WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Empyre: X-Men #2, by Gerry Duggan, Ben Percy, Leah Williams, Lucas Werneck, Nolan Woodard and VC's Clayton Cowles, on sale now.

Empyre and the Cotatoi invasion has made its way to Krakoa and the X-Men's radar as Magik and her team join up with some familiar foes. However, despite having such a powerful team, Black Tom resorts to calling in some back up for his fellow mutants. This back up comes in the form of Mutant telepaths, including the Shadow King, making him the latest former villain to join forces with the X-Men on Krakoa and one of Marvel's creepiest new heroes.

While we last saw Amahl Farouk in Charles Soule and Gerardo Sandoval's Astonishing X-Men #12, the Krakoan inspired mutant unity has paved away for his return as an ally to the X-Men. However, despite joining the team, Shadow King has a long history as a villain both on-page, as a comic book character, and on-screen, in the FX series Legion and the '90s X-Men: The Animated Series.

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Claiming to be a multiversal manifestation of human darkness, the Shadow King first appeared in Chris Claremont and John Byrne's X-Men #117, which tells the story of Charles Xavier's first encounter with Storm and the Shadow King which led him to start his school for Mutants. He would battle with various X-Men teams over the years before seemingly being killed by Charles Xavier in Charles Soule and Gerardo Sandoval's Astonishing X-Men #12.

The Shadow King would go on to make an appearance in the popular '90s animated X-Men series, appearing in 3 episodes starting with a retelling of his comic book origin in Season 2, Episode 3, "Whatever It Takes," voiced by Maurice Dean Wint. He would also go on to appear in the Wolverine and the X-Men episode "Overflow".

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Shadow King Astonishing X-Men Cropped

The Shadow King was the primary antagonist in FX's live-action TV series Legion, appearing as 3 different characters; Aubrey Plaza's Lenny Busker, Navid Negahban's Amahl Farouk, and Dan Steven's Yellow-Eyed Devil. This version of the Shadow King occupies a part of Charles Xavier's son David Haller's brain before eventually escaping and facing off with the young mutant.

Despite his villainous past, it seems that Charles Xavier and company deemed him worthy of a revival and chance to work with them. Knowing what we do about the Shadow King, his appearance on Krakoa only furthers the questions we have about the mutants' willingness to work with their former foes.

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