Executioner

For the San Diablan warlord, see Santiago Chavez y Rivera.

The Executioner is an Æsir warrior living in Asgard. A towering figure, he is known for his superior hunting skills and aptitude in battle. He carries a magical axe that can "cut through space and time," opening rifts to other dimensions. He frequently fights alongside the Enchantress, who contrasts his warmongering with cunning wiles and sorcery. The two have also allied themselves with Baron Zemo and his Masters of Evil in the past.

Biography

In early 1964, Executioner was called upon by the Enchantress to do away with the human Jane Foster. Enchantress had herself been asked by Loki and Odin to sway Thor away from his love for Foster. She'd soon realized that this would be impossible as long as Foster was around, and decided to take her out of the picture. Executioner traveled to Earth and soon found Foster, using his axe to transport her to the mysterious Limbo dimension. He was confronted by Thor, and the two did battle: having recently had half of his power stripped by Odin, Thor had to use his wits, but was able to gain victory over the Executioner. Executioner warned him, however, that he would gain nothing by defeating him. In exchange for returning Jane to Earth, he requested Thor's hammer, Mjölnir. Thor begrudgingly accepted, willing to do anything for Jane's safety. Executioner dutifully returned Jane, but found that he could of course not lift Mjölnir. Enchantress soon returned, angry at Executioner's failure and turning his limbs into tree branches. A panicked Executioner relieved Thor of the deal they'd made and begged for protection. Retrieving his hammer, Thor created a whirlwind that sent Enchantress and Executioner back to Asgard once again.

Masters of Evil

For their crimes, Enchantress and Executioner were brought before Odin, who banished them to Earth and stripped Executioner of his axe and helmet. Thrown into an unfamiliar world with nowhere to go, Enchantress realized they needed an ally, and saw a potential candidate in a newspaper headline, the villainous Baron Zemo. Zemo had recently attempted to defeat the Avengers (including Thor) with his team the Masters of Evil, but the remaining Masters were taken into custody in the process. Enchantress sent mental projections of herself and Executioner to Zemo's jungle base, offering an alliance so that they could get their collective revenge on Thor and the Avengers. Executioner disguised himself as a former ally of Zemo's and met with Captain America, telling him Zemo's location in order to bait him away from New York and the other Avengers. By coincidence, Giant-Man and Wasp had just left the city for scientific research, while Iron Man had recently been suspended from the team, leaving Thor as the only active Avenger in the city. Enchantress used her sorcery to hypnotize Thor into thinking that the Avengers were his enemies. He radioed Giant-Man and Wasp to return, leading to a fight that soon involved Iron Man as well. Zemo's underlings met Captain America as he arrived in the jungle, but Cap bravely fought through them and hitched a ride on Zemo's getaway plane to New York. Meanwhile, Iron Man was able to snap Thor out of his hypnosis with a blast of reflected sunlight into his eyes. As Zemo and the Asgardians came together for the first time, Thor caught them and their ship in a space warp that sent them to a random location in the multiverse.

They drifted between dimensions, but the Enchantress's magical powers allowed them to escape Thor's space warp and land back on Earth, in Zemo's jungle hideaway in South America. There they plotted their coming riposte at the Avengers for weeks. They recruited Simon Williams, an American inventor who was accused of embezzling money from Tony Stark, and promised him revenge against Stark by way of Iron Man. Zemo used advanced technology to turn Williams into the powerful Wonder Man. They used Wonder Man as a spy within the Avengers to bait the heroes into a trap. This worked perfectly at first, but Wonder Man had a change of heart just before Zemo planned to kill all of the incapacitated Avengers, and turned the tide of battle in their favor, forcing Zemo and the Asgardians to flee. Wonder Man perished shortly thereafter of poisoning from Zemo's experiments—Zemo had promised him the antidote on the condition of his loyalty.

Several months later, Zemo attempted another assembly of the Masters of Evil, enlisting Enchantress and Executioner to spring Black Knight and the Melter—two original members of the group—out of prison. The four confronted the Avengers while Zemo observed from his South American base, but wound up defeated. Black Knight and Melter were returned to prison, but the Asgardians escaped. Captain America traveled to South America and confronted Zemo, who misfired his weapon and seemingly killed himself.

Further events

Shortly afterward, Enchantress and Executioner got back in touch with Loki, who had them accost (but not harm) Jane Foster as a way of distracting Thor from the ongoing Trial of the Gods. The two took Foster into the streets, drawing perhaps more attention than Loki intended. They drew the eye of the noble Asgardian Balder, who came to Midgard and confronted them. They fought until Thor arrived, causing the villains to flee. The two didn't emerge again for several months, when they were coerced by Doctor Doom's emotion machine into attacking the Baxter Building on the day of the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm. A veritable legion of villains fought a similarly powerful force of heroes defending the Baxter Building. Black Knight and Melter were also present, resulting in something of a reunion of the Masters of Evil sans Zemo. In the end, Reed Richards used a device provided by Uatu to transport all of the villains back slightly in time and wipe their memories of these events. Reed and Sue Storm were thus successfully and peacefully married.