The Minotaur

Origin

Dario Agger was the son of a wealthy Greek businessman, who bought his own island in the Aegean Sea. When he was nine years old, his family was having a reunion on the island when they were attacked by pirates. Dario managed to be the last survivor by running from the family homestead and hiding in a nearby cave. There, he prayed to whoever would listen for death, power, and revenge. As this cave was in fact King Minos’ labyrinth of myth, the one to answer his prayers was the spirit of the ancient minotaur that shared his form with the young boy. With these new powers, he slaughtered the pirates but used his new vast inheritance to keep them alive as disembodied heads to continue to torture.

Creation

Dario Agger debuts in Thor: God of Thunder (2014) #19 by Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic.

Major Story Arcs

New Age of Roxxon

Dario Agger was named CEO of the Roxxon Energy Corporation after it broke away from the Kronas Corporation. In an attempt to clean up Roxxon’s public image, he delivered a relatively large chunk of ice from Europa, a moon of Jupiter, to an Alaskan community, while continuing evil business practices in private. However, Thor showed up with an even larger chunk of ice from Jotunheim in an effort to discredit him. Thor was acting on behalf of SHIELD agent, Roz Solomon, who was suspicious of Agger. This started a longstanding feud between them.

To hit Thor where it hurts, Agger targeted the airspace over Broxton, OK, where a revived Asgard floated. He negotiated permission from the Oklahoma State Senate to place floating Roxxon centers over the town of Broxton. He used this as bait to get Thor to attack Roxxon, so that they could serve Thor with a restraining order keeping him 300 yards of any Roxxon facility, including by extension his new home of Broxton. Surprisingly effective, it was still not enough for Agger. He hires Ulik and his rock troll cronies to pillage Broxton and reveals his Minotaur form to Thor.

Unfortunately, his minotaur form was not as imposing as he hoped. Thor was relieved that he could finally let loose on a villain who was not simply a vulnerable human. Agger was ultimately forced to retreat, but he returned, back in his human form, to blame Asgard for the damage he and the rock trolls had caused.

The Dark Council Forms

After Roxxon uncovered the skull of Laufey from the ocean floor, Agger received unwanted attention from Malekith and his Frost Giant horde. Jane Foster (as Thor since the real Thor became unworthy of Mjolnir during the events of Original Sin) came to stop the giants while Agger hid in his vibranium panic room with a decoy skull. Agger hoped that Malekith and the Frost Giants might find it and be preoccupied, but after Jane destroyed it, Agger switched gears and leveraged the skull to start an alliance with Malekith. For the skull, Malekith would promise mineral resources to Roxxon from any realm he conquered, which Agger would help with.

Together, they first targeted Alfheim, home of the light elves, a precursor to the War of the Realms. After which, their alliance quickly grows into a Dark Council featuring: Roxxon employee, Ulik and a resurrected Laufey. The alliance proved fruitful as Roxxon mines for coal of Svartalfheim and drills for oil of Alfheim, but Agger realizes he does not have the firepower to stand against the Dark Council if he needs to. He turned to Loki, who supplied him with dragon blood to create super soldiers of his elite security team. This B.E.R.S.E.R.K.E.R. team built a reputation for Hulk like strength with no gamma side effects.

Hostile Takeover

At The Universal Bank in Bern, Switzerland, Dario was attending a meeting of some of the biggest capitalists, including Kingpin and Tiberius Stone. As a group, they called out Agger opening up new markets and not giving them the opportunity to have a shot at them. Agger acted defensively, inspiring the Silver Samurai (Shingen) to announce his plans of a hostile takeover of Roxxon. With a quick push of a button on his cell phone, Shingen causes mechanical failures in Roxxon oil production, uploads a virus to Roxxon’s headquarters, and leaks nudes of Agger from his personal cloud drive.

When Agger tries to defend himself against Shingen, Agger is attacked by Shingen’s secret partner, Exterminatrix. He ended up tased and kidnapped, with his minotaur form kept sedated by a shock collar. Unfortunately, Agger had a contingency for a hostile takeover. In the event, the floating Roxxon island would weaponize as the biggest time bomb on the planet and aim for Manhattan. He figures if he can’t rule Wall Street, neither will anyone else. Once this is activated, only Agger is capable of turning it off, thus Jane Foster and Roz Solomon were forced to rescue him to save New York.

