Threnody

Origin

Nothing is known of how and where the woman who would come to be known as Threnody grew up. All that is known is at the onset of puberty, like most other mutants, her abilities manifested and a normal life would forever be denied to her. She ended up living on the streets with no friends or loved ones. All she knew was that she was a freak with no way of controlling her abilities.

Creation

First introduced by writer Fabian Nicieza and artist Richard Bennett.

Character Evolution

Beginning as a homeless woman, Threnody lived alone on purpose because of her uncontrollable bursts of power. Mr. Sinister promised her that he could help her out, which he does, but Thenody found herself trapped as Sinister‘s ward. She later leaves and joins up with Nate Grey.

Major Story Arcs

First Contact

When the X-Men make first contact with her, she is nothing more than one of the many homeless women living on the streets of Los Angeles. What brings her to the X-Men’s attention however is that she sometimes suffers from uncontrollable, destructive energy bursts each time she is overwhelmed by the energy mutants and humans release upon death.

The nature of her powers made her very sensitive to death, thus she became acutely aware of all the death around her and was even drawn to the soon to be deceased or the dying. This, however, was having a detrimental effect on her psyche. Unknown to her she was being driven insane by many of the voices she heard of the soon to be deceased and the recently deceased.

Beast , Rogue , and Iceman happen to be in the area searching for a doctor who is trying to find a cure for the Legacy Virus (an artificially created virus that attacked only mutants and during the process made their powers unstable). They find his office at a nearby hospital. When the X-Men search him out, however, they discover the mad geneticist Sinister who was trying to study the virus to see if it would cause undue mutation and disrupt his many years of careful genetic splicing. Along with the madman they find Threnody.

An altercation ensues between sinister and the X-Men. During the fight Sinister convinces the frightened young woman to join him in finding both a cure for the virus and a cure for her uncontrollable abilities. Unknown to her, Sinister had recognized her talent for finding those plagued with the virus. Using her abilities, Sinister planned to track down those specifically plagued with the virus.

Rogue, who has knowledge of an uncontrollable power, sees the inherent ploy of Sinister and is justifiably infuriated by the prospect of Sinister using the girl. However the X-Men can’t offer her a better alternative as even Rogue herself has not benefited from power control by joining the X-Men. This reasoning leads Beast to side with Sinister as the best person for Threnody to go with as his years of experience in both science and genetics could better help her to stabilize her powers than the X-Men could.

Sinister’s Slave

Sinister made good on his promise and helped to inhibit her powers and even restore tenuous hold on her sanity. He achieved this by placing small neuro-chips, or power dampers, on her cheeks and forehead. She therefore owes him a great debt of gratitude, if not her life. She soon realizes that her cure comes with a high price: she will remain loyal to Sinister for the rest of her life or risk death. When she makes her next appearance she is a prisoner of Sinister. It is she who monitors Gambit for Sinister in relation to any place that may connect the two.

He gives her what he deems a task of great importance yet simplistic: she is to find out information about, and monitor the movement of, the newly arrived refugee from the Age of Apocalypse, Nate Grey. Like every slave does to their master, and just as Sinister did to Apocalypse, Threnody devised a plan to escape from a life of servitude, and this boy was her salvation. She kept the most vital of information on him to herself and prepared for her freedom.

Life with Nate

Knowing Nate is close, Threnody tries to escape from Sinister. In retaliation, he sends his Marauders after her in the sewers of Paris. Nate senses her telepathically and jumps to her aid. He slaughters the Marauders except Riptide, who he uses to send a message to Sinister. The message is a false telepathic illusion of Threnody dying in his arms. This he hopes will deter Sinister from following them. Her plan being successful, Threnody goes with Nate to Switzerland, where he meets up with his Cable and Exodus.

In the battle with Exodus he attempts to siphon off her abilities since her powers would complement his own well. On her behalf, Nate battles and decisively defeats the villain. Nate, however, is left in a burnt out state since he overextended his powers in her defense. He collapses from exhaustion. When he regains consciousness he finds Threnody at his side and the two share a passionate kiss. Despite them growing closer however he is unsure if she is still a pawn of Sinister.

In an attempt to free her from Sinister’s devices, Nate tries to remove one of her power inhibitors. This is unsuccessful, as it results in an explosion which destroys the surrounding lodge they were staying in, and almost kills the other guests. Nate felt defeated but Threnody instead opted for the couple to depart for Greece where they could relax.

While traveling all over Greece they stop and relax on a secluded beach where Holocaust is sent by the villain Onslaught to capture and/or destroy Nate. In the skirmish which ensues, several people are injured.

Threnody, drawn to death energy, uses her powers to cause a man who was pinned down by debris, to die. She keeps that a secret from Nate who would not have approved of her decision. Her connection to Nate is not lost on Holocaust however, as he quickly captures her. The deal is simple: her life in exchange for servitude to Onslaught. Threnody pleads for him to not accept this choice as she is not worth it but Nate does.

Unknown to Holocaust, Nate tries to get Threnody to use her powers, but she refuses. Holocaust realizes something is amiss and thus attacks Threnody. Nate takes over her mind and activates her powers which have been boosted by the dying man. She overpowers Holocaust, and sends him into the ocean. With their foe temporarily dispatched they save as many people as they can before he reemerges and grabs her again. This time she is given an option, help him secure Nate or she will die and he will be broken.

