BIOGRAPHY - Page 10
The High Evolutionary continued to aspire to greater and greater works. He noted the powerful new abilities Adam Warlock demonstrated upon his most recent resurrection. A quantum mage able to cast reality-warping forces using psy-lables, Adam essentially expressed the effects that mortal men called “magic” through purely scientific means. This led the High Evolutionary to believe that magic was something he could ultimately harness through science and so he returned to his dream of creating new gods for the Earth. Rather than merely cloning or duplicating power 
from existing gods, Wyndham now believed he could craft godhood itself to his specifications. In his zeal, he contacted the infamous alchemist Estaban Diablo as a collaborator, bringing his knowledge of the esoteric arts of change to the enterprise. Diablo had his own ambitions, however, and he used subtle alchemy to exert influence over the High Evolutionary’s decisions, making himself secretly the more dominant of the two partners.
Wyndham and Diablo created the Hermetica, a conceptual space from which they could work undeterred. Whatever affection the High Evolutionary may have once had for his New Men had faded – he now saw his earliest creations as a disposable workforce to build their own replacement and then be retired. The Evolutionary empowered Ulik the Rock Troll and the Russian soldier Crimson Dynamo as his agents to acquire the necessary components for his plan. They stole from Baron Mordo and the Deterrence Research Corporation, as well as the Destroyer armor of Asgard. This last bit of raw materials drew the ire of Thor, and the Evolutionary also deliberately involved Iron Man, as Tony Stark himself would be the vessel and template for Wyndham’s new god. A futurist whose body was already a synthesis of man and machine through Extremis, Stark was the ideal starting point for the next step in mortal-deity evolution.
Thor’s efforts tracked down the alchemical touchstone for the Hermetica on Earth, forcing a battle 
with the High Evolutionary’s agents. Iron Man had agreed to go along with the High Evolutionary’s scheme only as long as it took him to fix his armor, and soon Wyndham was facing angry Avengers attacking from two different directions. Diablo turned the Avengers against each other with hallucinogenic powder long enough for the Evolutionary to stabilize his apparatus. He abandoned his plan to use Stark as his vessel, instead tying him, Thor and the Destroyer to the apparatus as raw materials for the biophasic sequence. Diablo appealed to the Evolutionary’s ego and convinced Wyndham that he himself was an ideal replacement for Stark in the process. The High Evolutionary decided it was finally time for him to become a god in reality instead of solely in his own mind.
However, it was here that Diablo’s potions did their work. The alchemist distorted Wyndham’s perceptions so that it was actually Diablo in the ascension chamber when the time came instead of the High Evolutionary. Diablo merged with the Destroyer armor, further empowered by the other elements of magic and science combined through the apparatus. Wyndham regained his senses but realized how much his work had been altered by Diablo’s esoteric arts to the point where he didn’t know how to reverse the process. The Evolutionary released Thor and Iron Man as Diablo began absorbing more power from the other Pantheons of Earth to become a singular, all-powerful deity. Wyndham noted that Diablo’s mind had not fully adapted to godhood yet, for he still 
flinched in response to attacks which had no hope of harming him in this state. Thor and Iron Man used this knowledge and combined their might, channeling the divine lightning of a Thunder God through the bleeding edge technology of Iron Man’s neurokinetic armor. This precisely controlled mix of magic and science reversed Diablo’s transformation, leaving him mortal once more. The conceptual space of the Hermetica began to collapse, leaving the High Evolutionary and his New Men to depart one way while the Avengers fled in another. [Iron Man / Thor #1-4]
The High Evolutionary’s own experiments continued, as he built upon his synthesis of Magneto’s powers and reverse-engineering StarkTech from his past endeavors to chase his latest prize. Years ago, he attempted to get a sample from the Silver Surfer through the Eternals. This time, he marshaled his resources to draw upon the Power Cosmic itself, draining the Surfer of his might before he realized what was happening. The Annihilation Wave had pushed Silver Surfer into 
serving as Herald of Galactus once more, but the Chaos War weakened Galactus to the point that he needed to recover inside Earth’s sun. With the Surfer and Galactus incapacitated, the High Evolutionary harnessed the Power Cosmic to gain control of Galactus’ Star Sphere, the technology he used to facilitate the destruction and assimilation of a planet’s bio-spheric energies. In his hands, the Evolutionary could reverse the effects and bring forth the power of life itself.
In the Chihuahuan Desert of Mexico, the High Evolutionary began his great works. The arid, uninviting desert was transformed by the Power Cosmic into a lush new jungle of flowing water and rich plant-life. A migrant named Horacio de la Fuente drank from the water and mutated from its inherent Power Cosmic into a variation of the Surfer. Despite this initial test run, the High Evolutionary did not intend to remain on Earth and fight with its heroes to turn the world of his birth into one of his liking. Instead, he would bring the Star Sphere into space, transforming dead worlds to restore life to the universe which Galactus had ended, making himself over as the new 
god of many worlds. Norrin Radd and his ally Suzi Endo the Cybermancer entered the Star Sphere in an effort to take back control, but Suzi was overwhelmed when her cyber-gear connected her senses to the nigh-infinite knowledge of the vessel. As a result, her mind was vulnerable to the temptation when the Evolutionary declared he needed a Herald to find new worlds for his work. The Power Cosmic flowed into Suzi Endo, and the High Evolutionary transformed her into his Herald, the Seeker.
