued by Captain America, while the Red Skull was left defeated on the moon (he was later rescued by Hitler himself, as the Hate Monger). Captain America brought Shroud back to Earth, but because of his time in space, Shroud became insane and it took him quite a while to recover.*Super-Villain Team-Up #11-12* After this recovery, Shroud discovered that he was able to tap into the Darkforce dimension.
The Shroud later recruits Spider-Woman to infiltrate a SHIELD facility so that they can access the files. Alongside Spider-Woman, the Shroud battled the Cult of Kali.*Spider-Woman #13-15* The Shroud then took on Cat and Mouse as his aides.*Marvel Preview #21* He then teamed with Spider-Man against Dansen Macabre.*Marvel Team-Up #94* The Shroud aided the Avengers and Doctor Strange against Morgan le Fay. He helped restore the former Spider-Woman's astral self to her body.*Avengers #240-241* He later refused Hawkeye's offer to join the West Coast Avengers.*West Coast Avengers Vol. 1 #1* The Shroud assisted a depowered Jessica Drew against some crooks.*Doctor Strange Vol. 2 #67* He assisted the West Coast Avengers against Graviton and the Blank.*West Coast Avengers Vol. 1 #3-4*
The Shroud went undercover in Los Angeles and operating as a crime-fighter masquerading as a criminal, he built a reputation as a criminal so he could destroy their world from within. This led him to create the group known as the Night Shift. With the Night Shift, he teamed with Captain America against the Power Broker and his augmented mutates.*Captain America #330-331* He tested Moon Knight to take over as leader of the Night Shift.*Solo Avengers #3* He refused Taurus's offer to join the new Zodiac.*West Coast Avengers Vol. 2 #29* He teamed with Hawkeye against the gang leader, Speedo.*Solo Avengers #9* Behind the scenes, Shroud made a deal with the West Coast Avengers not to interfere with his activities underground, but during a battle, Shroud went missing and the Night Shift battled the Avengers, causing a strain between the groups when the Shroud stopped the battle.*West Coast Avengers Vol. 2 #40* When Shroud returned to action, it was revealed that he had spent some time with his family, though no actual names of that family have ever been revealed. Shroud made few appearances in the years following.
Civil War
When the Superhero Registration Act was proposed by the United States, Shroud refused to accept the proposal to give up his secret identity, and sided against heroes such as Ms Marvel and Iron Man. He is also in a romantic relationship with Julia Carpenter, the second Spider-Woman, now known as Arachne. With Julia's help, Shroud managed to escape from Ryker's Island, injuring a number of SHIELD agents in the process. The two of them planned to flee to Canada with Julia's daughter Rachel, but Wonder Man and Ms. Marvel captured the Shroud*Ms. Marvel vol. 2 #7 (Marvel Comics, Nov. 2006).* and Julia the following issue. He is then broken out*Civil War #6 (Marvel Comics, Dec. 2006).* in order to join Captain America's anti-registration army and takes part in the final battle*Civil War #7 (Marvel Comics, Jan. 2007).*.
Powers and abilities
Exposure to bombardment of the Red Skull's hypno-ray triggered a latent power over darkness in the Shroud. The Shroud possesses the mystical ability to create an aperture into Darkforce Dimension and to project the thick, inky gas-like substance of the Darkforce Dimension into Earth's dimension for his own use. This darkness is not simply the absence of light, but the negation of it. No illumination can penetrate it. It is unknown how much of this darkness the Shroud can summon at once. He can blanket a small auditorium in darkness within several seconds. The darkness he projects does not fill a volume instantly: it is possible to see its hazy boundary move like thick, black smoke in the air. There appears to be no limit to the length of time the Shroud can maintain the darkness. However, loss of concentration can disrupt his power to summon and control darkness, and if the Shroud is rendered unconscious the darkness seems to be naturally drawn through the portal from whence it came.
The Shroud has control over the darkness so as to create hazy-edged, featureless black shapes with it, the complexity of which is limited only by his imagination. For example, he once created two tiny discs that covered Captain America's eyes to prevent Dansen Macabre from hypnotizing Captain America. These discs were so small that they were indistinguishable from the pupils of his eyes. He frequently forms the darkness into his own shadow in order to serve as a decoy. Unlike Darkstar's Darkforce, the darkness possesses no mass, and unlike Cloak, the Shroud is unable to travel into and out of the dimension from which he draws his darkness.
The Shroud was blinded in a mystic ceremony by the Cult of Kali. As a result of this ceremony, he possesses a mystical sense of extrasensory perception enabling him to "see" through walls and even through his own mantle of darkness. This mystical sense gives him psychic impressions of his environment within a radius of about of him. Not unlike Daredevil, the Shroud can receive non-visual sensory impressions through solid objects. Thus, he can perceive people and objects in the room next to him with the ease that he can perceive the contents of the room he is in. The Shroud notes in Spider-Woman I #15 that (unlike Daredevil) he cannot read, he apparently does not have that Max Carrados' style sensitivity of touch that enables Daredevil to read newsprint based on its feel compared to the rest of the page or its impression on the rest of the page. In that comic, Spider-Woman notes that though the Shroud's mystic senses enable him to detect what is inside a computer (its hardware components), the Shroud cannot read what is on the screen.
The Shroud is an Olympic level athlete with extensive training in several fields of Oriental martial arts, and is adept at acrobatics and infiltration. He possesses a college degree in law and criminology. The Shroud carries explosive "bombarangs" as weapons, and flies in a personal one-man aircraft.
Other versions
Ultimate Shroud
Ultimate Shroud is set to make his/her debut in Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #1 as a soon to be supporting character. In this version s/he is wearing a red shroud and their face is obscured. Writer Brian Bendis notes that " “We'll be teasing this person. You won't know if they're male or female but it is someone very famous and we'll be revealing their identity in the first arc... This Shroud is very different from the Marvel Universe one. Our Shroud is someone you've seen. They're a survivor of 'Ultimatum' who for some reason feels they can't show their face anymore.”