The Collector, exposed as the abductor of over a dozen Avengers, confronts remaining Avengers Hawkeye, Iron Man, Thor and Wasp in his orbiting spacecraft. Refusing to free his captives, Collector uses various items from his vast collection to subdue Iron Man, Thor and Wasp. Scorning Hawkeye as the last and least of the Avengers, Collector anticipates an easy victory; but the archer holds his own against Collector’s arsenal via sheer skill and tenacity, finally defeating the powerful alien with an amazing ricochet shot. Hawkeye frees and revives his fellow Avengers, who question the captured Collector. Telling the Avengers of his origin and how he started his collection to preserve unique items and beings after he foresaw destructive universal menaces via his prophetic powers, he warns the Avengers of an “Enemy” whose power and ambitions threaten to spark an all-consuming war among the great powers of the cosmos, an enemy to whom Collector sent his own daughter Carina as a spy. Unfortunately, Carina has fallen in love with that enemy, Korvac, betraying her father’s plans and location to him. Just as the Collector is about to reveal the enemy’s identity to the Avengers, Korvac unleashes a blast of cosmic power from afar that reduces the Collector to ashes before the horrified heroes’ eyes.
Collector was one of the few Elders of the universe, dating back to shortly after the creation of the universe, and preferred studying the universe’s life forms while living quietly with his wife and child on a world of tranquility. Cursed with the gift of prophecy, he foresaw the universal menace Thanos and decided to preserve a representative sampling of the universe’s life forms by acquiring specimens for his collection. Collector had spent eons collecting by the time Thanos was born (1). He continued collecting after Thanos’ unexpected demise, partly because he foresaw a new universal threat, Korvac, and decided to intervene more directly this time (2).
While Collector’s captives included at least two Avengers associates who did not yet hold formal Avengers membership (Jocasta and Wonder Man), he may have targeted them because of their presence among the assembled team, or because his time-travel technology enabled him to know they would soon become official Avengers.
