Phalanx (comics)

While their true origins are still unclear, Phalanx were thought to be formed when organic lifeforms are infected with the Technarchy's techno-organic transmode virus,[1] but in fact they are actually an artificial intelligence that operates on a galactic scale, and has total control of a host galaxy.[2] The Phalanx have existed for 100,000 life cycles and have the collective knowledge of previous generations. Their ultimate goal is to consume the whole universe to expand its intelligence and to control the means to do so. They are infected with a Techno-Organic Virus and created the Technarchy to act as their cosmic janitors. The Phalanx may even be a higher evolution of the Technarchy or be multiple Technarchies that are unaware of each other's existence. What is known is when the Phalanx reach a populated planet, they inspect its society. If the society is judged unworthy, the planet is seeded with the Techno-Organic Virus which compels the victims to infect each other until reaching critical mass. At that time, by hard-wired instruction, they build a "Babel Spire" to contact and attract the Technarchy. Once a Technarch arrives, they invariably destroy the Phalanx "nest", usually by converting the entire planet into techno-organic matter and draining its energy. However, if the society is found worthy, their tangible forms and world will be destroyed as fodder for the Phalanx, but the population's minds, memories and intelligence will be assimilated and live forever on within the Phalanx's hivemind.

The Phalanx on Earth were initially formed by a group of human mutant haters who voluntarily infected themselves with the Transmode virus, taken from the ashes of Warlock, a renegade Technarch who had joined the New Mutants, in an attempt to turn them into "living Sentinels". Steven Lang, the man who had used the Sentinels against the X-Men many years before, was recruited from a mental hospital to become an "interface". Uninfected by the Transmode virus, Lang was meant to be a buffer, keeping the Phalanx "on track" for its intended purpose.[3] Lang was assisted by Cameron Hodge, a fellow anti-mutant with immortality obtained from the demon N'astirh. Years ago, in a failed effort to contract the Transmode virus, Hodge had killed Warlock. In an attempt to destroy Archangel, Hodge used a Phalanx construct of Candy Southern.[4]

Phalanx' initial attempt to assimilate mutants into its collective was thwarted by the natural resistance of mutants to the Transmode virus. In a scheme to subvert the X-Men's mutant genome knowledge base, Phalanx attacked the X-Mansion, kidnapped most of the X-Men and replaced them with disguised Phalanx members. Banshee returned to the school after the attack and kidnappings. The imposters' ignorance of Professor X's inability to walk alerted Banshee to their deception. Sabretooth, recruited from a cell in the complex, joined with Banshee to save Emma Frost and Jubilee. When Banshee discovered the Phalanx had accessed the location of several young mutants for use in further study, he alerted Wolverine and Cable. In turn, they recruited Cyclops and Jean Grey. Professor X, Excalibur, X-Factor and X-Force sought the location of a third, unknown, group of Phalanx. To prevent the Phalanx from accessing any further information, Banshee destroyed the knowledge base.[5]

While Banshee's group scrambled to save the young mutants, they were followed closely by the Phalanx impersonating several beings, notably police officers. The group was joined by the mutant Synch that could copy powers which proved helpful as Banshee's screams easily subdued many Phalanx entities. The rest of the targeted mutants were being held by Harvest in an old, decommissioned battleship and disguised itself as Gregor, an imprisoned farm boy-type mutant.[6] The disguise was suspected by some of the prisoners.[7] Eventually, the group saved all the targeted new mutants except for Blink having sacrificed herself to save the rest and killing Harvest.[8]

The rest of these young mutants went on to become the core of Generation X, tutored by Banshee and Emma Frost. Meanwhile, the other mutant teams found a group of Phalanx attempting to follow their genetic instruction to construct a Babel Spire to contact the Technarchy. Douglock led a small team consisting of Forge, Wolfsbane and Cannonball in destroying the spire. Cyclops' group assaulted the core Phalanx base on Mount Everest, where the X-Men were held. They were covertly assisted by Lang having realised the Phalanx had grown beyond his ability to manipulate and were threatening the general human population. The smaller Phalanx nests around the world were destroyed as a result of this confrontation.[9]

Much later it was revealed that before the Phalanx Covenant happened, Mister Sinister managed to capture one member of this techno-organic race and experimented upon it in order to clone himself into the single-minded collective. As Sinister experimented on it, the Phalanx member lost the mental link to its brethren. When Sinister eventually succeeded, he destroyed the lab and everything inside, including most of this being. A scrap of it remained and combined with earthworms, which didn't have minds, so they simply added to its physical makeup, growing and growing slowly. Upon surfacing, it attempted to link up with the Phalanx, but was too weak. Left alone, it eventually discovered that when it attempted to assimilate humans to form a new collective mind, their minds are wiped out and the humans essentially die, adding just their physical mass. Desperate to locate the rest of the Phalanx, to once more feel the sense of unity and togetherness they shared, it absorbed more and more people, hopping to gain the strength needed to signal them. However its energy signature is detected by Agent Abigail Brand of S.W.O.R.D. alerting the X-Men, horrified to find this Phalanx member had absorbed an entire town. As the X-Men face it they can't prevent this Phalanx from turning into a Babel Spire so it could contact the Technarchy, yet, things do not go as it hoped, and the X-Men eventually destroyed the techno-organic virus as Storm wonders, "It said we didn't understand. Could we have understood one another? Is there anything we shared?" Cyclops' response, "I doubt we'll ever know."[10]

