Shadow King

One of the most mysterious and powerful mutants in existence, the ancient called the Shadow King— sometimes known as Amahl Farouk—has terrorized humanity since the days of early man. The telepathic terror has been a frequent and notably cruel foe of the X-Men in his never-ending quest to rule the astral plane, while enslaving as many people as possible with his superior psionic abilities.

From the Shadows

Lore tells of the Shadow King coming into being when “the first dreams came in night, in the first nightmare.”

There are conflicting accounts of his earlier days, and the Shadow King may have begun as a being of pure telepathic energy, existing only on the astral plane, while connecting to the physical world using a variety of human hosts. It’s also possible he first manifested inside a human and has continued to leap into other “hosts” since the days of his first body’s death. The Shadow King’s exact identity, and earliest trail of existence, remains a mystery.

The first trusted record of the Shadow King starts in 1936, while he was in the physical form of Egyptian “mentalist” Amahl Farouk, and involves him plotting with Wolfgang von Strucker and Nazi scientist Dr. Nikolaus Geist to dispute the lineage of England's royal family in order to install a new king who would be sympathetic to Adolf Hitler. Eventually, his schemes were stopped by Wolverine and two time-traveling members of Excalibur, Kitty Pryde and Rachel Summers.

Decades later, Farouk became a crime lord in Cairo, heading up a secret network of thieves. It is here that he encountered fellow telepath Charles Xavier for the first time. While trying to stop a young Ororo Munroe from stealing his wallet, Xavier was struck by a psychic bolt from the Shadow King. Tracking the source of the psionic attack, Xavier found Farouk in a nearby tavern and learned that the assault on his mind was meant to be a warning shot across the bow, to drive Xavier away from Farouk’s territory.

The two clashed over how to best use their psychic gifts. Farouk believed that, together, he and Xavier could enslave and dominate humankind, while Xavier was dead set on using his powers for the betterment of the world. In the astral plane, the two mutants battled for mental supremacy, with Xavier triumphing and delivering a fatal psychic bolt that killed the Shadow King’s physical form. The Shadow King stands as the first-ever evil mutant Xavier encountered, and the inspiration for the creation of the X-Men. But though his physical form was gone, he would prove to be a persistent threat in the years to come.

A Real Mind Bender

For all intents and purposes, the Shadow King is an eternal being, incapable of truly being killed or expelled permanently. As a vastly powerful psychic being, he’s considered to be the most dangerous and omnipotent telepath outside of Charles Xavier and any mutant possessed by the Phoenix Force. As an Omega-level mind bender, the Shadow King is almost unbeatable.

Not only does the Shadow King take over people’s minds with the intent of purely puppeting them, but he also feeds off their negative energy and causes them to slowly merge with his own essence. He draws delight from deviously assuming control of people, bending them to his will, and then spreading his infectious control across multitudes. At times, he chooses one host as his main body and then abuses that host’s form by indulging in excessive eating and causing their body to expand to obese proportions.

The Shadow King is jealous, vengeful, and loves to toy with his captors, frequently pitting friends against one another in ghoulish Gladiator-style fighting games. Most of the time, when the Shadow King fails, it’s because he’s allowed himself to become distracted, letting his emotions get the best of him. Either that, or he’s literally spread his psychic energy too thin by controlling too many minds.

On the astral plane, the Shadow King has trained himself to be an expert combatant. Often armoring up before going toe-to-toe with a foe, he has a vast array of piercing, devastating mental attacks at his disposal. He can also use his psychic powers to heal hosts’ bodies, which allows them to morph and change far beyond what a normal human can physically bear.

Since his physical death as Farouk, at the hands of Charles Xavier, the Shadow King has existed as a purely ethereal being on the astral plane so his powers are such that he doesn’t require a physical form at all to continue his existence.

Astral Allies

The Shadow King has never been interested in friendship or any relationship beyond subjugates and/or comrades in the quest for world domination. Pre-World War II, as Farouk, he offered his services to Wolfgang von Strucker and Dr. Geist in an attempt to supplant the King of England so that the U.K. would bend to the will of the Nazis. After failing at that, Farouk created the Thieves Quarter in Cairo and became its overseer.

The only true “allies” the Shadow King knows are those he puppets and feeds off of. The only times he considers a team-up is if the other person has enough power to help him achieve his ghastly goals, including when he wanted to join forces with Xavier during their first meeting.

