Necrom
First Appearance: Excalibur 45, after a few mentions here and (mostly) there.
Died In: Excalibur 50
What's His Problem? Sorcerer Supreme of his race, Necrom desired a powerful energy matrix that only formed during rare and brief dimensional alignments, and he wanted to merge all available realities and become a god in the ensuing chaos. He didn't bother to tell his students (Merlyn and Feron) when they traveled to Earth 616 (the Marvel Earth we know, love and get confused by), where Feron had the Phoenix duplicate a tower across the multiverse as "a cosmic lynchpin". Necrom's plans at the time were foiled, so he traveled (and presumably conquered) various other Earths while Merlyn controlled the energy matrix. Both planned and schemed for centuries before a true dimensional convergence came around in the 1990s. Got all that?
Powers: Necrom's magic included energy blasts and shields, plus animating large rock creatures and zombies (his favorite). As an energy vampire, he could absorb the life force of anyone he grasped, leaving mummified corpses while sustaining his power. He eventually gained part of the Phoenix power and with it flight, psychic abilities, telekinesis, increased durability and, yes, stretching his arms several yards. He got more powerful when Rachel Summers used the Phoenix too. He was quite healthy for his age, but time certainly didn't improve his complexion.
Favorite Quote: "Barbarian, your primitive instincts betray you. Like a beast sensing defeat, you resort to a futile physical attack -- and in doing so you deliver the Phoenix to me." (Excalibur 50. Necrom chides Rachel for resorting to fisticuffs after their planet-busting, moon-tossing, star-igniting-then-exploding battle. Alas, his next words were more or less "Uk... uk... UK...")
Heroes He Keeps Running Into: Necrom's decades-long reign on Ee'Rath (Earth 148) was finally undone by the rebellion of Kylun (former Earth 616 resident Colin McKay), who chased him into one of those crazy towers back to Marvel Earth. Time, however, gets all screwy between dimensions so Kylun didn't catch up with Necrom for a month, durin which the sorcerer had his slave creature steal druid artifacts in England and tangle with Ms. Summers and Nightcrawler's Technet (don't ask). Kylun finally arrived to give Excalibur a hand, as did the warrior Cerise, Feron's snooty same-named descendant and the mutant Micromax. Finally, Rachel fought Necrom solo in outer space for the Phoenix. She let him have it, or rather the vast elemental forces it could tap into, resulting in Necrom's atoms being blasted far and wide in the great unknown. Almost as Merlyn predicted...
People Who Think He's Not So Bad: Any respect his former students had for him vanished after his first crack at multiversal destruction. On Ee'Rath, he employed plenty of large armored soldiers as well as pompous, floating magic druids who couldn't take a little cold steel. That slave creature of his was just a puppet to his will, as was the Anti-Phoenix, a millennia-old corpse kept more-or-less alive via a Phoenix-portion torn from the original Feron; thousands of years later, Necrom literally sucked it out of the thing. (Ick! Mouthwash, anyone?)
Most Despicable Act: Hard to choose, let's see... on a grand scale, he ordered the attack on Ee'Rath's exiled royal household which killed the queen, her counselor and thousands more. On Earth, he personally killed an entire unit from F.I.6, some secret British group, feasting on the lives of at least 19 people. Wait! He really sank low by slaying Kylun's lover, the witch queen Sa'Tneen, whose corpse he later animated just to set Kylun up for an ambush. Kylun, sword-wielding cat-eyed mutant rebel that he is, lost his cool while Necrom lost an eye. (I'd say "Get the point?", but Jeanne won't let me get away with that...)
Hold on! What about Merlin? First off, it's spelled "Merlyn" in these issues, though Marvel's had at least three "Merlins". Anyway, Merlyn manipulated Excalibur so they would repair damage to the multiverse, save his energy matrix and defeat Necrom while he sat back and watched. His daughter Roma, however, regretted the whole rotten deal and let Excalibur destroy the towers that kept the matrix constant. Merlyn left angry and has been nursing a severe case of pique ever since. (Is it just me, or are all these mystic cosmic-powered immortals a bunch of incredibly sore losers?)
by Ray Schaff
