Sphinx (comics)
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The Sphinx is the name of two fictional supervillains in the Marvel Comics universe. Both Sphinxes are Ancient Egyptians who have repeatedly fought Nova and the other members of the New Warriors.
[edit] The First Sphinx
The first Sphinx, Anath-Na Mut, was kidnapped, mutant, has psychic powers and was controlled by the alien Caretaker of Arcturus, who wished to create an army of superhumans. He escaped from the Caretakers and returned to Egypt. There, he styled himself as a magician and entered the court of the Pharaoh. He fought and was defeated by Moses in the Marvel Universe version of the Exodus, and was exiled into the desert for his failure. He discovered the alien Ka Stone, which granted him immortality and the power to reshape reality. He became the Sphinx and wandered the Earth for thousands of years, becoming bored with his immortality as time passed. Using his psychic powers to read minds while searching for a way to end his life, he scanned the mind of Nova (Richard Rider), a human empowered by the aliens of Xandar. Nova had been given subconscious knowledge of Xandar's Living Computer, a computer connected to the still-living brains of deceased Xandarans. The Sphinx theorized that the Living Computer might be able to tell him how to die. The Sphinx fought Nova and several of Nova's foes, but was unable to learn what he wished to know. The android Quasimodo directed the Sphinx to Xandar, where he fought the Fantastic Four and Nova. He connected with the Living Computer of Xandar and downloaded the secrets of the universe directly into his mind, this knowledge granted him virtually limitless power, power enough to shatter a galaxy. Reed Richards knew there was no hope in defeating this virtually omnipotent Sphinx so he decided to strike a deal with the one being he knew of who was more powerful the Sphinx, Galactus, Ravager of Worlds. Reed told Galactus that if he would defeat the Sphinx he would free him from his pledge to never consume the earth and Galactus agreed. Galactus fought and defeated the Sphinx, stripped him of his newfound power, crushed his Ka Stone into dust, then, as further punishment, trapped him in a time loop in which he was forced to relive his life and final defeat over and over.
The Sphinx relived his life and defeat many times over before eventually finding the means to travel back in time psychically and meet himself. The future self warned the younger of what would happen, and the two built a machine that would reform the shattered Ka Stone in the future after Galactus destroyed it. In order to not alter the future, the past Sphinx was hypnotized to forget what he had just learned and done, and the future Sphinx entered suspended animation, awakening after the point at which he had been sent back in time. He activated the machine to rebuild the Ka Stone, only for the machine to be destroyed by the Thing, fomerly of the Fantastic Four. The Sphinx attempted to kill the Thing in retaliation, but the Puppet Master, who was secrerly observing and assisting the Thing, used his mystic puppets to take control of the Sphinx's body. The Sphinx was forced to crush the partially regenerated Ka Stone, and as a result he immediately succumbed to five thousands years of aging and crumbled to dust.
[edit] The Second Sphinx
The second Sphinx, Meryet Karim, was a desert nomad who fell for an unconscious Anath-Na Mut shortly after he stumbled from the temple of the Ka while he was exiled in the desert. For months she nursed him back to health as he was in shock from the amount of power granted him by the Ka stone. Residual energies from the Ka Stone granted her a fraction of his power, and upon her death, she found herself perpetually recincarnated into new bodies, retaining the knowledge of her previous lives with each new birth. In one life, she was a man who became a pharaoh's pyramid architect, and was given a burial pyramid by means of recompense. She used this pyramid as a place to store the riches that she had accumulated over the years. In the modern day, she used this wealth to become a powerful businesswoman, and was able to reconstruct the machine that had reconstituted the Ka Stone. She then remade the Ka Stone, becoming the new Sphinx in the process. She used the Ka Stone to alter history so that Anath-Na Mut had killed Moses; as a result, Egypt had come under the leadership of the Sphinxes and conquered the world. Eventually after an atomic bombing in the US the Sphinx chose to commit suicide but granted immortality to Meryet's cat as a reminder of their love. The Mutant Liberation Front (led by Magneto, combining the roles of the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants) were the only real opposition to her rule, and many of them were killed by her enforcers, the Avengers. When Nova, formerly one of her newest Avengers, threatened to kill the Sphinx-empowered cat, she relented and restored the world to normal. However, in the normal world, the cat immediately disintegrated, as the cat had only been empowered in the Sphinx's altered world. She flew away, vowing revenge.
Later, Anath-Na Mut was resurrected by the Ka Stone, and instantly took his vengeance on the New Warriors by scattering them all through time. Meryet Karim had also re-appeared by this time, but she had realized her mistake in altering reality and no longer wanted revenge on the Warriors. When her attempt to make the Sphinx see reason failed, she gathered a small team of the Warrior's part-time members including Alex Power, Bandit, Dagger, Darkhawk, to find and bring the Warriors back to the present day, which they did. After a pitched battle between them and the Sphinx, the mysterious entity known as Sayge (aka Veritas) came to the Warriors' aid and forced the Sphinx to face the truth about his existence. Humbled, the Sphinx admitted defeat and Meryet once again offered her love and devotion to him, which he accepted and the two merged into a composite entity and traveled back to the beginning of their shared history, but this time with the chance to live their lives correctly.
