Nekra

Nekra is a fictional mutant supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by Steve Gerber and Ross Andru for the 1973 comic book Shanna the She-Devil. She is a mutant caused by an atomic explosion at the Los Alamos Proving Grounds, as was Mandrill.[1]

Nekra
Publication information
PublisherMarvel Comics
First appearanceShanna the She-Devil #5 (Aug 1973)
Created bySteve Gerber (writer)
Ross Andru (artist)
In-story information
Alter egoNekra Sinclair
SpeciesHuman Mutant
Team affiliationsLethal Legion
Black Spectre
PartnershipsMandrill
Notable aliasesAdrienne Hatros
AbilitiesHate and rage build superhuman power and invulnerability
Magical knowledge and skills for creating zombies, fangs and claws

Publication history

Nekra first appeared in Shanna the She-Devil #5 (August 1973), and was created by Steve Gerber and Ross Andru.[2]

The character subsequently appears in Marvel Two-In-One #3 (May 1974), Daredevil #109–112 (May–August 1974), Spider-Woman #13–16 (June–July 1979), #50 (June 1983), West Coast Avengers #2 (October 1985), The Vision and the Scarlet Witch #1–2 (October–November 1985), #12 (September 1986), Web of Spider-Man #46 (January 1989), Alpha Flight #79–80 (December 1989–January 1990), Avengers Spotlight #29 (February 1990), Avengers West Coast #65 (December 1990), and the graphic novel Avengers: Death Trap, the Vault (1991). The character does not appear for several years after that, until she reappeared in Witches #1 (August 2004), and The Loners #1 (June 2007), and #4–5 (September–October 2007).

Nekra received entries in the original Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #8, the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition #9, and the All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A–Z #8 (2006).

Fictional character biography

Decades ago, Gemma Sinclair was an African-American cleaning lady at Los Alamos National Laboratory. An exploding lab experiment bombards Gemma with radiation, causing her future child to be born a mutant. Nekra is born with fangs and white skin but is not an albino. Loathed by her parents and community, Nekra runs away into the New Mexico desert to live alone when she is 14 years old.

She soon encounters by chance another child who has been mutated by the same explosion. Although his parents were white, he had been born dark-skinned and had developed fur and baboon-like features, for which he had named himself Mandrill. For six years they live by theft and scavenging until they are attacked by a lynch mob that thought they were monsters. While filled with rage, Nekra discovers she is invulnerable to the mob's attacks. Slaying a few of their persecutors, the two escape and come to regard each other as if they were siblings.

The two later travel to Africa as part of the Mandrill's ambitious scheme to overthrow multiple nations through Black Spectre, a cult of personality powered by the Mandrill's pheromonal control over women. This effort is thwarted by Shanna the She-Devil. The two eventually escape, kidnapping Shanna's father in the process and eventually killing him.

Their next plot is of similar means, whereby they use the Mandrill's powers to raise a cult of black women to overthrow America.[3] They are eventually defeated on the White House lawn by Daredevil, the Black Widow, and Shanna. Abandoned by Mandrill, Nekra is captured by authorities.

Nekra is held captive and drugged in a S.H.I.E.L.D. hospital until a subliminal message from Hate-Monger inadvertently gave her the rage necessary to break free. While in the New York sewers, Nekra encounters a cult of Kali, which she persuades that she herself was the reincarnation of Kali. She then moves to the West Coast where she kills and replaces Adrienne Hatros, the reclusive sponsor of an emotional research clinic where Nekra hopes to overcome her own dependency upon emotions. There she develops a drug to subdue feelings of affection and successfully field-tests it, using Spider-Woman as the target of her feelings.[4]

Nekra falls in with the voodoo-master the Black Talon as voodoo tutor, and with the Grim Reaper as her lover. When the Grim Reaper dies in combat, Nekra is able to briefly reanimate him as a zombie, so lifelike that even the Grim Reaper does not realize he is dead. When Nekra's love becomes greater than her hate though, the Reaper dies again. Nekra takes his corpse with her, in hopes of reanimating him again.

