It’s the age old question. Who would win, Brains or Brawn? Introduced in Tales to Astonish #62 (1964) by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, Samuel Stern was a high school dropout who was working in a chemical research plant when one night he was bombarded with gamma radiation. This increased his intelligence immensely, which he used to absorb many sciences. He began to believe that he was the only one that could rule the world and thought he could use the Hulk to do so. He approach General Ross and trick him into capturing the Hulk. The Hulk obviously escaped and the 2 would become life long nemesis, including a time when Leader ruined Bruce Banner’s wedding to Betty Ross.

He would eventually lose his intelligence and return to normal until he encountered Rick Jones’ Hulk and was bombarded with Gamma Rays again. He would later outfit 2 Hulkbuster members into Rock and Redeemer. After another fight with Hulk, he founded a town in the Artic called Freehold. Around this time, he began changing his method from conquering the world to a person who believed that an apocalyptic future was coming that to various countries. He began gather radiated human that would survive this and repopulate the world. He would later seek aid from the Pantheon and would revive Rick Jones’ girlfriend and General Ross. The town would later come under attack from Hydra and Hulk. Leader was believed killed then.

He would later show up alive as the brains behind the Homebase group. He was later captured and put on trial but was found innocent. He would later gather other hyper intelligent to form the Intelligencia which work to bring down the Hulk and conquer the world. They were responsible for making General Ross into the Red Hulk and his daughter Betty into the Red She-Hulk. They were eventually defeat by the Hulk and his allies and Leader was turned back to normal when the Red Hulk drain his gamma radiation. He would eventually regain his powers but instead of being green he became the Red Leader, joining Ross’s Thunderbolts team. He obviously would betray them. During the Hulk, now Doc Green, began trying to rid the world of Gamma being, Leader was approach by the AI Gammon. They worked together to pretend that Hulk did depowered him but as soon as he left, Leader slowly regained his powers, returning to his green form.

Being Hulk arch-foe, The Leader has gotten a few figures over the years but very few Marvel Legends. Toybiz release one as part of their Face-Off 2-packs with the Hulk, which also had a variant. It was a while before Hasbro released a version in their Gamerverse Abomination wave.

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