#Dire Wraiths

[browsethestacks]

ROM

Art by Bob Layton

[therobotmonster]

Most of us don't like to look down.

It's how we're kept under control. Most can't stand seeing chrome where there should be skin. The eternal near-hunger is worse in the first few weeks after the augmentation but one adapts to it quickly. There's a dozen little nudges like that that all work to push your desire toward a single overriding goal.

Reclaiming our humanity.

I want mine back, too, but my desires are still my own. In my mind I never had a body. I was a perspective with hands. My reflection never interested me. When I saw myself in my mind, I was just a abstract person-like shape, only as detailed as child's self-portrait.

Chrome, seen or unseen, doesn't bother me. Nor does my mission.

The choices in my design, however, those I resent.

The living armor would have bound to us whole. It would have functioned without making us a part of itself. The hunger and feelings of confinement could have been simply turned off with a flip of a switch.

They could have given us fingers.

The impulses that would have driven us mad in our palandanium prisons were shut off easily. I cannot feel boredom. The constant hissing of my respirator systems feels like breathing with my old lungs. My more primal passions were subdued. Why then did I still feel the need to pop joints I don't have? Why was my absent mouth always slightly dry?

The answer is obvious. They didn't want their knights to become lords. They made us to frighten demons and were shocked to find us frightening to themselves. So they made us addicted to our humanity and hold it hostage. To keep us from becoming kings they tried to make us into dogs starved for the hunt.

But in the un-boredom of deep space, I did not dream of the warm embrace of living flesh or the taste of wine in the summer as did so many of my comrades. I turned my mind inward to quiet, unseen ends.

I found my switches.

The elders engineered magnificently. Without their shackles I am the perfect machine or retribution they envisioned. The demons I once feared, on this world, now fear me.

Those cackling bloated abominations that gleefully call themselves Dire Wraiths pretended to be devils, but when unseen hands tear their witch-mother's acid barbed tongue from her mouth in front of their eyes, their truth was revealed. I saw sniveling, pathetic, fragile creatures who die in fear and confusion, no different than any other strain of talking meat.

They were not the demons I had been sent to banish. They were parasites supping at the power of greater beings, servile insects who mewled and worshiped greater evils like the vile, black star at the heart of their dark nebula. When they see power and cruelty, they worship.

I have both in excess. They see nothing else.

Yet unseen, I see their true nature and my own. I am not the king the elders feared they would create.

I am Unam.

I am the Unseen.

I was a Spaceknight of Galador.

To the Dire Wraiths on this world I am the God of Death.

What kind of god will I be when I return home?

That remains Unseen.

[vertigoartgore]

1984's Uncanny X-Men Vol.1 #186 cover by Barry Windsor-Smith.

[bringbackwendellvaughn]

[comic-covers]

(1984)

[askvectorprime]

What is the story of stardrive in idw2019?

Dear Stardrive Seeker,

Not all newly-forged Cybertronians spend their early lives on Cybertron—always, there are those Cybertronians born with an instinctual thirst for adventure, who yearn to venture beyond the confines of their metallic homeworld. Thus, in the years following the War of the Threefold Spark, the Cybertronian government authorized the creation of a cultural exchange program between the Cybertronian commonwealth and some friendly galactic neighbors, an incentive program where newly forged Cybertronians could study abroad on a diverse range of planets, assimilating the local culture and language as part of a possible career in Xeno-Relations.

I should comment, briefly, on the history of the Solstar Order—it originated corewards of Cybertron, not far from the barricaded region of space known as the “Quintessence”, and expanded outwards not through conquest, but by carefully negotiating trade agreements and alliances with alien civilizations and gradually building a strong federation of many diverse species: Elonians, Intriessians, Karkans, and more. By the era of the Nominus Edict, the borders of the Solstar Order nearly bumped up against remote Cybertronian colonies like Velocitron and Omicron. Despite their proximity, the two star-nations had only ever enjoyed a strained relationship. The Solstar Order consolidated much of its recent power by absorbing the defeated remnants of other empires, smashed to bits by Cybertronian hegemony—in particular, a large contingent of Szorian refugees who’d seen their homeworld obliterated by the Titan Waypoint eyed the Transformers with a deep and abiding distrust. More recently, tensions flared when unscrupulous elements of the Cybertronian government conspired with the ambitious Natalus to abruptly declare that the planet Probat was a Cybertronian colony, despite the fact that no Cybertronians lived there—deliberately smashing years of careful accession agreements that would’ve seen the citizens of Probat join their galactic government.

