Diablo's Elementals

Diablo's Elementals is an unofficial term which refers to four non-sentient entities featured in comic books published by Marvel Comics. They are part of the mainstream Marvel Universe and first appeared in Fantastic Four, Volume 1 #232 in July, 1981.

The Spanish supervillain and alchemist Esteban Corazon De Ablo, aka, Diablo stole four rare figurines from different museums across the globe, each one representing one of the four elements of creation. Using his knowledge of the occult, Diablo was able to create powerful elemental beings from each of the four figurines and sent them to combat and hopefully defeat the Fantastic Four.

He sent his Earth golem to fight the Invisible Girl, his fire elemental to defeat the Human Torch, his air elemental to fight Mister Fantastic and his water elemental to vanquish The Thing. Once Reed Richards discovered that these beings were not truly alive, it was easy to devise methods to counteract and destroy each one in turn. He deduced that Diablo was behind it all and employed the assistance of Doctor Strange in tracking him down. Reed apprehended Diablo and handed him over to the police.

Air Elemental
The air elemental was a self-perpetuating tornado that could assume a slight semblance of a humanoid form. It attacked Johnny Storm and Frankie Raye in Central Park, whisking them both high up into the sky. The wind was so intense, that Johnny was unable to ignite his flame and the elemental pitched him upon the ground with enough force to render him unconscious. Reed Richards arrived to offer Johnny some existence, with the Fire Elemental following closely behind him. Feeling that Johnny could handle the flame being, Reed tried wrapping himself around the air elemental. Knowing that this would work as a stalling tactic only, Reed pretended to flee the scene, hoping that the air elemental would follow him. The air elemental chased him back Susan Richards' location and Reed turned to attack him anew. While the whirling winds wreaked havoc with Reed's elastic body, he was able to shout instructions to Susan, who imprisoned the elemental inside of a force bubble and consticted it to a point until the pressure was so great it just ceased to exist.

Earth Elemental
The earth elemental was a giant golem of solid earth, which stood approximately twelve feet tall. It was the first of Diablo's minions to appear and assaulted Susan Richards outside the Casa Tindolini hair salon. It smashed through the window and coated Susan with a layer of dirt, but she was able to erect a force field bubble around herself, which pushed the dirt away. She avoided the pursuing creature long enough for The Thing to arrive on the scene, who began swapping blows with it. Ultimately, he was able to defeat it by tearing up an underground water pipe and turning the creature into mud until it just dissolved away.

Fire Elemental
The fire elemental was third to appear and could assume a humanoid form, not all that different from the Human Torch. It referred to itself as the Living Flame and attacked Reed Richards in his laboratory at the Baxter Building. As the heat in the lab began to increase steadily, Reed turned into a bouncing ball and repelled his way out of the building. He tracked down the others, knowing that they would be under attack by similar creatures. He first came upon the Human Torch, who was reviving after having been defeated by the air elemental. The fire elemental's heat was even more intense than that of the Human Torch, and Johnny could feel himself succumbing to the increasing temperatures. His only recourse was to go super-nova, which proved hot enough to overwhelm the fire elemental and destroy it.

Water Elmental
The water elemental was the second of the four elementals to appear and targeted Ben Grimm, aka, The Thing. It first distracted the Thing by assuming the form of a torrential downpour. After waiting for his victim to exhale, it then surrounded him, encasing him in an inescapable prison of water. Although he was extremely resilient, Ben still had to breathe just like any other creature. He was unable to break free of the fluid cage and ran into a nearby sporting goods store. An employee of the store, Jan, saw him drowning and plugged a SCUBA tank hose through the water, so Ben could breathe. The elemental left him and surrounded Jan, so Ben had to sacrifice his air hose to save her now. The creature then left Jan to refocus it's attack on Ben, but fortunately, Susan Richards was able to block him with a force field. As the fight carried out into the street, Reed Richards arrived with two power cables hooked up to a generator. He plugged the cables into the water elemental and the discharge boiled it into a mist.