History
The Dire Wraiths are an evolutionary offshoot of the Skrulls from the Andromeda Galaxy. Like the Skrulls, the Wraiths are shape-shifters, able to take the forms of other creatures. The Wraiths were originally depicted as amorphous, cloudy, vaguely humanoid-shaped beings. However, it was eventually revealed that was a transitional form used for shape-shifting and that their true form is entirely different. The Dire Wraiths are Skrullian Deviants engineered by the starfaring Celestials. The Wraiths have both reptilian and mammalian like traits. The females lay eggs and lactate.
Most non-Wraiths believe that the Wraiths' true form is highly sexually dimorphic but that belief is inaccurate. All Wraiths actually have the same form but the males are so ashamed of their true form that they use their shape-shifting abilities to constantly appear in their transitory forms. The basic transitory form is stocky and troll-like in appearance, with red or brown skin, but otherwise roughly human-like in size and shape. Also, there are frequently many variations, both minor and major, between the transitory forms used by different groups of Wraiths (though this is likely to be just different artists' rendition of the 'transitional' form). The true form has an obese, reddish body with large, pupil-less eyes, small beaks, 'hands' that resemble small pincers and tentacles; clawed feet, and thick tails. They also have long, drill like tongues similar to that of the Alphabet Cone Shell mollusk, that they use to suck out the brains of their victims, which allows them to gain their memories. (It also causes the victim's body to dissolve into fluid; this may have been a way for the wraiths to eliminate the persons whom they replaced.) All Wraiths can copy the appearance of other beings without consuming their brains or killing them but female witches prefer to kill their victims and absorb their memories during the kill. Males allegedly can use superscience to access their victims' memories as effectively as the females did with their drill tongues.
Wraiths turned into dust when killed (or banished to Limbo; see below.) Among the wraiths, the majority of the males preferred to practice science, and the majority of the females preferred to practice evil magic. However, when a Wraith practiced the skills favored by the other gender they were generally quite accomplished at it. Thus, there was a female wraith scientist in charge of their efforts for a time, and a male wraith "high priest" who was able to summon a deathwing to fight Rom on Earth.
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