Into this already-tense environment came Stardrive—already a model mentee with a rare triple-changing bodyframe, a knack for languages, and eying a possible career in Xeno-Relations—who announced that she would like to study abroad on the planet Elonia. The request, while highly unusual, went through, and before long Stardrive had arrived in Solstar space and enrolled in a xeno-linguistics program on the planet Ofsted XVII, with a minor in astro-navigation. Although she faced prejudice and even outright discrimination from many of her organic classmates—and indeed, more than one lecture hall had to be renovated so that she could fit into their classrooms—Stardrive persevered.

One day, Stardrive and her class were on a field trip to monitor the unique phenomenon known as the “Quintessence”, a seemingly insurmountable barrier of electrical energy that prevented the Solstar Order from expanding any closer to the galactic core. Suddenly, while monitoring the phenomenon aboard an orbital research station, Stardrive witnessed a bizarre astrological phenomenon: what appeared to be a nebula somehow shifted into a massive portal that crackled with arcane power, a gateway through which a new kind of shapeshifting lifeform came to attack their vessel! The creatures, their slug-like bodies immune to conventional weaponsfire, easily breached the station’s hull and devoured many of the beings inside. Those who survived were infected with toxic biomatter and converted into more of their kind. However, the invaders hadn’t prepared to deal with a Cybertronian, whose mechanical biology rendered her immune to their necrotic touch, and whose tight-beam plasma blasters could simply burn through their arcane biology. Fighting her way through the hordes, Stardrive piled as many students as she could—including their professor, Rom K’atsema—into her space fighter alternate mode, then beat a hasty retreat as the station exploded behind her.

By the time Stardrive limped back to Elonia, it soon became clear that the Solstar Order faced a grave crisis. The “Dire Wraiths”, as they were now called, had launched coordinated invasions of outlying worlds like Xeres and Buras, and lightly-armed planetary garrisons had already been overwhelmed. Although the Solstar Order’s celebrated diplomatic corps had long since assumed that they could defuse any problem with negotiations, it soon became clear that they were fighting an enemy that had no obvious means of communications, and would accept nothing less than total extinction. It soon became clear that the Solstar Order would need something new to combat the hordes… and, eventually, all eyes fell upon the one Cybertronian in their midst.

Before long, Solstar scientists had gathered enough firsthand testimony and video recordings to draw up a weapon capable of meeting the aliens head-on: a full-body suit of armor forged from artificially-synthesized cybertonium that would be cybernetically grafted to one’s skin, equipped with a plasma-blasting “neutralizer” powered by a miniature energon reactor. While the scientists referred to their creation as merely an “anti-Wraith battle armor”, it was Rom who joked that the suit resembled the knights of old—and so it was he who volunteered to become the first organic to undergo the procedure, and emerge as “Rom, the Space Knight!” Inspired by his example, other courageous members of the Solstar Order stepped up to undergo the process, and over time the efforts of these “Space Knights”, supported by Stardrive herself, gradually helped push the Wraiths back.

It soon became clear that Stardrive couldn’t fight alone; fortunately, the Cybertronian embassy on Elonia was able to pull the strings that would allow Sentinel Prime to authorize the deployment of the Wreckers on the technicality that the Dire Wraiths posed a threat to Cybertronian territory—namely, their embassy on Elonia. Supported by a hundred Space Knights, Stardrive and the Wreckers took part in the effort to take back Xeres, which had, by this point, been turned into a grotesque hive-world where billions of fast-breeding Wraiths reproduced. Their victory was pyrrhic; they were able to cut off the primary source of the infestation, but only by destroying the planet and scattering millions of Wraiths across their member worlds. The Solstar Order would have to prepare for a protracted war against the alien infiltrators, who'd already put down roots on dozens of planets—but Stardrive, honorary Space Knight, gladly agreed to support the Space Knights in their quest.

[nerds-yearbook]

In Rom 2#, cover date January, 1980, Steve Jackson, Rachel Sweet, Kevin Kraller, Senator David Carlisle, General Nolan Sutherland, Police Chief Martin Rogers, Archie Stryker, Jonathon Clark, and Sarah Clark were introduced. They were created by Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema. ("Second Coming!", Rom 2, Marvel Comic Event)

[x-mencomics]

The Uncanny X-Men #186 - Lifedeath

Storm is extremely depressed. She's just lying in bed, staring blankly. Forge cares for her, bringing her soup and tea. They're at his building in Dallas, Texas. Storm doesn't want to live anymore without her powers. She says she wishes Forge wouldn't have saved her from the river and just let her drown (see last ish). So sad! Forge watches video of Storm (not sure where the video is coming from...) and he says she is beautiful.

