Jorro (Earth-616)

Jorro was one of the Deviants of Lemuria^[4][5] and weapons-maker for his peers. He worked, apparently alone, in a huge underground laboratory/workshop,^[6][3] a few miles under the Earth's surface.^[6] Many Deviants, including Jorro, hated the Celestials,^[3] powerful cosmic beings who had created the Deviant race^[7] but also almost obliterated the Deviants when the later race had taken over the world and dared attacking their creators.^[8]

Jorro's lab was eventually visited by Terminus,^[6][3] a 150-foot-tall monster who had been created by the world-conquering Terminex species when the Celestials decided to destroy the Terminex world and race; the Terminex intended for their legacy to be another species of world destroyers,^[3] and indeed Terminus had ravaged a number of planets before trying his luck on Earth. There, Earth champion Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four separed Terminus from his main weapon, the lance, and used an inertia-cancelling device to pummel him to the center of the Earth.^[9] While the pressure and intense heat of the molten level were not enough to kill Terminus, the lance was his propulsion source, and he had been forced to manually dig to the surface with his hands. Him finding Jorro's laboratory had been sheer chance,^[6][3] but Jorro and Terminus became natural allies^[5] as they both hated the Celestials with passion.^[3] Terminus then convinced Jorro to build and wear a replica of Terminus' space armor, then go to the surface world^[6][3] on a twofold mission: confront the champions of Earth so that Terminus would assess their power and not be unprepared as he had been with Richards,^[6] and recover Terminus's lance.^[6][3]

Terminus's lance, admittedly huge but not useful in an obvious way, was being transported northway by boat from the Gulf of Mexico as a part of "Operation: Big Stick", a top-secret activity requiring all-clearance-holding crewmen. Detecting the lance, Jorro activated the weapon and summoned it to him near the Antarctica. Jorro, as Terminus, appeared from a huge whirlwind in the sea and broke the boat with his hands, killing all onboard except for a very injured single survivor. Security agency SHIELD discovered the shipwreck and asked the Avengers to investigate.^[10] At that point, the Avengers priority clearance had been temporarily suspended, without them being notified, and the American government was reluctant to give the Avengers information about the boat, the operation or Terminus himself;^[10][11] they were also unable to contact the Fantastic Four for information.^[10]

Wielding the power of Terminus^[12] while wearing his armor, and working on his behalf,^[1] Jorro went to the Savage Land, a tropical preserve hidden in Antarctica, to obtain or destroy very advanced technology, including Celestial devices, hidden there.^[2] En route, Jorro stepped on a scientific research station, demolishing it. The Avengers tracked Jorro there, and followed him to the Savage Land. Terminus found a scientific team researching the Savage Land and guided by adventurer Ka-Zar, Lord of the Savage Land, causing a dinosaur stampede in the process.^[10] Seeing the humans trying to escape from him, Terminus decided to kill them as an entertainment, although Ka-Zar survived and was later found by the Avengers. After finding a Celestial instrument, Jorro detected more technology southward and, en route there, destroyed Ka-Zar's tree-based home, almost hurting Ka-Zar's wife Shanna the She-Devil - but she was rescued by flying Avenger Starfox, although Terminus slapped Starfox for interfering and stunned him. Following his sensors, Terminus reached Pangea, a huge selvatic environment, inhabited by primitive tribes and heated by volcanoes that were kept active by alien Nuwali environmental control machinery - the items detected by Jorro's sensors. Jorro found the primitive settlement Lemura and destroyed it, without having a real reason to do so except that he was angry because his search was taking too long; he then destroyed the Aerie Shalan, inhabited by the winged humans Aerians. In both cases, he killed all of the inhabitants. In the process, he also caused the Gorahn Sea to boil,^[2] destroyed the village of the primitive Fall People^[13] use the lace to destroy the Nuwali environmental control machines^[6] and unleashed earthquakes that damaged the Nuwali machinery beyond repair, thus causing the Antarctica inclement weather to immediately reclaim the territory.^[11] The inhabitants of Pangea were decimated, but the extradimensional woman M'Rinn noticed their distress and, using her huge steed C'Jime, rescued a number of locals by taking them to her home dimension.^[13][1] Unaware of this, Ka-Zar and Shanna devoted the last minutes to rescue as many tribespeople as they could.^[11]

The Avengers flew their Quinjet jet to confront Terminus, and Avenger leader Wasp identified Terminus' lance as a threat that should be removed. Another Avenger, the Black Knight, jumped from the jet attacking Terminus with his Ebony Blade, hoping to damage Terminus's hand - but instead sliced Terminus's arm in two, revealing circuits and technology within the armor - which led the Avengers to believe that Terminus was a robot. Starfox threw superstrong Hercules at Terminus's face; Hercules pierced Terminus's gorget with his fingers, then descended through the giant's torso while in the process broke the armor in two. They found the small Deviant (thou still much bigger than a human) who claimed to be Terminus inside the armor. As the blizzard extended in the area, Hercules and Starfox abandoned Jorro for him to die, while they looked for the other Avengers to save their lives. With his last breath, Jorro vainly demanded the heroes to obey him.^[2]

