How Old Is High Evolutionary? Is He Immortal?

High Evolutionary rose to sudden fame with his inclusion into the ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’. Aside from the MCU, he was already a well-known and bizarre villain famous for his genetic experiments and the fact that he evolved himself on several occasions. High Evolutionary cannot be farther from a regular human being, and many fans are wondering how old he is and if he is immortal in both comics and the MCU.

In the comics, High Evolutionary’s exact age is not known, but based on the fact that he was a student in the 1920s’ it’s estimated that he is at least 130 years old. He is also allegedly immortal, meaning that his biological makeup is altered so much his body doesn’t follow conventional aging. In the MCU, High Evolutionary is around 300 years old. His immortality was not confirmed, but considering his longevity and the fact that he retained the appearance of a 40-year-old man, he might not age anymore.

As you can see, the question of High Evolutionary’s age and immortality is a complex one. This is because he often experimented on himself and transformed himself into various forms several times. Still, we’re going to try to unravel this mystery, and if you’re interested in more, stay with us and keep reading!

How old is High Evolutionary in the comics?

Now, this is a complicated question to answer, considering that his birthdate was never specifically mentioned. We do know that initially, High Evolutionary was a human male under the name of Herbert Wyndham, born in Manchester, England. Even though his birthdate is unknown, we do know that by the 1920s, he was already a student at Oxford University, which would place his birth year in the 1890s.

Based on this, we can conclude that he is more than 130 years old. As most fans already know by now, High Evolutionary did not technically remain human as he often dabbled in genetics and “evolved” himself into several forms, from primordial goo to disembodied digital data.

He also managed to develop himself once out of desperation. We also know that High Evolutionary, at one point, sped up his own evolution so he could reach the ultimate form that “all humans” are destined to reach.

It’s incredibly hard to calculate his biological age as very little remains of what made Herbert Wyndham a human.

How old is High Evolutionary in the MCU?

The MCU paints a different story regarding High Evolutionary’s origin. We know that in the MCU, High Evolutionary is not a human but belongs to an unnamed race of humanoid aliens. This was confirmed by the fact that he stated that he visited the Earth for the first time in the 80s and fell in love with its culture and music and art in general, but hated the way Humans were barbaric and bigoted.

Still, High Evolutionary is around 300 years old in the MCU because his company, OrgoCorp, is several centuries old at this point and some of his experiments lasted for centuries. He spent hundreds of years analyzing species he encountered over the Galaxy and got inspired to improve all the aspects of nature that he found lacking.

He had enough time to create Counter-Earth and create his allegedly perfect society. High Evolutionary did not only dabbled in nature’s creations but sought to “improve them.” He also had enough time to create perfectly new species, such as Xeronians, Ani-Men, and Sovereign.

We do know that High Evolutionary has a machine that speeds up evolution thousands of years in advance. However, it’s unknown whether he used the machine on himself. He probably didn’t since it was shown to be highly unstable in the movie, resulting in many errors and violent subjects. So, we can assume that High Evoltuionary’s biological age is unaltered compared to his comic counterpart.

High Evolutionary’s immortality is “alleged” in the comics and unclear in the MCU

The question of whether High Evolutionary is immortal is equally hard to answer. In the comics, more specifically in ‘Avengers’ #673, High Evolutionary stated that he altered his own genetic code to achieve eternal life. Meaning he doesn’t age and will never succumb to aging alone.

Although you could argue that High Evolutionary had reached various states of immortality even before, especially when he evolved himself into disembodied energy-based forms, it’s hard to analyze immortality in the context of digital data or energy orbs since I’m not quite sure whether those concepts can age at all. Even still, we sort of have confirmation that High Evolutionary is immortal in the comics.

As far as the MCU goes, we already know that High Evolutionary has enhanced longevity, but we’re not sure whether he stopped aging at all or he simply ages far slower than regular humans, like Asgardians do, for example.

Despite being 300 years old, High Evolutionary still looks like a 40-year-old man, and he looked like a 40-year-old man several decades prior when he experimented upon Rocket Raccoon, which resulted in Rocket tearing his face off with his claws.

We also don’t know whether High Evolutionary’s longevity is a result of his experiments or his unnamed alien species simply has a much longer lifespan when compared to humans.

Based on his aging alone, we can’t conclude whether High Evolutionary is immortal, but we can definitely see that he ages slowly.

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