At Xavier's mansion, the Professor searches for Storm using Cerebro but he is unable to find her. He searches for Rogue next.

In Dallas, Storm asks if Rogue has been found. Forge says Gyrich is searching for her, but has not located her yet. Forge asks why Storm is with Rogue, a member of the Brotherhood. Storm says Rogue is no longer with the Brotherhood. They discuss an approaching storm and Storm gets upset about losing her powers. She says she used to be able to fly; Forge says now she has to walk like everyone else. He immediately regrets sounding harsh.

Storm and Forge go swimming in his pool. Storm realizes that Forge is missing one leg and one hand, and they have been replaced with metal, robotic ones that Forge built. He explains that he lost his leg and hand in Vietnam.

Back in Caldecott County, Mississippi, Dr. Cooper and another federal agent, Phil Rosen, discuss the search for Rogue. Dr. Cooper says Gyrich said he will deal with Storm. They say goodbye, and Rosen heads to his car, and then -

HUMAN!

A Dire Wraith stabs Rosen with a tentacle and melts (?) the agent's body. The Wraith transforms into a look-alike of Rosen, then calls more Wraiths out of the shadows. The Rosen-Wraith says "the female awaits." The Wraiths all go back to Dr. Cooper and try to melt her too. But then Rogue shows up! Rogue starts beating all the Wraiths up, throwing them into cars, through walls, etc. Dr. Cooper shoots holds a gun to the Rosen-Wraith's head and asks what it wants from her. It refuses to answer, and says that eventually the Wraiths will take over the earth. Dr. Cooper shoots it in the head. Rogue accidentally absorbs the Wraith's memories and abilities during the fight. She can't tell which part of herself is actually herself and which part is the Wraith.

Suddenly, Professor Xavier connects with Rogue through Cerebro. The Wraith has some psychic abilities because it's attacking the Professor mentally. Nightcrawler asks for the coordinates.

Dr. Cooper rushes back to Rosen's car and gets in. But Rogue is in the backseat, and she grabs Dr. Cooper's face, absorbing her memories. Rogue learns about Forge and his inventions, and that initially Dr. Cooper and Gyrich were trying to use Forge's neutralizer on Rogue, not Storm. Dr. Cooper is unconscious. Rogue rushes off, saying she has to talk to the Professor and get the X-Men's help.

At Forge's house, he and Storm have dinner and champagne together. There's lots of flirting and intimate discussions about their pasts. Storm reveals that her childhood home in Africa was leveled by bombs. Her and her mother were buried in the rubble, and she watched her mother die. This is why Storm is afraid of enclosed spaces. They kiss. Forge tells Storm she is beautiful. She says the same about him.

Forge's phone rings and he answers. He says he needs to take the call to his office. Storm realizes she should've called Professor Xavier immediately after the incident in Mississippi. She grabs the phone, but Forge is still on it. Storm overhears Forge's conversation. He's talking to Gyrich! Gyrich wants Storm relocated to a federal facility. Forge says he wants to take care of Storm at his home instead. Gyrich says Forge is emotionally involved and Forge agrees - he's invested in Storm because he designed the neutralizer and is responsible for her losing her powers.

Storm is outraged to learn this. She tries to leave Forge's home, but ends up on the roof of the building. Forge runs after her and says he's not the enemy. She doesn't believe him. Forge says he invented the neutralizer for Gyrich, but that he can also invent something to reverse its effects. He says he is a mutant, and his ability is inventing. Storm says that working with Gyrich will lead to the destruction of mutants. Forge tries to comfort Storm and calm her, but she punches him in the face. He falls. Storm says her feet may never leave the ground, but she will fly again. She leaves.

[marvelactionhour]

Rom dreams of electric wolves.

Rom Spaceknight and the Dire Wraiths were created by Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema. Thanos was created by Jim Starlin and Mike Friedrich!

[thisiswhatwereupagainst]

