ALPHA CENTURION

Real Name: Marcus Aelius

Class: Human technology-user

Occupation: Superhero, formerly Roman centurion

Group Affiliation: None

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Mobile, formerly Metropolis, Rome circa 117-138 A.D.

First Appearance: Adventures of Superman #527 (September, 1995)

Powers: Centurion's armor gave him the powers of flight and superhuman strength and invulnerability. The suit let Centurion summon a shield and sword made of energy at will. Centurion's mode of transportation was a spaceship named the Pax Romana.

History: Marcus Aelius served as a centurion under Roman emperor Hadrian until he was abducted by the Virmiru, a race of aliens that took him to their world. They gave him an advanced suit of armor based on centurion garb and returned him to Earth. Marcus was surprised to find that well over one thousand years had passed on Earth for the relatively short time he spent on the Virmiru's planet. He fell in with the Contessa and became the superhero Alpha Centurion. Contessa gave him a private army of soldiers equipped with modified Team Luthor armor, which he named his Centurions.

(Adventures of Superman #533) - Alpha Centurion helped Superman and Impulse keep the Scavenger from stealing the coins of power from the Metropolis Museum of Art.

(Adventures of Superman #535) - Alpha Centurion and members of his Centurions spoke at the Mars Mission Testimonial. During Alpha Centurion's speech his Centurions seemingly went mad and attacked the crowd. In truth Luthor had overridden the Centurion suits, killing the men inside and giving him remote control of the suits. Centurion defeated the suits, but the public's confidence in him was shaken after seeing him battle his own teammates. This was exactly what Luthor wanted, for his Contessa's golden boy to be tarnished in the public eye.

(Action Comics #722) - Centurion felt so guilty about the incident with his Centurions that he announced he was leaving Metropolis. He told Lois Lane she was what he was going to miss most of all about Metropolis, and after kissing her he flew off into the sky.

(Final Night #1, Aquaman V #26) - Superman organized a summitt of superheroes, including Centurion, to listen to an alien named Dusk. She'd seen the Sun-Eater snuff out the sun of countless planets, and she was there to warn the heroes that the Sun-Eater was headed towards Earth. Alpha gave the Pax Romana to and a team of heroes who opened up a Boom Tube to transport the Sun-Eater to the Source, but it overloaded and failed because the Sun-Eater only partially existed in their dimension.

(Green Lantern III #81) - Coast City; Centurion was among the heroes who attended a memorial service for Green Lantern Hal Jordan.

Comments: Created by Karl Kesel &  Stuart Immonen