EBON SEEKER
EBON SEEKER
Real Name: Xanth
Identity/Class:
Extraterrestrial (Moensien
race), extratemporal (billions of years in the future of Reality-81049) mutate;
active on Earth-616 in modern era and circa 1952+
Occupation: Currently unrevealed;
former planet-destroyer;
former space explorer/life-seeker
Affiliations: Fantastic Four (Human Torch/Johnny Storm,
Invisible Girl (her alias at the time)/Susan Storm (now Sue Storm-Richards), Mr.
Fantastic/Reed Richards, Thing/Ben Grimm);
formerly Shareen (aka Firefrost);
formerly members of Moensien race;
mutated by
extradimensional energy creatures
Enemies: Howard Stark, Anton Vanko (later the Crimson Dynamo);
formerly the Fantastic Four (former enemies
of Ebon Seeker)
Known Relatives: Shareen (Firefrost; former lifemate)
Aliases: The Cosmic Shade, the Dark Dreadnought, Neg-Star
Base of Operations: A black hole;
briefly Manhattan, New York, USA, Earth-616;
formerly an unidentified portion of the universe;
formerly the planet Moensien in a region far distant from the
known galaxies
First Appearance: Fantastic Four I#229 (April, 1981)
Powers/Abilities: Immensely massive, Ebon Seeker's presence disrupts time and space around him, temporarily causing "reverse video" effects and making it difficult to breathe.
He absorbs all force, impact, and matter he contacts. At least formerly, however, he progressively shrinks as he bleeds off his own energy/matter as tendrils, which ensnare and siphon power from beings and objects. When his power runs out, he destroys the planet around him, regaining his full power in the process.
Unaging (and unaffected by fatigue, disease, etc.), he can travel through space's vacuum unaided and communicate telepathically.
As Xanth, he had extensive education in
science and philosophy.
Height: 50' (varies); originally 5'4"
Weight: 116 tons (varies); originally 160 lbs.
Eyes: Black iris, white pupil; originally black iris
and pupil
Hair: None
History:
(Fantastic Four I#230 (fb)) - Billions and billions of years in a far distant
sector of the universe in the future of Reality-81049, the Moensiens reached an evolutionary,
cultural, scientific, and philosophical dead-end. Two natives, lovers Xanth and Shareen, were chosen to explore space for other
lifeforms with which to interact with and enrich their stagnant race. They
searched for "forty solar years" before finally finding
evidence of life: a derelict ship floating towards a black hole.
Xanth was desperate not to lose the one thing they had finally found, and so he
flew their ship into the black hole after the derelict.
Their ships and their bodies were instantly disintegrated, but their minds lived on as they were pulled into the black hole. Inside the hole, their vaporized life-energies were met by swirling energy-beings of black light, who sought to commune with them. The life-force that had been Shareen listened to their voices, and she was reborn as a creature of living light, knowing a peace beyond peace. The life force that had been Xanth could not listen or comprehend, and was driven made. He took on only the darker aspects of the black hole, which consumed him body, mind, and soul. Xanth fled the dark light, and escaped out of the "opposite end" of the black hole, forsaking his Shareen.
Xanth emerged into Reality-616's universe, distant from the point in space from which he had entered it, and in the dim past, an unrevealed time period prior to the modern era. Maddened, he moved on with but one thought stirring his dark soul -- to complete his mission at any cost -- to find life. But his new form was like unto a black hole himself and, upon contact with a planet, his energy was pulled outward -- to begin destroying the planet even as the planet destroyed him.
Upon the cataclysm of his death, he destroyed his first world...and then was reborn in the released energies of destruction...to continue seeking new life...to repeat the tragic process endlessly (allegedly a million times). In addition, the black hole that created him began expanding somehow, attempting to reclaim its escaped matter, and threatening to bring about a premature end to the universe.
(Fantastic Four I#230 (fb) - BTS) -
Shareen, now Firefrost, pursued her lover, known primarily as the Ebon Seeker,
endlessly, attempting in vain to restore his sanity and put an
end to the destruction.
(Fantastic Four I#229) - In recent years, Reed Richards used a signal-pulser to send and receive a roving signal to help NASA locate a missing communications satellite. The Ebon Seeker detected this signal and followed it to Earth. His approach caused a temporary wave of distortion across the planet.
