Desiring adventure and immortality, Nathaniel Richards from Earth-6311 comes upon his ancestor's time machine that takes him to ancient Egypt where he learns that all life-extending elixirs across history are a lie. He seizes the opportunity to become eternal still by establishing himself as the Pharaoh Rama-Tut.
A Master of Eternal Life
In this reality, the Dark Ages never occur and technology develops without interruption. This timeline—having diverged circa 300 AD—Other-Earth’s people land on the moon in 900 AD, which becomes the first year of their new calendar. While establishing a lunar colony and enjoying a peaceful era, a Great War erupts between the colony and Earth destroys the moon, plunging Other-Earth back into a primitive state.
Attempting time travel, Nathaniel Richards of Earth-616 (mainstream Earth) reached Other-Earth and settles there. He uses his knowledge to help rebuild that world and marries Cassandra, daughter of the Matriarch of the Eyriennes, women dwelling atop the mountaintop city known as the Eyrie. Richards becomes known as both the Warlord (erroneously) and the Benefactor.
Approximately 1900 years later, the Benefactor’s descendent and namesake is born into Other-Earth’s quietly utopian year 3000. As a teenage robotics student, this Nathaniel develops a working Growing Man stimuloid model when his throat was slit by a bully, Morgan. Hospitalized for a year (which nearly bankrupt his parents), he studies cross-dimensional recordings of Earth-616’s modern era’s heroic age, brought to his reality by the Benefactor, and becomes fascinated by that wilder time period’s men of action.
Delving into his own genealogical history, Richards learns of the citadel of his ancestor, whom conflicting records identified as Earth-616’s Victor von Doom, AKA Doctor Doom, or the Benefactor himself. At age 25, Nathaniel locates the Benefactor’s citadel and opens a long-sealed chamber containing parts and plans for a time machine.
Nathaniel subsequently encounters alternate-reality incarnations of the Fantastic Four (a Super Hero team founded by the Benefactor’s son Reed Richards, AKA Mister Fantastic, in Earth-616’s modern era), who seek to thwart his future self’s power-mad schemes. Though these incidents fade from his mind thereafter, Nathaniel still longs for a life of adventure unavailable in his own complacent time period, so he spends years rebuilding and redesigning his ancestor’s time machine.
Planning to loot various time periods for weaponry and technology while making his base in ancient Egypt, he builds a sphinx-like exterior around his time machine to exploit the ancient Egyptians’ religious beliefs. Donning decorative armor and loading multiple robots into his Sphinx craft, Richards travels back to Earth-616’s 2950 BC’s Egypt (the First Dynasty), but due to a miscalculation his ship crashes, crippling its time machine. Baal of the Crimson Sands, leader of the savage Sandstormers, observes the crash and only they see the burning fragment that breaks from the Sphinx and ends up buried under the sands. Finding the critically injured and blinded Richards, recognizing his power and seeking an alliance, Baal and the Sandstormers nurse him back to health over weeks; Baal names the stranger Rama-Tut, meaning in his language “The Visitor from Beyond the Sun.”
Upon his recovery, Richards disappeared suddenly one night, taking with him the technology the Sandstormers found in his vessel and heading toward the Pharaoh’s lands. Nathaniel’s weaponry (despite blind firing) and robots enabled him to enslave those he encountered. The natives obtained for Nathaniel a rare herb that, affected by his damaged machines’ radiation, restore his sight. Nathaniel usurps the throne of the existing Khufor, AKA Pharaoh Amenhotep, whose children included Ozymandias and his younger sister Nephri, and rules as Pharaoh Rama-Tut, believed by many to be an agent or reincarnation of the legendary sun god Ammon Ra. Faking Amenhotep’s death, Rama instead imprisons him and forces him to consume blood, the nectar of the undead, eventually transforming him into vampiric form.
Though enslaving much of the population’s lower class, Rama-Tut makes the upper class into the capital’s citizens and appoints Ozymandias his general (though Ozymandias conspired to rule himself). Weeks after he leaving the Sandstormers, Rama-Tut returns, demanding the Eye of Ages (which was within the missing ship fragment).
