Shadow King

The Shadow King is a Marvel Comics supervillain, an enemy of the X-Men. Created by writer Chris Claremont and illustrator/co-writer John Byrne, he first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #117 (January 1979).

A mutant, the Shadow King possesses vast telepathic powers. He became a crime lord as Amahl Farouk in Cairo, Egypt, leading a street gang that included a young Storm. Future X-Men founder Charles Xavier encountered Farouk and the two engaged in a psychic battle that trapped Farouk out of his body.

The Shadow King is a disembodied persona on the astral plane, where he can take possession of the bodies of others and battle other telepaths in astral form.

History

One of the Shadow King's major influences in the Marvel Universe began with his psychic battle with Charles Xavier (Professor X), a battle that left Farouk physically dead and released his psychic essence upon the astral plane. After the battle, Xavier became aware of the threat of evil mutants, and began to construct his vision of peaceful coexistence between humans and mutants, ultimately resulting in the formation of the X-Men.

Years later, Farouk would resurface, first battling the fledgling New Mutants and kidnapping Karma, whose body he inhabited for some time, eating in a gluttenous fashion and becoming morbidly obese before finally forced to flee and release control of Karma's body to herself. Later, he would hunt down Storm, who had been regressed to a childlike body by the mutant-hunter called Nanny. From there he went on to take over the minds of the numerous mutants living on Muir Island, home of Moira MacTaggert. This battle with the Shadow King depleted the X-Men's ranks; Professor X brought the original X-Factor in to assist. The Shadow King was defeated and thought killed, but the battle left Xavier once again wheelchair-bound and his son David comatose. After the battle, the X-Men and X-Factor were reorganized, with the original X-Men rejoining the team they had founded.

Psi-War

Some time later, the Shadow King reappeared, having taken over the African tribe that had once worshipped Storm as a goddess. He managed to mentally trap the X-Men, and a battle between him and Psylocke ensued. The battle resulted in a psychic backlash that affected almost all living beings to a varying degree (from nose bleeds to déjà vu to headaches). Beings with powers of a psychic nature found their abilities significantly affected. Telepaths were particularly affected in that they (temporarily) lost use of their powers. The Shadow King, unaffected by the backlash, was finally defeated by Psylocke. In the process, she sacrificed her telepathic abilities to keep him contained in the astral plane.

After Psylocke’s death, the Shadow King was released from his prison. He returned in X-Treme X-Men Annual 2001 with a plan to turn Rogue into his new Shadow Queen. He hoped to gain her ability to enter dreamtime (which she absorbed from Gateway) so that he might take control over the world. However, she recalled the psionic abilities she had gained from Psylocke and used them to defeat the Shadow King.

Revenge on Psylocke

However, although he was defeated, he was still free. He vanished to an alternate reality, where he met and managed to take control over Professor Xavier and his original team of X-Men, dubbing them the "Dark X-Men". When the world was shifted back to normal after the Scarlet Witch and the House of M were defeated, the Shadow King and his mindcontrolled X-Men team managed to slip back into the Earth 616-world. He later re-emerged in London using the body of an evil Professor X, lured (the newly resurrected) Psylocke and New Excalibur to him. After that, the Shadow King controlled New Excalibur, minus Sage, to kill Captain Britain. Psylocke created a telekinetic bubble to give the Shadow King's host body a stroke. This freed the others from his control, but when Psylocke delivered the killing blow, she vanished in a flash of light.

Other Realities

In the Age of Apocalypse alternate timeline, the Shadow King (sometimes instead called the Shadow Thief) is an agent of Apocalypse. He is bodiless like his Earth-616 counterpart, but is usually seen manifested as a cloudy face inside of a bottle in Apocalypse's sanctum. He was the first to detect the presence of Nate Grey, prompting Apocalypse to send his assassins to attempt to kill the youth. When Angel's assistant Karma was captured by Apocalypse's servants, the Shadow King psychically tortured her into revealing the Angel's alliance with Magneto's X-Men. He later attempted to read the mind of Bishop, but Bishop's memory of the original reality (Earth-616) was enough to expel the Shadow King from his mind.

Finally, the Shadow King followed Nightcrawler to the sanctuary of Avalon (originally the Savage Land) by hiding inside the mind of Apocalypse's minion Dead Man Wade. There, he took control of the minds of many of Avalon's mutant and human refugees, causing great carnage. Nightcrawler, with the assistance of the psychic Damask and the time-stopping Switchback, was able to physically teleport into the Astral Plane and destroy the Shadow King's mind. The great number of casualties caused by the Shadow King's attack were enough to convince Destiny to accompany Nightcrawler and the X-Men on a mission to Apocalypse's stronghold; her presence was pivotal to the heroes' success in restoring Earth-616 and repairing the timestream.

Powers and Abilities

The Shadow King is a powerful telepath, (he was said to be second only to Professor X, but this has probably changed since other telepaths have since surfaced); he can control the astral plane (which only the most powerful telepaths can do); as well as possess minds while on the astral plane.

Appearances in Other Media

Shadow King was one of the three primary villains in the video game X-Men Legends, kidnapping Professor X on the astral plane about halfway through the game, thus crippling the X-Men. He was eventually defeated by Xavier after the X-Men released him. When he first appeared, he dropped hints about a mytserious benefactor who told him how to get his revenge on Xavier. Though he never actually named his ally, it is assumed, given the cutscene at the end of the game and the resulting sequel, that the mysterious figure was Apocalypse.

He appeared in two episodes of the 1990s X-Men animated series. The Shadow King, portrayed as an athletic, bearded Egyptian, who mindcontrolled a number of children to serve him as thieves, including Storm, was defeated by Xavier and his psychic essence trapped in the Astral Plane. He escaped briefly and possessed Storm's godson Mjnari, though the Shadow King intended to use Mjnari in order to possess Storm. The Shadow King was defeated and trapped once again, only to be released after Professor X suffered an accident which left his mind vulnerable to the Shadow King's attempts to take possession of Xavier and leave his mind trapped in the Astral Plane