Black Swan (comics)

Black Swan is the name of two fictional supervillains appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.

Publication history

The first Black Swan appeared in Deadpool #65. Black Swan was created by Gail Simone and the artists of Udon Studios.

Fictional character biography

Mutant

Black Swan is a German mutant raised in the Bavarian circus and highly trained in hand-to-hand, swordplay and gunmanship. He utilized his ability to infect the minds of others with disruptive "telepathic viruses" to become a successful mercenary and hit man, which brought him into conflict with the Taskmaster. He carried out an assassination on the four heads of the Japanese Four Winds crime families and organisation in New York, but although he carried it out surreptitiously, the credit was given to rival contractor Deadpool, who crashed through a skylight above the Four Winds at the same time, while firing wildly and in fact unknowingly missed the targets. When Deadpool was subsequently hired to kill Black Swan in Germany, the assassin beat Deadpool senseless, infected his mind with a mental "virus", and brought him to the U.S., having him brutally beaten every few minutes to prevent him from fully healing.

Swan attempted to use his operative, Nijo, a brother of one of the Four Winds, to torment Deadpool further, saying that letting Deadpool live with diminished capacity would be a greater humiliation than killing him. Once Taskmaster identified the Swan to Deadpool, the merc with a mouth travelled to the Swan's castle in Germany for a final showdown. When Nijo tried to kill Deadpool, claiming a personal vendetta against him, Black Swan impaled him with a sword-cane and fought Deadpool both physically and mentally, though he lost and was thrown face first into the white hot griddle of his own fireplace. A bomb Deadpool had brought as insurance went off before Deadpool could disarm it, destroying Black Swan's castle.

Apparently Black Swan was able to use his powers to in some way absorb traits from both Deadpool and Nijo in order to survive, resulting in the three of them sharing aspects of each other's powers, knowledge and personalities.^[1] The modified Nijo would become Agent X, while Black Swan was rescued by a Portuguese fishing boat, and Deadpool was rendered temporarily amnesiac. The three were reunited, along with Taskmaster and Sandi Brandenburg,^[2] and Black Swan demanded the return of his personality and abilities, for which he required Agent X's help, proposing a three-way mindmeld to restore each man.^[1]

Black Swan, however, double-crossed the others and absorbed both their powers, enhancing his own abilities to a tremendous level. Agent X, having anticipated treachery, had called upon a small army of heavily armed mercenaries to surround the area, but they proved no match for Black Swan's newly augmented telepathy and were quickly incapacitated. Together with the mercenary called Outlaw, Deadpool, Agent X, and Taskmaster were able to overwhelm Black Swan's healing ability and kill him. To be on the safe side, they had his body stuffed by a taxidermist so that he could not regenerate.

Recently, he was revealed to still be alive and whole again (possibly due to Deadpool's healing factor) and was hired by the mutant Black Box (who like Black Swan, had just been revealed to still be alive, after long being thought killed) to kill a now-depowered Deadpool (who like Black Swan, had been similarly restored to a normal appearance).^[3] However, after Deadpool chose to spare Black Swan's life by taking him to a hospital after defeating him with life-threatening injuries, Black Swan repaid the favor and saved Deadpool from being killed by the ex-mutant Black Tom, who had been hired by Black Box as they both had grudges against Deadpool.^[4] Black Swan then used his powers to make Black Box and Black Tom forget Deadpool had ever lost his healing factor, so they would stop trying to come after him again.^[5] Black Swan even proposed to team up with Deadpool, who was forced to grudgingly accept as he needed allies in his current condition.^[6]

Black Swan

As part of the Marvel NOW! event, a new female character named Black Swan appeared in New Avengers #1.

Yabbat Ummon Tarru was a princess on an alternate earth and became its lone survivor. When she was four years old, her earth was involved in an incursion event, where two universes are colliding with each other at the focal point of their Earths. A race of beings called Black Priests came from the parallel Earth, intent on destroying her Earth to save their own universe and killing anyone who stood in their way. She fled into the Library of Worlds, a way station of the multiverse. There she was met by three Black Swans (female beings each of a different appearance) who took her in and raised her to be a Black Swan.

This new Black Swan came to Earth-616 from a parallel earth, when Earth-616 experienced its first incursion event. She was intent on destroying Earth in order to save both universes involved in the incursion. Black Panther tries to stop her but fails when she successfully triggers an anti-matter injection device, but she then destroys the Earth she came from, instead of Earth-616. She is then captured by Black Panther and imprisoned below Necropolis, The City of the Dead in Wakanda. Reed Richards is chosen to interrogate the Black Swan. While she seems cold and ruthless, she is seen via security camera weeping and crying out for help when sleeping. Though she is straightforward with her answers, they seem cryptic and like superstitious nonsense. She constantly warns that worse things are coming, and they need to prepare, but no matter what they do it's only delaying the inevitable because in the end everything dies.

After the Illuminati try to deal with the next two incursions that occur on their own, they succeed only through luck, and seek help from the Black Swan, who shows she had the strength to break out of her jail cell all along. She is willing to help them for a price, which is her own life, and in helping them, she helps herself for the moment. She gives them her history and the only method of permanently stopping incursions into their universe to destroy their Earth. As a sign of her good faith, she also gives them the scientific knowledge to make a device to forecast upcoming incursions, where as up until then, their technology could only detect incursions as they occur; her own such devices are implanted in her eyes. The Illuminati also reverse-engineer her anti-matter injection bomb, which they use to stop the next incursion.

She has also shown a hatred toward Doctor Strange and magic users in general, being unwilling to tolerate Doctor Strange even talking to her, once he had told her he is a master of the mystic arts and the Sorcerer Supreme. This may be because her original Earth was destroyed by the Black Priests who appear to be magic users wearing helmets with one large eye on them, resembling the Eye of Agamotto.

Powers and abilities

The first Black Swan has the ability to implant a telepathic virus in the minds of others which disrupts the natural functions of their brains to cut off access to and override motor coordination, disorient their concentration, etc.

The second Black Swan is very knowledgeable about the incursions and the multiverse, and has the ability to speak in multiple languages, including some of Earth's oldest languages, knowledge she has gleaned traveling between alternate Earths. She has access to advanced technology including anti-matter devices and ocular implants that forecast upcoming incursions and allow her to see incursion walls (which are invisible to the naked eye until something passes through them). She has displayed multiple powers including energy beams from her eyes, flight, super strength, the ability to generate holographic visuals from her hands, and also telepathy which she has kept hidden from the Illuminati and uses to secretly converse with her fellow prisoner Terrax. The full extent of her abilities and powers remain undefined and their source unknown.

References

External links

• A detailed Black Swan profile at Marvel Appendix