The Deviant Warlord Kro is the right-hand of his people’s Monarch, Brother Tode, and becomes general of the Deviant armies. He follows orders to use humanity in their efforts to defeat their creators, the Celestials. He takes on the guise of the Devil, manipulating his atomic structure to grow horns out of his head and often attacks the humans of Earth.
In meeting an Eternal named Thena, the Deviant’s natural enemy, Kro falls in love and as such survives the Eternals’ wrath. When he makes a move for the monarchy, he ends up in numerous battles against the High Priest Ghaur, though he eventually rises to become Monarch.
A Survivor and Warlord
Kro is a member of the subspecies of humanity known as the Deviants, the result of genetic experiments by the enigmatic Celestials. Born over 20,000 years ago, Kro possesses a lifespan far greater than the typical member of his species. Because his human-like appearance is looked down upon by average Deviants, and to protect himself from dissection by curious scientists, Kro begins pretending he is his own descendant, making subtle alterations to his appearance and creating false backgrounds so that, through guile, he could survive for thousands of years. In the most recent century, Kro becomes a warlord of the Deviants and concocts many schemes against humanity.
Regenerative Durability
Kro possesses a virtually unbreakable mental control over the processes and structure of his body, even when he is asleep or unconscious. As a result, he has lived for over 20,000 years, is immune to disease and aging, can heal injuries swiftly, and possesses superhuman strength. Additionally, his body tissue is physically malleable, enabling him to reshape it into other configurations so that he can pass for a human, or fashion a pair of horns atop his head. Further, his heart is not located within his thoracic cavity; its exact location is unrevealed.
Kro has access to various sophisticated Deviant weapons, including vessels such as raiding crafts that contain powerful energy weapons and can travel underwater or defy gravity. He wields various handheld weapons including flame-guns, vibro-whips and shroud-guns. Like many Deviants, he uses brain mines (devices which can stun Eternals) when battling Eternals. He has also wielded a pair of gauntlets that fire force beams from their fingertips powerful enough to hurt an Eternal. He sometimes wears a pair of glasses that grant him vision in the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums.
Forever Foes
The High Priest Deviant Ghaur is a constant enemy for Kro as they fight for leadership of their people. While Ghaur can alter the genetics of Deviants, Kro remains resistant to this power. Ghaur often tries to assert leadership and sometimes succeeds but Kro with the help of the Eternals and his Delta Force eventually topple the tyrant.
As a part of the Deviant race, Kro follows orders from his and his people’s Monarch, Brother Tode. When Kro fails Tode, Tode tortures him. Kro agrees to attack humans in New York City to trick them into attacking their creators, the Celestials. Kro captures some of his natural enemies, the Eternals, and realizing they have a common enemy, proposes a truce with them against the Celestials.
Eternal Alliances
Kro is a part of the Ruling Elite of the Deviants, an offshoot race of humanity created by the Celestials. Kro leads the Deviants to salvation and forms the Delta Force, an elite group of Deviants to go up against Ghaur’s tyranny.
Despite being natural enemies to another subspecies, the godlike Eternals, and often going up against them, at some point, Kro becomes attracted to Thena, a member of their race. Kro invites her to visit the Deviants’ home Lemuria, but the visit ends unhappily, and Thena does not see him again until last century, believing that he had been killed. They share a romantic interlude and Thena and Kro have twin babies, Deborah and Donald. To protect them from their shared enemies, Thena psionically transfers them to a human mother in secret. Kro and Thena eventually reveal their true parentage to the twins and Kro recruits them to his team, Delta Force. The twins are later used by Kro’s enemy Ghaur in an attempt to form the Anti-Mind.
Militaristic Record
During the 1940s, Kro engineers multiple schemes against humanity, and utilizes various identities in order to move amongst humans. As Rudolph Hendler, he became dictator of the European nation Prussland, but his activities were discovered by Zuras, leader of the Eternals. Zuras dispatched Makkari, who assumed the guise of Mercury (later Hurricane) to oppose Kro. “Hendler”’s rule over Prussland was ended by Makkari, as were later schemes of Kro such as allying himself with New York mobs, and spreading plagues in Brazil. In the 1950s, Kro began to utilize a number of mutates (genetically engineered creatures bred by the Deviants) in plots to destabilize earthly nations, and also provided sophisticated weapons to Soviet agents to further the chaos.
After Kro sent the mutate Gorgilla to attack New York, Makkari (as Hurricane) brought in his allies the Monster Hunters to halt Gorgilla. When the Monster Hunters returned Gorgilla to its home in Borneo, Kro attacked them with the mutate Lizard Men and kidnapped Hurricane, bringing him back to Monster Island, the breeding ground for many of the mutates. The Monster Hunters rescued Hurricane and forced Kro to abandon his Monster Island base, later adopted by Harvey Elder, AKA Mole Man.
Kro was eventually given the position of warlord among the Deviant military forces. Learning an Eternal known as Pixie was a member of the First Line Super Hero team, Kro led a group of Deviant warriors to attack the First Line’s base at the Carmody Institute; however, they were driven off.
Kro later encountered Thena again, and revealed to her how he had survived for so many centuries. Thena and Kro fell in love, but after a night of intimacy, Thena left him. Discovering later that she was pregnant, Thena placed the twin embryos within the womb of a barren woman, and the children were raised as humans under the names Donald and Deborah Ritter.
