Elanis

Elanis was the fifth planet from the sun in the Beta Scorpi star system of the Milky Way galaxy. It is the homeworld of the powerful semi-humanoid Elan race.^[1]

After learning that the Fantastic Four had once encountered a young Elan they called the "Infant Terrible" and his parents, a group of Skrulls attempted to lure the heroes into a trap on their outpost by having one of their own impersonate that young Elan and sending him to New York City to make contact with the FF. Once that was achieved, the imposter secretly used technology in his suit to seemingly project his memories of how his homeworld had been attacked by a Skrull space fleet. Since Mister Fantastic was aware of the fact that the world of the Elan was located in the Beta Scorpi sector of the Milky Way galaxy and that there were at least three Skrull outposts within a hundred cubic parsecs of it, the idea that the Elan could have been the victims of Skrull aggression was theoretically possible. However, elements of the imposter's story that weren't in keeping with what he knew of the Elan nature had made him privately suspicious, so he covertly checked a read-out on the arrival of the "Elan" ship from Avengers Mansion and discovered that the pilot hadn't made the course adjustments necessary for his arrival to appear to be entering from a Beta Scorpi trajectory. With the Skrulls being the obvious suspects, the FF played along with the imposter until they were able to take advantage of an opportunity to turn the tables on him, allowing them to later infiltrate the Skrull outpost.^[2]

During a class on alien races that he was teaching to the Future Foundation aboard the Foundation space station, Reed Richards used a hologram that projected the names of fourteen alien races in mid-air. The Elan were one of those races and a small, static holographic image of their planet was projected beside their name.^[3]

Later, Elanis and its inhabitants were "One star system way" from Earth when they were attacked by the Keeper of the Great Truth and the Illuminatrix. During the attack, the Thing arrived from Earth in a small spacecraft to try to help them, but he was swiftly defeated and transformed, even as Elanis and the Elan had been converted to a "perfected" state that resembled Zenn-La.^[4] Like the other worlds and races that had been converted by that powerful magi-tech device, Elanis and the Elan presumably reverted back to their original forms once the Silver Surfer destroyed the Illuminatrix.^[5]

• Elan
  • "Infant Terrible"

• The "Infant Terrible" and his parents first appeared in Fantastic Four #24, but the names of their race and their homeworld were not revealed until their race received a quarter-page profile in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (Vol. 2) #15.
• Although the Infant Terrible imposter projected images of events that had supposedly occurred on the planet of the Elan to the FF in Fantastic Four Annual #19, the fact that this was part of a ploy to lure them to the Skrull outpost to be ambushed suggests that the planet displayed was actually the Skrull planet.
• Quasar #39 established that the planet Rus was located in the Beta Scorpi star system and Quasar #49 clarified that it was the fourth planet from the sun in that star system. Although this would seem to indicate that Elanis and Rus had always existed in the same star system, that overlooks the fact that Champions #13 had established, years earlier, that Kamo Tharnn, the Elder of the Universe who had adopted Rus as his homeworld, possessed the ability to move his entire world through space. Apparently, this is something that he has done three times in recent years.
• When "Planet Elanis" appeared in Silver Surfer (Vol. 8) #1, a caption stated that it was located "One star system away" from Earth. This is inconsistent with the real Beta Scorpii system which is about 470 light-years away. It may be that the "Beta Scorpi" system is MUCH closer to Earth in the Marvel Universe or that the Elan are also able to move their home planet through space. However, neither of these possible explanations have yet been confirmed.
• A story in the French comic Zembla Special (FR) #152-153 featured an encounter that the Infant Terrible and his parents had with the stage magician Rasmus and the jungle lord Zembla in the African nation of Karunda shortly after they had parted from the Fantastic Four. According to Marvel Legacy: The 1960s Handbook #1, this adventure is canon. In the second part of this story, there is a two-panel flashback that shows images of life on an Elan planet. This planet was presumably Elanis, but this has not been confirmed.