Meet Praeter. Praeter became the Herald of Galactus a few years ago during Matt Fraction's run on The Mighty Thor. Praeter has only ever appeared in the panel shown above. No other writer seems to have used the character after his creation. Fraction had introduced the character Pastor Mike of Broxton, Oklahoma in the first issue of that series, and by the end of the six-issue arc, Mike volunteered to replace Silver Surfer and to travel the galaxy searching for sustenance for his new master. Hence, Mike was imbued with the Power Cosmic and given a shiny new name. That name is the reason why I chose to focus on this minor character here.
Now, it's fairly common for superhero characters to be named using Latin words, e.g. Ego the Living Planet, Terminus, and Unus the Untouchable, or at least words that sound like Latin, e.g. Amphibius, Nobilus, and Scorpia. In this case, praeter is indeed a common Latin word. It's an adverb and preposition meaning "beyond" or "except". Focusing on the meaning of "beyond", the name seems pretty apt for a cosmically powered individual who explores the mysteries of space. However, it's almost certainly not the meaning Fraction intended, and I'll explain why.
In my mind, Praeter as "beyond" just seems too generic a name for a character whose identity had already been established outside of his role as cosmic herald. In the five previous issues of the story arc, Mike's one defining feature was that he was a pastor and a preacher. If he was going to be given some post-Power-Cosmic, Latin-based name, why then would it not be the Latin word for either of those occupations? Well, for one, pastor is already a Latin word meaning "shepherd". The word was taken directly into English for its religious association, wherein "the good shepherd" watches over his congregation, literally his "flock". Hence, it would be too commonplace an English word for it to evoke the otherness of a Latinate character name. The Latin for "preacher" is praedicator, a word from Medieval Latin - hence it wouldn't be found with the definition "preacher" in most Classical Latin dictionaries, so I doubt most non-Latinists would know it - but another Latin-based name for a preacher-turned-galactic-herald would be presbyter, which is the source of the English word "priest". That name could cause some problems since Mike appears to have been Protestant (denomination unspecified), and the word "priest" is often reserved nowadays for Catholic or Orthodox clergy, while Protestant Christianity generally uses the terms "pastor" or "minister". Despite that objection, I believe this was the meaning Matt Fraction intended when he named Galactus' new herald Praeter, and my evidence for this comes from another comic which Fraction wrote a few months later.
DEFENDERS (Vol. 4) No. 2, by Matt Fraction (writer), Terry Dodson (penciler), Rachel Dodson (inker), Sonia Oback (colorist), and Clayton Cowles (letterer). Marvel Comics: March 2012. Page 9, Panel 1, Inset 1.
Early in his run on Defenders, which he must have been researching and planning around the time he wrote the script for The Mighty Thor 6, Fraction has Doctor Strange give this interesting background to the character Prester John:
HE'S BEEN CALLED MANY THINGS. PASTOR JOHN, PRESTER JOHN, PRAETER JOHN, PRESBYTER JOHANNES . . .
Strange's exposition is mostly correct. The "Prester" in Prester John entered English through the Middle French "prestre", an intermediate source of English "priest" based on Latin "presbyter". "Pastor" is a totally acceptable translation for "Prester" and Presbyter. All the names that Dr. Strange lists have been used historically to refer to the legendary, medieval ruler of the Orient, Prester John . . . all save one. I have not found an instance of "Praeter John" in extant literature.
A Google search of the phrase led me to a possible source of the epithet. The Optical Character Recognition software which Google uses to read older books gave a false hit, reading "Praeter John" rather than "Prester John" as appeared in a scan of an 1886 edition of the Early English Text Society's edition of The Three Kings of Cologne. Could Praeter be the first Marvel Comics character whose name is based on an OCR error? It's possible. I plan to contact Fraction to see if he remembers where exactly he found the attestation for "Praeter John".
Regardless, it's clear that Fraction considered "Praeter" as a word parallel to "Pastor" or "Presbyter". The title given to Galactus' new herald thus would have served the two-fold function of 1) denoting Pastor Mike's pre-heraldic religious occupation and 2) adding a certain weight to the name through its historical provenance. This seems to me to be the nominal origin for the character Praeter, but the story does not end here for word praeter . . .
DEFENDERS (Vol. 4) No. 4, by Matt Fraction (writer), Michael Lark (penciler), Stefano Gaudiano with Brian Thies (inkers), Matt Hollingsworth (colorist), Clayton Cowles (letterer). Marvel Comics: May 2012. Page 19, Panel 1.
Two issues later, Doctor Strange is still carrying on about Prester John. He's trying to unlock the mystery of the Concordance Engine, and so he names several of John's titles:
PRESTER. [NO.] PRAETOR. [NO.] PRESBYTER. [NO.] PRESTE. [NO.] OMEGA. [DAMMIT...]
Strange adds two titles not mentioned in the earlier panel: Preste, which is the Portuguese variant of Prester, and Praetor. Now, praetor is a Roman military/political position, and the title was never historically, as far as I know, applied to the mythical king Prester John. In the context of Marvel comics, Praetor is also the title given to the commander of the Imperial Guard of the Shi'ar Empire, usually Gladiator (Kallark).
Now, this additional title Praetor leads me to ask several questions which I believe only Mr. Fraction can adequately answer. Is the instance Praetor here just a typo for Praeter which was used earlier? Did Fraction realize that word he kept using did not mean what he thought it meant, and was Praetor used to correct the earlier Praeter? If so, is there some historical basis to consider Prester John a Praetor? Hopefully I'll get a couple answers and will be able to update this post.
Loved this article! Any word from Fraction on this?
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