Nate comes to her aide even taking a blast meant for her. Nate and Holocaust square off where Nate gains the upper hand by damaging Holocaust’s armor. He retreats before he can be defeated, though he swears revenge. Realizing the toll this battle took on him Threnody and suggests that they go to Muir Island. Nate refuses this, as he wants no one affiliated with Professor X around him. Threnody then suggest they seek out the Avengers.

Onslaught

Nate then ends up with X-Force thus Threnody is alone. The marauders are then sent by sinister to capture her. She manages to defeat them though Mr. Sinister’s personal involvement leaves her defeated. Sinister then seeks out and easily defeats the exhausted man. Sinister then reveals his master plan which was mapping Nate’s brain waves by way of Threnody’s apparent power dampers. So her getting close to him was all in Sinister’s plan. Nate eventually reverse the effects on a stunned Sinister before being ambushed and captured by Onslaught.

The marauders meanwhile have chained and bound threnody and drained her of her powers. Still coherent she manages to kill a passing sewer rat giving her just enough energy to escape from her captors. As she fled Scalphunter and Arclight come chasing after her but are beaten back by the Abomination.

The End of Romance

Exhausted she is taken back to his lair. Once Nate is freed from Onslaught he comes to her aid and does battle with the abomination. When they emerge together he tells her he loves her and that he is tired of running, he wants to settle down with her.

The couple tours many of the sights of New York and Nate offers to try and remove Sinister’s devices from her though she refuses out of fear. When Nate and Threnody got separated in central park. Madelyn Pryor arrived looking for him but instead found her. Threnody lashed out with jealously and contempt revealing to Maddie that despite walking around she was in fact still dead. Angry Maddie ripped of her power dampers leaving her near death and comatose. Her lifeless body was found by local authorities and she was transported to the morgue. She was bagged and tagged as Jane Doe. Despite apparent death she got up and later walked out of the morgue.

Pregnant!

For the next few months she tracked Nate across America. She was also seen apparently pregnant though it was never confirmed if the child was Nate’s or not. The next stage of her search for Nate found her surrounded by the undead who eerily chanted her name. She almost found Nate when he was in Alaska visiting with Scott and Jean, but he left before they could connect.

When Nate did battle with the spider-man villain Mesmero and found his telepathy restored, he collapsed from the exhaustion and Threnody and her zombies found him. She took him to the sewers where she sat on a makeshift throne made by bones. She watched over Nate for a week while he regained his strength. As soon as Nate awoke, the dead set upon her nearly smothering her to death. Rescued by Nate she revealed that she had been killed by Maddie but fed off her own death, and that of the morgue she was in to come back. She then explained how

she tracked him down. Nate wanted to help but she hid her pregnancy and childbirth from him instead claiming the undead were addicted to her just as she was addicted to death. Finally, Nate decided to keep her safe now that they had finally been re-united. Tearfully she lashed out at him claiming she was never truly in love with him but instead was simply in love with his “condition” being so close to death due to burnout. Nate was hurt by her words, but he was unaware of her tear filled eyes as she told the man she loved this heartbreaking lie to keep him and her baby safe. Nate allowed her to leave as the undead barrage went after her. She returned to the sewers to secure her baby, who strangely growled they then went into the darkness with Nate unaware of either one’s location and even more so unaware of her child.

After M day

Threnody has been confirmed still powered after M-Day according to Civil War: Battle Damage Report, however her current whereabouts are unknown.

Assassins Guild

Years later she was saved by Blackout and joined the Assassins Guild alongside him. Belladonna sent her, Blackout and four other assassins to deal with Deadpool. However, she betrayed the Guild and partnered with Deadpool.

Powers and abilities

Link to death and its absorption

Threnody is a mutant whose mutation gives her a very unique link to death. This link to death allows her to sense and feed on a persons necroplasmic energies. Necroplams is the energy which surrounds an individual when they are near death or on the verge of dying. She can even survive her own death by absorbing her own necroplasm. Once she absorbs this energy she can then convert it to either generate concussive blasts of energy or to reanimate the dead, thus creating zombies.

Vampiric tendencies

In the same way a vampire must consume blood to survive, Threnody must absorb the energies of the dead and dying; she is uncontrollably drawn to the dead and dying and can be intoxicated by the very scent of death and the “taste” of necroplasm. This is illustrated when she once let a man die simply to enjoy the feeling it gave her much like a vampire feeding for pure pleasure or a drug addict on a high.

Creating Undead

The dead that are reanimated by her power show an unspecified degree of super-strength as they were show tearing through the hull of a ship with great ease. Like stereotypical zombies they must be decapitated to die a second time and not come back. During Threnody’s last few appearances, her zombies kept going after being shot and dismembered. In some instances the zombies simply healed or created new limbs. Their healing is not inherent however, but comes from Threnody. To heal them takes no energy from her because every time the zombies felt pain, or “died” a second or third time she absorbed their energy thus becoming infinitely more powerful in the process.

Other energy absorption skills

Threnody also seemed able to absorb an unspecified amount of natural energy, such as heat, electricity etc. She was also seen absorbing the kinetic energy from bullets before they pierced her skin, causing them to fall to the floor harmlessly. She could also absorb telekinetic, telepathic, and other sorts of psionic energy on a massive scale. Her greatest telepathic absorption feat was absorbing the combined efforts/powers of Madelyne Pryor and Selene thus preventing them from getting into her mind to subdue or control her.

Other Media

Games

X-men: Battle of the Atom

Threnody 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:

• Threnody