Hive (character)

Hive is a fictional supervillain appearing in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Hive was an experiment made to physically embody the ideals of the fictional terrorist group HYDRA. The entity is composed of untold numbers of genetically engineered parasites.

Hive appeared in the third season of the TV series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., where he was an ancient Inhuman and was primarily portrayed by Brett Dalton.

Publication history
Hive first appeared in Secret Warriors #2 (May 2009) and was created by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev.

Fictional character biography
The Hive was created in the HYDRA laboratories at their home base of Gehenna. An unnamed and unwitting HYDRA agent was offered as a host to multiple parasites, around which they could merge into a singular being. Grotesque and menacing in both stature and appearance, Hive had no identity of its own, per se - as its collective will dominated the human host. However, it possessed a quiet and cunning intelligence. As a result of its conditioning, it was completely dedicated to the HYDRA cause, to the extent that Baron Strucker appointed it as a figurehead alongside himself, Viper, Gorgon, Kraken, and the new Madame HYDRA in the form of triple agent Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.

When HYDRA went to war against the rival organization Leviathan, Valentina revealed her true allegiance and murdered her predecessor, Viper. When Strucker and the other heads discovered Viper's corpse, the Hive shocked and appalled them all by merging with the deceased woman's body, re-animating Viper, but with the parasites forming a bulbous mass atop her head with four prehensile tentacles.

Nick Fury sent one of his teams, led by his son Mikel Fury, to destroy the Hive Base located in the Indian Ocean. The team was attacked by hundreds of HYDRA agents being controlled by Hive itself. The team was overrun, but not before sacrificing themselves to blow up the base, presumably killing Hive.

Taking back her title as Madame HYDRA, Viper and Gorgon subsequently broke away from Baron Strucker's weakening grip on HYDRA and formed an alliance with Norman Osborn's H.A.M.M.E.R. organization. During this brief and fragile union, Osborn arranged for Madame HYDRA to undergo surgery to remove the Hive from her in a way that would keep her alive.

Hive was later found alive in a HYDRA-decorated crypt in Egypt by the new Madame HYDRA, in her bid to form a new HYDRA High Council to assist Steve Rogers, who had his history altered to be a HYDRA sleeper agent for years by Red Skull's clone using the powers of Kobik.

During the Secret Empire storyline, Hive was shown to have taken control of the Hand when the Underground encountered him and Gorgon in Madripoor. Hive was defeated by the Tony Stark A.I.

Powers and abilities
The Hive's body, while bipedal, was not a solid figure but a writhing congregation of its many parasites. As such, these parasites can actually latch away from the mass and attack others at high speed—making them effective projectile weapons. As one, the Hive was capable of asserting itself as an individual, albeit without name or personality. In this form it was capable of speech—the language, however, is unknown, though spoken also by other HYDRA agents—suggesting it was one of their own design, created for strategic secrecy when in the field. The Hive was capable of breathing both on land and underwater.

Hive's strength level was never revealed but it was implied that the Hive possesses a greater than average physical strength from the combined efforts of its parasites. The Hive's only weakness was that despite the deadliness of its parasites it still had the physical limitations of its human host; in other words, whilst it could improve upon the host's strength and skills it cannot perform impossibilities such as flight if the host cannot. Also, any ailments afflicting the host prior to absorption will still be present and will affect the Hive—for instance, its original human host possessed a minute blood disorder and was also a diabetic—hence, why the HYDRA heads deemed him as fodder for the Hive experiment and would have also made him weak enough to be absorbed. These maladies would have also been present within the Hive afterwards. When the Hive later merged with the Viper, these ailments would no longer be present.

In other media
Hive, also known as Alveus, appeared in season 3 of the TV show, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. This version was originally a Maya warrior (portrayed by Jason Glover) who was captured by Kree Reapers, subjected to Terrigenesis, and turned into an Inhuman. This transformed his body into a mass of cellular parasites that survived by inhabiting dead human hosts, gaining their memories in the process, and could manifest an alien-like head with protruding tentacles. Furthermore, he could expel the parasites to devour humans for nourishment, or infect Inhumans to put them under his control in a hive mind. Afterwards, the ancient Inhumans used Kree technology to banish him to the planet Maveth. His remaining worshipers established a secret society to prepare the world for his return (ultimately evolving into the terrorist organization HYDRA) and provided new victims/hosts, including Lord Manzini (Daniel J. Wolfe), Nathaniel Malick (Joel Courtney) and astronaut Will Daniels (Dillon Casey). Through HYDRA's efforts, Hive returned to Earth and possessed Grant Ward (Brett Dalton). He seized control of the group, and recreated the Terrigenesis experiment, seizing a warhead to spread a virus that transforms humans into Hive-infected primitive Inhuman warriors. However, he was ultimately defeated and killed through the efforts of S.H.I.E.L.D. In the episode "The Real Deal", a fear manifestation of Hive was created after the explosion of the Kree Beacon, only to be destroyed by Phil Coulson and Deathlok.