plague-4935-tankplague-4935-massive cloudThe PLAGUE
(Earth-4935)

Real Name: Unrevealed

Identity/Class: Alternate Reality (Earth-4935 circa 37th Century A.D.) mutate

Occupation: Bio-weapon;
    previous career of the person whose corpse was made into the Plague is unrevealed

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Diamanda Nero

Enemies: Ch'vayre, Luminesca, Qua, The Scavengers Colony, people of the Skyfall Crater Enclave (2752 unidentified humans and mutants)

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Unrevealed;
    formerly Apocalypse's royal citadel

First Appearance: X-Men: Phoenix#2 (January, 2000)

Powers/Abilities: The Plague was a reanimated and mobile corpse that carried an extremely virulent and fatal (typically within seconds) disease that spread into a cloud surrounding the central form.

    Plague's disease could kill a population of thousands within 48 hours, although the contagion itself died within 24 hours, after which the region would be safe for others to visit.

Height: Unrevealed (his corpse-form may have only been 10-15' tall, but he took on an immense form (perhaps 30-50') that was somewhat like a cloud filled with "bio-toxin," although it appeared to be solid enough to climb up and over a cliff...or perhaps it was just floating)
Weight: Unrevealed (his unrevealed composition makes weight approximation virtually impossible)
Eyes: Unrevealed (within a gas-filled tank, they looked solid yellow, but solid black in other images; most likely his corpse-form did not have eyes anymore)
Hair: None (hair of host body while living is unrevealed)
plague-4935-risefromcliff

History:
(
X-Men: Phoenix#2 (fb) - BTS) - Circa the 37th Century A.D. in Reality-4935, Plague was formed -- presumably by agents of Prelate Diamanda Nero, who led while Apocalypse was in a regeneration process -- from the animated corpse of a man made into a shambling monster.

(X-Men: Phoenix#2 (fb) - BTS) - Prelate Diamanda Nero used the Skyfall Crater Enclave as a test of Plague as a weapon in their arsenal. Plague's virulent disease rapidly wiped out the 2752 people, both human and mutant living there.

(X-Men: Phoenix#2 - BTS) - Forty-eight hours later, Nero led her agents the siblings Ch'vayre and Luminesca to investigate. Confirming no survivors, Diamanda was pleased to have another weapon in their arsenal and informed her agents that she wished them both in her chambers at midnight as she wanted to celebrate. 

(X-Men: Phoenix#2 (fb) - BTS) - After a temporal variant of Rachel Summers (who would become Mother Askani) destroyed a converter feed in Hellhole that cut power across half of the continent, including the megalopolis of Crestcoast, only Apocalypse's royal citadel remained lit.plague-4935-luminesca

(X-Men: Phoenix#2) - Nero noted it to be fortunate that their generators were independent of the Hellhole feed, because if the containment cell regulating their toxic friend (Plague) were to suddenly lose power, they would be disease-ridden and dying in no time. After Luminesca noted that this was likely the work of a group of insurrectionists known as the Askani, Diamanda instructed that they would find these Askani and show them that no one was outside of her rule.

(X-Men: Phoenix#2 (fb) - BTS) - Nero unleashed Plague on the Scavenger Colony, a group of nomadic humans who learned to survive on the discarded remains of previous generations.

(X-Men: Phoenix#2 - BTS) - As Rachel Summers and her associates -- Blaquesmith, Malachi Hark, Lexii, Ozana and Qua -- visited the Scavenger Colony, Rachel sensed only the dying thoughts of a few scavengers holding on to life but apparently delirious with fever; she was unable to soothe their pain.plague-4935-cured

     Qua, an Atlantean elemental existing in watery form, investigated the colony, believing herself immune. However, Qua was infected as well and only had time to inform Rachel that Plague -- an abomination that carried a fatal disease -- was responsible, before perishing. Rachel appreciated that this was Diamanda Nero's doing.

    After Ch'vayre and Luminesca advised Nero that they believed that the Askani were near the Scavengers Colony, and that three of them were mutants (with one being a telepath, one robotic and one unclassifiable), Nero told them them to go bring their heads back on a platter.

(X-Men: Phoenix#2) - Malachi Hark subsequently noted as Plague came over the hill: "The air's gone dead. I never imagined corruption would have such a distinct scent. How does one fight an ambulatory disease?"

    Lexi replied that the thing was a man once, just like all of Apocalypse's agents, and than men could be killed, they just had to know the right spot and one of them had to get close enough.

    Rachel ordered her associates to fall back to put some distance between them and that thing until they knew how to deal with it, but they were then confronted by Ch'vayre and Luminesca who advised the Askani that they were not going anywhere. However, the ground then began to shake, and Luminesca appreciated as seismic charges went off that Nero had set them up to fall before the plague as well. Ch'vayre blamed Luminesca for being insubordinate to Nero for this fate.

    After Blaquesmith found a pair of glider wings invented by his past associate Grevuss Angel, Rachel had Hark fly Blaquesmith and Lexii to safety. She then convinced Ch'vayre and Luminesca to work together with her and her android ally Ozana to stop the Plague; she suggested that they could work out their ideological differences later.

    Despite Ch'vayre's warning, Luminesca rushed toward Plague, insisting that she could change the structure of the toxic gas with a simple photonic burst. For a moment, the Plague stopped, overcome by the searing intensity, but then the winds shifted and toxic cloud surrounded Luminesca, who swiftly perished. While Ch'vayre rushed toward the cloud in a vain effort to save his sister, Ozana stopped him at Rachel's instruction, hoping they might make an ally of him in the future.

    Rachel then instructed Ozana that if she failed in what she was about to attempt, that she and the others were to carry on the fight against Apocalypse and Nero. Although her physical form was overcome by the toxins, Rachel purified Plague's lethal biology. However, Rachel was then restored/reborn via the Phoenix Force
 
 

Comments: Created by John Francis Moore and Pascal Alixe.

    Chronology of Earth-4935 is complex and most likely contradicted in subsequent stories, some of which are total time travel shenanigans that really should be diverging other realities.
    Circa 2005 when we wrote the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes 2005, information indicated that the temporally divergent Rachel in this story arrived there 100 years before the psyches of Scott Summers/Cyclops and Jean Grey/Marvel Girl were brought forward in time and placed in the clones Redd and Slym, and then they raised young Nathan for several years before the Christmas 3806 A.D. date, so that would seem to put the arrival of the Rachel that formed the Askani sometime in the 37th Century A.D.

   This profile was completed 12/23/2025, but its publication was delayed as it was intended for the Appendix 25th anniversary 's celebratory event.

Profile by Snood.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Plague
should be distinguished from:



images
: (without ads)

X-Men: Phoenix#2, pg. 8, panel 3 (in tank);
       pg. 15, panel 7 (rising over edge of cliff behind Lexii);
       pg. 18, panel 3 (Luminesca blasting Plague);
       pg. 19, panel 1 (Ch'vayre charging);
       pg. 20, panel 4 (dying)


Appearances:
X-Men: Phoenix#2 (January, 2000) - John Francis Moore (writer), Pascal Alixe (penciler), John Czop, Mark McKenna & Larry Stucker (inkers), Mike Marts (editor)

First posted: 09/24/2026
Last updated: 12/23/2025

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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