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Description
Onslaught
First Appearance: X-Men #53 (June 1996)

Wanda Maximoff's decimation wave turned mutants from humanity's next evolutionary leap to an endangered species overnight. The remains of his X-Men scattered and hiding, Charles Xavier found himself once again allying with his old college professor turned enemy, Magneto. As one of the few mutants spared their powers in the wave of chaos that spread across the Earth, Magneto had felt tremendous shame in his role in Wanda's downfall and hoped to make things right with his former pupil to explore any contingencies their people might have in the wake. Xavier had just one--a shard of the M'kraan Crystal that Lilandra had left with him, a memento of his lost student Jean Grey who had sacrificed herself to destroy it. Inside was the potential for all life, including the source of mutant abilities, but the level of power contained within was too great to use in anything but the direst of circumstances.

Convinced the shard was their only option, the pair decided to utilize it. Tethering his mind to Magneto's in case the pull became too great, Xavier used his telepathy to peer into the white hot room within and find the answers they sought. But the M'kraan was broken and fractured, and the Phoenix scattered. Mutant power did indeed pour out of the crystal, but instead of spreading, it coalesced into a single form around Xavier, refracting their combined psyches into a being pulled from their collective mindscape. Their darkest impulses and fears merged, the armored entity immediately went to work. Enslaving Magneto and destroying the Cyttorak empowered form of Cain Marko who had been protecting them, a deafening psychic wave swept over North America--join together with mutantkind, or face the onslaught.

----

"Onslaught" as humanity dubs it, is a shadow of Xavier and Magneto's combined minds, a dark reflection of their dreams that has taken over Xavier's body, a dynamo of mutant energy of terrifying power--something that should have remained within their mindscape that has escaped into the physical world. It seeks to turn all of humanity into mutants or kill them in the process, and knows that only one mutant is strong enough to help it achieve its goal: Franklin Richards. But this happens after the Thunderbolts have fallen, and the X-Men are scattered to the four winds. Who rises to meet the Onslaught (and spread its mutant power across the world to undo the decimation)? Well, this seems like a good time for a group of New Avengers to form.

Yep, everyone's favorite(?) nineties crossover villain is here. This is a missing chapter in my lore that I've had to dance around for a little while, but basically, Onslaught is what causes the end of the mutant decimation and brings together the New Avengers after the fall of the Thunderbolts. So in that way it's almost kind of the opposite of his role in the comics, where he ended up getting the FF and Avengers "killed" so they could be rebooted (which was then abandoned, it's a long story). But I like the concept of Onslaught as this thing that crosses over all three of Marvel's major teams. But what I spent most of my thoughts on was *how* and *what* Onslaught would even be. Just being Xavier's dark side (combined with Magneto's) felt too easy, I wanted him to be connected with some bigger worldbuilding. So here he is an accidental creation of Xavier and Magneto's when they use a shard of the M'kraan Crystal. And yes... he killed the Juggernaut (who at this point had been tamed/allied with Xavier) as a reference to the Juggernaut getting beaten up by Onslaught early in the crossover comics' story.

For his "first appearance" there is some disagreement over what technically counts as Onslaught's first appearance in the comics but I just went with the issue that first showed him in full.

As for his look, I wanted Onslaught to look downright biblical, this just comically powerful looking monstrosity clad in Magneto-esque armor. While it's generally pretty similar to his mainstream armored look (his first form, anyway) I did take a couple cues from Xavier's Onslaught styled armor from the Ultimate universe here and there, specifically the helmet and shoulder designs. But to really push this "descending god" look to him I gave him these bladed structures along his back as a reference to his big ole spikey shoulders that I tweaked considerably into a form that resembles both a cape and a set of four wings. I also elected him to give him this kind of marbley stone texture to both his armor and the wing blade things as I thought it made him look tougher and more otherworldly.

Description
Onslaught
First Appearance: X-Men #53 (June 1996)

Wanda Maximoff's decimation wave turned mutants from humanity's next evolutionary leap to an endangered species overnight. The remains of his X-Men scattered and hiding, Charles Xavier found himself once again allying with his old college professor turned enemy, Magneto. As one of the few mutants spared their powers in the wave of chaos that spread across the Earth, Magneto had felt tremendous shame in his role in Wanda's downfall and hoped to make things right with his former pupil to explore any contingencies their people might have in the wake. Xavier had just one--a shard of the M'kraan Crystal that Lilandra had left with him, a memento of his lost student Jean Grey who had sacrificed herself to destroy it. Inside was the potential for all life, including the source of mutant abilities, but the level of power contained within was too great to use in anything but the direst of circumstances.

Convinced the shard was their only option, the pair decided to utilize it. Tethering his mind to Magneto's in case the pull became too great, Xavier used his telepathy to peer into the white hot room within and find the answers they sought. But the M'kraan was broken and fractured, and the Phoenix scattered. Mutant power did indeed pour out of the crystal, but instead of spreading, it coalesced into a single form around Xavier, refracting their combined psyches into a being pulled from their collective mindscape. Their darkest impulses and fears merged, the armored entity immediately went to work. Enslaving Magneto and destroying the Cyttorak empowered form of Cain Marko who had been protecting them, a deafening psychic wave swept over North America--join together with mutantkind, or face the onslaught.

----

"Onslaught" as humanity dubs it, is a shadow of Xavier and Magneto's combined minds, a dark reflection of their dreams that has taken over Xavier's body, a dynamo of mutant energy of terrifying power--something that should have remained within their mindscape that has escaped into the physical world. It seeks to turn all of humanity into mutants or kill them in the process, and knows that only one mutant is strong enough to help it achieve its goal: Franklin Richards. But this happens after the Thunderbolts have fallen, and the X-Men are scattered to the four winds. Who rises to meet the Onslaught (and spread its mutant power across the world to undo the decimation)? Well, this seems like a good time for a group of New Avengers to form.

Yep, everyone's favorite(?) nineties crossover villain is here. This is a missing chapter in my lore that I've had to dance around for a little while, but basically, Onslaught is what causes the end of the mutant decimation and brings together the New Avengers after the fall of the Thunderbolts. So in that way it's almost kind of the opposite of his role in the comics, where he ended up getting the FF and Avengers "killed" so they could be rebooted (which was then abandoned, it's a long story). But I like the concept of Onslaught as this thing that crosses over all three of Marvel's major teams. But what I spent most of my thoughts on was *how* and *what* Onslaught would even be. Just being Xavier's dark side (combined with Magneto's) felt too easy, I wanted him to be connected with some bigger worldbuilding. So here he is an accidental creation of Xavier and Magneto's when they use a shard of the M'kraan Crystal. And yes... he killed the Juggernaut (who at this point had been tamed/allied with Xavier) as a reference to the Juggernaut getting beaten up by Onslaught early in the crossover comics' story.

For his "first appearance" there is some disagreement over what technically counts as Onslaught's first appearance in the comics but I just went with the issue that first showed him in full.

As for his look, I wanted Onslaught to look downright biblical, this just comically powerful looking monstrosity clad in Magneto-esque armor. While it's generally pretty similar to his mainstream armored look (his first form, anyway) I did take a couple cues from Xavier's Onslaught styled armor from the Ultimate universe here and there, specifically the helmet and shoulder designs. But to really push this "descending god" look to him I gave him these bladed structures along his back as a reference to his big ole spikey shoulders that I tweaked considerably into a form that resembles both a cape and a set of four wings. I also elected him to give him this kind of marbley stone texture to both his armor and the wing blade things as I thought it made him look tougher and more otherworldly.