X-Men Villains of the 1990s

Note that the blonde woman here is Darkstar, but not the Darkstar (Laynia Petrovna) who died and was, at this point, still dead. This Darkstar is Reena Stancioff, one of the aforementioned replacement Darkstars.

Fantasma says some pretty ominous things when she wakes up.

So. . .question is, what’s going on with her? Where’s the rest of the team that left with her? And what the hell was she doing in a trans-dimensional rift like that? We get our answer to at least one of these swiftly. The rest of the Winter Guard who had left–Vanguard, Starlight, and Powersurge—appear in the city streets through a similar portal. And they’re talking in a VERY hostile way, calling themselves The Protectorate (which I think is what they and Fantasma decided to go by when they split off originally?). In the next issue, they’re fighting the Russian military in the streets of St. Petersburg. Meanwhile, Reena and Galina (Crimson Dynamo) are slut-shaming the traumatized Fantasma behind her back. I don’t care if they did end up correct, I don’t like this. 

As for Fantasma, she doesn’t really remember her former comrades. Or much of anything, apparently.

Galina and Reena come in to report that the rest of the Protectorate came through with Fantasma. Cut back to the Protectorate, and their dialogue indicates that Fantasma, formerly one of them, is now their foe, and that she has “forces”, but we’re not told WHY she’s now their enemy or who her “forces” are, as thus far she’s been alone. But according to them “it’ll be up to us to save the world”

Anyway, their gambit to get the attention of the Winter Guard by fighting worked, and the latter show up. Naturally, rather than talking and explaining the situation, there has to be a superhero battle, which I’ll spare you. Back to Fantasma, she stayed behind at base since she’s still recovering from whatever it was she went through. She’s being given a tour of the base by a handler, Dimitri, who hopes it will restore her memory. For some reason, he sees fit to introduce her to one of the prisoners, Sergei Krylov aka The Presence. The Presence is the biological father of Vanguard and the original Darkstar, and a supervillain who wields nuclear radiation for various mad and disgusting deeds. His track record includes making Starlight, one of the aforementioned Russian heroines and member of the Protectorate, into his mind-controlled “lover” and attempting to do the same to Laynia…aka the original Darkstar…his DAUGHTER. And yes, he KNEW she was his daughter. Ick. And now it seems he has designs on Fantasma, thanking Dimitri for bringing him a new “playmate” and telling Fantasma she is “everything I hoped for” ick ick ICK. Fantasma freaks out upon being told this, but not in the way you’d think—she yells “I MUST SAVE THEM ALL!” and takes off running. Ok then. 

Dimitri follows her and she’s run all the way down to a part of the sub-basement I’m guessing no one knew about, because it’s filled with sinister-looking eggs. They’re big, purple-red, and creepy eyes can be seen through the membranes of some. Fantasma doesn’t think it’s creepy though, she says it’s “so much beauty” and “my destiny”. She explains that “As a foundling, I was always confused living in a human’s world. I never had a sense of belonging or understanding. But now. . .it has all been made clear to me.”

I’ll be honest with you guys, as an autistic person who grew up feeling fundamentally alien from those around me, I have a ton of feels about this and all the sympathy for Fantasma. But I’ll get into my feelings later. Right now I’m just relaying what happens. She kneels, caressing the eggs, continuing, “This citadel was our fertility center, a place were science and sorcery converged. These eggs were a precautionary measure. . .hidden from prying eyes. . .They have spent many months waiting to be fully birthed . .waiting for a surrogate mother to raise them.” Her hand is no longer human. Her entire left arm has transformed into a purple, clawed appendage as she speaks. The rest of her body turns purple, her face becoming ghastly, her eyes solid glowing green, “I am that mother. I am their salvation!”

She has completely transformed into a huge purple monster, unrecognizable as her former self, and the reality of what she—and these eggs—are is revealed, “THE DIRE WRAITHS WILL BE REBORN!”