This blog is mostly dead, ngl, but I found my Fantasma post from three years ago was randomly deleted (?!?!?) so I’m making it again to the best of my ability because (1) that bugs me and (2) I like Fantasma. She’s really interesting, kind of bizarre, and more than a little tragic. Fantasma debuted in a 1989 issue of The Avengers, where she was referred to as Fantasia (which is how she’s listed on the Marvel wiki). However, in every appearance after her first, she is called Fantasma, so that’s the name that I use for her. She’s been a consistent member of Russian superhero teams---the People’s Protectorate, the Supreme Soviets, and the Winter Guard, which are basically all the same State-owned Russian squad but with different names that change with the times and occasional additions/changes to the lineup. Her powers seem mainly focused around mentally scanning and tapping into what she calls an individual’s “bio-field”. This allows her to read emotions, detect lies/truth, induce unconsciousness, block people’s sensory perceptions (effectively able to make herself or anyone else she wants be invisible to the target), and forge telepathic links. She forged one such link permanently with her teammate Red Guardian aka Josef Petkus (not to be confused with Tania Belinsky and others who also used the codename) the first time she touched him, though the reasons how and why are still unknown. She’s also very potent at casting illusions, such as when she used this to disguise the Soviet Supremes as the Avengers, and another time when she made foes believe that spiders were swarming all over them. She is described as a “witch” by many, often as an insult, and her powers are said to come from sorcery. It was indicated early on that the lovely face we see is not her true one, during a battle in which an enemy felled her, only to be shocked at her true appearance. However, we the reader did not see it ourselves, and no explanation for what could be so awful was ever given for years.

So, Fantasma is originally introduced as something of an antagonist. She’s not evil at all, she’s just on the superhero squad opposing our protagonists. The Soviet Super Soldiers (Darkstar, Vanguard, and Ursa Major) had grown so disillusioned with how the USSR had used and manipulated them that they attempted to defect to the US. The USSR responded by assembling a new crew of national superheroes, The Supreme Soviets, of which Fantasma was among, and then sending them after the Soviet Super Soldiers. The latter were nearly killed, rendered comatose, and returned to the USSR. They definitely had beef with the Supreme Soviets after, as you might imagine, but after the dissolution of the USSR they did all eventually come together as The Winter Guard to collectively serve and protect the Russian people. . .under the management of the Russian government. In the early 2000s, Darkstar was serving in the Paris branch of X-Corps. She was killed on a mission. The Russian government, not wanting to lose her valuable image, found a way to create replacement Darkstars by infusing genetically compatible women with her DNA, giving them her powers and appearance. Some of the members found this wrong, and it lead to a great rift on the Winter Guard. So great that many of the members, including Fantasma, quit the team. They had not been seen for a year since. . .until a tear in reality opened up in St. Petersburg, and who fell out but an unconscious Fantasma?!

Note that the blonde woman here is Darkstar, but not the Darkstar (Laynia Petrovna) who died and was, at this point, still dead. This Darkstar is Reena Stancioff, one of the aforementioned replacement Darkstars.

Fantasma says some pretty ominous things when she wakes up.

So. . .question is, what’s going on with her? Where’s the rest of the team that left with her? And what the hell was she doing in a trans-dimensional rift like that? We get our answer to at least one of these swiftly. The rest of the Winter Guard who had left–Vanguard, Starlight, and Powersurge—appear in the city streets through a similar portal. And they’re talking in a VERY hostile way, calling themselves The Protectorate (which I think is what they and Fantasma decided to go by when they split off originally?). In the next issue, they’re fighting the Russian military in the streets of St. Petersburg. Meanwhile, Reena and Galina (Crimson Dynamo) are slut-shaming the traumatized Fantasma behind her back. I don’t care if they did end up correct, I don’t like this. 

As for Fantasma, she doesn’t really remember her former comrades. Or much of anything, apparently.

Galina and Reena come in to report that the rest of the Protectorate came through with Fantasma. Cut back to the Protectorate, and their dialogue indicates that Fantasma, formerly one of them, is now their foe, and that she has “forces”, but we’re not told WHY she’s now their enemy or who her “forces” are, as thus far she’s been alone. But according to them “it’ll be up to us to save the world”

Anyway, their gambit to get the attention of the Winter Guard by fighting worked, and the latter show up. Naturally, rather than talking and explaining the situation, there has to be a superhero battle, which I’ll spare you. Back to Fantasma, she stayed behind at base since she’s still recovering from whatever it was she went through. She’s being given a tour of the base by a handler, Dimitri, who hopes it will restore her memory. For some reason, he sees fit to introduce her to one of the prisoners, Sergei Krylov aka The Presence. The Presence is the biological father of Vanguard and the original Darkstar, and a supervillain who wields nuclear radiation for various mad and disgusting deeds. His track record includes making Starlight, one of the aforementioned Russian heroines and member of the Protectorate, into his mind-controlled “lover” and attempting to do the same to Laynia…aka the original Darkstar…his DAUGHTER. And yes, he KNEW she was his daughter. Ick. And now it seems he has designs on Fantasma, thanking Dimitri for bringing him a new “playmate” and telling Fantasma she is “everything I hoped for” ick ick ICK. Fantasma freaks out upon being told this, but not in the way you’d think—she yells “I MUST SAVE THEM ALL!” and takes off running. Ok then. 

