By Kevin Mahadeo

When it comes to the X-Men crossover event X Necrosha, writing partners Chris Yost and Craig Kyle found that in order to bring the event to life, ironically, they needed to focus on death.

X Necrosha follows the leather-clad Selene, as she raises the dead mutants of the Marvel Universe in a quest for vengeance against those she believes wronged her. To put her plans in motion, the centuries old Black Queen has spent the last few years gathering an inner circle of followers.

"Selene wanted her own little coven, kind of like Emma Frost," explains Yost. "We'll see that as much as she may hate Emma Frost, she saw that it wasn't a bad idea to have your own little group of worshippers and powerful mutants that would kill for you and die for you."

Each of those gathered hold powers related to death and some even have first hand experience with the Grim Reaper. The upcoming X NECROSHA: THE GATHERING one-shot-which ships December 2 and features art by a bevy of talent including Kalman Andrasofszky, Leonardo Manco, Ibraim Roberson and Mateus Santolouco-reveals the story of Selene's inner circle and how each member fell into the self-proclaimed goddess's thrall. Yost took some time out from necromancy to talk about the characters of THE GATHERING and what he loves about these powerful death dealers of the Marvel U.

THE BLACK QUEEN
Real Name: Selene
First Appearance: NEW MUTANTS #9 (1983)
"I remember she stood out. She was different from the rest of the Hellfire Club. Emma Frost and Sebastian [Shaw] and [Harry] Leland and all those guys were mutants, but she seemed a little different. She was a goddess that was hanging out with these guys. Where they were bad people; she seemed like an evil thing. She had a different agenda from everyone else. The Nova Roma story in NEW MUTANTS was the introduction to her, but [I liked] seeing her in New York with the Hellfire Club or even when they were fighting Nimrod in Central Park. Or seeing Rachel [Summers] trying to kill her and Wolverine stopping her. Wolverine is going to regret that decision."

BLINK
Real Name: Clarice Ferguson
First Appearance: UNCANNY X-MEN #317
"I love Blink. I loved her in 'Phalanx Covenant' and I remember being radically sad when she died. Or did she die? We were going through a list of potential characters and Blink came to mind. It's a combination of the pink skin and the diamond on her forehead. I think it reminded me of Sinister, one of my favorite characters. The haircut, the pink skin and the diamond on her forehead-and the most kickass power. The way that they portrayed the teleportation that she did, she was afraid of it. The first thing she did with her power was kill somebody. She literally sliced somebody to pieces with her power. That's how she took out a full powered Phalanx. She cut him apart. You're going to see a lot more of that, for instance, when she fights Archangel."

SENYAKA
Real Name: Suvik Senyaka
First Appearance: UNCANNY X-MEN #300
"He is a guy who died, like, nine times and kept showing up. The first thing I remember about him is that he killed a nurse just to do it, and Magneto killed him. And then he just showed up later randomly. We'll be mentioning that here and there, but he's a guy that just seemed like a killer. We kind of take not necessarily the Omega Red approach, but basically [his whips] drain the life force out of people. We're kind of going on a death theme, so his whips actually pull people's life force into him. By killing people he gets more powerful."

MORTIS
Real Name: Lois London
First Appearance: DAZZLER #22
"We knew that we wanted all death-related stuff and she was one of the mutants still around with a full-on death power. She can literally kill with a touch. She killed some hobo and a cat in her big appearances. We wanted that kind of mutant on team, so she made perfect sense. Unfortunately, as much as I love Dazzler, I did not actually read her book. So, this was all research. Her power scared her. Someone was trying to blackmail her and she needed help. Oddly enough, she got it from her abusive father as opposed to her super hero sister. We'll be exploring some of that in THE GATHERING, but on top of having a death power, she seems like someone who could easily be manipulated. Throughout all five stories, you're going to see Selene manipulating all these people."

ELI BARD
Real Name: Eliphas
First Appearance: X-FORCE #3 (2008)
"He's been in the background throughout the entire [X-FORCE] run, but you saw in X-FORCE #11 his origin and how he's been alive for thousands of years. He was one of the first people that Selene manipulated into helping her back in Rome, where she wanted to sacrifice the entire city to become a goddess. He messed it up, but he loves Selene and wants to get back in her good graces. He's been working to do that. [Our influence in creating him] came from somewhere between a lawyer we know and the HBO show 'Rome.' He seemed like a great character because when you first meet him he just seems like a dude in a suit. But then you get this great twist where he is some kind of bizarre vampire creature. Then you get his full story that he's this 2000-year-old dude from Rome that's killing people because he wants to get this girl to love him. I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff. As much as about our stuff is about violence and fighting, the truth of the matter is that pretty much everything is about love in one way or another."

WITHER
Real Name: Kevin Ford
First Appearance: NEW MUTANTS #3 (2003)
"We wrote poor Wither in NEW X-MEN. He was one of the tragic tales of M-Day. This was a dude who literally has a death touch and he's trying to make it work. And not only does he have this touch, but he has a hunger to use. He really wants to touch people and kill them. He was scared of that and wanted to be able to control it. He had friends and this girl that he liked, and on M-Day he thought everybody lost their powers. He was so excited and thrilled that he ran to this girl that he loved and touched her and that didn't go very well. He disintegrated her arm, for the most part, and everybody flipped out and was scared away. So, he left and ran away. Somebody found him and that was Selene. He was a standout character because he seemed like a natural born killer. That was his mutant power: to kill people. You don't see that a lot. You got guys that shoot lasers from their eyes or that can make ice, but here was a mutant whose power wasn't so super hero-like. Here you got this kid who wants to kill people. That's a biological need for him. In this case, Selene is somebody who wants to kill a lot of people and finds him. It's the single worst person in the world to find this kid."

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