Prester John

A figure drawn from real medieval legend, Prester John is an ancient warrior-king who has existed for centuries, sustained by the mystical Evil Eye artifact. He first encountered the Fantastic Four after awakening from a long sleep in the Wakandan region of Africa.

Few characters carry quite the mythic weight of Prester John, a Silver Age original who stepped out of medieval legend and into the Marvel Universe when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced him in Fantastic Four #54 in 1966. Over a publishing span stretching more than five decades, this enigmatic figure has proven surprisingly resilient, turning up in corners of the Marvel cosmos as varied as Defenders, Avataars: Covenant of the Shield, and even the irreverent pages of Cable & Deadpool, where he shares adventures with Nathan Summers, Deadpool, and Irene Merryweather. His debut in a Kirby-and-Lee Fantastic Four issue alone makes him a genuine piece of Silver Age history worth hunting down, and the sheer range of titles he's wandered through speaks to a character with an almost mythological staying power — fitting, perhaps, for a man whose very name echoes centuries of legend.