He landed in Manhattan, where his leaking energy/matter damaged and injured the materials and people around him. The Fantastic Four attempted to stop him, but their powers failed to harm him in the least. Mr. Fantastic used the signal-pulser to lead him out into the sea to get him away from the city, but the pulser was ultimately destroyed by Xanth's tendrils.
The Ebon Seeker then spoke out, accusing them of using the signal-pulser as a trap to draw him to Earth so it could kill him, after which he blasted them into submission. Firefrost then arrived on Earth, protecting the heroes while interacting with Xanth's potential victims for the first time.
(Fantastic Four I#230 - BTS) - Shareen told the Fantastic Four of her and Xanth's origin, explaining the Ebon Seeker was approaching the end of his life cycle, and would soon destroy Earth, and be reborn again.
(Fantastic Four I#230) - Reed instead transported a few blocks of Manhattan into the antimatter Negative Zone, bringing the Ebon Seeker with them. There, the energy siphoning process was reversed, and Xanth was restored to his full size, no longer bleeding off his life.
Xanth could not
understand why his enemies had helped him, but in that moment of
clarity, Shareen was finally able to connect with him. She
convinced him that if he returned to the black hole with her,
that he could accept the light energy and become a creature of
light like her. Xanth took Shareen's hand, and they returned to
the black hole, using a conduit in the Negative Zone.
Oh, and don't worry, Reed got the block of Manhattan back to Earth...but
that's another story.
(Operation: S.I.N. #5 (fb) - BTS) - Shareen sought a brief escape from her life of eternal darkness.
(Operation: S.I.N. #4 (fb) - BTS / Operation: S.I.N. #5 (fb) - BTS) - Wishing to feel her feet on solid ground and to feel the sun on her face, Shareen traveled to Earth, arriving in its relative past (circa 1952 A.D.) in the USSR via a ship formed out of her energy (see comments).
(Operation: S.I.N. #1 (fb) - BTS / Operation: S.I.N. #2 (fb) - BTS / Operation: S.I.N. #4 (fb) - BTS) - Her energies were detected by various parties. Shareen's human form ended up in the custody of Hydra agents, working alongside Soviet scientist Anton Vanko to identify the source of a mysterious energy they had detected.
(Operation:
S.I.N. #1-3) - An union of forces including Americans Peggy Carter, Woodrow McCord, and Howard Stark, and Soviets Tania
Belinskaya and Mikhail Uriokovitch obtained the beacon to Shareen's ship, activated it, and were transported to the Hydra base. 
(Operation: S.I.N. #3) - Her hands glowing, Shareen realized what had happened.
(Operation: S.I.N. #4 (fb) - BTS) - The activation of her ship allowed Xanth to locate Shareen.
(Operation: S.I.N. #3) - When the portal in the Hydra base subsequently activated, Vanko worked to isolate the energy source, but Shareen fired a blast from her hands to stop him.
(Operation: S.I.N. #4) - As Vanko noted that the source of the energy was gaining mass, Xanth's voice was heard through the portal -- stating "I have traversed the endless tracts of time and space." and "Eaten of the remnants of your heart and mind" -- and Shareen begged the others to let her go. As Xanth began to emerge from the portal, he stated "Sustained by the atoms left in your wake, and now --," she lamented that he had found her.
Shareen's ship then crashed into the Hydra base, and Stark joined Vanko in trying to find a way to close the portal to prevent Xanth's emergence.
Shareen, who spoke to Xanth, trying to stop him. At Ivan's query, she explained her past somewhat, noting that -- to save his planet -- she had agreed to stay with Xanth in the "Negative wastes...forever."
In response, Ivan asked if she had been there before, but she told him, "No. Not before. And my escape, that was the first energy that was registered."
Noting how she had tried to keep Vanko and the others just short of the solution, she apologized and considered that she may have underestimated Anton's intelligence. She then apologized to the others and told them that Xanth's pursuit would only stop when she returned to him.
When the injured Tania collapsed, Shareen noted that she could move light and energy to warm, salve, and heal. Although she realized this may hasten Xanth's arrival, Shareen returned to her true form and then imbued Tania with energies that healed and revived her.
(Operation:
S.I.N. #5) - When Shareen resolved to return
to Xanth, Carter, Stark, and Vanko insisted she would not. She told them that she
had abandoned her one true love and that if he came to Earth again, he
would destroy everything in his path. Peggy and Howard argued that the
Ebon Seeker was not her beloved Xanth anymore but rather a mass of
negative energy. Stark then convinced her to help him and Vanko, after
which she explained that what the Ebon Seeker was stating to them was from
another time and that he had said it over and over again as he was
trapped in an infinite cycle of now and before and after. 
