INTERDITE race

Classification: Extraterrestrial humanoids (or semi-humanoids)

Location/Base of Operations: Currently scattered galaxy-wide;
   formerly Interdis (now uninhabitable), seventh planet from the sun in the Tartaru star system of the Milky Way Galaxy

Habitat: Now uninhabitable
Gravity: 93% Earth
Atmosphere: Ozone depleted

Known Members: Klarion, Wayopex;
    possibly seven unidentified members of the Order of Divine Oraclites (notably one who encountered Gamora; all apparently deceased)
Estimated population: 1,750 (population prior to the war has not been revealed)

Affiliations: (Klarion) Adam Warlock; (Wayopex) the Mourners

Enemies: The Badoon (presumably the Brotherhood of Badoon)

First Appearance: Warlock I#15 (November, 1976);
    (Klarion, race and homeworld identified) The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe I#4 (April, 1983)

Powers/Abilities: Various psionic powers, including precognition. Although it has not been confirmed, it seems likely that not all such abilities are possessed by all Interdites and that those Interdites who do possess the same psionic abilities may do so at differing strengths. It is also presumed that Interdites must undergo some form of training in order to develop their psionic abilities and learn to control them effectively. Accordingly, their psionic abilities may vary widely among individuals.

   Few details are known about the range and accuracy of Interdite precognition.
    Klarion is known to have accurately foreseen Adam Warlock's death over a year before it happened, as well as the fact that Warlock's death would be at the hands of both Thanos and himself (presumably a reference to Warlock's past self who had traveled forward in time to steal his future self's soul). He also accurately foresaw that Warlock would watch Gamora, Pip and the High Evolutionary all die before him.
    However, exactly how their precognition functions is unclear. It's possible that, like other precognitives, Interdites are able to see, in their minds' eyes, events from a range of possible alternate futures and that the relative clarity of those mental impressions corresponds to the probability of them actually happening, with the more likely events appearing more distinctly than the less likely ones.
    Alternatively, it's possible that Interdites can only foresee events that are (almost) certain to occur, like the timeline that Adam Warlock ensured would happen by the choice he made while on his own personal Kismet Trail.

   Some Interdites (notably Wayopex) are empaths who are able to commune with the souls of the recently deceased who have passed on into the realm of the Afterdeath. However, they are only able to make contact within an unspecified time-frame. They are also unable to commune with souls that have somehow been misplaced, stolen or absorbed, and have therefore not passed on to that realm.

   Some Interdites have demonstrated the ability to appear and disappear at will.
    It is unclear if they do so by actually transporting themselves (perhaps by some form of psionic teleportation) or if they only use psionic illusions to make themselves seem to appear/disappear.
    A third possibility is that some Interdites might be able to project their astral selves to remote locations and make those astral projections visible (and maybe even tangible) to beings with whom they wish to communicate.

   The range over which Interdites can seemingly teleport themselves has not been established.
    The fact that one of them once appeared to Adam Warlock when he was on a rogue planet drifting though space and (presumably) far from any starship or inhabited planet, suggests an impressive range of multiple light-years, but this has not been confirmed.

   Some Interdites can create specific images that can be seen by other beings.
    These images are probably psionic illusions and may only exist within the minds of those viewing them.

Cultural Traits: Following the demolition of their civilization, surviving Interdites have turned to mysticism and live like hermits, scattered across the galaxy.

Type: Humanoid (or semi-humanoid)
Eyes: Two (yellow, with no visible pupils or irises)
Fingers: Four (plus opposable thumb)
Toes: Four
Skin color: Light blue
Hair: None
Average Height: 5' 11"
Other Distinguishing Features: Fringed, pointed ears

Type of government: None. How they governed themselves on their homeworld has not been revealed.

Level of technology: Highly developed until it was destroyed in the war with the (Brotherhood of) Badoon

History:
(The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe I#4: Interdites entry) - The Interdites are a humanoid race who apparently evolved on Interdis, the seventh planet from the sun in the Tartaru star system within the Milky Way Galaxy.

(The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe I#4: Interdites entry) - At some point, the atmosphere of their homeworld became ozone depleted, rendering Interdis uninhabitable and forcing the Interdites to migrate to other worlds.

(The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe I#4: Interdites entry) - At some point, the Interdite civilization was demolished by the Brotherhood of Badoon. Those Interdites who survived turned to mysticism and began to live like hermits scattered across the galaxy.