When the Celestials’ Fourth Host was due to arrive on Earth, Kro was charged with preventing the Eternals from sending a greeting to welcome them back to Earth. Kro led a military team to the City of the Space Gods, a structure built in Peru when the Celestials had last visited a thousand years earlier, but the Eternal Ikaris succeeded in activating the cosmic beacon, which led the Fourth Host to Earth. Fearful of what the Host might do to their people, the Deviant ruler Brother Tode had Kro assume the guise of “the Devil” and lead the Deviants in an attack on New York City, hoping to rile up humanity to attack the Celestials for them. The Deviants did expose the Celestials’ existence to humanity, but the Eternals intervened and prevented the humans from acting. Thena was able to obtain a temporary truce between the Eternals and Deviants.
Kro invited Thena back to Lemuria with him again and introduced her to Ransak the Reject, a Deviant gladiator who was human in appearance. Believing that Ransak might be the key to genetic stability for the Deviants, Kro transferred him to Thena’s charge for protection. Thena also took the gentle-hearted but physically monstrous Deviant Karkas with her to Olympia.
Lemuria was subsequently struck by the Celestial Jemiah the Analyzer, who nearly destroyed the city while examining it. Kro helped establish a Deviant outpost called “New Lemuria” beneath New York, but it was discovered by the Eternals and their godly ally Thor Odinson, AKA Thor, and it was ultimately abandoned and destroyed.
After the Fourth Host slew Zuras, Brother Tode and Warlord Kro led an invasion of Olympia, taking the entire city captive; however, James Rhodes, AKA War Machine, but acting as Iron Man at the time, came to the Eternals’ rescue, and all of the Deviant invaders were taken prisoner. Although the Deviants were reshaped into a giant block by the Eternals and sent into space, Kro avoided this fate by placing a brain mine on Thena that made her susceptible to his influence, causing her to set him free.
Returning to Lemuria, Kro competed for Brother Tode’s now-empty throne, and the priesthood’s leader Ghaur permitted Kro to ascend to leadership, but made it clear that the true power lay with the priesthood. Ghaur dispatched Kro to lead the Deviants in a raid on the Pyramid of the Winds where a vial containing the essence of the inert Dreaming Celestial was contained. Alerted to the intrusion, Ikaris fought Kro, but Thena intervened and spared Kro from almost certain death. Thena and Kro went on the run from their respective peoples, but when they attempted to contact Kro’s underground allies in Lemuria, they were taken prisoner by the priesthood. They eventually freed themselves, Kro helped Lemuria’s populace rise up against the priesthood, and Ghaur died trying to awaken the Dreaming Celestial.
Kro continued to serve as the Deviants’ ruler, and at one point was tricked by Herbert Wyndham, AKA High Evolutionary, into starting a war with Atlantis intended to eliminate both of their species. The Avengers helped the two races learn how they had been deceived, and they assisted the Avengers against the High Evolutionary’s forces. Kro later gave up the throne and retired to the Pyramid of the Winds, but when he learned his twin children’s lives were imperiled by what seemed to be a prophecy of their evil, he came to the aid of Thena and the other Eternals in saving Donald and Deborah’s lives; the entity behind the false prophecies was ultimately exposed as Dr. Daniel Damian, a one-time ally of Ikaris who had been driven mad with grief over his daughter’s death. Thena and Kro revealed to Donald and Deborah that they were their true parents.
Kro later became affiliated with the United States government, and set up a database called the Delta Network, which sought to aid Deviants seeking to integrate with human society. When the Avengers were captured in Lemuria by the priesthood, Sersi the Eternal enlisted Kro’s aid, and he assembled Deviants from the Delta Network into “Delta Force,” even recruiting Donald and Deborah for his mission. Invading Lemuria, they found that the priesthood had revived Ghaur. Although the Avengers were rescued, Ghaur assumed leadership of the Deviants.
Not long afterward, Donald and Deborah were sought by the Weird Sisters and Maelstrom’s Minions, who were attempting to revive their master Maelstrom by using Deviant energies. Kro attempted to shelter Donald and Deborah from their pursuers, but ultimately the Eternals and Fantastic Four saved them. Donald and Deborah were imperiled yet again when Ghaur used them and captive Eternals in an attempt to forge an “Anti-Mind” which would assault the Celestials. Kro led a resistance team of Deviants against Ghaur, and was aided by members of Heroes for Hire. Thena took custody of the children and kept them in safety among the Heroes for Hire while Kro continued to battle Ghaur.
Kro eventually regained his position as ruler of the Deviants, with Ghaur retaining power over the priesthood. When Ghaur’s secret daughter and mate surfaced in Wakanda, he threatened a war with that country’s ruler the Black Panther, who refused to surrender them. Kro was incensed with the Black Panther for involving the Deviants in the conflict, but ultimately war was averted when it was realized that revealing the identities of the contested Deviants could topple Ghaur’s position.
When the time traveler Kang the Conqueror tried to conquer the Earth and offered to share power with those who conquered territory in his name, a rogue band of Deviant warriors led by General Dulpus invaded China, but were ultimately driven off by the Avengers. Kro thanked the Avengers for their aid against rogue elements and offered to return the favor should they need one. When Kang the Conqueror assaulted Washington, D.C., the Avengers called in their favor, and placed the U.S. president in Kro’s protective custody. Kro returned the president to the Avengers after Kang was ultimately driven out of their time period.
Kro was last seen among the many champions who gathered to combat the threat of Thanos the Mad Titan, who destroyed and re-created the universe with the power of the Heart of the Infinite.
