ARCHFIENDS
ARCHFIENDS
Membership: Misery, Pyre, Reaper, Serpentine, Shambler
Purpose: Serving L-Cypher, conquering people of Thrillsville
Aliases: "Pusbags" (insult from Ghost Rider, who used that term a lot)
Affiliations: L-Cypher (creator)
Enemies: Ghost Rider (Zero Cochrane 2.0)
Base of Operations: Unrevealed;
last active in Thrillsville, Earth-928 circa 2099 A.D.
First Appearance: Ghost Rider 2099 I#18 (October, 1995)
Powers/abilities: Mutated/cyborg/mentally-programmed humans, the Archfiends had various superhuman abilities in addition to superhuman strength and/or durability as well as being able to tolerate injuries that would be otherwise incapacitating to others.
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History:
(Ghost Rider 2099#14 - BTS) - Ghost Rider 1.0 (Zero Cochrane 2.0) was appointed by Doom the position of Transverse City's Federal Marshall.
(Ghost Rider 2099#17 - BTS) - Zero Cochrane 1.0 surfed cyberspace, searching the deep-storage levels and finding a hypersecure archive that matched the Ghostworks' work.
Cracking the archive open, Zero unleashed L-Cypher, an earlier product of the Ghostworks.
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 (Ghost Rider 2099#18 (fb) - BTS) - L-Cypher took over Thrillsville, imprisoned its nearly 10, 000 customers and employees, and destroyed every rescue
team sent in after them.(Ghost Rider 2099#18) - L-Cypher then injected several prisoners with some of his source code and transformed them into monstrous/demonic forms as the Archfiends. |
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(Ghost Rider 2099#20 (fb) - BTS) - L-Cypher learned much about the human mind from the Archfiends' creation.
(Ghost Rider 2099#18) - SHIELD called in Ghost Rider
1.0 to investigate Thrillsville, and he was eventually confronted by
the Archfiends. Serpentine introduced her team, and she assured Ghost
Rider he would find them more challenging than the earlier threats he
had faced.
(Ghost Rider 2099#19) - Reaper accused noted that Ghost Rider was accused of interference with the torment of the condemned, and his teammates pronounced Ghost Rider guilty. Scythe raised, Reaper accused Ghost Rider of "irredeemable heresy," but Ghost Rider fired his handheld blaster into Reaper.
Minimally affected, Reaper noted that such insolence would not be tolerated, and that there would be atonement. Ghost Rider mocked them as sounding like his dad, but Pyre then blasted him with fiery energies and Serpentine struck with her tentacles, noting he would soon curse his father for spawning him. Replying he had already done that, Ghost Rider blasted Serpentine back.
Shambler then grabbed Ghost Rider from behind and bit into his shoulder, after which the corrosive saliva began to eat into Ghost Rider. Misery advised that he would have an eternity to suffer for defying the dominion of L-Cypher, although Ghost Rider was unfamiliar with the name.
Smashing his head back into Shambler and fired a blast from his hand weapon into Serpentine, but Pyre then blasted Ghost Rider while Serpentine, recovering, cursed him as "verminous cretin" after which she used a tentacle to ensnare his legs and bring him down, noting that he would "spend eternity burning in the fires of his own doomed shrieking, impaled on the barbs of her laughter."
As Ghost Rider fought back,
Reaper approached and noted his misguided power and fury to be a tragic
waste of potential. Noting that Ghost Rider was no more of the flesh than the
Archfiends were, Reaper advised him that had he joined them, he could
have ruled beneath L-Cypher. 
Refusing to join and instead insisting that he would tear them apart, Ghost Rider severed Shambler's right arms with his metal-morphing claw. Ghost Rider then lifted Shambler over his head and apparently threw him into Serpentine, but then Pyre and Misery blasted him in unison. As Shamber blasted him again, Ghost Rider began to develop system failure, after which Serpentine wrapped him up with her arms and tendrils.
As the other Archfiends laughed, Misery denounced Ghost Rider as a pathetic toad, and Reaper pronounced him convicted and sentenced him to torment everlasting as he incapacitated him with a blow from his scythe.
L-Cypher then contacted Reaper, instructing him that while all the other souls of that domain were theirs to judge, they must bring Ghost Rider to his presence, which they did. As they arrived, L-Cypher told the Archfiends that they had done well and that they would teach his wayward brother the error of his ways; he then instructed them to fetch his infernal devices.
(Ghost Rider 2099#20 - BTS) - Ghost Rider ultimately overpowered and destroyed L-Cypher and then departed.
Unbeknownst to Ghost Rider, L-Cypher downloaded his persona in a genetically engineered human form to continue his work in secret.
Comments: Created by Len Kaminiski, Ashley Wood, and Jim Daly.
As best as I could tell, the Archfiends were not seen again after they delivered Ghost Rider to L-Cypher.
I don't know where Thrillsville is. Since they recruited Ghost Rider,
it could have been in his area of operations, Transverse City (sprawling
between what used to be Detroit and what Chicago became), U.S.A.
Or, perhaps they just recruited Ghost Rider because
of his shared association with the Ghostworks and L-Cypher, and it was
in California or Florida (mirroring Disneyland and Disneyworld,
respectively) or elsewhere.
The Archfiends will EVENTUALLY each get their own profiles in the coming weeks/months/years/decades/centuries/millennia...given my current free time / workload, the latter four time frames seem more likely...
This profile was completed 6/01/2021, but its publication was delayed as it was intended for the Appendix 20th anniversary 's celebratory event.
Profile by Snood.
CLARIFICATIONS:
The Archfiends have no known connections to:
images: (without ads)
Ghost Rider 2099 I#18,
last page (gathered group behind Serpentine);
#19, pg. 2-3 (main image);
pg. 13, panel 3 (Reaper with arms outstretched);
pg. 20, panel 2 (triumphant)
Appearances:
Ghost Rider 2099 I#18-20 (October-December, 1995) - Len Kaminiski (writer), Ashley Wood (penciler), Jim Daly (inker), Joey Cavalieri (editor)
First posted: 09/16/2021
Last updated: 05/30/2022
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
Non-Marvel Copyright info
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