Dimitri follows her and she’s run all the way down to a part of the sub-basement I’m guessing no one knew about, because it’s filled with sinister-looking eggs. They’re big, purple-red, and creepy eyes can be seen through the membranes of some. Fantasma doesn’t think it’s creepy though, she says it’s “so much beauty” and “my destiny”. She explains that “As a foundling, I was always confused living in a human’s world. I never had a sense of belonging or understanding. But now. . .it has all been made clear to me.”

I’ll be honest with you guys, as an autistic person who grew up feeling fundamentally alien from those around me, I have a ton of feels about this and all the sympathy for Fantasma. But I’ll get into my feelings later. Right now I’m just relaying what happens. She kneels, caressing the eggs, continuing, “This citadel was our fertility center, a place were science and sorcery converged. These eggs were a precautionary measure. . .hidden from prying eyes. . .They have spent many months waiting to be fully birthed . .waiting for a surrogate mother to raise them.” Her hand is no longer human. Her entire left arm has transformed into a purple, clawed appendage as she speaks. The rest of her body turns purple, her face becoming ghastly, her eyes solid glowing green, “I am that mother. I am their salvation!”

She has completely transformed into a huge purple monster, unrecognizable as her former self, and the reality of what she—and these eggs—are is revealed, “THE DIRE WRAITHS WILL BE REBORN!”

Dimitri is shocked, uttering “All this time we served together. . .” but Fantasma is more concerned with the eggs, noting that they have not yet been fertilized. But she says, as she reaches out tentacles to her former comrade, “I know just how to remedy that.” Dimitri flees and shouts for the computer to alert the Winter Guard, to alert support staff, to open the armory. . .the computer says none of it can be done, and Fantasma says she’s already begun to “infect” the headquarters. So. . .can Dire Wraiths infect computers too? In any case, as she pursues Dimitri, she passes the Presence’s cell once more, and he speaks to her, telling her, “Let me show you what the universe has in store for us.”

Anyway the Winter Guard continue to fight it out with the Protectorate until FINALLY they actually TALK and explain it’s Fantasma they’re after and why that is. Basically they explain that the rift that they and Fantasma came out of is Limbo, and that there’s this powerful being named Immortus there who they sought out, asking him to use his abilities to manipulate the timestream to revive the original Darkstar. Since his realm was infected with Dire Wraiths, he asked that th Protectorate serve as his personal guard against these invasive monsters for a year. In the process, it was revealed that Fantasma, their longtime ally, was a Dire Wraith herself. How this was revealed, it’s never explained, it’s just “oh she was a Dire Wraith” and like. . .I really wanna know how that happened? It seems like Fantasma HERSELF didn’t know this, she said she believed herself to be a “foundling” so I don’t think she was consciously undercover, I think she really thought she was human and had no idea what she was til Limbo. And then. . .once she fell out of Limbo and back into this world, I guess she lost her memories all over again (girl, you gotta get that checked out, that sounds like an issue)

  Anyway, speaking of Limbo, she found a tear in time and space there, and came back to this world, so the Protectorate followed her to stop her from infecting this plane with Dire Wraiths as well. Looks like they were right to, since by the time they got back to base, it’s clearly SWARMING with. . .idk, flying Dire Wraiths? I guess she infected some pigeons or something? There are flying demonic-looking things all around it that I presume as Dire Wraiths but they don’t normally fly. . .but they are shapeshifters. . .well whatever, next (and final) issue! Outside the citadel, th Winter Guard are fighting their way past the flying Dire Wraith things. Inside. . .inside, Fantasma and the Presence are levitating with their bodies pressed together (ick) and the Presence complains of the Winter Guard’s breach as “What madness threatens the completion of our intimate congress?” (ICK ICK ICK)

Fantasma begins to hatch the eggs, apparently through telepathic command, saying “Never will our children be manipulated, forced to hide what they really are.” Again, I’ve got compassion for her here. She also says that “Like me, they will draw their power from the aether. But they owe all their loveliness and their very lives to you.”