Despite torture, the Sandstormers refuse to divulge the fragment’s location. Rama massacres the Sandstormers and enslaves most survivors; a few escape, including Baal, who secretly finds the Eye, seeing in it the face of a man powerful enough to defeat Rama: En Sabah Nur, AKA Apocalypse. Rama-Tut puts an end to the worship of the Heliopolitans/Egyptian gods, AKA the Ennead, earning their ire. Foreseeing a chance to oppose Rama, the Ennead moon god Khonshu’s priests dig a tunnel between their temple and Rama’s sphinx.
Ageless Time-Traveler
Like others from his native era, Rama-Tut ages at a slightly slower rate and is more radiation resistant than modern humanity, though he can be harmed by concentrated radiation. Following his revival in the 21st century, Rama could (possibly via technology) teleport around the planet at will, bringing others with him. An expert in travel through and manipulation of time, Rama masters his future’s advanced technology, though he proves unable to rebuild damaged equipment when lacking sufficient technology.
He is an expert strategist, historical scholar, a master physicist, engineer, and technician, and a veteran of armed and unarmed combat. By some accounts during his second reign, he forgets how to work his time-travel equipment. He apparently knows how to turn another into a vampiric creature.
Rama-Tut’s chief weapon is his “Ultra-Diode” ray gun. At low intensities, it saps others’ wills by generating a specific neuronic frequency that numbs the cerebral cortex to varying degrees, leading them to obey his commands. At higher intensity, it can prevent superhumans from using their powers and can weaken others by depressing their entire central nervous system, potentially causing death by respiratory and/ or cardiac arrest.
Rama uses a 20’ long space-worthy vehicle housing his time machine, which generates a chronal displacement inertial field able to reach all eras of all timelines by accessing the transtemporal realm Limbo.
His Sphinx ship houses his satellite time-ship and contains numerous defense mechanisms, including lasers, stun-blasters, force fields, and at least two types of biped robot servants.
Rama’s sarcophagus places him in suspended animation for nearly 5,000 years within the Pyramid of Rama-Tut, and awakens him at the exact time period he plans via sunlight-sensitive equipment and a series of mirrors that survive these millennia intact.
He possesses a fragment of the Chronifact during part of his first reign. He originally possesses the Eye of Ages, an artifact that grants future visions, but loses it upon his crash in first arriving in ancient Egypt, but he has access to various other weapons during his first reign.
Frequent Foes
Rama-Tut most notably goes up against superhuamns, including the timelost Avengers and the Fantastic Four. While ruling Egypt, he encounters a young En Sabah Nur, AKA Apocalypse, when he’s coming into his powers. Aware of Nur’s future, he seeks to tutor him and take his powers, but ends up fleeing Nur and Egypt instead.
Few Allies Across Time
As a ruler in Egypt, Rama-Tut keeps few allies and instead keeps advisors and those to do his bidding, including those he enslaves. When he encounters Earth-616’s Doctor Doom, he allies with him for a short time to benefit from him, and then takes inspiration from his visage to create a new look for himself as the Scarlet Centurion.
Reign on High
In 2945, Rama-Tut sired an illegitimate son, Ramades, with an Egyptian slave woman. As Rama was frequently obsessed with his own plots, Ramades grew up hating him. Frustrated by the sorceress Samira’s refusal to bow before him, Rama was pleasantly surprised by the arrival of a temporally powered Chronifact fragment, which he studied to master its secrets. When the Time Guardian sent Julius Mullarkey, AKA Killpower, back from the modern era to recover the Chronifact, Rama faked an assassination attempt by Samira and sent Killpower against her. Revealing Rama’s duplicity, Samira sent Killpower back after Rama; aided by the Genetix team (sent by Killpower’s surrogate mother, Oonagh Mullarkey to retrieve him), Killpower recovered the Chronifact fragment and escaped to the future with the Genetix, though Rama absorbed the device’s residual chronal energy.
Seeking power by joining Rama-Tut’s family, Ozymandias pledged Nephri to become Rama’s bride. Hearing of En Sabah Nur’s developing power and familiar with his destiny, Rama sought to mentor Nur himself and ordered Ozymandias to recover him. As Baal showed Nur his destiny via the Eye of Ages, Ozymandias’ forces attacked the Sandstormers, the battle killing all save Ozymandias and Nur, who recovered more powerful than ever. While Rama secretly sent grand vizier Logos to recover Nur, Logos, intending for Nur to save Egypt from a royal consolidation of Rama-Tut and Ozymandias’ house, hid Nur within the pyramid project.
