Fictional Character Biography
The Demon Bear was originally an entity who haunted the dreams of Danielle Moonstar, threatening that he would eventually come and kill her. He was seemingly responsible for the deaths of her parents, William and Margaret (Peg) Lonestar. At first, Dani assumed that the Demon Bear was just a nightmare brought on by Professor Xavier's possession by the Brood Queen, when he gradually began attacking his students in an attempt to implant them with Brood embryos. It turned out that the Bear was neither a manifestation of her powers nor the Professor's mental control.
In earlier issues of the New Mutants, Danielle kept the Demon Bear's presence in her dreams secret from her team.
The Demon Bear revealed his plan to destroy Danielle at the conclusion of New Mutants issue 17, when he appeared to her as a phantom upon her team's return to Xavier's School. They had just escaped Emma Frost's Massachusetts Academy. During this story arc, the X-Men were away in space during "Secret Wars" I. This explains why there were no senior members of Xavier's team on hand to assist in the battle against the Demon Bear. Moonstar (then called Mirage) first battled the Demon Bear in issue 18. After running various Danger Room scenarios, she felt confident in confronting the demon; however, he took advantage of her premature assumption that he was defeated, mauling her and severely damaging her spine.
Upon discovering Dani (thanks to Wolfbane's telepathic link to Dani) out on the campus grounds, heinously mauled, the New Mutants rushed her to the Mid-County Medical Center. The Demon Bear was not through with Danielle, and he infiltrated the hospital, thinking to finish the job and possess Danielle's soul. He transported the team to the Badlands, presumably his dimension. Here the New Mutants fought and defeated him, disrupting him with Magik's Soulsword, the ultimate expression of her black magic. During this skirmish, the Demon Bear had possessed Nurse Sharon Friedlander and Officer Tom Corsi and turned them into demonic Native American warriors under his control. They later reverted back to normal humans, but still kept the appearance of Native Americans. Once Magik cleaved the bear in two with her sword, Danielle's parents, William and Peg, leapt from his body; it turned out that they were not dead, merely enslaved.
The Demon Bear reappears in X-Force (vol.3) #8 to battle Warpath, who was on his way to visit his brother's grave. Warpath fought the bear and would have been killed were it not for the timely intervention of Ghost Rider, who offers his assistance against the demon. They soon find out that it is actually the corrupted form of the Apaches' animal spirits, who had been driven mad by Eli Bard, who used a dagger full of black magic to do so.
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