Frenzy

Origin

Joanna was an unexpected baby girl who did not get her father´s acceptance because of her poor health status and weakness. She was the second baby in her family, his father was militant and her mother was a religious coward woman. Her older brother joined the army an eventually he was reported killed. After her brother´s death her father beat her up and finally due to his abusive treatment Joanna developed her mutant powers and accidentally killed him in self defense.

Joanna Cargill grew up bitter and angry at the world for oppressing her as a black woman and a mutant. She found solace in expressing her anger through criminal activity, working as a mercenary-for-hire. She often clashed with other mercenaries, such as Gambit, who she formed a brief romantic relationship with. She had often felt aimless, which led her to use her invulnerability in reckless ways, and made her susceptible to other mutants, such as Apocalypse and Magneto.

Creation

Frenzy was created by writer Bob Layton and artist Keith Pollard. Frenzy’s first published appearance was in X-Factor #4 (May 1986). Her real name, Joanna Cargill, was revealed in Uncanny X-Men #298, her first appearance as one of Magneto’s Acolytes.

Character Evolution

Frenzy, like many of the X-Men, started off as a villain. Her first appearance had her battle the original X-Men under their new name, X-Factor. It was later revealed she was field leader of a group of villains, the Alliance of Evil. After a handful of failed attempts to defeat X-Factor, Frenzy found sanctuary among Magneto’s Acolytes. Frenzy spent years with this group of fanatics, until Jean Grey mind-controlled Frenzy to fight against her leader, Magneto. After serving with the X-Men for a short while, Frenzy left and was not seen until after M-Day, where she was one of the few mutants to retain her powers. She joined Exodus and his new Acolytes, which were eventually merged into Mister Sinister’s Marauders. Frenzy later had part of her brain damaged in a battle with Magneto, though Professor X eventually healed her. During Age of X, Frenzy was a member of the X-Men and romantically involved with Cyclops (known as Basilisk). After the timeline was restored, Frenzy retained her memories and continued on with the X-Men, despite her villainous past.

Major Story Arcs

Alliance of Evil

Frenzy started off as a member of the Alliance of Evil , under the command of Apocalypse . Along with her teammates Tower , Stinger , and Timeshadow , Frenzy fought X-Factor several times: first, while trying to recruit Rusty Collins into her group; second, after growing attached to Michael Nowlan’s mutant-enhancing powers; and third, while in opposition to the Mutant Registration Act . All three times, Frenzy and the Alliance of Evil were defeated by the group, and were later abandoned by Apocalypse. She left the Alliance of Evil and, for a short time, joined the Femizons and battled Captain America . Some time later, Frenzy was given an invitation to join the S. S. Superia, a cruise ship owned by the villainess Superia. There, Frenzy served alongside the Femizons , a group of super-powered female criminals, and battled Captain America and Paladin. She also broke free from the Vault, a prison for super villains, and created a ruckus with The Avengers.

Acolytes

Frenzy later found acceptance with Magneto and joined his Acolytes, dropping her codename and simply going by her last name, Cargill. During her first mission as an Acolyte, she attacked a school. During the raid, Frenzy killed a teacher there, who was also a long time associate of the X-men, Sharon Friedlander. Sharon however managed to alert the X-men before she was killed. Frenzy and her teammates Unuscione and the Kleinstock Brothers then sought out a mutant child at the school. When the Acolytes found the mutant child, they soon discovered the child suffered from Down’s Syndrome, and attempted to kill him. The X-Men intervened, saving the boy and running the Acolytes off. On other occasions, Cargill attempted to murder Senator Robert Kelly, and also battled Iceman. When Magneto returned, he had the Acolytes join him on Avalon.

When Avalon was destroyed due to a battle between fellow Acolyte Exodus and the demonic Holocaust, Cargill banded together with Cyclops, the Kleinstock Brothers, Unuscione, and Scanner. They were all able to survive the fall to Earth, and later found the X-Men’s abandoned Australian Outback base. The surviving Acolytes were then placed in custody, though they quickly escaped and found the remains of Avalon, waiting for Magneto’s return. When Exodus took over leadership, Cargill and the Acolytes attacked Wundagore Mountain, though they were eventually defeated by the Avengers.

Genosha

Upon his return, Magneto chose Cargill to become the ambassador of Genosha. During the Avengers’ attack on the island, Frenzy encountered and defeated She-Hulk, and later confronted Quicksilver over his disloyalty to his father, though she was eventually defeated by Scarlet Witch. Later, Cargill ordered all countries of the world to pledge loyalty to Magneto. She was captured by the government, ordering her to inform them of Magneto’s plans, but she refused to speak.

