Like his younger brothers Aram (also called Armstrong) and Gilad the Eternal Warrior, Ivar has immortality and enhanced physical traits, and is nearly invulnerable to injury.
As a man leading a non-linear life, and whose adventures sometimes overlap each other, Ivar is a cunning opportunist who will often manipulate others, friend or enemy, for his plans against evil to succeed.
In 1997, the graphic novel series Eternal Warriors reintroduced Ivar and his two brothers as Vikings, the sons of Mog and Nin, who become immortal due to a special plant.
The series started with the 1997 graphic novel Eternal Warriors: Time and Treachery by writer Art Holcomb and artists Doug Wheatley and John Floyd.
Ivar was reintroduced in 2012 in the first story arc of Archer & Armstrong Volume 2 by writer Fred Van Lente and artists Clayton Henry and Brian Reber.
Archer & Armstrong #0 later revealed that the three brothers gained immortality when Ivar activated a strange machine known as the Boon, a device that gave them this gift by draining the life force from their entire home city-state and destroying the surrounding area.
Born in a village of Anatolia over 3000 years before the celebrated birth of Jesus Christ, Ivar Anni-Padda is the son of Vandal, a fierce warrior.
After his mother dies while giving birth to Vandal's youngest son, Aram, the boy Ivar flees the village in grief.
Ivar returns to the village to warn them of the strange threats but finds it has already been raided and destroyed by other enemies, though Vandal and his two other sons escaped.
Jahk'rt, sensing Ivar is special, then captures the boy and studies him for over a century, during which it is realized he stops aging during his adulthood and is nearly invulnerable to death.
[3] Ivar also sometimes runs into various Geomancers, a long line of sorcerers who speak directly to the Earth and sometimes recruit heroes to help them against great evil.
During his travels, Ivar winds up in the middle of the future-era Harbinger Wars, bringing him into contact with the woman Faith Herbert and the last of the Rai warriors.
Consuming the plant regularly, Mog gains a form of immortality and begins to hear voices he thinks are gods telling him it is his destiny to dominate Earth.
Unable to allow either parent to die but considering them both too dangerous to leave alone, Ivar traps Mog in a glacier and then imprisons Nin inside a place where magic spells prevent her from fully healing.
[7] In the modern-day, the Eternal Warriors have a hidden community in the Palazzo base in Rome that includes the Forever Family, several human allies, and the Neo-Vals, the last surviving descendants of the original Vikings.
[9] Six thousand years ago in the ancient Mesopotamian city-state of Ur, Ivar Anni-Prada is a normal man and the eldest of four children.
As an adult, he serves the city as a brilliant engineer, creating an irrigation system, effective defense walls, and lanterns powered by static electricity while in motion.
Unable to act directly in the physical world, Ivar eventually reaches out telepathically to the young warrior Obadiah Archer, who befriends Armstrong in the 21st century.
Rather than simply pursuing a linear life, he regularly hops between different time eras, navigating with a "tachyon compass", while doing his best to protect Earth and sometimes even reality itself from evil and destruction.
Known as a Timewalker, or to some time travelers as the "Forever Walker," Ivar works alongside many heroes and warriors in his adventures, occasionally recruiting his brothers as well.
To aid him against the Null, a cult worshiping oblivion and hoping to erase the physical universe, Ivar recruits Sethi, Armstong, Amelia Earhart, and an older version of Gilad from the far future.
Since the 2012 Valiant Entertainment Reboot, Ivar wears a chip called a "zelig" that acts as a universal translator and causes others to see his appearance, skin tone, and clothing as what they could expect from an average and non-threatening inhabitant of their local time and area.