Selene (comics)
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Selene, a Black Queen of the Hellfire Club, is a fictional supervillain in Marvel Comics. Her first appearance was in New Mutants (v1) #9.
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[edit] History
Selene is a mutant, sorceress, and psychic vampire, possessing numerous psionic and magical abilities. She is most often associated with the Hellfire Club inner circle. She is an immortal of uncertain age (supposedly millennia old), and an enemy of the X-Men.
Her long life is attributed to the fact that she is a psychic vampire, able to drain the life from others to extend her own. Her name derives from the ancient lunar deity Selene, daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia. She has claimed to have already been old when mankind was just emerging.
Uncanny X-Men #191-192 (March - April, 1985) revealed her to have been an old enemy of sorcerer Kulan Gath. Kulan Gath was active during the Hyborian Age (before any recorded civilizations) and is known to have faced both Conan the Barbarian and Red Sonja. In fact Sonja reportedly managed to kill him and his spirit would not manifest again until Marvel Team-Up #79. This would prove that Selene herself was active at least as early as the Hyborian age.
Selene is assumed to have been wandering the world for millennia. In relatively recent times, she was trapped for centuries in the Amazon in the Romanesque town of Nova Roma (New Rome). She was worshipped as a goddess and worked to maintain the isolation of the town so she could maintain control. She was able to marry several times and have descendants. These include Amara Juliana Olivia Aquilla. Her most recent known husband was Marcus Domitius Gallio, a Senator.
Selene directed her worshippers to undertake tasks that eventually allowed her to leave Nova Roma. After she left the town, the citizens regained their memories and sought to return to their previous lives. Later stories attempted to suggest Nova Roma had been an illusion, sustained by Selene, and later the mutant known as Empath. This was ultimately disproved by Magma, who discovered that the supposed revelation of Nova Roma being an illusion was a ploy to steal her away from her home and torment those who loved her. It is highly likely that Selene was the one who made Magma think Nova Roma was not real.
Of all the X-Men and their related teams, she possesses particular hatred for Magma and Rachel Summers. In particular, Rachel almost killed her once, before being stopped by Wolverine. She was most recently seen during the latest membership change in the Hellfire Club, where she apparently has been kept prisoner beneath the building. However, she gained limited mobility from an alliance with Donald Pierce. She tried once again to take vengenance on Rachel, but was thwarted in this attempt as well. Selene currently remains trapped beneath the Hellfire Club headquarters.
Selene was one of the few mutants to retain her powers after the events of M-Day.
Most recently, in New X-Men #32, Selene, disguised as an old woman, befriends Wither and they live together in Mutant Town. She encourages him to use his powers and not be afraid of his natural gifts, she asks him if he would use his powers to save his or her life. She has been killing a large number of people by draining the life out of them, during her last feeding her disguise was spoted by a witness. She reveals to Wither that Laurie has died, and while he is away she is attacked by the police and manages to kill two of them before being shot multiple times. Wither arrives and kills the other two officers, only for Selene to drop her disguise, telling him she is immortal and that they are two of a kind and should be together. Telling Wither that she will be his queen if he agrees, then kisses him, and he consents.
[edit] Powers
Selene is both a mutant and a powerful sorceress. She possesses several superhuman abilities, but it has never been defined which of these are her mutant abilities and which are derived from magic. Her confirmed powers are:
- Telepathy, including the ability to blend her own thoughts into the background thoughts around her, making them difficult to track psychically. She is not as powerful as many other telepaths, though, such as Professor Xavier and Emma Frost, and is vulnerable to their psionic attacks should they mentally locate her.
- Telekinesis. She is able to levitate her self and others using this ability, but cannot fly like other telekinetics. She can also create near-impenetrable force shields around herself.
- Animation and control of inanimate matter, allowing her to move and shape it at will and even reduce it to dust with a thought.
- Flame control. Though whether this is a facet of her animation ability or a separate power is not clear.
- Immortality.
- Absorption of life-essences, which restores her to a youthful and healthy appearance when she has been injured and is said to sustain her long life. It is not clear why this would be necessary, since as an External Selene's immortality should be self-sustaining. When Selene drains a beings life-force they usually die and are reduced to dust. A side-effect of the process is that Selene remembers the life of anyone she absorbs. Because of this she tends to prefer 'innocents' as they 'taste' better.
Selene has also displayed the ability to hypnotise people in her visual vicinity and then slip away at amazing speed, simulating the power of teleportation.
In recent years, Selene has proven able to disguise her appearance, either through illusion or actual shape-shifting.
Earlier in her appearances she attempted to turn both Danielle Moonstar and Rachel Summers into her heirs or proteges, implying she can transform other beings into life-force vampires such as herself.
The extent of her sorcerous powers is unknown but presumed to be vast. She was considered a threat to Kulan Gath, himself an ancient sorceror of immense mystical power.
In more recent appearances Selene has been depicted as a being of semi-substantial living darkness, able to appear and disappear at will and imprison people in the dark energy she is composed of.
Selene has enhanced physical strength; entailing that she can lift somewhere between 900 pounds and 2 tons. The amount of energy she has retained from her victims does correlate somewhat with her physical strength and resilience. She also appears to be immune to conventional injuries: Sunspot once plunged a knife into her heart with no apparent effect.
With the staggering amount of superhuman abilities displayed by Selene, and the changes she has undergone over the years, it is unclear which abilites are her actual mutant powers and which are the result of her magical skill.
[edit] Other appearances
- Selene appears as the final boss of Gambit's stage in the 1992 video game, Spider-Man and the X-Men: Arcade's Revenge.
- In X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse Selene is one of the many characters to make a cameo. She is a captive of Apocalypse's citadel, and the X-Men free her as part of a deal they made with Sebastian Shaw earlier in the game. Selene promises to give them information, but upon being freed reveals she had no information, and had only said so so the X-Men would help her.
[edit] Trivia
- Kevin Grevioux stated that the character of Selene in his movie "Underworld" is loosely based on Marvel Comics Selene.
