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Nyx (Earth-616)

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Quote1 How can you stop me? How can you do anything but watch? I am mankind's first darkness. I am midnight and moonrise. I am a primal being, greater than gods... What are you? Quote2
—Nyx[src]

History

Nyx was born within the darkness before creation, emerging from the void itself.[1] Her peaceful slumber was interrupted by the expansion of light, with which came Zeus, the god of sky and lightning. They were joined by other gods into forming the Olympians. Nyx became an outcast within her people, harboring a disdain for the Olympians' pageantries. When Nyx noticed the other gods had children which made them happy, she tried to emulate them. Three days after dreaming of the darkness and its stillness, Nyx gave birth to Hypnos, the God of Sleep.

With the evolution of mankind, the night and the dark became correlative to the unknowns humanity feared. Mortal storytellers used their words to dispel these terrors and find comfort in heroes of myth, shaping Zeus and his children into these ever-growing heroes, causing Nyx to become their opposite. With each legion of followers the Olympians gained, both Nyx's rage and the Olympian's contempt for her grew stronger. Following another dream with her mind filled with thoughts of betrayal, Nyx gave birth to the twins Apate and Dolos, the Gods of Deceit and Trickery, respectively.

Nyx (Earth-616), Hypnos (Earth-616), Oizys (Earth-616), Apate (Olympian) (Earth-616) and Dolos (Earth-616) from Avengers No Road Home Vol 1 4 001

Nyx and her children imprisoned

Conflict between Nyx and her children and the Olympians became inevitable. When a war broke out, Nyx and her children were defeated by the rest of the Olympians. Zeus shattered Nyx's soul into three Night Shards to depower her, and then cast her out along with her children into a prison of darkness, ensuring their confinement with a spell that sealed their fate for as long as the Sun shone upon the Earth. Out of her hatred, Nyx manifested her fourth and most powerful child, Oizys, the Goddess of Misery.

Nyx and her children remained chained to their prison of darkness until the Modern Age. During a conflict between two Elders of the Universe, the Grandmaster and the Challenger, the Earth was briefly removed from its orbit around the Sun. With the spell of imprisonment broken, Nyx rallied her children against the Olympians. Believing the gods, the mortals and the universe itself to have all been spoiled after an eternity of mistreatment, Nyx set out to recreate the universe to her image, returning everything to a state of empty and pure darkness.[8] Nyx's return was heralded by the sudden blackout of every source of light in the universe, including the stars themselves.[3] When Nyx and her children arrived on Olympus, they slaughtered all the gods present in the scene, including Zeus, whose mind Nyx probed for the whereabouts of the Night Shards.[9]

Nyx's return to the universe was sensed by Voyager, the daughter of the Grandmaster, who then observed the Olympian massacre. Realizing that her father's scheme had facilitated the freedom of the Queen of Night, she assembled a group of Avengers to stop Nyx, including Hercules, the son of Zeus. When these heroes reached Olympus, they stumbled into the massacre of gods,[3] and Nyx returned to confront the heroes with Oizys while the rest of her children went to retrieve the Night Shards. The heroes' efforts to fight Nyx and Oizys were futile, and the Queen of Night enchanted the Scarlet Witch's eyes to see through them as her own in the process. After sensing the location of Nyx's children, Voyager split the Avengers and teleported them to the two locations, Omnipotence City and Nightmare's Realm, inadvertently leaving herself to Nyx's clutches.[9]

Nyx (Earth-616) from Avengers No Road Home Vol 1 5 001

Nyx claiming a Night Shard

While Apate and Dolos were fighting the Avengers at Omnipotence City, Nyx appeared and claimed the first shard, the Night That Was from Lord Librarian.[8] Before Nyx could deduce how to access the shard's power once more, the heroes caused a diversion that resulted in Voyager teleporting the Scarlet Witch away with the shard to the Hyborian Age. When Nyx telepathically checked up on Hypnos's progress at Nightmare's Realm, she witnessed her son's death at the hands of the Hulk, who took the Night Shard there, The Night That May Yet Be, for himself. In anger, Nyx lashed out against Hercules and the Vision,[2] accidentally killing Apate and Dolos instead since Spectrum had used her powers to turn herself into a holographic shell that disguised Vision and Hercules as the twins and vice versa.[10]

In the Hyborian Age, the Scarlet Witch went on a journey with the local barbarian Conan to retrieve the Night Shard, accidentally summoning Nyx when she touched the shard.[11] Spectrum lifted Hercules and Vision's disguises and the combined forces of the heroes tried to stop Nyx. With the shard in hand, the Queen of Night eventually realized she needed to destroy it to gain its power. Doing so empowered Nyx, bind her to the other fragments, and caused her to catch a glimpse of a mysterious house in a vision. Nyx teleported herself back to the present to find the final shard, leaving Oizys to deal with the Avengers,[10] though she would meet her end instead.

In the present, Nyx arrived on the living planet Euphoria, where the Hulk's group was searching the last shard. After forcing the Hulk to transform back into Bruce Banner, Nyx took the power of the Night Shard he had absorbed, once again causing her to catch a glimpse of the mysterious house.[12] The Avengers left in the Hyborian Age followed Nyx, but their confrontation against the Queen of Night was interrupted by the corporeal manifestation of Euphoria. Since the warring between the Avengers and Nyx threatened to disrupt her paradise, Euphoria attempted to deescalate the conflict, and she eventually allowed Nyx to strip The Night That Is off her body.