X-Men

Jean Grey broke Cargill out of her confinements and proceeded to mind-control her into joining her rookie group of X-Men. Along with Northstar, Cargill piloted the Blackbird into Genosha, her knowledge of Magneto’s base being of great benefit to Jean Grey. During the battle with Magneto, Cargill was used against her will to pummel Magneto, who commented that Cargill was his most trusted Acolyte and that he knew it was mind-control. He then wrapped a steel pillar around her, rendering her useless in the battle. After Magneto’s defeat, Cargill somehow regained her senses.

Messiah Complex

After the events of Decimation, Cargill resurfaced as a member of the new Acolytes, returning to her codename Frenzy along with her costume. She, along with Tempo, battled and defeated Rogue, though Tempo was quickly defeated by Mystique. Northstar and Aurora aided Mystique in knocking Frenzy out of the helicarrier. She then joined Mr. Sinister in order to restore the mutant population. Alongside the Acolytes, Frenzy invaded the X-Mansion in order to find the Destiny Diaries. They ambushed the children of the school, and in the ensuing battle, Frenzy beat Hellion but her skin was inevitably cut by X-23.

The Acolytes, having not found the actual diaries, left the mansion and later battled the X-Men once again during Messiah CompleX, this time alongside the Marauders. Frenzy and the Acolytes escaped Muir Island after the battle with the X-Men by using Tempo’s abilities, and kidnapped Professor X, taking his body to an unknown part of the world. Frenzy opposed the idea of keeping Professor X alive, as he never supported Magneto. While Exodus made it clear he wanted Professor X alive, Frenzy confronted the professor, Omega Sentinel, and Magneto, who had been depowered after Decimation, and attempted to kill Xavier. After tossing Magneto aside and severely injuring Omega Sentinel, Frenzy was blinded by Magneto with a surgical laser, which burned part of her brain. Although Magneto revealed she most likely survived, Exodus witnessed the actions and swore to kill him for harming a mutant.

Utopia

After Professor X infiltrated the Acolytes’ headquarters, he found the comatose Frenzy. He used his mutant abilities to piece Frenzy’s mind back together, but when she regained consciousness, she immediately attempted to attack him. He threatened to put her back into the coma, calming her down. Exodus later disbanded the Acolytes, which angered Frenzy. She and Unuscione, though opposing the idea of disbanding simply because the “numbers were against them,” joined Voght, Tempo, and Random as they traveled to San Francisco. During her time on Utopia, Frenzy befriended fellow super-villain Nekra. The pair participated in a number of riots, and battled Moonstone under the guise of Ms. Marvel. She later was seen rallied with Cyclops against the Nimrods who attacked Utopia.

Age of X

Frenzy is one of the many mutants present in the Age of X timeline. One of the last surviving mutants left, she joins a ragtag group of survivors and begins a romantic relationship with Basilisk (aka Scott Summers). She participates in many of the battles faced by the mutants, and was mentioned as being one of the original members of the Mutant Liberation Front, along with Tempo. Frenzy eventually married Basilisk. After the timeline was restored to normal, Frenzy retained her memories of being with Cyclops, and decided not to have Emma Frost remove the thoughts from her mind. Cyclops, sympathetic to Frenzy, invited her to remain with the X-Men. Later, an enraged Frenzy started to attack Toad after a comment he made, but she was interrupted by Gambit, who calmed her down. She then cut her hair to resemble her Age of X appearance, and swore to Gambit that she was going to become an X-Man.

X-Men Legacy

Frenzy was sent to recover the remaining weapons that were left in Africa after Cyclops (herald of the phoenix force) finished a civil war in the continent. During this time Frenzy stopped an abusive man who was beating his wife because of the resemblance of her own traumatic past. Joanna managed to stop a small army and let a village recover peace after the conflict.

Krakoa

When Professor X and Magneto tamed the sentient island, Krakoa, into a sovereign nation for all mutantkind, they eventually attempted to establish their own space program. After a teen Cable reactivated SWORD’s abandoned peak, Frenzy got a job as an alien ambassador under Director Abigail Brand.

