• Body Resistance: Excellent rank
• Health Drain Touch: The Reaper has Incredible rank Health absorption from living targets by touching them with his scythe. He can absorb more than his normal health limits and excess health points absorbed are divided up among his Health: Strength and Endurance. Enhanced scores decrease by 10 points/hour until down to standard levels. The Reaper's health decreases by 10 points/hour until normal, and he can maintain his normal health level for 12 hours without any life-energy. After that, his Health drains at a rate of 5 points/hour until the Reaper absorbs enough life-energy to return his health point total to normal.
• Invulnerability: Class 1000 resistance to disease, heat, cold, radiation and toxins.

Equipment

Talents

Weapon Specialist: Scythes

Contacts

None

History

Eric Williams is the brother of Simon Williams, better known as Wonder Man, who engaged in a criminal career rather than join the family electronics business, a business which Simon Williams was forced to embezzle from to cover Eric’s criminal activities. When Simon sacrificed himself to save the Avengers from Zemo’s Masters of Evil, Eric went mad with grief and wrongly blamed the Avengers for Simon’s death. Armed with a high-tech miniature arsenal in the form of a scythe, Williams dubbed himself the Grim Reaper and set out to kill the Avengers in his brother’s memory, but they defeated him.

Williams was confused and tormented by the existence of one Avenger in particular, the Vision, whom Williams came to regard as an obscene mockery of Simon since Vision’s mind was created from Simon’s brain patterns. Williams returned again to menace the Avengers, forming the original Lethal Legion, and was defeated once more.

Williams next secretly offered to transfer Vision’s mind into Wonder Man’s body and make it live again in exchange for Vision not opposing Williams’ latest efforts to destroy the Avengers; Vision initially refused, but departed to consider the offer. Then, allied with Space Phantom in conspiracy against the Avengers, Williams revealed to Vision that he was lying about being able to revive Wonder Man’s body, but said he could transfer Vision’s mind into Captain America’s body using the Space Phantom’s technology. Vision played along to infiltrate Williams’ plans but ultimately refused and turned on the Reaper. Williams nonetheless prevented Space Phantom from killing Vision, and battled and was defeated by the Avengers.

This situation became more confused when Simon himself returned from his seeming death and joined the Avengers as Wonder Man. Williams imprisoned Vision, Wonder Man & several other Avengers and staged a mock trial to determine whether Wonder Man or Vision was the real Simon Williams. He decided that Wonder Man truly was his brother, and was defeated and subdued by him.

Unable to accept Simon’s new superhuman form, Williams eventually decided that neither Wonder Man nor Vision was the true Simon Williams and formed a new Lethal Legion in order to set out to destroy them both as well as the Avengers. This ultimately led to a confrontation in which Simon and Vision convinced Eric that they were legitimate living beings, and that he was their brother. Guilt-stricken, Williams fled from them and fell to his death.

His dead form was used by Immortus to battle the Avengers as a part of Immortus’ Legion of the Unliving.

Williams’ lover and teammate Nekra revived him as a zombie to use as a weapon against their enemies. Sickened by his undead state, the Reaper convinced Nekra to return him to his grave. Later, though, she revived him once again, this time as a zombie who could sustain his life indefinitely by killing victims with his scythe. He embarked on a killing spree opposed by Wonder Man, in the process murdering Nekra, the Mandrill and many others. Williams entered into alliance with the robot Ultron, intending to subvert Ultron’s plans to "robot-ize" the human race, but was defeated by the Avengers along with Ultron.

After that, he became a more mystical being in league with various demonic forces, and tried unsuccessfully to kill the Avengers by creating the fourth Legion of the Unliving, but was himself seemingly destroyed instead.

Following that defeat, Williams bided his time in the netherworld until his brother Wonder Man returned from the dead once again and thus weakened the walls between the realms of the dead and the living. Taking advantage of this, Williams managed to return to the Earthly plane along with a group of dead Avengers which included Wonder Man whom he had bent to his will. Williams and his undead Avengers defeated the Avengers and plotted to drown the world in sorcerous manifestations of Williams’ pain and hatred, but the undead Avengers were freed from the his control by the Scarlet Witch. They turned on Williams, helping the living Avengers defeat him. In the end, most of the undead Avengers returned to their respective afterlives, but Wonder Man was permanently resurrected through the sorcerous intervention of the Scarlet Witch, who in turn rescued his brother to full life. Williams abandoned his fight when he was forced to admit his love for his brother, and he was remitted to a psychiatric hospital.
Williams was soon abducted from psychiatric institution by Ultron’s robot army and held prisoner as part of Ultron’s extended "human family". Ultron revealed previous early connections to the Avengers whom he also captured. Williams ultimately helped the Avengers escape Ultron’s custody but fled while Ultron battled the Avengers, renouncing his brotherly interest in Vision and Wonder Man.

Resolved to dedicate his future schemes to personal gain, Williams attempted to infiltrate by force the organized crime family known as the Maggia. At the same time, the Avengers arrived coincidentally to defeat Maggia leader Madame Masque, and repelled Williams, who escaped.