Ahab is a character appearing in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Dr.
Rory Campbell was a psychologist who had previously met the scientist
Moira MacTaggert. He accepted a position as Moira's assistant at
Muir Island, at the same time that the mutant hero team
Excalibur became stationed there. Campbell attempted to reach the island during a storm that was exacerbated by an attack by
Siena Blaze and nearly died; however, he was rescued and brought ashore by team member Phoenix. While working at Muir Island, Campbell discovered the existence of a future timeline where he became the mutant hunting Ahab, creating and leading hordes of mutant trackers called
Hounds. Campbell became determined to prevent that future from ever happening. Excalibur had captured the villain Spoor, one of
Magneto's Acolytes, and Campbell built a special room to perform therapy on Spoor, who had the power to control another's mood. The room had built-in lasers to react to any hostile behavior and Campbell used mood stabilizers while talking to Spoor so as to inhibit his mutant power. Nevertheless, Spoor eventually provoked Campbell into attacking him. As a result, the room's weapons fired at the scientist, costing him a leg. Campbell continued to fear his perceived "destiny" of becoming Ahab occurring. He left Excalibur to work with Alistair Stuart at the department as a mutant liaison officer. Rory hoped the benign position helping mutants would prevent him from being harmed by mutants in a way that would trigger his alternate future self's rabid anti-mutant hatred. Later, he traded secrets of McTaggert's research into the deadly
Legacy Virus to
Sebastian Shaw of the
Hellfire Club, claiming that he hoped that Shaw's greater resources would find a cure, but also receiving a state-of-the-art prosthetic leg in the bargain. Soon afterwards Campbell was captured by the villain
Apocalypse and transformed into the
Horseman called
Famine, utilizing life-draining technology. In this capacity, he fought the
X-Men but managed to escape before Apocalypse was defeated.
"Days of Future Past" version On
Earth-811, Ahab became the leader of the government-sanctioned Hound program, commissioned to track down and capture mutants for internment. In this reality,
Rachel Summers was Ahab's pinnacle of Hound creation, although Rachel subsequently escaped into the current timeline, horribly mutilating Ahab by throwing him into one of his machines. For a while, Ahab was a paraplegic in a floating chair, but later he was given bionic body parts. Ahab, now more cyborg then ever, tried to hunt Rachel down through the time-wandering spirit of the alternate future's
Franklin Richards, at one point creating Hounds out of
Scott Summers and
Sue Storm. Ahab was defeated by the actions of the
Fantastic Four and the combined X-teams. Years later, Rachel finally defeated Ahab with the help of her Excalibur teammates and reprogrammed the
Master Mold of the future, causing the
Sentinels to preserve all life (even Ahab's).
Unidentified reality version Ahab was forced to stay in an unidentified reality and time, and took control of Prestige. He travelled to
Transia, but was attacked and wounded badly, needing help from their government. When
X-Force arrived they saw him and immediately engaged. After the battle was over, they found his head and body separated from each other and determined that he was dead.
Ahab in other media Roderick Campbell appears in
The Gifted, portrayed by
Garret Dillahunt. This version is a human scientist working for
Trask Industries' "Hounds" program and an advisor to Sentinel Services who is later killed by
Polaris. == Ai Apaec ==