Vision (Earth-616) vs

Nyx's defeat

Returned to her godhood, Nyx was able to pinpoint the location of the mysterious house, the House of Ideas. Realizing the house was the dwelling space of the fundamental creative force of reality, Nyx teleported herself to it to claim it as a seat of power from which she could remake the universe. The Avengers managed to follow her, but only Vision was able to get inside.[13] Inside the blank void within the house, Vision combined his knowledge from the Avengers files within his database with the house's nature to summon an army of constructs of Earth's mightiest heroes. This manifestation of the light of the human spirit pushed back against Nyx, weakening her until Vision, engulfed by this light's fire, burned the Queen of Nights to cinders. With her final words, Nyx swore that this fire wouldn't be able to burn her away forever. Following Nyx's defeat, the universal blackout caused by her return stopped.[5]

The global nights caused by Knull's and Varnae's invasions revived Nyx and restored her power, and so she went to Antarctica where its natural darkness let her revive her children. They ambushed Hercules, Thor, and Loki, who sought them out, but they were cast into the Land Without Suns.[1] Zeus was also imprisoned there, and the pair decided to give rise to a race of dark gods to conquer the universe. However, Hercules showed her that the plane was the domain she longed for. Nyx decided to stay there and build worlds, disintegrating Apate and Oizys as those world would not need the things they represented.[7]

Attributes

Powers

Olympian Deity Physiology: Nyx possesses the conventional superhuman attributes of an Olympian Deity, including superhuman reflexes, speed, strength, durability and immortality. She was capable of effortlessly dodging attacks from the Avengers, forcing Hawkeye to try to predict Nyx's movements to hit her, and taking a blow from Hercules with little damage.[9] She has also displayed the ability to fly.[12]

  • Umbrakinesis: Nyx can control darkness and shadows as if they were physical constructs,[9] most notably using them to bind opponents.[8] She can additionally summon humanoid shadow constructs.[10] Nyx can also generate bursts of shadows capable of reducing her own children to ashes.[2]
    • Shadow Form: Nyx can also become a shadow herself to slip through the grasp of enemies.[9]
  • Parthenogenesis: Nyx was capable of conceiving children without a partner, seemingly sired by her strongest feelings at the moment, whose capabilities followed those circumstances.[9] Later, Nyx also showcased that she could easily also disintigrate her children against their will with a thought, showing that she possess absolute control over them as her creations.[7]
  • Blindness Inducement: Nyx was capable of blinding Scarlet Witch while also linking their minds, making her only capable of seeing Nyx, her children and the Night Shards.[14]
  • Teleportation: Nyx possesses the ability to teleport herself and other people across time and space.[9] When she used her powers to blind the Scarlet Witch and connect their minds, Nyx was capable of teleporting herself to the Scarlet Witch's location when Wanda came into contact with a Night Shard.[11]
  • Size Alteration: Nyx has the ability to manipulate her size. Her power of alteration allows her to become much larger than her normal form.[7]
  • Claws: Nyx uses her sharpened nails like a weapon, and they are capable of piercing the Hulk's skin.[9]
  • Time Traveling: Nyx opened a portal to the Hyborian Age to retrieve a Shard of Night.[11]
  • Telepathy: Nyx could telepathically contact Hypnos prior to his death.[2]
  • Shield Generation: Nyx has displayed the ability to manifest the Moon as a protective shield.[10]
  • Self-Resurrection: If Nyx dies, she can return to life if night falls over the whole world at once.[1]
  • Resurrection: Nyx is capable of reviving her children when at full power.[1]
  • Lunakinesis: As the goddess of night, Nyx could control any moon and use them to crash on her opponents.[7]

Notes

  • The character Nox, who debuted in Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #31, was originally considered to be Nyx. Following Nyx's debut in Avengers No Road Home, the series' co-writer Jim Zub established that Nox was in fact not the true Olympian Goddess of Darkness.[6]
  • The following is the original description for Nyx written by Avengers No Road Home writers Mark Waid, Al Ewing and Jim Zub for Joshua James Shaw, the designer of Nyx and her children: "The Mother of Night is almost vampiric in appearance, with albino, marble-like white skin set against a thick black hooded cloak that seeems to meld with her impossibly black hair. Her nails, hands and forearms are black, speckled with stars (stars in the sky, not five-pointed iconcs of stars) that get more numerous and dense until the white skin resumes by the elbow. Nyx's eyes are solid black glistening marbles, with no pupils."[9]

Trivia

  • Athena has claimed that Nyx's name must never be said. When the Scarlet Witch did so, it seemed to summon Nyx.[3]
  • In Defenders (Vol. 6) #5, the Defenders travel back to the Third Cosmos and help destroy the Anti-All, a primordial manifestation of nothingness. When the creature is shattered into seemingly one piece for every universe, Doctor Strange theorizes that when heroes fight against "the great nothing" in their own times, they're fighting back the Anti-All as well. This could mean that a being like Nyx who is the Olympian Goddess of Darkness could have been born out of the Anti-All's fracture.

See Also

Links and References

References

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