(Quasar#26 (fb) - BTS) - At some point, Wayopex (and maybe other Interdites) joined the multi-species religious order known as the Mourners.

(Warlock I#15) - On a dead world drifting through space, Klarion (and his pet) appeared some feet behind Adam Warlock as he was wondering aloud what to do now, and made his presence known by suggesting that Warlock should try looking past himself.     Although Klarion did not name himself or reveal how he had arrived there, the two engaged in a conversation during which Klarion spoke about the purpose of life and then revealed that he had seen Warlock's future and disclosed some of the events that Warlock would witness before dying in a little over a year.     As Warlock stood facing away from him again, Klarion suggested that it might be time for Warlock to look beyond the body to the spirit.     When Warlock asked if he was referring to his Soul Gem and received no answer, he turned around and found Klarion (and his pet) had both vanished without a trace.

 .

(Quasar#26) - Following the death of Eon, the Mourners used their starship to travel into his corpse in the other-dimensional Eonverse so that they could make preparations for Eon's funeral. When Eon's Protector Quasar confronted them there, an (unidentified) Interdite Mourner (who may or may not have been Wayopex) approached him to ask for certain information about the deceased that would be used in the memorial service as well as being inscribed in the permanent record.     After Quasar answered several questions and stated that he and Eon had had no time in which to discuss what should be done after his death, the Interdite asked if it would be acceptable to empower the Mourners with the responsibility to handle the funeral arrangements in the manner they saw fit. When Quasar agreed, the Interdite told the "great bodyguard" that he had been most cooperative and, when Quasar asked if it was going to cost him anything, the Interdite replied that the Mourners were a not-for-profit sect. (Quasar#35) - After billions of citizens of the Kree Empire were killed by a Nega-Bomb during the Kree-Shi'ar War, the Mourners traveled to the Pama System in the Large Magellanic Cloud to hold a memorial service that was supposed to begin with the empath Wayopex communing with the souls of the dead in order to let them know that the Mourners were honoring them.     However, the service was disrupted when Wayopex suddenly cried out, in his own language, "NOOOOOOO! They're not dead--None of them! NOT DEAD!"     A subsequent investigation by Quasar discovered that those billions of Kree life forces had been absorbed by the Soul-Eater before they could pass into the realm of the Afterdeath.

    See here regarding further Interdite appearances that may or may not be in-continuity.

Comments: Created by Jim Starlin.
   Klarion and the Interdite race named by the staff of the first volume of The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (led by Head Writer Mark Gruenwald).

   According to their entries in the first two volumes of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, the Interdites are a humanoid race but some fans consider them to be semi-humanoids.
    I generally only use the term "humanoid" to refer to two-armed bipedal beings who could be made to look like humans from Earth using nothing more than skin dye and/or wigs and/or contact lenses.
    So, since an Interdite would probably require plastic surgery on their large extended ears in order to pass as human, that would seem to tip them over the line into being semi-humanoids.
    However, they are still "officially" humanoids.

   Although it seems very likely that the ozone depletion that made their homeworld uninhabitable and forced the Interdites to migrate to other worlds was caused by the war (with the Badoon) that demolished their civilization, this was not explicitly stated. I have therefore chosen to err on the side of caution and not state it as a fact.

   Conversely, although the Official Handbook entries state that the Interdite civilization was destroyed by the Badoon, given that the female Badoon Sisterhood are isolationists, I have chosen to presume that it was (probably) only the male Brotherhood of Badoon who were responsible.
    However, since that has also never been explicitly stated, maybe the Sisterhood, for some unknown reason, made an exception in this case?

   I really appreciate how the various volumes of The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe have always tried to provide detailed and accurate information about the people, groups, races, items and places that exist within the Marvel Universe. As a long-time fan of science fiction, I especially appreciate the gathering together of data about the various alien races who inhabit the MU.

    However, most Alien Races profiles are handicapped by two problems not faced by most other profiles.

        The first problem is a lack of space:

• In the first two volumes of the OHotMU, most alien races only received quarter-pages entries and that limited space sometimes made it necessary to omit significant facts.
• For example, the profile on the Alpha Centaurians would have benefited from a reference to the fact that their homeworld followed a figure-of-eight orbit around what the original story called the "twin suns" of Alpha Centauri, stars whose Bayer designations are Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B but which are now officially named Rigil Kentaurus and Toliman, respectively.
• This problem could be magnified when the alien races in question had only been encountered in stories set in alternate futures, thus giving the writers the more difficult task of trying to provide data for the aliens as they existed both in those futures and in the present-day MU. This sometimes resulted in entries that were rather confusing, especially with regard to things like population data.