Despite his grander ambitions, Herbert Wyndham’s still-human ego demanded he make one stop before continuing out into the cosmos. He brought the Star Sphere to the moon with the intent of terraforming it so all of humanity could see his gift. Norrin Radd and the Fantastic Four confronted the Seeker in orbit, and Reed Richards crafted a device to draw out the Seeker’s Power Cosmic, recharging Norrin and changing him back into the Silver Surfer. Reed tried to counsel Wyndham 
about the side effects of terraforming the moon – changing tides, diminished moonlight – but the Evolutionary ignored these boring reasons not to indulge himself in creation. The Seeker and the High Evolutionary did their best to convince the Silver Surfer their way was better in the long term, despite the temporary inconvenience to humanity’s status quo.
Then Galactus woke up. The High Evolutionary had achieved a degree of cosmic awareness as a result of the Power Cosmic coursing through him. As a result, Galactus treated him as far more of an equal than he would have in the past. The World-Eater and the World-Builder found balance in each other, and Galactus agreed to let the High Evolutionary depart with his new power and his Star Sphere. Galactus could always build another and the long-term benefit of new worlds being 
created appealed to him. For his crimes, however, the High Evolutionary’s creations were forfeit. He abandoned the Seeker without a backwards glance and the garden on the moon was lost as well. The power surging through both was consumed by the Silver Surfer to renew his bond with Galactus and ensure the survival of Earth and the moon from Galactus’ appetites. [Silver Surfer (5th series) #1-5]
At some point in the recent past, another one of the High Evolutionary’s experiments took root in the underground kingdom of the Mole Man. The Forever City of the High Evolutionary was a “Darwin bubble,” a closed ecosystem powered by his Ascension Engine where the evolution of all life was under his direction. Something went wrong, however, and the Ascension Engine began causing devolution instead. Wyndham and his New Men were forced to flee the city, abandoning it with the Engine still active. Moloids wandered into the city and accidentally discovered that devolved Moloids were actually closer to human, and aberrantly developed superhuman intelligence as a side effect. The Evolutionary was gone but the Fantastic Four made contact with the Forever City as it raised to the surface in a remote region of the United States. [Fantastic Four (1st series) #575]
The rise of the Ascension Engine drew the High Evolutionary’s attention back to Earth. He was met by the super-intelligent Moloid children who were adopted by the Fantastic Four as part of their young innovators, the Future Foundation. Wyndham received a surprising invitation from his creations – to attend a summit at the Baxter Building and discuss how to defeat Reed Richards. A Council of Reeds from many parallel dimensions had been attacked by mad Celestials, and a handful fled to Earth-616. These Reeds disappeared after arriving through the Bridge. They saw only “the greater good” and were quite talented at justifying “necessary evils,” making them a potential threat. As a consequence, Mister Fantastic’s summit included questionable minds like Wyndham, Diablo, Wizard, the Mad Thinker and even Doom, all men willing to “solve for” Richards.
Indeed, the four Reeds had a plan to build a doomsday device called Sol’s Anvil, manipulating elements from the Forever City, Old Atlantis, the Negative Zone and the Blue Area of the Moon. Their efforts would lead to the War of the Four Cities, destroying one Earth to make their way back to their own kingdoms. They instigated war among the factions of Old Atlantis, bartered with Annihilus and arranged to have access to the Ascension Engine. They failed to sway the Universal Inhumans, however, and Attilan struck at the Forever City to prevent the rise of Sol’s 
Anvil. The High Evolutionary and the Future Foundation responded to the Forever City in an effort to turn off the Ascension Engine. Wyndham tried to address his creations directly in the chaos. However, amidst the twin invasions of the Kree Empire and the Annihilation Wave, the Inhumans defeating the Moloids and claiming the Forever City as a protectorate, and the arrival of Galactus and the mad Celestials…the High Evolutionary was completely lost in the shuffle. [FF (1st series) #3-9]
When the Garden launched their Origin Bombs from Mars, one impacted on the Savage Land and drew the High Evolutionary’s interest. Children of the Zebra Tribe evolved into self-sustaining lifeforms, with no need for food, water, air or rest. The Avengers hoped to find ways to integrate the Zebra children into the larger system of society, but the High Evolutionary saw other uses for them. He captured the children and prepared them as living batteries, bio-engines which allowed 
him to raise Terminus as a mechanism under his control. The Avengers objected, of course, and fought his New Men and Terminus. Fortunately, Hyperion realized the Zebra children were inside Terminus powering it before Thor turned the full force of his lightning upon the giant. Rescuing the children, however, gave the High Evolutionary time to escape. [Avengers (5th series) #12-13]