Quicksilver (Pietro Maximoff) is a comic book superhero in the Marvel Comics universe, a hot-headed, arrogant mutant with superhuman speed and reflexes. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, he first appeared in X-Men #4 (1964).

Quicksilver possesses the superhuman ability to run, think and react at great speed; he has often claimed that the rest of the world seems to move, and think, in slow motion, which is what has led to his impatient, arrogant temper. He is able to run up vertical surfaces and across water, and can even fly for short distances by moving quickly to form a miniature tornado. In this regard, he is Marvel's counterpart to DC Comics' The Flash. Unlike the Flash, Quicksilver's speed is relatively limited; originally, he had difficulty breaking the sound barrier, though during his short-lived series his speed was drastically increased.

DC Comics themselves had a super-speedster named Quicksilver in the Golden Age of comic books; when he was revived in the pages of The Flash, he was renamed Max Mercury to avoid trademark confusion with Marvel's then-long-established character.

Television and film

In the TV animated series X-Men: Evolution Quicksilver (voiced by Richard Ian Cox) had a prominent role as the manipulator and driving force of the Brotherhood - composed of him, Avalanche, Blob, Toad, and, later, his sister the Scarlet Witch - who was one of the few people who could scare him. In this series Quicksilver was aware of his father from the beginning, and acted as his liaison to the Brotherhood when Mystique was in control. At the end of the series Quicksilver and the Brotherhood temporarily teamed up against Apocalypse, with Pietro and Wanda confronting their father, who was posessed. They save him, and Magneto makes up with his children.

A character possibly based on Quicksilver was seen in the first X-Men movie, as one of the students at the Mansion. He appears in only one scene, running across the water of an ornamental pond. However, the character has no dialogue and is never named, so this identification is tentative at best. The character did not reappear in X2.