Shareen further clarified that the Ebon Seeker was mindless, his hunger held in check by the repetition of a half-remembered dream: He had no memory, no hope, and no love in him, and only the reassurance of her presence gave him a point on which to focus. After she further explained that her ship had been formed out of her energy, Peggy asked if her ship's energy could be used to fool the Ebon Seeker into believing he was with Shareen. When she noted that it likely would and suggested that they would not need the whole ship, just the power sphere out of its central console, Stark went into the ship and retrieved the power sphere.
As Soviet forces -- seeking to sever ties with Hydra -- assaulted the base, Stark delivered the power sphere to Vanko, who worked to isolate the portal's focal point, and Shareen placed her energies she later noted to be "her heart" into the sphere and then confirmed that it was ready.
As Ebon Seekers' hand reached through the portal, Anton delivered the power sphere to it, and Shareen told him, "You have found me." Apparently accepting this as Shareen, Ebon Seeker's hand retracted and the portal reversed.
Comments: Created by Doug Moench, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Joe Sinnott.
The Voyager ship was a hot topic back this story was written. Reed Richards reasoned that it was the ship which Xanth and Shareen had found on the edge of the black hole in the distant future. It was also the topic of the movie Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
Ebon Seeker received a profile in Fantastic Four: Fifty Fabulous Years.
I definitely enjoyed Operation S.I.N., and Ebon Seeker and
Firefrost were some of my favorites from my earliest days of reading
comics, but it did take me three reads to wrap my mind around exactly
what was going on.
It wasn't clearly spelled
out (or I just missed it, again!), but presumably time-warping
associated with a black hole and extreme gravity vs. escaping through a
specific time-space warp vs. an in-born energy ability (or a
combination of all of the above) caused Shareen to arrive in the
relative past on Earth compared to her first trip to Earth in the
"modern era."
Thanks to MarvellousLuke for the image upgrades! Thanks to James Cope for pointing out a recurring typo.
Clarifications:
The Ebon Seeker has no known connection to:
The Energy beings within the black hole.
(Fantastic Four I#230 (fb)) - Billions and billions of years in a far distant sector of the universe in the future of Reality-81049, the Moensiens Xanth and Shareen flew into a black hole. Their ships and their bodies were instantly disintegrated, but their minds lived on as they were pulled into the black hole. Inside the hole, their vaporized life-energies were met by swirling energy-beings of black light, who sought to commune with them. The life-force that had been Shareen listened to their voices, and she was reborn as a creature of living light, knowing a peace beyond peace. The life force that had been Xanth could not listen or comprehend, and was driven made. He took on only the darker aspects of the black hole, which consumed him body, mind, and soul. Xanth fled the dark light, and escaped out of the "opposite end" of the black hole, forsaking his Shareen.
--Fantastic Four I#230 (May, 1981)
derelict
ship
A battered remnant of random encounters with the flotsam of space, which was floating towards a black hole when Shareen and Xanth discovered it. Xanth was desperate not to lose the one thing they had finally found, and so he flew their ship into the black hole after the derelict, despite Shareen's warnings.
--Fantastic Four I#230 (May, 1981)
Note: Reed Richards hypothesized at length how this ship might be one of the Voyager probes.
Fantastic Four I#229, pg. 10, panel 4 (roar);
pg. 11, panel 1 (face);
pg. 21 (eyeblasting Fantastic Four);
#230, pg. 5, panel 1 (derelict ship);
panel 6 (Xanth,
original Moensien face);
pg. 6, panel 5 (vaporized
life-energies met by energy beings);
pg. 7, panel 1 (energy beings);
pg. 8, panel 2 (first planet
destroyed);
Fantastic Four: Fifty Fabulous Years (main image)
Operation: S.I.N. #4, pg. 4 (mostly full, emerging from the portal);
#5, pg. 12, panel 1 (hand reaching through portal for ship's power sphere)
Appearances:
Fantastic Four I#229-230 (April-May, 1981) - Doug Moench (writer), Bill
Sienkiewicz (pencils), Joe Sinnott (inks), Jim Salicrup (editor)
Operation: S.I.N. #1-5 (March-July, 2015) - Kathryn Immonen (writer), Rich Ellis (artist), Joe Moisan (editor)
First Posted: 12/13/2001
Last updated: 02/06/2023
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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