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Quote1 Life Seeds used to plant life on new worlds by Celestial Gardeners. Death Seeds intended to grow new Apocalypse servants to shepherd their evolution. Such incredibly difficult little items to acquire. Quote2
Eimin of the Apocalypse Twins[src]

Life Seeds are life-giving Celestial artifacts used by their Gardeners. They are the antithesis of the Death Seeds.[1]

History

Celestial Gardeners[]

Life Seeds are created by Celestial Gardeners every few thousand years, who plant them on barren planets.[2]

Dark Angel Saga[]

Following Apocalypse's death,[3] the malicious "Archangel" persona of Warren Worthington, born from a Death Seed, began to ascend as Apocalypse's heir.[4] To cleanse Warren of the Death Seed's influence, Dark Beast suggested to go to the Age of Apocalypse to retrieve a Life Seed he had stashed there.[2] However, due to a misunderstanding with the local X-Men, the Life Seed was destroyed and Dark Beast retreated back to Earth-616, stranding the X-Force in the Age of Apocalypse.[5] The X-Men retrieved a second Life Seed from a fallen Celestial Gardener; instead of using it on their own Apocalypse heir Weapon Omega, they gave it to the X-Force for Archangel and sent them back home.[6]

Life Seed from Uncanny X-Force Vol 1 18 001

A Life Seed being used on Archangel

Archangel and Dark Beast had been working together and stole the Life Seed as soon as the X-Force returned. Because M-Day had interferred with the planet's natural evolution, Archangel intended on using the Life Seed to restart evolution by wiping out the current world and growing a new one from scratch.[7] As a test run, they destroyed a town in Montana and created Tabula Rasa.[8] Archangel's plans were ultimately foiled and he was stabbed by the Life Seed by Psylocke, which purged the Archangel persona but also Warren's original self.[9]

Age of Apocalypse[]

Back in the Age of Apocalypse, Dark Beast was able to conserve a limited amount of energy from the Seed he had before it got destroyed. He used it to revive multiple deceased mutants, such as Cyclops.[10]

Apocalypse Twins[]

Archangel's heirs, the Apocalypse Twins, used Life Seeds to resurrect the Sentry, Banshee, Grim Reaper, and Daken. The Twins then used Death Seeds on them to turn them into the Four Horsemen of Death.[11]

X-Men Disassembled & Age of X-Man[]

After X-Man had been severely depowered by the Omega Machine,[12] he used a Life Seed to restore his powers and increased them to greater heights than ever before, but he was once again dying.[13] He used his godlike powers to form the Horsemen of Salvation and attempted to make the world perfect.[14] The X-Men resisted and X-Man was forced to battle them.[15]

Nathaniel Grey (Earth-295) from Uncanny X-Men Vol 5 10 002

X-Man with a Life Seed

The Life Seed would not let X-Man nor the X-Men die, so it merged with X-Man and created the Age of X-Man plane, a mutant-only paradise. X-Man tried to wipe the X-Men's memories so they could live out their days in his utopia, but their memories eventually returned. When confronted again by the X-Men, they convinced X-Man to end the Age of X-Man and he offered them the Life Seed to do it, but he warned them that it would also end him and all life there. In the end, he sent everyone back home and he remained in the Age of X-Man with the Life Seed.[16]

Properties

Quote1 In your...previous life, you had an encounter with something called a Celestial Life Seed. It's a sort of alien genesis bomb, designed to regrow whole worlds. Instead it regrew you. As the old you died, a new you was born from this seed. A whole new mind. New personality. New powers as well, apparently, judging by these energy blasts you've described. Since being reborn, you've continued growing, changing at a remarkable rate. The power of this Life Seed still courses through your veins, a power that is nothing less than staggering in its potential. Quote2
Beast[src]
Tabula Rasa (Montana) from Uncanny X-Force Vol 1 15 001

Creating Tabula Rasa

Life Seeds are artifacts of Celestial design, created as one string of a number of cosmic relics forged by the Celestials. They are carried by the Celestial Gardeners to be used to plant life on new worlds according to their scheme.[2][11] This process will deplete it, however, though its energy can be used in small doses, as seen with Tabula Rasa.[8]

Life Seeds can be used to break the influence of the Death Seeds by implanting it into the infected person.[4] However, in the only example seen, the Life Seed destroyed both Warren's original and Archangel personas, and regrew him with a completely new persona.[17] Additionally, it gave him new abilities, such as resurrection (he revived a recently-deceased dog),[18] energy blasts,[19] energy swords,[20] and just general overall enhancements. Beast speculated that Warren would die if he used up the Seed's power,[20] but this is not proven.

Life Seed from Uncanny Avengers Vol 1 9 001

Resurrecting the dead

Life Seeds can bring the dead back to life. The Apocalypse Twins utilized them to revive a group of deceased mutants and superhumans to serve as their Horsemen.[11] The Seed itself is not required as Dark Beast was capable of reviving dozens of dead mutants with just some residue energy from a Seed.[10]

Age of X-Man (Plane) from Age of X-Man Omega Vol 1 1 001

The Age of X-Man

Life Seeds can also amplify and restore powers,[13] as demonstrated with X-Man after his powers had been nearly depleted by the Omega Machine.[12] With a Life Seed, Nate displayed feats such as turning an oil rig into a jungle[21] and turned many powerful mutants into Horsemen of Salvation.[14] Most impressively, the Life Seed combined with X-Man's energies created an entirely new plane of existence, the Age of X-Man.[16] Nate was so powerful with the Life Seed that Legion considered putting him on a level above Omega.[14]

Notes

See Also

Links and References

References

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