During her tenure there, she had greeted Ambassador Paibok from the recently united Kree/Skrull Alliance and Majestrix Xandra from the Shi’ar Empire. She also fought back against a symbiote invasion of Earth and witnessed Regent Storm fight to earn her authority on Arakko, the newly terraformed Mars.

Fall of X

At the 2023 Hellfire Gala, Sam was voted on to the official X-Men team. Unfortunately, Orchis decided to finally take out Krakoa, their first move being to send Nimrod to kill the newly appointed X-Men. Frenzy along with Cannonball, Prodigy, Dazzler, and Jubilee killed in this first strike. These five mutants were secretly resurrected by Xavier for a special mission to stop the ascension of Enigma, the original Nathaniel Essex (whom Mr. Sinister is one of four clones of). Each of the clones were programmed to determine the best way for Essex to achieve “dominion” status. It was up to these X-Men to stop that from happening.

Since Sinister’s process for determining dominion status was cloning Moira MacTaggart and using her reincarnation ability to create save points so he could study multiple timelines, Frenzy and the others are sent into those timelines to find a Moira who did not become a robot so that Prodigy could absorb her memories. They accomplished this with the help of Askani, a variant of Rachel Grey. Once Prodigy had these memories from a psychotic cyborg variant of Moira, Professor X could extract them and then use them with the first incarnation of Moira to convince her to never start. However, they also gave that cyborg Moira a doorway to the timestream. She started wreaking havoc in Moira’s other past lives, so Frenzy and the others had to track her down before she made it to Xavier in the first life.

After returning cyborg Moira back to her home timeline, Askani reveals to the X-Men that Xavier betrayed them. He planned on killing Moira as a child before her powers developed, thus erasing all her lives including the one in which Krakoa exists. Scared that the timeline where Frenzy truly redeemed her villainous ways would be erased, Frenzy led the X-Men into the timeline to stop Xavier.

X-Factor

Frenzy was part of a second round of recruitment for the post-Krakoa X-Factor.

Powers and abilities

Frenzy is a mutant whose abilities that grant her invulnerability, as she has steel-hard skin which is impenetrable by anything other than adamantium. She is resistant to any forms of temperature change, being able to withstand being frozen or engulfed in flames. A by-product of her mutant powers is superhuman strength which lies between 25-75 ton range, powerful enough to battle the likes of She-Hulk or Rogue (with Ms. Marvel’s abilities). Although being almost 7 feet tall recently she has seemingly lost height, whether this is due to her mutant powers is yet to be seen.

Status

Known Relatives: Gareth Cargill (brother)

Citizenship: Citizen of the United States with a criminal record

Place of Birth: Unrevealed

Marital Status: Single

Occupation: Adventurer; former terrorist, mercenary, criminal

Education: High school graduate

Characteristics

Gender: Female

Height: 5’11” (Formerly 6’11”)

Weight: Unknown (Formerly 230 lbs)

Eyes: Brown

Hair: Black

Alternate Realities

Earth-2149

In the Marvel Zombies reality Cargill was one of the few people on Earth not turned into a zombie. In this world she didn’t appear to have super strength and had a limited form of molecular control which allowed her to transform her hands into metallic talons. This ability was similar to the abilities of the members of Clan Akkaba (descendents of Apocalypse).

In this reality she survived to old age. On panel she was shown to have one daughter and two grand children. Its unknown if she had any more children or grandchildren. Her mate was an unnamed Acolyte.

Earth-5700

In Weapon X: Days of Future Now, Cargill appears as a member of Gene Nation.

What if?

Frenzy appears in two “What If?” stories. The first is as a member of the X-Men alongside several other villains. She and the other villains inevitably break off from the X-Men and battle them, though they are eventually defeated. Another story shows Frenzy on the run from Archangel, who is killing those he finds unfit. She is rescued by X-Factor and taken to safety.

X-Men: The End

Frenzy also appears in X-Men: The End as a member of the X-Men, where she fought Genesis, but is saved from him via Wither using his powers on Genesis.

Other media

Television

X-Men The Animated Series

Cargill was seen to be a much more prominent member of the Acolytes in the episodes Sanctuary 1 & 2. She also appeared in the first half of the episode One Man’s Worth where Cargill was a member of the Mutant Resistance.

Games

X-men: Battle of the Atom

Frenzy is featured in the mobile card game “X-Men: Battle of the Atom” based on the comic book story with the same name. Her cards are:

• Frenzy
• [Battle of the Atom] Frenzy
• [Acolytes] Frenzy
• [Exorcist] Frenzy