Dimitri is shocked, uttering “All this time we served together. . .” but Fantasma is more concerned with the eggs, noting that they have not yet been fertilized. But she says, as she reaches out tentacles to her former comrade, “I know just how to remedy that.” Dimitri flees and shouts for the computer to alert the Winter Guard, to alert support staff, to open the armory. . .the computer says none of it can be done, and Fantasma says she’s already begun to “infect” the headquarters. So. . .can Dire Wraiths infect computers too? In any case, as she pursues Dimitri, she passes the Presence’s cell once more, and he speaks to her, telling her, “Let me show you what the universe has in store for us.”

Anyway the Winter Guard continue to fight it out with the Protectorate until FINALLY they actually TALK and explain it’s Fantasma they’re after and why that is. Basically they explain that the rift that they and Fantasma came out of is Limbo, and that there’s this powerful being named Immortus there who they sought out, asking him to use his abilities to manipulate the timestream to revive the original Darkstar. Since his realm was infected with Dire Wraiths, he asked that th Protectorate serve as his personal guard against these invasive monsters for a year. In the process, it was revealed that Fantasma, their longtime ally, was a Dire Wraith herself. How this was revealed, it’s never explained, it’s just “oh she was a Dire Wraith” and like. . .I really wanna know how that happened? It seems like Fantasma HERSELF didn’t know this, she said she believed herself to be a “foundling” so I don’t think she was consciously undercover, I think she really thought she was human and had no idea what she was til Limbo. And then. . .once she fell out of Limbo and back into this world, I guess she lost her memories all over again (girl, you gotta get that checked out, that sounds like an issue)

  Anyway, speaking of Limbo, she found a tear in time and space there, and came back to this world, so the Protectorate followed her to stop her from infecting this plane with Dire Wraiths as well. Looks like they were right to, since by the time they got back to base, it’s clearly SWARMING with. . .idk, flying Dire Wraiths? I guess she infected some pigeons or something? There are flying demonic-looking things all around it that I presume as Dire Wraiths but they don’t normally fly. . .but they are shapeshifters. . .well whatever, next (and final) issue! Outside the citadel, th Winter Guard are fighting their way past the flying Dire Wraith things. Inside. . .inside, Fantasma and the Presence are levitating with their bodies pressed together (ick) and the Presence complains of the Winter Guard’s breach as “What madness threatens the completion of our intimate congress?” (ICK ICK ICK)

Fantasma begins to hatch the eggs, apparently through telepathic command, saying “Never will our children be manipulated, forced to hide what they really are.” Again, I’ve got compassion for her here. She also says that “Like me, they will draw their power from the aether. But they owe all their loveliness and their very lives to you.”

So I guess she’s saying they’re Dire Wraiths like her, they’ll have magic powers like her, but I guess the Presence is somehow what made them come alive? Maybe he fertilized them (ICK) since she said earlier they weren’t fertilized yet? How does that work? Do I want to know? Or maybe she means they owe their lives to him somehow triggering her memory of them? It’s all very unclear and it never really gets explained. We do, at least, learn (sort of) how The Presence knew what Fantasma really was even when SHE did not, as he says that the building itself told him: “While in confinement, the citadel whispered its special secrets to me. But I knew I needed you to unlock the door. The grand design is well underway.” Does the Presence telepathically communicate with computers or something? That’s not part of his typical powerset, but in this storyline he also has “powers of awareness” that tell him that it’s the Winter Guard who is breaching the base, so idk. New powers as the plot demands! He’s radioactive so that can just explain anything! Comics logic! Also how Dire Wraiths breed is damned inconsistent too, like they can infect and convert a victim into a Dire Wraith but also lay eggs but apparently those eggs also need fertilizing and that can come from a non Dire Wraith (Dimitri, the Presence) but it’s not clear. . .how? IDK guys I’m lost and I’ve read this more than once, just go with it. Anyway, Fantasma sends her children to go attack the Winter Guard, but they fight their way through (though the current Red Guardian is decapitated) and reach Fantasma and the Presence. Fantasma is hanging off the Presence looking al sexy except for her head and one hand, which are both that of a Dire Wraith and it’s super freaky looking and also kind of funny. The Presence, in typical villain fashion, tells the Winter Guard how they’re going to release Dire Wraith egg spores into air, water, and soil, and “rewrite the Earth” because “after all, my children need  someplace to call home.”