While the X-Men are his enemies, the Shadow King has always held a rather unhealthy fixation on Ororo Monroe, AKA Storm. It’s a curious connection that dates back to when she was an orphan and working for his Cairo syndicate as a pickpocket.

Sworn Enemies

Aside from holding a general contempt for all humankind, and a yearning to dominate everyone, the Shadow King has always staked his claim as being an eternal enemy of other mutants who challenge his dominion. The top name in line, naturally, is the X-Men—students and apprentices of Charles Xavier brought together to prevent other mutants from trying to use their powers for evil. In fact, the Shadow King is the reason Xavier discovered there was a dire need for self-policing.

This hatred for all things X extends past Xavier and Storm and onto their respective protégées. For a long stretch of time, the Shadow King possessed the New Mutant called Karma, and then when others thought she’d died in an explosion, continued to use her body as his host while he built up an army of followers.

The Shadow King’s fiercest opponents are usually those with psychic and/or extra-dimensional abilities – including Charles Xavier, Psylocke, Magik, and Jean Grey.

Telepathic Tales of Terror

Primarily thought to be an astral plane demon born of negative energies like hate and fear, the Shadow King is said to have been brought into existence when the first sleeping mind experienced its first nightmare.

Existing for millenniums, the Shadow King’s first known foray into global domination occurred when he assisted Nazis in 1936 while in the host form of Amahl Farouk. The body of Farouk was ostensibly destroyed during an astral plane battle with Rachel Summers, whom he’d inadvertently pulled back in time from the future during a mystic ceremony, but somehow the Shadow King was able to duplicate it in order to appear as Farouk while confronting Charles Xavier decades later.

After Xavier destroyed his human form, the Shadow King sought revenge and unbeknownst to the New Mutants, took over the mind of Karma, wreaking all sorts of havoc while also possessing Storm and Mirage at different points. He continued to use Karma’s body as his host form, eating to a gluttonous excess and turning her obese, while resuming his criminal career on a worldwide scale and becoming head of the Gladiators – super powered individuals who engaged in combative blood sports. Farouk was eventually forced out of Karma by the New Mutants.

In a bold move to wipe out the X-Men, the Shadow King commandeered Muir Island after possessing Xavier’s son, David Haller—AKA Legion. X-Men allies such as Moira MacTaggert, Valerie Cooper, and Carol Danvers also fell under the Shadow King’s control. Eventually, he was defeated by the combined efforts of Xavier, Jean Grey, and others. Refusing a chance at redemption, the Shadow King opted to be left in the void.

Invading Storm’s homeland village in Kenya, the Shadow King adopted the form of the African trickster, the spider-god Ananasi, enslaving the local tribe in the process, along with Storm’s stepmother Ainet. He then used this opportunity, in Xavier’s absence, to lord over the astral plane as its one undisputed ruler. Stretching his powers too far and wide, and himself too thin, the Shadow King left himself vulnerable to defeat at the hands of Psylocke, who was able to trap him, powerless, within herself.

Following Psylocke’s death, the Shadow King was freed, and took control of Reavers leader Donald Pierce as his newest host, and then targeted the X-Men’s Rogue, realizing he would have access to all of the powers she had absorbed. Though he temporarily took control of Rogue, she was ultimately able to restrain him within herself.

When Psylocke was resurrected by Jamie Braddock, the Shadow King returned as well—but to an alternate reality, where he took control of that world’s Charles Xavier and created the “Dark X-Men.”

After slaughtering all the heroes on that Earth, the Shadow King brought his evil X-team to Earth 616 and attempted to dominate the world—first targeting the women of Excalibur: Psylocke, Rachel Grey, Sage, Nocturne, and Dazzler. The Shadow King eventually was imprisoned within his own dark alternate Xavier and that body was killed, exiling him back to the astral plane.

As revenge against Storm, the Shadow King took control of Black Panther in an attempt to make her have to choose between her husband and the X-Men. Storm eventually lured the Shadow King into a trap within her own mind, where she was waiting to devour him as the Panther God.

The Shadow King, again using the form of Farouk, aligned himself with Daken Akihiro’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in an attempt to both destroy X-Force and resurrect Apocalypse into the body of his clone, Evan Sabahnur. Eventually, the Shadow King was trapped inside the body of Omega White, which was then lobotomized by the now-resurrected Psylocke.

Trying to escape the astral plane once again, the Shadow King targeted psychics all around the world, creating a web of power. Psylocke gathered a team of allies and entered the astral plane to defeat the Shadow King once more.