Stuck in the past with a time machine that only traveled backward (and guided there by Rama’s future self from the end of his second reign, circa 2920 BC), a group of the modern era’s Avengers arrived in 2940 BC to try to convince the younger Rama to aid them despite his malicious nature. Upon their arrival, Rama paralyzed them with his Ultra-Diode ray, then sent them to the temple of “the discredited gods” for disposal. Khonshu’s priests aided the Avengers, while Khonshu influenced modern era allies, including Marc Spector, AKA Moon Knight, and Reed Richards, AKA Mister Fantastic. Inspired by Khonshu, Reed researched hieroglyphics indicating a radioactive vial had cured a blind pharaoh, which encouraged him to lead the Fantastic Four to travel back to 2940 BC (departing years before the Avengers) in hopes of curing their blind friend, Alicia Masters. Recognizing them from the Benefactor’s recordings, Rama neutralized the FF’s powers with his Ultra-Diode ray. Soon after, modern era Sorcerer Supreme Dr. Stephen Strange, AKA Doctor Strange, arrived as well, sent into the past (from a point between the Avengers and FF’s departures) by the demon Nightmare. Incapacitated by Rama’s defenses, Strange released his astral self before his body was imprisoned by Rama’s robots. Arriving via Khonshu’s priests’ tunnels soon after, the Avengers witnessed Rama’s enslaving the FF via his Ultra-Diode and hoped to use the FF’s time machine to return to their era. Also at this time, Rama was briefly visited by Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, and Doctor Doom, time-traveling back from a Franklin Richards-created pocket dimension (the world later known as Counter-Earth).
Hearing of uprisings among the slaves who glimpsed En Sabah Nur’s power, Rama reasoned Nur would access his Sphinx, and Ozymandias led troops to ambush him upon his arrival. Publicly announcing Nur to be his chosen heir, Rama quietly told Nur to swear loyalty, gain his secrets and power and eventually inherit his rule, or defy him and be destroyed; Nur attacked Rama, who incapacitated him via his Ultra-Diode ray. Instructing the people to witness how he dealt with this supposed messenger from the gods, Rama ordered Nur’s body to be dismembered and the parts scattered from Pelusium to Memphis.
When Nur recovered and escaped, Rama threatened Ozymandias with death as penalty for failure to recapture him. Meanwhile, Doctor Strange aided the FF in throwing off Rama’s control, and Rama fled their power, narrowly evading the escaped Avengers as well. As Rama arrived to his Sphinx with his future era opponents in pursuit, Nur returned and overpowered Ozymandias, exposing him to Rama’s Memory Lock device. Having repaired his satellite globe, Rama fled into the future, leaving his sphinx behind to mystify humanity. The Fantastic Four located the optic nerve restorative, but fled as Nur destroyed Rama’s lab and the Sphinx’s contents, eliminating any trace of his presence. Doctor Strange, the FF, and the Avengers returned to their time periods, the latter via time traveling allies guided there by Khonshu; the radiation within the restorative was neutralized via the time travel, and the FF were unable to help Alicia’s blindness.
Rama-Tut had just shaved off his ceremonial beard when his ship ran into chronal turbulence, forcing him to exit the time-stream in Earth616’s modern era, shortly after the Fantastic Four’s return. Arriving near Jupiter’s orbit, Rama rescued Doctor Doom as he hurtled through space toward Jupiter. Both admiring and fearing Doom from his ancestor’s recording, Rama paved the way for future alliance by feeding the disoriented Doom misinformation about their relationship, leading Doom to speculate they might be the same person. Sending Doom back to Earth, Rama re-entered the timestream, but, damaged by the time storm, Rama’s time machine repeatedly bounced back and forth through time including a brief stop where Rama attended a meeting where Phillip Masters, AKA Puppet Master, proposed an alliance to defeat the Fantastic Four; rejecting the offer and departing, Rama was unaware the Mad Thinker took cell samples of everyone present—before crashing in Egypt. Years after his encounter with Doom (relative to Earth-616’s history), Rama-Tut located his old Sphinx and Pyramids. Unable to repair his time machine’s control module, he assaulted and captured the time traveling mutant Blaquesmith. Tortured to assist Rama, Blaquesmith telepathically summoned his ally Nathan Summers, AKA Cable. Rama battered Cable, whose psychic powers were crippled by an astral plane conflict, until Rama’s control module unleashed chronal distortion. Attempting to stabilize this, Rama was launched into the timestream anew.
