Hill People are a Precambrian spaceborne species who were trapped in Earth's core, which transformed them into hill-like beings.
Biology[]
Hill People fused with rock
In their true forms, Hill People are amorphous spaceborne spore-like energy beings, capable of traveling across space. However, they can be caught in gravity wells, such as from forming planets, which can forcefully fuse them to the object generating the gravity well. However, Hill People can manipulate rocks, thus creating bodies for themselves that often resemble rocky hills with scowling humanoid faces, albeit lacking noses. They can reshape their hill-like bodies to semi-humanoid forms, and make rock spires rapidly burst out of the ground. Notably, Hill People can survive having their bodies destroyed, which would just revert them to their energy forms, and they can possess other rocks, even possessing multiple rocks at once. Additionally, Hill People are telepathic, and can control the minds of Humans within a certain range, although pure iron can block their mental abilities. Hill People can live for billions of years, and being spaceborne, they do not need oxygen to survive.
Culture and society[]
Hill People are generally peaceful, and have rallied together against any hostile member of their species. They have not developed their own technology, although they appear to know how to construct highly advanced technologies, and most are content with wandering the galaxy. Only one member, Spragg, has displayed hostility.
History[]
Two billion years ago, the Hill People drifted through the Milky Way as inert spore-like energy beings, eventually finding the Sol System, where they got caught in the gravity well of a forming Earth, being trapped within the planet and fusing to its internal material. Over two billion years, they developed mental powers and terrakinesis, creating seismic activity as they moved. Despite surface repercussions of their movement, Hill People remained mostly peaceful, and kept to themselves underground. Sometime in the 20th century, a malevolent Hill Person named Spragg used seismic activity to reach the surface of Earth, surfacing in Transylvania, where he used his mental abilities to mind control a small group of Humans near him, making them bring the population of a nearby village within mind control range. Finding that his abilities were limited to that range, Spragg ordered the Humans to build a device capable of boosting his abilities, referred to as "dynamo," which took the form of a platform under Spragg, which he intended to use to take over the planet.
Spragg's actions were soon discovered by a geologist named Dr. Bob Robertson, who had been in Transylvania when Spragg propelled himself to the surface. Dr. Robertson found Spragg's true nature while investigating the village that Spragg had taken over, which had been cut off from the outside world, using an abandoned mineshaft to get to Spragg. Finding that the iron mining helmet he had on was protecting him from Spragg's mental abilities, he worked in secret from under Spragg, managing to rewire the dynamo into a rocket, and when Spragg activated the dynamo, it blasted him into space, freeing the Humans under his control.
Years later, Spragg returned to Earth, his body being incinerated in the atmosphere upon reentry, but he survived in an energy form and made a new body out of new rocks, this time in the United States. Spragg began to terrorize Humans by creating spires fast enough to strike airplanes and bring them down, also coming into conflict with a Human known as Mole Man, who resided underground. Seismic activity caused by Spragg was highlighted with a distinctive electronic resonance, which was picked up by Dr. Robertson, who soon realized Spragg had returned. After twenty years of tracking Spragg, Spragg then brought down the plane of a would-be rockstar, but the pilot managed to get out a report of a "living mountain," which got the attention of a gamma mutate superheroine known as She-Hulk. When Dr. Robertson used a counter-frequency to nullify Spragg's earthquakes, Spragg tried to destroy a nearby town in retaliation, but She-Hulk planted one of Dr. Robertson's frequency devices near the town, prompting Spragg to open up a hole under She-Hulk, successfully trapping her underground.
Spragg then followed She-Hulk underground, taking on a more humanoid form to battle her and Mole Man, whose realm he had dropped her into. Spragg swiftly overpowered all rock creatures Mole Man sent to attack him, but then the other Hill People arrived in the cavern and surrounded Spragg, seeking to stop him. Mole Man used the distraction to activate a burst of magma under Spragg and the Hill People, blasting them all into space and far from Earth. The Hill People decided to peacefully explore the galaxy, but Spragg fell through a wormhole by Jupiter, managing to bring several stones from Jupiter's faint rings into the wormhole with him. On the other side, Spragg found the Star Stop, a space station populated by organic beings. Deciding to destroy the organics, Spragg spread his essence to the other stones, effectively controlling a swarm, using them to attack the station in the form of a meteor shower.
Spragg was quickly recognized as a threat by the Star Stop owners, but they were unable to stop Spragg, although they managed to contact She-Hulk through her flying car, summoning her to the station. Recognizing Spragg, she tried to fight him, but Spragg used his stones to encase her in rock, although intervention from Star Stop defenders freed her. She-Hulk then managed to discern which of the stones was the true Spragg, and managed to encase him in a net of pure iron, nullifying his mental powers and turning the stones back to inert rock. With Spragg neutralized, he was imprisoned in the Star Stop by a giant alien named Enilwen, as a part of Enilwen's rock collection.
Appearances[]
- Journey into Mystery Vol 1 #68 (1961)
- Sensational She-Hulk Vol 1 #31 (1991)
- Sensational She-Hulk Vol 1 #32 (1991)
- Sensational She-Hulk Vol 1 #33 (1991)
- Sensational She-Hulk Vol 1 #40 (1992)
- Sensational She-Hulk Vol 1 #41 (1992)
- Earth X Vol 1 #0 (1999)