Undertaker (comics) - Plot

Plot

The story was focused primarily on the Undertaker, who in the comic book resembled his appearance circa 1998. The Undertaker was revealed to be the ruler of 'Stygian' a plane known as Hell's Prison Realm, where the worst and most deadly and evil of souls are remanded after Death. The Undertaker was both its ruler and its warden. According to the story, the Undertaker had ruled Stygian for untold ages, and would have continued to do so if not for the invasion of a druid named Augustus, who also called himself The Embalmer. Gaining entrance to Stygian, the Embalmer battled the Undertaker, intent on claiming three books which contained a prophecy by a being called the Death Scribe. This prophecy claimed the Undertaker would at some point consume all the power contained within these three books which were claimed to have a history of the future, as well as several unholy spells, and arcane procedures which resembled the Frankenstein monster, one of which is later used in the story, written before recorded time by the Death Scribe, in addition to the prophecy. Whosoever claimed and absorbed the powers of all three books could either contain that power and rule, or call down armageddon and recreate the universe in their own image. This power motivated Augustus to invade Stygian after learning of the three Books of Death, and naturally brought him into conflict with the Undertaker, the keeper of the books. The battle between the Undertaker and the Embalmer set the prophecy into motion, as the Undertaker was exiled for a time from Stygian, taking with him one of the three books, and was reborn four hundred and fifty years or so later in the twentieth century to mortal parents. He also had a brother, Kane, who was later revealed to be the son of Undertaker's mortal mother and Paul Bearer, another transgressor into Stygian who had begun a war with the Embalmer for control of that plane of reality and who also possessed one of the three Books of Death. The Embalmer at some point found the Undertaker, not knowing at the time that he had one of the books within his body, and took him back to stygian as a slave after the Undertaker set fire to his family funeral home. Eventually, The war for stygian was taken into the rings of WWE (then the World Wrestling Federation), whereby each force involved would wage secret war against the others. The Undertaker and Kane were involved directly in battles, while Bearer and the Embalmer sent proxies to do their battling for them. Eventually, the war spilled out of the wrestling rings and became uncontainable by anything as the four major players in the story, (The Undertaker, Paul Bearer, the Embalmer, and Kane) continued to attack one another. Paul Bearer ultimately allied himself with the Undertaker, while the Embalmer forcibly enlisted Kane by holding Kane's younger half-sister Jezebelle (they share the same father) hostage. However, by the series' end, the Undertaker, Bearer, Kane, and Jezebelle combined forces to defeat the Embalmer, at the cost of the immortality and some of the powers of Undertaker and Bearer, who went off in search of the books which were scattered on Earth.

The Undertaker Halloween special depicted the Undertaker in his 'Ministry of Darkness' appearance, from 1999, having reclaimed one of the books, and battling Samhain, the Lord of the Dead, when Samhain captured the souls of Undertaker's mortal parents.