Arriving on the alternate Earth-689, Rama reinvented himself as the Scarlet Centurion and manipulated that world’s Avengers to imprison all other superhumans. Secretly influenced by Immortus (his own future counterpart), the Centurion then summoned Earth-616’s Avengers to defeat Earth-689’s, but the Avengers-616 defeated him and banished him into the timestream.
This banishment diverged the Scarlet Centurion into multiple beings: One traveled to Earth-712’s future to rule it, with another divergent returning to his Rama-Tut aspect and resolving to head back to 31st century Earth-6311. Further temporal disturbances and residual damage to his equipment caused Rama to overshoot his mark and land in war-torn 4000 AD. Finding the technology even greater than his own era’s but noting the warriors no longer knew how their weapons worked, Rama locked himself in an abandoned scientific complex and mastered an arsenal in hours. Inspired by Doom, he designed a battle suit and became Kang the Conqueror. Richards’ life became progressively non-linear, as each foray in time produced divergent time-stream counterparts; further, his past and future incarnations each spawned numerous divergent realities and selves (see Scarlet Centurion, Kang, Immortus, Iron Lad, Baby Kang, and Council of Kangs).
As Kang approached his 60th year, exhausted by administrating his empire Chronopolis, he considered his life a void. Turning rule of Chronopolis over to his lover Ravonna, Kang returned to Egypt in 2937 BC (three years after he left) where he was again worshipped as Pharaoh Rama-Tut. Smashing his chrono-sphere, Rama ruled with the compassion he had previously loathed and spent 10 years basking in his people’s adulation. Rama was briefly captured by the Heart of the Infinite-powered Amenhotep IV, AKA Akhenaten, though this was later diverged into Reality-4321 by Thanos of Titan.
Despite enjoying his rule, Rama was plagued by thoughts of his past and future. He resolved to oppose Kang’s malevolent actions and to break the cycle of becoming Immortus. Despite recalling defeating Rama-Tut as Kang, Rama felt he could change what had occurred to free himself from the inevitable. Lacking a time machine, Rama spent seven years arranging with his wizard, Shamaz, to enter suspended animation until the modern era.
During this time, Ramades discovered remnants of his father’s time travel equipment and departed to conquer the future, eventually being thwarted by the Fantastic Four. Rama designed an air-sealed sarcophagus, in which he would awaken only when exposed to oxygen upon the case’s opening, which could only occur when sun struck its face, and had a series of mirrors placed to reflect light on the case’s face when his tomb was opened.
As the 77-year-old Rama initiated his stasis, he was confronted by the timelost Avengers whose time machine could only travel backward, but he directed them to seek his younger self. Sealed in his sarcophagus by Shamaz and placed in his pyramid, Rama was mourned.
As Rama had recalled, in the modern era, the Avengers’ Jacques DuQuesne, AKA Swordsman, opened Rama’s tomb, reviving Rama, while traveling there to oppose Kang (who was raiding his past self’s technology). Rama guided the Avengers to oppose Kang’s efforts to obtain Mantis, the Celestial Madonna, whose son would be a cosmic messiah. Though succeeding in this, Rama failed to stop Kang from slaying the Swordsman, just as he had recalled. Briefly imprisoned by Kang, Rama encountered Immortus and departed via his equipment.
Overwhelmed by a sensation of powerlessness and failure and feeling his destiny unchangeable, Rama approached Limbo. A divergence then occurred, where one Rama entered Limbo and became Immortus, while another glimpsed a chrono-flash of Immortus agreeing to serve the Time-Keepers. Refusing to be servile, this divergent Rama returned to his Kang identity and eventually escaped his destiny.
Divergents maintaining the Rama-Tut identity exist in other realities.