Regardless, Exterminatrix and Shingen still drag him to the floating island so that they could raid his vault, not worrying about the fate of New York. While Exterminatrix fights off the heroes and Shingen attempts to break into the vault, Agger tries to shapeshift over and over until he shorts out the shock collar. While he technically joined the heroes in the fight, he refused to turn off the self-destruct. Instead, SHIELD evacuated the island so that Foster could throw it into the sun.

Agger was ultimately protected by his legal team, but Roxxon stock had a steep drop after rumors of the attack made it to the public

Weirdworld Portal

Agger offered Clay Cortez, aka Weapon H, a job. Agger needed a monster hunter to exterminate creatures that were escaping from a portal to Weirdworld that Roxxon had opened, looking for new energy resources. Clay made the deal but had some demands. He requested security for his family that they are never used by Roxxon. He requested his new monster friends, including Korg, who was already fighting in Weirdworld, get their freedom. And finally, they each get $10 million for their effort. Agger agreed to all his terms.

In addition to exterminating the monsters, Weapon H agreed to rescue Roxxon employees pinned down in their new power station. There, they were siphoning energy from Morgan Le Fay, who Clay freed. Upon doing so, she brainwashed all nearby monsters including Clay. She forced him to counterattack Roxxon. Clay's wife, Sonia, was able to snap him out of his trance. He held back the invading monsters and forced Agger to give up on his portal.

Agger ultimately made good on his agreement with Clay.

War of the Realms

In the War of the Realms, The Dark Council waged war with Midgard. They had already split up Midgard, with Dario getting Antarctica. Agger didn’t support too much in battle though. Instead, his Roxxon crew shut down all forms of communication in the realm to slow down the heroes of Midgard. Unfortunately, it did not work, and the Dark Council’s forces were pushed back.

Roxxon emerged largely unscathed. Their only consequences being the subject of petitions, thinkpieces, and lackluster boycotts.

The Incredible Xemnu

After Hulk took over Shadowbase, he targeted Roxxon for their Hulk-like BERSERKERS. Banner decided they should start with Roxxon West in Oregon, the home of Agger’s social media server farm where he controls the public narrative. Agger considered this his strongest weapon in the modern era, even capable of smoothing over the public revelation that he was a minotaur, a form he was spending most of his time as. Without it, the teen meme generation started to prefer Hulk over Roxxon, seeing Hulk as a symbol of rebellion.

Agger decides to target Hulk with a PR crisis. He releases kaijus in Arizona, blaming Hulk. When Hulk proves incapable of stopping them, Agger sends in Xemnu, an alien living on Monster Island that he hired to market as a new and better “Incredible Hulk.” Taking advantage of nostalgia, Xemnu used his psychic ability to replace Hulk and other heroes in civilians’ memories, while also psychically strangling the Hulk, keeping him subdued.

When the Hulk is finally able to break free of the psychic hold, he and his allies attack Roxxon, which is defended by monsters created by Xemnu. Agger realizes not only has his underlings fallen under Xemnu’s thrall, Xenmu has been able to selectively break through Agger’s psychic defenses. While panicking, Agger is consumed and converted by Xemnu into one of his monsters. After Xemnu is defeated, Hulk ignores Agger’s potentially fatal mutation, but The Leader (possessing Rick Jones) promises to help him if Agger is willing to be cooperative.

Roxxon Comix

Minotaur, now horribly scarred from his run in with Xemnu, has used his resources at Roxxon to purchase the Marvel Comics adaptations of Thor to create his own version. His Thor would be used to spread pro-Roxxon propaganda and counter the pro-environment protests against him. He would accomplish this with the help of Executioner and Enchantress, who were using this new fictional take on Thor to manipulate Thor's history and by extension his destiny.

Powers

After being transformed by a dark god that dwelt on a Greek Island from time to time Dario Agger would gain vast strength and endurance in the form of the Minotaur:

• Superhuman Strength: Agger possessed vast strength in his Minotaur form that can allow him to go toe to toe with Thor.
• Superhuman Endurance : When he is a Minotaur, Agger can withstand severe trauma during his fight with Thor
• Transformation: After being "blessed" Agger can shift between his human form and his Minotaur form.