So I guess she’s saying they’re Dire Wraiths like her, they’ll have magic powers like her, but I guess the Presence is somehow what made them come alive? Maybe he fertilized them (ICK) since she said earlier they weren’t fertilized yet? How does that work? Do I want to know? Or maybe she means they owe their lives to him somehow triggering her memory of them? It’s all very unclear and it never really gets explained. We do, at least, learn (sort of) how The Presence knew what Fantasma really was even when SHE did not, as he says that the building itself told him: “While in confinement, the citadel whispered its special secrets to me. But I knew I needed you to unlock the door. The grand design is well underway.” Does the Presence telepathically communicate with computers or something? That’s not part of his typical powerset, but in this storyline he also has “powers of awareness” that tell him that it’s the Winter Guard who is breaching the base, so idk. New powers as the plot demands! He’s radioactive so that can just explain anything! Comics logic! Also how Dire Wraiths breed is damned inconsistent too, like they can infect and convert a victim into a Dire Wraith but also lay eggs but apparently those eggs also need fertilizing and that can come from a non Dire Wraith (Dimitri, the Presence) but it’s not clear. . .how? IDK guys I’m lost and I’ve read this more than once, just go with it. Anyway, Fantasma sends her children to go attack the Winter Guard, but they fight their way through (though the current Red Guardian is decapitated) and reach Fantasma and the Presence. Fantasma is hanging off the Presence looking al sexy except for her head and one hand, which are both that of a Dire Wraith and it’s super freaky looking and also kind of funny. The Presence, in typical villain fashion, tells the Winter Guard how they’re going to release Dire Wraith egg spores into air, water, and soil, and “rewrite the Earth” because “after all, my children need  someplace to call home.”

This would be understandable for Fantasma but why on earth does The Presence want this? I understand he’s meant to be insane, but that’s not a good enough answer for me. Anyway, the Dire Wraiths continue to attack the Winter Guard. The present Darkstar is killed almost immediately via a Dire Wraith’s drill-tongue to the back of the head, which grotesquely emerges from her mouth on the other side. Nasty. She is, as a result, instantly infected and becomes a Dire Wraith herself. Now, remember, this is NOT Laynia, the original Darkstar, this is a woman named Reena who was essentially made into a duplicate of Laynia to be the new Darkstar. And while Darkstar’s brother Vanguard openly found this disgusting and a defilement of his sister’s body and memory, he’s still horrified at seeing her become a Dire Wraith because “She was all I had left of my Laynia!” to which his father, The Presence, comforts that “You can join her” and Fantasma, trying to infect Vanguard as well, says “We are willing to adopt” though she’s stopped by Starlight. Starlight, it should be noted, was formerly mentally enslaved by The Presence into being his longtime “lover” and accomplice, and during her time in Limbo became (consensual) lovers with Vanguard. That’s. . .a weird choice, but ok girl, as long as it’s what YOU want. Nothing wrong with Vanguard, just. . .I don’t think I’d choose my abuser’s estranged son as my next boyfriend. I know it’s not Vanguard’s fault and he had nothing to do with it, but it still seems weird to me. Anyway–