The second problem faced by many of those original quarter-page Alien Race entries was a decided lack of data from the stories in which those races appeared:

        In many of those stories, little was revealed about these aliens beyond their strange appearances. Many of these alien characters weren't even identified in these stories and even those who were identified often belonged to races whose names weren't revealed in-story. In fact, this is perhaps the 20th profile that I have written about alien characters or alien races whose names were not revealed in the stories in which they first appeared. And if such basic information so frequently goes unrevealed in-story, what chances do other types of data have? Sure, if it's a vital story element that Alien X comes from a heavy-gravity world or has this superhuman power or their race has this odd way of perceiving the universe, then those facts about their race would be noted, but pretty much everything else wouldn't be. Faced with such a dearth of information, the Handbook writers were often compelled to make stuff up in order to fill out even a quarter-page entry, and sometimes they were a bit too random with the "facts" that they invented. Data about star systems, planet names, estimated populations, forms of government and technological levels were those that were most problematic to me because they often seemed to have been chosen without much thought having been put into the choices. As a result, the OHotMU data has some planets orbiting stars whose real-world counterparts could never have habitable planets, some population figures are ridiculously high, and a surprising number of aliens who have been seen in space are members of races who don't possess the technology necessary for star travel.

   In the case of the Interdites, pretty much EVERYTHING about their race, aside from their appearance and the comic in which they first appeared, had to be made up by the OHotMU writers. However, in this case I think they did a pretty good job. Sure, I would have preferred it if Jim Starlin had named the "old hermit" and/or his race, but the names "Klarion" and "Interdites" are perfectly acceptable, as is most of the rest of the data in their entries. The idea that the Interdites had been a highly-technological people who turned to mysticism after their civilization was demolished by a war was new but it was both interesting and plausible. Although pinning the blame on the Badoon was also plausible, I really would have liked it better if there had been more information provided about the war between them, but such a backstory would be better presented in an actual comic. Sadly, in the more than forty years since that war was first mentioned, no writer has bothered to write a story that has even mentioned it.

   Having said that, there are some tidbits about the Interdites that have been provided by a source that I consider to be non-canon. That source is the 2014 Guardians of the Galaxy: Rocket Raccoon & Groot—Steal the Galaxy! prose novel in which an (unidentified) Interdite precog appears in Chapter Seventeen [Meanwhile, Meanwhile (Five days earlier on Carnassia...)] and has an unfortunate encounter with Gamora, the Deadliest Woman in the Galaxy. While the book was fun to read, I don't consider any Marvel Novel to be "in continuity" unless/until it is referenced in an actual comic book story, but I thought that, in order to be thorough, I should mention that data here in the comments section:

• First, the Interdites are described as having been a powerful and technologically advanced civilization before being crushed by the Badoon. The idea that they were powerful is new.
• Second, it is implied that the Interdites did not develop their latent psionics until after their technology had been lost. While this isn't impossible, such a causal effect was not established in the OHotMU profiles.
• Third, the idea that the surviving Interdites lived like hermits and outcasts and turned to mysticism in an effort to make sure that nothing like their being crushed by the Badoon ever happened to them again is new. It's not implausible but it's also not really supported by the OHotMU profiles.
• Fourth, the idea that the surviving Interdites eventually became highly gifted in the arcane craft of precognition seems to imply that all of them became so gifted. The few stories in which Interdites have appeared neither support nor refute this implication. Who knows, maybe Wayopex was a precognitive as well as being an empath capable of communing with the souls of the dead? Or maybe he wasn't?

   Again for the sake of thoroughness, here's a list of some other information that was presented in that chapter:

• The Interdite was described as being an ailing old hermit but his name was never revealed.
• The Interdite was the last surviving member of the Order of the Divine Oracolites. The last of his half-dozen Oracolite brethren had died eight decades previously.
• The Interdite lived in a lonely cave in the high peaks of a windswept and ragged mountain range that ran like a spine across the main landmass of the planet Carnassia.
• Aside from the Interdite and Gamora, three unnamed Roclites and an unnamed Sagitarrian also appeared in that chapter, as did a Mobian ripper pistol. Rigellian Recorder 127, the Negative Zone and its Master (Annihilus), and the winning numbers for next week's Denebian lottery were mentioned, and references were made to the Badoon, Zundamite leaf tea, a Sirusite nobleman, and Drax.
  

