Real Name-- Taneleer Tivan

Class-- extraterrestrial

Affiliations-- Elders of the Universe

Occupation-- curator/wanderer

Scale of Operations-- universe-wide

Powers-- Like all Elders, Tivan is connected to the energy of the universe due to his single-minded devotion to his "hobby," giving him cosmic awareness of the universe (although this manifests in precognitive flashes which may require long periods of meditation.) Tivan also possesses the ability to manipulate cosmic energies, including gravitational, electro-magnetic, and light, the full extent of which remains to be revealed. Also, as with the Grandmaster's pact with Death, all Elders are unaffected by aging, disease, or toxins.

Unlike most Elders, however, Tivan's penchant for collecting gives him access to countless examples of the finest technologies from the universe, including such equipment as a Temporal Assimilator (allowing time travel and teleportation for short durations and distances,) a body armor constructed of the virtually indestructible Etherion material, and the most virulent poisons known.

History-- Not much has been revealed regarding Taneleer Tivan's past, as he claims to be one of the oldest living beings in the universe. At some point he decided to collect items and creatures throughout the universe as a benevolent act to preserve all life in the known universe against those who would destroy it. As centuries past, Tivan grew more and more compulsive in his collecting, until he amassed ten museum-worlds full of specimens from over 100,000 planets, soon just for the sake of simply collecting them. During this time, he outlived his wife, as his will to collect things kept him alive. Also during this time, Tivan joined the Elders of the Universe as the Collector, under unrevealed circumstances.

In more recent years, the cosmic villain known as Korvac the Enemy arose, and Tivan sent his daughter Corina to spy on him. Korvac slew Tivan before he could reveal to Earth's heroes what he knew about Korvac.

Later, however, Tivan's Elder-kinsman, the Grandmaster, played a contest with Earth's champions against the embodiment of Death itself and won the power to resurrect Tivan. Later, Tivan was involved with the Grandmaster with another gambit against death, which succeeded in granting all Elders immortal life. Soon, Tivan had joined his fellow Elders in a plan to slay Galactus and supplant him as the universe thus re-created itself, but he and the Elders were defeated by Galactus' former Herald, the Silver Surfer and his friend, Mantis.

Following his compulsion, Tivan wanted to collect specimens of Earth's population, and allowed the murderous warrior race called the Brethren to escape from his collection, hoping they would decimate Earth and allow Tivan to collect the survivors. The Brethren were ultimately defeated by Earth's champions, and they rebelled against Tivan when his plans became known, making him appear in his true, heretofore hidden form, and apparently killing him.

Recently, however, Tivan reappeared, wanting to collect the first offspring of a human (Johnny "Human Torch" Storm) and an alien Skrull (his wife, Lyja the Laserfist.) When Tivan discovered that the egg was of Skrull origin only, he left them and their teammates, the Fantastic Four, alone.