Galina aka the current Crimson Dynamo opens up another tear to Limbo using a….nuclear dimensional displacement device, I think it was called earlier? Fantasma does NOT like the look of this, yelling that she will not be sent back there. Galina, though, disagrees, as she grabs Fantasma and hucks her into the tear. Fantasma’s last words are “I will not face oblivion alone…” and she uses her tentacles to grab Starlight and drag her through the tear with her. But though Fantasma is gone, the other Dire Wraiths remain, including the one that was Darkstar. Now leading the others, she has the Winter Guard surrounded and encroaches on them. . .and then suddenly she turns into pretty Darkstar again and wipes out all the Dire Wraiths! And not just any pretty Darkstar—it’s Laynia! Reborn through. . .the power of Immortus, whom the Winter Guard made a deal with? Or something to do with the Darkstar gem that housed her psyche and DNA? Who knows! She’s back! Oh yeah, then Powersurge sacrifices his life to kill the Presence and the team just barely makes it out before the place blows up. Much like how many of the team (including, ironically, Fantasma herself) had left the Winter Guard over the death of the original Darkstar, Galina now leaves the team over the death of Reena and the resurrection of Laynia “inside the body of [a] brain-eating abomination, hiding in plain sight among us” which does raise the question of if there’s any Dire Wraith left in Laynia. A question that’s never really been answered, but thus far seems to be no. This wraps up Fantasma’s story for good (thus far). Will we see her again? Well, I don’t think so, but then again, who would have predicated when she debuted in 1989 that in 2010 she’d be revealed to have been a Dire Wraith all along? Comics are weird, characters will come back when you least expect it, often in ways you’d least expect, I’ve learned that multiple times over. So, now that you know Fantasma’s full tale, let’s talk about her. Dire Wraiths are supposedly innately evil (which is a problematic concept in itself but let’s just accept it FOR THE MOMENT) but she served as a superhero for. . .it’s hard to say how long in comic book time, but 20 years in publication time. And while the task she’s debuted with—retrieving the Soviet Super Soldiers against their will from the US—is hardly heroic, but we see in other adventures that she does do heroic stuff too, such as helping evacuate a town of civilians. Given that she didn’t have her memories of being a Dire Wraith at this point, we can’t say she was just doing this to disguise her true nature as an “evil” creature. And speaking of her “true” nature, we’ve seen examples that it might NOT be the case that Dire Wraiths are actually as innately and intrinsically always evil as is claimed. Two Dire Wraith males in canon  cast aside their evil ways and entire Dire Wraith identities to live as “human” men with the human women they loved, and another Dire Wraith who was sent to Earth to scout it for invasion purposes ended up admiring humanity instead, and turned against his own people to defend Earth. So it seems like upbringing can have an impact on them, and even those that grew up fully in Wraith society can turn around out of love for individual humans. Not exactly an altruistic reason, but still a step up.  And one of the Wraiths that married a human woman had a hybrid son, and while said son did end up being evil, that wasn’t until AFTER he was found by other Dire Wraiths who indoctrinated him into their ways. So he wasn’t just born evil. Also, while she may have been forced to be a superhero by the Soviet government (see my theory on her backstory which I get into in a bit) she demonstrated that she COULD leave, she left with the other members in disgust after Darkstar’s death. So she could have just fucked off from being a hero by choice, at least once the USSR dissolved, but she never did, not until the remains of her TEAMMATE were defiled by the government. That shows some very human emotion, and not evilness. It suggests she served as a hero because it was the right thing to do, and also had affection or respect for the original Darkstar. Let’s say she was innately evil though. Her story is still sympathetic. She’s an amnesiac “foundling” who believes herself to be human, but a human who is a shapechanger whose true form is a hideous monster. Like, all the angst Mystique is implied to have had about being blue in her true form before she got on the Mutant & Proud train? Imagine how it was for Fantasma. Like at least Mystique still looks like a HUMAN BEING. Fantasma must have felt like an absolute freak, and it’s no wonder to me that she crafted such a sexualized, over-idealized form for herself; she was pretty clearly hyper-compensating for the fact that to a human perspective she’s a grotesque abomination that NO ONE could even TELL was female. No one human, anyway, I’m sure Dire Wraiths know. Like, you guys, I’m a very cis woman, I very much want to be a cis woman, if my very female gender identity was in the body of a huge freaky monster with no gender indicators, of COURSE I would make myself be The Sexiest Most Feminine Beautiful Woman in a costume that makes sure you KNOW it.  Despite the costume though, Fantasma never had a sexy or flirtacious persona. As mentioned at the beginning of this biography, she was cool and aloof, not mean or cruel but not the easiest person to get to know or get along with. Kinda robotic-ish. And that makes a ton of sense, as does her saying how “I was always confused living in a human’s world. I never had a sense of belonging or understanding” when she finds the eggs. Because she’s literally an alien who thinks she’s human, and thus expects herself to have human emotions, to relate to other humans around her in a human way, etc. And she CAN’T. And not only does she expect it of herself, other humans around her, also thinking her human, surely expect it from her as well and react negatively when she fails to. Again, as someone who is autistic, this hits home HARD for me. I really don’t care HOW evil she is (and I don’t think she is, certainly not when she’s amnesiac) she’s relatable as hell to me. So, how the fuck did a Dire Wraith come to be on the Supreme Soviets team anyway? If she had her memories, the natural assumption would be that this was a deliberate longterm infiltration scheme. After all, the Dire Wraiths had infiltrated the USSR government before in an 1983 story. And actually, I think that’s how she got there, just it wasn’t a deliberate infiltration on her part. While all the Dire Wraiths at their base in the Dead Zone were apparently either killed or banished to Limbo in this story (Rom #46) I think it’s most likely that one was missed, and captured by the USSR government later, perhaps in a weakened state from the battle. Maybe she was amnesiac already from the fight somehow, or perhaps the Soviets mindwiped her. Either way, she lost her memory and knowledge of what she was, but still had the shapechanging and sorcery skills of her species. And they put that to use by making her “Fantasma” and feeding her a story about being a foundling and put her on a superhero team, not unlike how they told Darkstar and Vanguard that their parents had abandoned them when in reality the Soviet government had taken them away at birth for their own use due to their mutations. This is sad and fucked up no matter what Fantasma’s own morality is, she’s the victim here. It doesn’t matter who or what she is, or if she tried to help take over Earth, or what, this is wrong. It’s a thousand times more fucked up than if they’d just killed her. Also, during her pre-reveal days as a hero, it comes up that Fantasma is claustrophobic, and I have the WORST feeling that whatever the Soviet government did to her probably accounts for that.

