Randall Dowling (Wildstorm Universe)

Randall Dowling
Wildstorm Universe‎
Gallery
Real Name	Randall Dowling
Main Alias	Randall Dowling
Affiliation	The Four
Base Of Operations	New York City, New York
Status
Alignment	Bad
Identity	Secret Identity
Citizenship	American
Marital Status	Single
Occupation	Physicist · Engineer · Scientist
Characteristics
Gender	Male
Eyes	Black
Hair	Black
Origin
Universe	Wildstorm Universe
Creators	Warren Ellis · John Cassaday
First Appearance	Planetary #6 (November, 1999)
Appearance of Death	Planetary #26 (December, 2006)

Randall Dowling was the leader of The Four and an enemy of Planetary.

History

Dowling has been involved in much of the secretive scientific research conducted behind the scenes in the last 50 years, including an American concentration camp called Science City Zero where political dissidents were used as guinea pigs. He also has connections to the Hark Corporation. He is distantly related to the 19th century Dowling Gang, enemies of the Dead Ranger, who was the grandfather of Dowling's associate William Leather.

In 1961, Dowling orchestrated a secret lunar mission that sent himself and three other crewmembers through The Bleed and bargained with a race of superhumans from a parallel Earth to gain superhuman abilities. In return, Dowling promised to turn over his native Earth to the superhumans within the next fifty years. To the end of the 20th century, Dowling and The Four suppressed their world's technological and scientific advances in order to weaken humanity and to be easily subjugated by the parallel Earth. Dowling would come into conflict with the Planetary organization and was responsible for wiping Elijah Snow's memories.

Ultimately, Dowling along with Süskind met their ends, due to a well-laid trap set up by Elijah Snow, whereby they fell to their deaths when Elijah summoned a shiftship from the ground beneath them. The mangled corpses of Dowling and Süskind were recovered by Planetary and later dumped onto the alternate Earth of their benefactors to acknowledge that their plans had failed, and to serve as a warning.

Powers and Abilities

Powers

• Mind Control: His power is the ability to "stretch" his mind, which spreads out and colonizes the minds of anyone within one hundred feet of him.
• Enhanced Intellect: After the Artemis shot, his already-formidable scientific ability seems to have been enhanced by access to alien/bleed technologies.

Trivia

• Randall Dowling is a parallel to Marvel's Mr. Fantastic, but lacking the morality and humanity of his counterpart.

Related

• 13 Appearances of Randall Dowling (Wildstorm Universe)
• 3 Images featuring Randall Dowling (Wildstorm Universe)
• Quotations by or about Randall Dowling (Wildstorm Universe)
• Character Gallery: Randall Dowling (Wildstorm Universe)