Marvel Boy is a Marvel Comics miniseries by Grant Morrison as part of the Marvel Knights brand.
After the multi-universal travelling ship the Marvel is shot down, sole survivor Noh-Varr battles Dr. Midas and the Midas Corportation.
Marvel Boy provides examples of:
- All Part of the Show: The incredibly wealthy Dr. Midas sets up lights and cameras so no one will find it strange when his army lets loose on the title character with lasers and other assorted sci-fi gear.
- Alternate Universe: An odd example. Initially Morrison envisioned the book as taking place in an alternate version of the usual Marvel continuity, as evinced by things like Dum Dum Dugan being in charge of SHIELD, or the Kree having technology unlike their 616 versions. However, when the Ultimate universe was just getting off the ground, an editor made an offhand comment that one of their existing books was actually the "first" Ultimate series, and this was widely assumed to be Marvel Boy. Noh-Varr has since been folded into the mainline 616 continuity, with any discrepancies handwaved away.
- Animalistic Abilities: Noh-Varr has the ability to scale walls and ceilings thanks to cockroach genes being merged with his DNA.
- Badass Boast: Marvel Boy has a great one:I'll show you people what paradise looks like if I have to level every city on Earth and rebuild it stone by stone.
- Connect the Deaths: One of the best (though it's not on a map) is in this series, in which the title character - the hero, mind you - rampages through NYC and burns down entire blocks to spell out a message to humanity. The message? "FUCK YOU."
- Field Power Effect: Noh-Varr has a weaponized form of this called a "pocket battlefield": a glowing cube small enough to be held in one hand, which can expand until it's about fifteen feet along each edge. Once it's expanded, the owner of the cube can subconsciously control the laws of physics inside to disorient their enemies and give them the advantage in a fight.
- Nuke 'em: The short original run depicted its titular superhero (despite his prodigious combat-oriented abilities) as wiping out a group of enemy agents by simply flying over their base and dropping a nuclear weapon on them.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The miniseries' alien protagonist, the extradimensional Kree, Noh-Varr, has his ship shot down and the rest of his crew killed by a supervillain that wants to make a profit off of his technology and dissected remains. As such, he winds up understandably pissed at the human race (to the extent that he knocks down buildings to spell out "F#$k you" to the human race in letters several blocks high, though he herds the inhabitants away so there will be no casualties). Noh-Varr finds Earth's social ills to be ridiculous and unreasonable and intends to make war on Earth and "terraform" it to be like his home planet, Hala. A SHIELD analyst describes the Kree philosophy as "Zen fascism," enforcing a better world on people against their will, if necessary. Noh-Varr would be a classic Villain Protagonist, but genuinely does seem to believe that what he's doing will better Earth for its inhabitants.