The Avengers regrouped and joined Ka-Zar, who reported that the Savage Land had been totally destroyed, with all of the population killed. Hercules insisted that their plane overfly the place where Jorro had died, so that Ka-Zar would see him and know that the responsible villain had been punished. Still, Captain America was also desolate about Jorro's victims, even if Black Knight, Starfox and the Wasp tried to convince him that they had done their best. Back in the United States, when Captain America discovered about the suspension of their priority clearance, he reprimanded the bureaucrats, including Raymond Sikorski, as the Captain felt that, if they had access to that information, they may had been able to save more lives.^[11] The Avengers also offered shelter to Ka-Zar, his family (including their sabretooth tiger Zabu) and apparently the Savage Land survivors that they had saved, in New York City.^[1][14][15] For a long time, the Avengers and the superhero community believed that Jorro had been the original Terminus also defeated by the Fantastic Four.^[3]

Having lost his impersonator, Terminus directed another individual,^[6] Garokk the Petrified Man,^[13] to animated another false armor and obtain more data for Terminus. Like Jorro, Garokk was stopped and killed^[6] but Garokk's sacrifice was used by the High Evolutionary to restore the Savage Land to their previous status, undoing the damage that Jorro had caused^[1][16][13] with the help of Zaladane.^[16] The Evolutionary's process included a modified growth element to generate adult dinosaurs and centenary trees in record time,^[17] and also brought individuals back to life, including Tongah, a friend to Ka-Zar who died long before Jorro's attack.^[12] The Savage Land survivors rescued by M'Rin also came back to the Savage Land at that point.^[1][13] Garokk's Terminus armor was abandoned in the Savage Land.^[6]

Meanwhile, in Jorro's laboratory, Terminus modified Jorro's Deviant technology to use it to replicate himself by providing the apparatus with technology, lifeforms and biomass from several spaces, to generate a second generation of Termini in the form of microbes. Knowing that his progeny would survive him and continue his quest of revenge against the Celestials and every world they had forgiven even if Terminus himself failed, Terminus left the lab to attack the surface.^[3] He first summoned the lance, which burrowed the globe from its position in the Savage Land, then emerged in the Atlantic Ocean and confronted superhero Quasar, self-proclaimed protector of the universe. Quasar's mentor, the cosmic being Eon, used his Cosmic Awareness to research on Terminus, discovering about Jorro and telling Quasar. Quasar and his ally Spider-man defeated Terminus by sending him to outer space.^[6] Quasar then told the Avengers about his encounter and his discovery, including Jorro.^[3]

When the Termini were released, Thor was an active Avenger who was in contact with Hercules, by then inactive. Hearing about Terminus, Hercules told Thor about how he "did unshell that behemoth like a pitiful lobster"; Thor then revealed Hercules that Jorro had not been the real Terminus. Angry at having been tricked, Hercules joined the battle against the Termini. During the fight, Thor found the real Terminus in space and, by entering in contact with him, witnessed Terminus' past, including his encounter with Jorro.^[3]

Jorro, like most Deviants, hated the Celestials^[3] but admitted that their technology was very advanced and coveted it for his own ends.^[2]

While impersonating Terminus, Jorro behaved intimidatingly, treating human-sized people as worthless. While he did call them gnats and slapped flying vehicles and people, he was indeed sadistic and enjoyed the widespread destruction of population and cities. When physically hurt, Jorro was incredulous and far more insecure than the real Terminus was in combat, as he counted exclusively on the power of his technology, not on his own skill while using it. Once exposed, Jorro claimed to be the real Terminus, even when he could hardly win anything by doing so; he may believe that he was the real Terminus.^[2]

Jorro was the weapons-maker of the Deviants and had a huge, well-equipped subterranean laboratory and workshop,^[6][3] a few miles under the Earth's surface.^[6] His resources and skills were enough to replicate Terminus' armor.^[6][3] Once Jorro left his laboratory, Terminus himself remained there and modified Jorro's equipment to reproduce himself in vitro.^[3]

Jorro's replica armor was far from invulnerable. The Black Knight's Ebony Blade amputated his robotic right hand in one fell swoop, surprising the Knight himself who doubted he could even harm him. Hercules, admitted superstrong, grabbed the armor, pierced the metal with his fingers, then ripped apart the whole torso of the armor with one tug.^[2]

Without the armor, Jorro himself was not invulnerable to extreme temperatures.^[2]

With the replica of Terminus' armor,^[6][3] Jorro wielded the power of the extraterrestrial destroyer.^[12] His strength was comparable to his gargantuan size: He could destroy huge trees just by stepping on them, slap a flying Eternal or even a Quinjet as if it was a mere flying buzzard, or break a huge boat with his hands. He could generate atomic storms, with enough power to destroy cities, and launch them as ranged attacks. His armor protected him from boiling waters.^[2] His kind of attack was able to destroy the very advanced Nuwali environmental machinery that kept volcanoes in an active state to heat the Savage Land.^[11]

The armor also had sensors that Jorro used to identify the most sophisticated machinery in his surroundings.^[2]

Energy Lance: Terminus' original lance allowed Jorro to shoot beams that could kill people and destroy trees and rocks - but apparently with enough accuracy so as to not damage items he may be looking for in the area.

^[2]

• Marvel Pets Handbook (in the profile on Zabu) describes Jorro as a Deviant wearing Terminus' armor. However, both Quasar #7 and Thor Annual #15 say that Jorro was wearing a replica of Terminus' armor.