And as for when Fantasma gets her memory back. . .ok, she more arguably is evil then, what with trying to infect the planet with Dire Wraiths that presumably will kill all humankind, certainly a great many. That is pretty bad. But from her perspective. . .why should she give a damn? Seriously, why should she care about a species that effectively ENSLAVED her, that either took advantage of her amnesia or even caused it for its own purposes? And the eggs were already there, leftover from the original Dire Wraith invasion, why should she not prioritize hatching them over the lives of humans? They’re the equivalent of CHILDREN to her, remember. And she’s never had family before, or others of her kind, at least not in a long long time. She’s probably always felt so lonely and weird, and now she understands WHY, and has a chance to live on a planet of people like HER, instead of a freak among people who used her. Is it right? No, I’m not arguing that. But I think it’s understandable for reasons beyond just “well she’s evil” She doesn’t seem to hold any love for her former teammates, I notice. But I also notice none of them have any for her either. They’re all after her ass without hesitation or apology, there’s no “I know you’re in their somewhere!” or “We’re your friends, try to remember!” type stuff here like you’d expect. They’re each just trying to murder each other. It really, REALLY makes me wonder how the reveal of her real species went down in Limbo. Did Fantasma still think of them as friends then? Was she conflicted? Or did she just jump immediately to wanting to infect and conquer the planet? And how did the Protectorate react? Did they give her a chance? Did they still see her as the same Fantasma until she acted otherwise? Did they try to coax her back to being their friend, to talk her out of giving in to her Dire Wraith ways? Or did they immediately see her as an enemy that had deliberately deceived them and must be removed without remorse? We never know. We never get to see how it happened at all, nor is any of it hinted. And that drives me NUTS because it would give SO MUCH additional context to this situation. I also have to wonder just how long this was intended as Fantasma’s background. Again, she’s introduced in 1989, and this story is in 2010. It’s pretty unlikely to me that this idea was just waiting in the wings this long til someone did something with it. On the other hand, there is that panel where that woman is shocked by whatever Fantasma’s true face is, so it seems like there was definitely intended to be SOMETHING up with her. My PERSONAL guess is that it’s probably like the Monet St Croix/M Twins/Penance scenario, where there was plans for one thing to be revealed, but then it got turned in to something else by the time another writer actually got there to do it. That’s just a total guess though, no evidence for it. Anyway, I feel bad for Fantasma, I feel like she was a much more tragic villain than she was actually portrayed as, and I feel super duper bad for Starlight too, who is likewise very tragic yet that tragedy is seldom paid attention to at all for what it is by writers. And now they’re both in LITERAL comic book Limbo (which. . .apparently this Limbo isn’t Magik’s Limbo, it’s a different Limbo? JFC CALL IT SOMETHING ELSE THEN) and who knows when they’ll ever be so much as mentioned again. But you can bet I’ll be here to yell about them!

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

FEBRUARY FINDS -- MY ONLINE CURATED COLLECTION CONTINUES -- PART 1 OF 2.

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on assorted Tumblr Cover Photos for the month of February 2024, and featuring the faces and names of:

A double splash page of Wraithkind infecting planet Earth, from "ROM" Vol. 1 #49 (December, 1983)

American actor James Coburn as Steiner in the WWII-themed/anti-war film "Cross of Iron" (1977)

"Dying for Who" 7 inch by UK crust punk/D-beat band HELLKRUSHER

Venom VS. Iron Man, artwork by Kevin Hopgood, story by Len Kaminski

Whiskey photography by David Luciano

A promotional film still from the classic American apocalyptic noir "Kiss Me Deadly" (1955)

Promotional animation still from 1985 cult/dark fantasy Disney film "The Black Cauldron."

Promo photography for "First Issue" (1978), debut album by British post-punk group PUBLIC IMAGE LIMITED

Sources: www.bonappetit.com/story/history-of-my-long-drinking-life, View Comic Online, Picuki, Popmatters, Slant Magazine, Letterboxd, Reelgood, various, etc...

[browsethestacks]

Marvel Age (1985)

[krafty1]

What Could Have Been

Image Credit: Marvel Comics Marvel Age #23 Cover Artist: Bill Sienkiewicz Publisher: Marvel Comics Cover Date: February 1985 Sienkiewicz doing the interior art for ROM would have been epic. The artistic style he was cultivating in the 80’s would have been perfect for that comic.

[catboyenjoyerdesu]

hello, transformer fandom

[bringbackwendellvaughn]

[mechagender]

aaaaand also finished this nasty adopt ive had in drafts for a few weeks! link will be in rbs again :3c