Clones of the Phalanx (and others) remain captive in Mister Sinister's prize collection.[11]

Another group of Phalanx later almost decimated the Shi'ar Empire in the absence of the Imperial Guard. With their bodies now pitch-black, except for a few red and blue glowing sensor slits, this new breed only displayed the basic Phalanx and Technarchy features while shapeshifting or when individuals were damaged. These Phalanx also considered themselves as "pure" Phalanx compared to such sects like the one on Earth and hadn't any reservations about infecting mutants with the transmode virus as they almost transformed Rogue.[12] The Phalanx made their way to Chandilar, the throneworld of the Shi'ar Empire where they tried to assimilate the "Nest", actually the hatching chamber where all Shi'ar eggs were being nurtured. Had they succeeded, the entire next generation of Shi'ar would have become part of the Phalanx collective. However, Beast developed a device that would emit a certain frequency to separate the organic from the technological part, causing all Phalanx within its range to dissolve but not before thousands or more Shi'ar were massacred.[13] The rest of this group later conquered another planet,[14] but were destroyed by the Magus after the construction of a Babel Spire.[15]

A new breed of Phalanx is seen in Annihilation: Conquest, the sequel to the Annihilation crossover, as the primary villain with the Super-Adaptoid as an enforcer. They tried to begin where Annihilus left off. When the Kree began the test of the new defensive network, the Phalanx managed to corrupt the system directly through the Kree homeworld of Hala, surrounding the entire Kree Empire in an inescapable energy barrier. They also spread their Transmode Virus, turning all organic life forms into Phalanx, fully under their control and members of their single-minded matrix. High-powered beings such as Ronan the Accuser were made into their group Select, used to cut off any attempts to stop the spread and control of the Phalanx. The Kree who didn't fall under control fought back against their oppressors as well as Quasar (Phyla Vell), Moondragon, Adam Warlock, Star-Lord and the Dirty Half Dozen only to discover that the Phalanx were under Ultron's guidance.[16]

1,000 years set in the future, the Phalanx are apparently summoned to Earth by a signal sent by the Librarian, one member of the artificially created race known as Post-Humans or "Homo novissima", the genetically engineered next step of human evolution that will rule the Earth and bring mutants nearly to extinction, who appears to be searching for a chance to use their library of mutant consciousness to ascend into the Phalanx's intelligence to create something more. Machine and mutant sentience could come together instead of the endless cycle of war that has come to define tale after tale of mutants vs. sentinels.[17] While the Phalanx ultimately agree to the Librarian's offering, therefore initiating the "Ascencion", the process that leads to the assimilation of their entire race and world into the Phalanx, so that they can fuel the work the Phalanx does in service for the Titans.[18] However the true goal of the Librarian is for the Post-Humans to reach Godhood, as while no longer having a physical body after the Phalanx assimilate them, their psyche will still exist beyond space and time.[19]

Titans act as the "masters" of the techno-organic beings known as Phalanx. They are singularities of consciousness so vast and dense, that they have caved in on their own combined intelligence to form black holes. They are also singular intellects and not a collective or a group. A single black hole is a Titan intelligence, up to five black holes confined to a galactic cluster or a dense collection of stacked galaxies becomes a Stronghold, warring factions seeking to actively destroy or absorb other Strongholds in order to achieve Dominion status which is when 10 or more of these incomprehensible cosmologically-scaled beings act in unison to control a particular sector or sectors of space in both the area and epochs of time, becoming galaxy-spanning, interconnected tears in the fabric of existence. The only primal threats to them are Galactus and the Phoenix. Once the Phalanx assimilates a worthy society, thousands of years of memory, feelings and intelligence, will become a part of the very beating heart of the cosmos itself.

In the possible future known as 2099, the Phalanx tried to invade the planet Earth a second time. To prevent Earth from being converted by the Transmode Virus, Spider-Man (Miguel O'Hara) forms an uneasy alliance with Dr. Doom, who had encountered the Phalanx in their first attempt to invade Earth in the 20th century. Doom knew that the Phalanx would have a "scout program" so he added his own subroutine to the coding called subroutine Cynthia which would erase the scout program. When Doom jumped to the future he lost track of the scout program and therefore created the Mutant Messiah myth to track the carrier down again.