Psionic vs. Mystic
   For as long as I can remember, I have always considered the word "mystic" to be no more than a synonym for "magical." I suspect that this idea was caused by the whole "Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts" thing. Also, that idea was probably cemented in my mind by the fact that the first OHotMU profile on Doctor Druid stated that, while he could not be considered a sorcerer because he could not manipulate ambient or extradimensional energy, his ability to use ritualistic Celtic Earth magic did qualify him as a mystic. As such, I always considered mystics to be just another type of magic-user, like magicians, witches, warlocks, sorcerers and wizards. Accordingly, when working on this profile, I found myself puzzled when the OHotMU entries on the Interdites stated that they had developed psionic powers and turned to mysticism. It didn't make sense to me that psionic powers, which are science-based, would cause one to become a magic-user.

   Now, more than forty years later, I have finally learned the truth. While mystical can be used as a synonym for occult, a mystic is actually defined as: A) a follower of a mystical way of life; or B) an advocate of a theory of mysticism. You will note that neither definition makes any mention of mystics possessing any magical abilities.

   To make things more complicated, mysticism has multiple definitions:

• the experience of mystical union or direct communion with ultimate reality reported by mystics
• the belief that direct knowledge of God, spiritual truth, or ultimate reality can be attained through subjective experience (such as intuition or insight)
• vague speculation : a belief without sound basis
• a theory postulating the possibility of direct and intuitive acquisition of ineffable knowledge or power

   So, since a mystic apparently does not have to be a magic-user, it seems that the problem I had with the idea of the psionic Interdites turning to mysticism was all in my mind. I guess that means that the statement that "Mystic dimensions are realms whose fundamental properties are governed by magical energies as opposed to laws of physics" is somewhat inaccurate/misleading. Or not.

Profile by Donald Campbell.

CLARIFICATIONS:
The Interdites have no known connections to:

• The Intergalactic Alliance from Earth-93112 - a civilization that had thrived in that alternate future until it was slaughtered by the Magus--Warlock & the Infinity Watch#26: (named) Warlock & the Infinity Watch#41
• The Intergalactic Network - an extraterrestrial television network that employed Tana'ri Dana'e and was known for their periodic Sexiest Nonhuman poll--Marvel Comics I#1000/2
• The Intergalactic Red-Tape Brigade - accountants employed by the extraterrestrial slave trader Spyder--New Mutants I#67
• Interplaneteur Inc. - a major intergalactic corporation founded and/or controlled by the extraterrestrial R'malk'i race--Warlock I#15
• The Interstel Church of Perpetual Annoyance - a clown-like religion (and/or race) from the extraterrestrial planet Panto-9 who inadvertently released Lunatik from his otherwise-lifeless homeworld--Lunatik#1
• any other alien races or groups whose name begins with "Inter-"

images: (without ads)
Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe I#4: Appendix to Alien Races: Interdites (main)
Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe II#15, page 44, panel 3 - here's a scanned image from the printed copy (left) vs. a digital image from the omnibus, with a much more blue color---->
Warlock I#15, page 11, panel 3 (Klarion)
Quasar#26, page 7, panel 1 (Mourner)
Quasar#35, page 17, panel 1 (Wayopex)

Appearances:
Warlock I#15 (November, 1976) - Jim Starlin(writer/artist), Archie Goodwin (editor)
The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe I#4 (April, 1983) - Mark Gruenwald (editor/head writer/designer), Peter Sanderson and Mark Lerer (co-writers), Paty Cockrum (penciler), Frank Giacoia (inker)
The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe II#15 (March, 1987) - Mark Gruenwald (writer/producer), Peter Sanderson (writer/researcher), Kyle Baker (artist for the Alien Races Appendix)
Quasar#26 (September, 1991) - Mark Gruenwald (writer), Dave Hoover (guest penciler), Fred Fredricks (guest inker), Kelly Corvese (new editor)
Quasar#35 (June, 1992) - Mark Gruenwald (writer), Greg Capullo (penciler), Harry Candelario (inker), Kelly Corvese (editor)

First Posted: 03/04/2024
Last updated: 03/04/2024

Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.

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