Nekra then had run-ins with Spider-Man, and then Henry Pym. She also battled Alpha Flight at the behest of Llan the Sorcerer.[5]

Nekra spends some time in the super-villain prison The Vault. During a prison-wide riot, she and Mister Hyde have a brief romantic interlude.[6]

Nekra finally manages to re-animate the Grim Reaper again, but this time there is a caveat: he has to kill one person every 24 hours in order to stay 'alive.' The Reaper chooses Nekra as his first victim and kills her.[7]

Sensing the potential threat of Doctor Druid, Daimon Hellstrom uses his magics to reanimate Nekra and sends her to investigate him. First, she seduces Doctor Druid, which negates his powers, but he manages to regain them via sacrifice. Nekra then shoots Doctor Druid in the forehead, killing him.[8]

Nekra is one of a handful of mutants to have retained her powers in the wake of House of M.

Nekra resurfaces and is seen donating genetic material to an M.G.H ring that had sprung up in L.A. after the death of The Pride.[9] She is defeated by Ricochet, Darkhawk, and the third Spider-Woman. She later returns to the Loners' meeting place to get her revenge on them.[10] Nekra easily battled and defeated all of the Loners and proceeds to strangle Mickey, when she is struck from behind by a mysterious lady named "Namie".[11]

A girl going by the alias Death Reaper makes an appearance in Dark Reign: Zodiac. She claims to be the illegitimate daughter of Nekra.[12] Nekra joins the Grim Reaper's new Lethal Legion.[13] She and the rest of the Legion are betrayed by Grim Reaper, who uses them as a ploy to give Osborn's Avengers better publicity. She is sent to prison, under the impression that Grim Reaper is dead.[14]

Nekra is seen during the riots in San Francisco with Frenzy of the Acolytes. Both are told by Karma to behave, but Nekra tells her they were promised Utopia and they will never stop hunting mutants. They'll always be hunted, tormented, and killed. She is then blasted by Ms. Marvel.[15] She later takes part in the final battle. Once again pitted against Osborn's Dark Avengers as well as his X-Men, she follows the rest of the mutants to the island of Utopia.[16] It is also revealed that she has a daughter named Death Reaper who is an ally of the villain Zodiac.[17]

During the Chaos War storyline, Nekra assists a resurrected Grim Reaper in fighting the Dead Avengers.[18] She was killed with the Grim Reaper when Vision self-destructed.[19]

Powers and abilities

Possesses the ability to increase her strength, endurance, and resistance to pain and injury by harnessing her violent emotions. Her heightened adrenal activity causes a series of metabolic reactions within her body that toughen her skin and increase the efficiency of her muscles. At her peak, she can lift approximately 10 tons, withstand an explosion of about 100 pounds of TNT and extreme degrees of cold and heat. Her powers are limited by how long she can sustain her emotional state, generally for no more than an hour.

gollark: But if you ask "hey, random person, would you be willing to give up some amount of money/resources/etc to stop people dying of malaria", people will just mostly say no.
gollark: If you *ask* someone "hey, random person, would you like people in Africa to not die of malaria", they will obviously say yes. Abstractly speaking, people don't want people elsewhere to die of malaria.
gollark: Capitalism is why we have a massively effective (okay, mostly, some things are bad and need fixing, like intellectual property) economic engine here which can produce tons of stuff people want. But people *do not care* about diverting that to help faraway people they can't see.
gollark: Helping people elsewhere does mean somewhat fewer resources available here, and broadly speaking people do not actually want to make that tradeoff.
gollark: You don't particularly need that. You can just buy a cheaper phone and give charity £400 or something.

References
  1. Rovin, Jeff (1987). The Encyclopedia of Supervillains. New York: Facts on File. pp. 245–246. ISBN 0-8160-1356-X.
  2. DeFalco, Tom; Sanderson, Peter; Brevoort, Tom; Teitelbaum, Michael; Wallace, Daniel; Darling, Andrew; Forbeck, Matt; Cowsill, Alan; Bray, Adam (2019). The Marvel Encyclopedia. DK Publishing. p. 254. ISBN 978-1-4654-7890-0.
  3. Sacks, Jason; Dallas, Keith (2014). American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1970s. TwoMorrows Publishing. p. 103. ISBN 978-1605490564.
  4. Spider-Woman #16.
  5. Alpha Flight #79–80
  6. Venom Deathtrap: The Vault
  7. Avengers West Coast #65
  8. Druid #2–4
  9. Loners #1
  10. Loners #4
  11. Loners #5
  12. Dark Reign: Zodiac #1
  13. Dark Reign: Lethal Legion #1
  14. Dark Reign: Lethal Legion #3
  15. Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Utopia #1
  16. Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Exodus #1
  17. Dark Reign: Zodiac #1
  18. Chaos War: Dead Avengers #2
  19. Chaos War: Dead Avengers #3
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