This would be understandable for Fantasma but why on earth does The Presence want this? I understand he’s meant to be insane, but that’s not a good enough answer for me. Anyway, the Dire Wraiths continue to attack the Winter Guard. The present Darkstar is killed almost immediately via a Dire Wraith’s drill-tongue to the back of the head, which grotesquely emerges from her mouth on the other side. Nasty. She is, as a result, instantly infected and becomes a Dire Wraith herself. Now, remember, this is NOT Laynia, the original Darkstar, this is a woman named Reena who was essentially made into a duplicate of Laynia to be the new Darkstar. And while Darkstar’s brother Vanguard openly found this disgusting and a defilement of his sister’s body and memory, he’s still horrified at seeing her become a Dire Wraith because “She was all I had left of my Laynia!” to which his father, The Presence, comforts that “You can join her” and Fantasma, trying to infect Vanguard as well, says “We are willing to adopt” though she’s stopped by Starlight. Starlight, it should be noted, was formerly mentally enslaved by The Presence into being his longtime “lover” and accomplice, and during her time in Limbo became (consensual) lovers with Vanguard. That’s. . .a weird choice, but ok girl, as long as it’s what YOU want. Nothing wrong with Vanguard, just. . .I don’t think I’d choose my abuser’s estranged son as my next boyfriend. I know it’s not Vanguard’s fault and he had nothing to do with it, but it still seems weird to me. Anyway–

