Sserpo

History: A hundred years ago, scientist Thomas Burke tossed a vial of his failed growth serum into the Pacific ocean, unable to find the missing ingrediant. The discarded vial drifted in the sea for years, until it was found by a small lizard-like creature seeking food. The tiny creature drank from the vial as the chemicals within mixed with water (coincidentally the missing ingrediant, overlooked because it was so commonplace) and began to grow. Swimming to the surface, the growing lizard was discovered by Pacific island natives, who called it a “sserpo”. Thinking the growing lizard was magical, the natives took it back to their island, but eventually the continued growth of Sserpo crushed their island under the creature's weight. Sserpo went below the surface of the ocean, and when he was next seen by Australia, he had grown to nearly 1000 feet tall. Driven off by the air force, Sserpo returned to the sea. When he next surfaced by Japan, he was 2000 feet tall, his weight making the land tremble. When an atomic bomb, and later a hydogen bomb, were used on Sserpo, they only stunned the growing creature. Sserpo's huge size threatend to throw the whole world off its axis. Scientist Henry Burke (Thomas Burke's great-grandson) used radio waves to contact the planet Jupiter, and the Jovians sent a gigantic skyhook to capture Sserpo and take him back to Jupiter, where they used their advanced knowledge to return the creature to normal.

Height: Constantly Increasing
Demonstrated Powers: Sserpo was an unknown species of sea life with no special powers. The chemically-induced non-stop growth increased the creature's normal strength level proportinally. At his largest size, mankind's most powerful nuclear weapons were useless against Sserpo.

Comment: Thomas Burke's growth serum preceded Henry Pym's (see The Man in the Ant Hill) by a century.

Sserpo was no doubt the most powerful (if not the biggest) of the Marvel monsters.

Interestingly, if you have ever seen the Tri-Star 1998 version of “Godzilla”, there are some scenes early in that film (where Godzilla is growing underwater) that seem to be … borrowed … straight from this story.

Sounds like Sserpo was drawing his extra mass from the same extra-dimensional source as Henry Pym. Hence, no height-related stress fractures occuring in either one's skeleton! But, I can't help wondering about these Jovians that Henry Burke radioed. Were they, perhaps, natives of the moon, Europa? Was he (like Machine Man) a Pylon-contacee who opted to remain corporeal in order to help mankind on a more-or-less equal level?

Carycomic has good questions, but I really want to know about the level of technology that could develop a “hook and line” that reaches all the way from within Jupiter's gas cloud to Earth and manages to snag an admitted really giant monster standing on Earth.

As another contrast, note that Gormuu, whom Reed Richards fought in his pre-FF days, had a similar power of limitless growth, which Reed enhanced such that his mass did not increase as he grew, meaning Gormuu quickly grew into a gigantic wraith.

Hmm.. perhaps it was not aliens from Jupiter that Burke contacted but Jupiter himself! Only Zeus (or another godly type) could have pulled off snagging a planet-size monster millions of miles away with a hook…

Unless, it was one of those giant kids (from the “Crossroads of Infinity” storyarc) that once considered the Hulk a funny green puppet? The kid could've gotten board with marionette puppetry and decided to go fishing! On second thought: Nah! I'll stick with my first theory. After all, any race powerful enough to create that evolution-enhancing Pylon can easily synthesize a giant hook and fishing line strong enough to reel in Sserpo!!

Comment on Sserpo

* Name and email address are required. Don't worry about spam — your email address will not be shared with anyone. Only your name and Web site address will appear with your message.

Comment on Sserpo