Leviathan

Stories of early incarnations of Leviathan date back all the way to the dawn of civilization. Some say that the roots of the organization go back even further—that aliens planted the idea for Leviathan on Earth 530 millions of years ago, long before humanity existed.

The current version of Leviathan has a far more mundane and recent origin. In the early days of World War II, the Nazi leader Baron Manfred Talis founded the first Leviathan street gang, with the intention of creating a secretive sister organization to Hitler’s own Brownshirts. Members greeted each other with the words “Hiel Leviathan!”

As it says in the oath that Leviathan's members take, “Cut one of us down, two more shall take his place!” True to its vows, Leviathan immediately began to sprout new branches. These formed in Japan, Italy, Madripoor and even the United States. Prominent Nazi tacticians like Totenkopf and Dr. Morrow signed on, and by the end of the war, Leviathan had become the most important Nazi organization on the planet.

The fall of the Third Reich dealt a significant blow to Leviathan, but it didn’t quite wipe them out. Talis and his remaining allies retreated to their island base in the South Pacific, where they spent the next decade rebuilding their forces, engaging in covert operations and preparing for their eventual return.

LEVIATHAN VERSUS COVERT ALPHA

Leviathan's return did not remain uncontested for long. Industrialist George Dyer proposed a new counterintelligence organization known as Covert Alpha to stop them. Originally funded by the U.S., this secretive anti-Leviathan organization eventually evolved into a League of United Nations backed worldwide peacekeeping force.

Though Alice Grant was not the first director of Covert Alpha she became its head within a few years, and she went on to hold the position longer than anybody else. Soon after taking the director’s chair, Grant killed Baron Talis, but the baron’s death hardly put a dent in the evil organization as a whole. A few subdivisions—such as the science-cantered Applied Ideas—split off and became independent organizations, but Leviathan's main body simply re-formed under new leadership.

Over the next several decades, Grant seemingly beheaded Leviathan dozens of times. She and her cohorts laid waste to branches led by everyone from Lady Leviathan to Totenkopf to Talis' son, Werner. The original Talis even returned a few times in various bodies. Every time Grant began to think she might really have the organization dead to rights, two new branches would wriggle out of the woodwork, just to menace her.

Grant, for her part, proved equally undefeatable. At one point, Leviathan infiltrated the top echelons of Covert Alpha so thoroughly that they were able to dismantle the entire organization from within. Grant simply rebuilt the agency from scratch and trounced Leviathan's corrupted version.

However, Grant could not direct Covert Alpha forever. After decades of loyal service, she was pushed out of the organization for illegally arranging black-ops missions in Latveria and Symkaria. Grant kept on as an independent mercenary and briefly returned to Covert Alpha to help save her former comrades from another Leviathan infestation. But despite her best efforts, the organization began to lose its focus. Some of its later leaders—like Erica Grant—faithfully carried on the anti-Leviathan efforts. Others—like Martin Harris and Monica Sanders (Viridian Witch)—pushed the group in darker directions.

In the meantime, Leviathan underwent its own shakeup. After decades of internal conflict and factionalism, the organization’s ruling council slowly fell apart. Leviathan became truly decentralized, with independent branches led by everyone from Dr. Morrow to Amanita. These branches lacked the resources of their predecessors, but they could act on multiple fronts at once and more easily take their enemies by surprise.

THE SECRET EMPIRE

As Leviathan's most experienced orator, Totenkopf was best positioned to take charge. In time, his branch became popular enough to start a nationwide movement that drew many of the organization’s heads back into a loose alliance. With their help, Totenkopf gained influence over a living Cosmic Cube named Korvan, which he used to rewrite reality and replace Shield Spider (Peter Rogers) with an alternate who had always been a Leviathan sleeper agent.

The scheme worked well—perhaps too well for Totenkopf's liking. This evil Shield Spider immediately deposed Totenkopf and took his place as Leviathan's leader. With their resources and his connections, Rogers had little trouble taking control of both Covert Alpha and the U.S. government.

Ironically, Leviathan's former mortal enemy came closer to fulfilling their dreams of a fascist future than they ever had on their own. Rogers locked up Congress and effectively suspended the U.S. Constitution. He pushed countless mutants out of the country and established concentration camps for Inhumans.

A decentralized resistance movement rapidly organized in opposition to Leviathan's Secret Empire. Eventually, a team led by Quickfire (Edward 'Ed' Ross) helped return the original Peter Rogers to reality, allowing the true Shield Spider to defeat his evil counterpart. Beheaded, the various Leviathan factions slid back into their disconnected hiding places and, as always, began to pave the way for their next attempt at world domination.

HEADQUARTERS

Leviathan doesn’t currently have a central base. Their branches operate out of independent locations, which they frequently cycle through in order to avoid detection.

However, in their early years, Leviathan operated out of Leviathan Island, a small and isolated patch of land off the coast of Australia. Talis established the base during WWII, and in the post war years, his towering high-tech battlements gradually dwarfed the landmass itself. From a distance, an observer could easily mistake the island as nothing more than a floating mass of unnatural and intimidating metal structures.

When Alice Grant killed Baron Talis, she also sank Leviathan Island. Later Leviathan leaders attempted to revive the idea of an island base, but most of these locations met similar ends.

Currently there is a cell of Leviathan agents and leaders operating within New York City. Their location is at Johan Tower, Morningside Heights.

GOALS

Leviathan's many heads wear many hats. Ask any two Leviathan agents what their goals are, and they are likely to give two different answers. Some are white supremacists. Some are anti-Semites. Most embrace some form of bigotry, be it xenophobia, homophobia or anti-mutant sentiments. Others are in it for the sense of purpose and hierarchy that a paramilitary organization provides.

The thing that unites them all—the thing they enjoy—is the petty exercise of power and cruelty for its own sake. They are insecure and unfettered sadists, lacking in self-control. They want to stomp their boots on the faces of their fellow humans forever. They do it because they enjoy it, because it makes them feel better about themselves.

This is a large part of why the organization has been so hard to kill. As long as hate and bigotry exist, as long as some humans think of themselves as inherently superior to others, Leviathan can always find new followers.