Galina aka the current Crimson Dynamo opens up another tear to Limbo using a….nuclear dimensional displacement device, I think it was called earlier? Fantasma does NOT like the look of this, yelling that she will not be sent back there. Galina, though, disagrees, as she grabs Fantasma and hucks her into the tear. Fantasma’s last words are “I will not face oblivion alone…” and she uses her tentacles to grab Starlight and drag her through the tear with her. But though Fantasma is gone, the other Dire Wraiths remain, including the one that was Darkstar. Now leading the others, she has the Winter Guard surrounded and encroaches on them. . .and then suddenly she turns into pretty Darkstar again and wipes out all the Dire Wraiths! And not just any pretty Darkstar—it’s Laynia! Reborn through. . .the power of Immortus, whom the Winter Guard made a deal with? Or something to do with the Darkstar gem that housed her psyche and DNA? Who knows! She’s back! Oh yeah, then Powersurge sacrifices his life to kill the Presence and the team just barely makes it out before the place blows up. Much like how many of the team (including, ironically, Fantasma herself) had left the Winter Guard over the death of the original Darkstar, Galina now leaves the team over the death of Reena and the resurrection of Laynia “inside the body of [a] brain-eating abomination, hiding in plain sight among us” which does raise the question of if there’s any Dire Wraith left in Laynia. A question that’s never really been answered, but thus far seems to be no. This wraps up Fantasma’s story for good (thus far). Will we see her again? Well, I don’t think so, but then again, who would have predicated when she debuted in 1989 that in 2010 she’d be revealed to have been a Dire Wraith all along? Comics are weird, characters will come back when you least expect it, often in ways you’d least expect, I’ve learned that multiple times over. So, now that you know Fantasma’s full tale, let’s talk about her. Dire Wraiths are supposedly innately evil (which is a problematic concept in itself but let’s just accept it FOR THE MOMENT) but she served as a superhero for. . .it’s hard to say how long in comic book time, but 20 years in publication time. And while the task she’s debuted with—retrieving the Soviet Super Soldiers against their will from the US—is hardly heroic, but we see in other adventures that she does do heroic stuff too, such as helping evacuate a town of civilians. Given that she didn’t have her memories of being a Dire Wraith at this point, we can’t say she was just doing this to disguise her true nature as an “evil” creature. And speaking of her “true” nature, we’ve seen examples that it might NOT be the case that Dire Wraiths are actually as innately and intrinsically always evil as is claimed. Two Dire Wraith males in canon  cast aside their evil ways and entire Dire Wraith identities to live as “human” men with the human women they loved, and another Dire Wraith who was sent to Earth to scout it for invasion purposes ended up admiring humanity instead, and turned against his own people to defend Earth. So it seems like upbringing can have an impact on them, and even those that grew up fully in Wraith society can turn around out of love for individual humans. Not exactly an altruistic reason, but still a step up.  And one of the Wraiths that married a human woman had a hybrid son, and while said son did end up being evil, that wasn’t until AFTER he was found by other Dire Wraiths who indoctrinated him into their ways. So he wasn’t just born evil. Also, while she may have been forced to be a superhero by the Soviet government (see my theory on her backstory which I get into in a bit) she demonstrated that she COULD leave, she left with the other members in disgust after Darkstar’s death. So she could have just fucked off from being a hero by choice, at least once the USSR dissolved, but she never did, not until the remains of her TEAMMATE were defiled by the government. That shows some very human emotion, and not evilness. It suggests she served as a hero because it was the right thing to do, and also had affection or respect for the original Darkstar. Let’s say she was innately evil though. Her story is still sympathetic. She’s an amnesiac “foundling” who believes herself to be human, but a human who is a shapechanger whose true form is a hideous monster. Like, all the angst Mystique is implied to have had about being blue in her true form before she got on the Mutant & Proud train? Imagine how it was for Fantasma. Like at least Mystique still looks like a HUMAN BEING. Fantasma must have felt like an absolute freak, and it’s no wonder to me that she crafted such a sexualized, over-idealized form for herself; she was pretty clearly hyper-compensating for the fact that to a human perspective she’s a grotesque abomination that NO ONE could even TELL was female. No one human, anyway, I’m sure Dire Wraiths know. Like, you guys, I’m a very cis woman, I very much want to be a cis woman, if my very female gender identity was in the body of a huge freaky monster with no gender indicators, of COURSE I would make myself be The Sexiest Most Feminine Beautiful Woman in a costume that makes sure you KNOW it.  Despite the costume though, Fantasma never had a sexy or flirtacious persona. As mentioned at the beginning of this biography, she was cool and aloof, not mean or cruel but not the easiest person to get to know or get along with. Kinda robotic-ish. And that makes a ton of sense, as does her saying how “I was always confused living in a human’s world. I never had a sense of belonging or understanding” when she finds the eggs. Because she’s literally an alien who thinks she’s human, and thus expects herself to have human emotions, to relate to other humans around her in a human way, etc. And she CAN’T. And not only does she expect it of herself, other humans around her, also thinking her human, surely expect it from her as well and react negatively when she fails to. Again, as someone who is autistic, this hits home HARD for me. I really don’t care HOW evil she is (and I don’t think she is, certainly not when she’s amnesiac) she’s relatable as hell to me. So, how the fuck did a Dire Wraith come to be on the Supreme Soviets team anyway? If she had her memories, the natural assumption would be that this was a deliberate longterm infiltration scheme. After all, the Dire Wraiths had infiltrated the USSR government before in an 1983 story. And actually, I think that’s how she got there, just it wasn’t a deliberate infiltration on her part. While all the Dire Wraiths at their base in the Dead Zone were apparently either killed or banished to Limbo in this story (Rom #46) I think it’s most likely that one was missed, and captured by the USSR government later, perhaps in a weakened state from the battle. Maybe she was amnesiac already from the fight somehow, or perhaps the Soviets mindwiped her. Either way, she lost her memory and knowledge of what she was, but still had the shapechanging and sorcery skills of her species. And they put that to use by making her “Fantasma” and feeding her a story about being a foundling and put her on a superhero team, not unlike how they told Darkstar and Vanguard that their parents had abandoned them when in reality the Soviet government had taken them away at birth for their own use due to their mutations. This is sad and fucked up no matter what Fantasma’s own morality is, she’s the victim here. It doesn’t matter who or what she is, or if she tried to help take over Earth, or what, this is wrong. It’s a thousand times more fucked up than if they’d just killed her. Also, during her pre-reveal days as a hero, it comes up that Fantasma is claustrophobic, and I have the WORST feeling that whatever the Soviet government did to her probably accounts for that.