Black Swan (comics) - Fictional Character Biography

Fictional Character Biography

Black Swan is a German mutant in the Marvel Universe, raised in the Bavarian circus and highly trained in hand-to-hand, swordplay and gunmanship. He utilized his ability to infect the minds of others with disruptive "telepathic viruses" to become a successful mercenary and hit man, which brought him into conflict with the Taskmaster. He carried out an assassination on the four heads of the Japanese Four Winds crime families and organisation in New York, but although he carried it out surreptitiously, the credit was given to rival contractor Deadpool, who crashed through a skylight above the Four Winds at the same time, while firing wildly and in fact unknowingly missed the targets. When Deadpool was subsequently hired to kill Black Swan in Germany, the assassin beat Deadpool senseless, infected his mind with a mental "virus", and brought him to the U.S., having him brutally beaten every few minutes to prevent him from fully healing.

Swan attempted to use his operative, Nijo, a brother of one of the Four Winds, to torment Deadpool further, saying that letting Deadpool live with diminished capacity would be a greater humiliation than killing him. Once Taskmaster identified the Swan to Deadpool, the merc with a mouth travelled to the Swan's castle in Germany for a final showdown. When Nijo tried to kill Deadpool, claiming a personal vendetta against him, Black Swan impaled him with a sword-cane and fought Deadpool both physically and mentally, though he lost and was thrown face first into the white hot griddle of his own fireplace. A bomb Deadpool had brought as insurance went off before Deadpool could disarm it, destroying Black Swan's castle.

Apparently Black Swan was able to use his powers to in some way absorb traits from both Deadpool and Nijo in order to survive, resulting in the three of them sharing aspects of each other's powers, knowledge and personalities. The modified Nijo would become Agent X, while Black Swan was rescued by a Portuguese fishing boat, and Deadpool was rendered temporarily amnesiac. The three were reunited, along with Taskmaster and Sandi Brandenburg, and Black Swan demanded the return of his personality and abilities, for which he required Agent X's help, proposing a three-way mindmeld to restore each man.

Black Swan, however, double-crossed the others and absorbed both their powers, enhancing his own abilities to a tremendous level. Agent X, having anticipated treachery, had called upon a small army of heavily armed mercenaries to surround the area, but they proved no match for Black Swan's newly augmented telepathy and were quickly incapacitated. Together with the mercenary called Outlaw, Deadpool, Agent X, and Taskmaster were able to overwhelm Black Swan's healing ability and kill him. To be on the safe side, they had his body stuffed by a Taxidermist so that he could not regenerate.

Recently, he was revealed to still be alive and whole again (possibly due to Deadpool's healing factor) and was hired by the mutant Black Box (who like Black Swan, had just been revealed to still be alive, after long being thought killed) to kill a now-depowered Deadpool (who like Black Swan, had been similarly restored to a normal appearance). However, after Deadpool chose to spare Black Swan's life by taking him to a hospital after defeating him with life-threatening injuries, Black Swan repaid the favor and saved Deadpool from being killed by the ex-mutant Black Tom, who had been hired by Black Box as they both had grudges against Deadpool. Black Swan then used his powers to make Black Box and Black Tom forget Deadpool had ever lost his healing factor, so they would stop trying to come after him again. Black Swan even propose to team up with Deadpool, who was forced to grudgingly accept as he needed allies in his current condition.