When, during a mission, the mutant Nostromo becomes sheathed in a strange cocoon, he reveals himself to be the carrier when he "hatches" as a Phalanx. Doom sends some operatives to bring the boy to him, however, some of the operatives turn out to be Phalanx themselves and begin attacking the group.

Nostromo is eventually delivered to Doom, who then activates the subroutine within Nostromo and, bidding Spider-Man to take him to safety, blows up his castle, while Twilight brings reinforcements of aboriginal Martians to destroy the Phalanx in orbit.

In the Exiles series, the dimension-hopping team visited a world infested by a mutated version of the Phalanx. On this world, Cypher fell ill with the Legacy Virus and in an act of desperation Warlock infected him with the transmode virus to try and save his life. Unfortunately the two diseases combined and mutated into something far worse. Within the year, almost all of the world's population were transformed into Phalanx drones, calling themselves the Vi-Locks. The group was led by Forge whose innate understanding of machinery made him a prime candidate for leadership. In the course of the team's mission, Blink was infected and slowly started succumbing to the virus. On a hunch, Morph was able to contact the Asgardians whose divine blood was able to heal the victims after they received a transfusion.

In yet another alternate reality, the Phalanx has overrun Earth, assimilating every lifeform. The mutant Cable serves as its central consciousness.

• The Phalanx appeared in the X-Men animated series. An amalgamation of the original comics version and the Technarchy, this iteration is led by the voracious Phalanx Nexus (voiced by Lally Cadeau) of the Phalanx homeworld, and a race that can assume the guise of anything or anyone and able to assimilate humans. Warlock escapes from the Phalanx homeworld but crashlanded on Earth, leading to Warlock's Life-Mate being held hostage to spread the Phalanx infection. During the two-part episode "Phalanx Covenant", the Phalanx began their invasion of assimilation on Earth with Cameron Hodge (voiced by Stephen Ouimette) as a liaison. The Phalanx both impersonated Sabretooth (voiced by Don Francks) and assimilated Robert Kelly to have the X-Men captured, however, Beast and Warlock managed to avoid this. The Phalanx moved throughout Earth and would try to assimilate mutants, including the X-Men. Ultimately, Beast and Warlock find a way to stop the alien horror from assimilating every single lifeform on Earth with additional support from Forge, Mister Sinister and Magneto. The group infiltrated the Phalanx Nexus to deliver a vaccine via Warlock that eliminates the rogue Phalanx infestation and restored every living organism, including Warlock's Life-Mate, back to normal.
• The Phalanx appear in the Ultimate Spider-Man animated series. This version similar to the Annihilation Conquest design of Phalanx, however, is a metallic dwarfish insectoid and can infect organic lifeforms to absorb organic matter. In the episode "Home Sick Hulk", the Phalanx abducted the Hulk. When their space pod with Hulk and a Phalanx droid crashlands, Spider-Man learns enough from Nick Fury about the organism. The Phalanx droid is removed by Spider-Man but a strange barb device is on Hulk despite the droid being crushed by Hulk. The Phalanx device made Hulk sick, causing Spider-Man to help Hulk without letting S.H.I.E.L.D. know and keep at the Parker household without May Parker finding out. It turns out that the Phalanx's device on Hulk sends a signal, alerting their drones as Hulk recovers. The two heroes get the Phalanx drones away from the suburbs without touching the alien organism which the two defeat. Following a Phalanx drone to a warehouse, Spider-Man and Hulk find out the Phalanx source is now using stronger Phalanx drones (vocals provided by Fred Tatasciore[20]) thanks to Hulk's DNA. Due to the Phalanx's reaction with organic material, Spider-Man and Hulk attack the stronger Phalanx drones with non-organic stuff. Hulk then attacks by heading towards their source device, defeating the Phalanx just as S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents arrive.
• A Phalanx-esque concept appears in the Avengers Assemble animated series, voiced by Jim Meskimen.[21] This version resembles the Annihilation Conquest version of Phalanx but is Ultron's nano-virus. In the episode "Avengers Disassembled", a number of Life Model Decoys that are a S.H.I.E.L.D. drop team corrupted into Phalanx-esque drones by Ultron (via Super-Adaptoid) at Roxxon into fighting the Avengers which destroy the corrupted LMDs. In the episode "The Ultron Outbreak", Ultron's Phalanx-esque nano-virus assimilates humans. With Falcon as the first carrier, the Phalanx-esque carrier fights the Avengers, getting away from the divided group and assimilated more humans as Ultron Sentries. As the divided Avengers contain the Phalanx-esque Ultron Sentries, Ant-Man's formula ultimately forces the Phalanx-esque copies back into Ultron.

• The Phalanx were the primary antagonists in X-Men 2: Clone Wars.
• The Phalanx are mentioned in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2. Deadpool mentioned the alien group in a discussion with Nick Fury's nanite-infected form in Wakanda as a possible rename for The Fold only to remember that the name is already taken.