One of the 27 new characters introduced in the Marvel 1993 Annuals, Empyrean was more-or-less killed off in a Hardees promotional comic a few years later. This ignominious fate was undone when his creator Fabian Nicieza briefly revisited the character this year during the Fall of X. Though he's dead again, at least this time Empyrean got to go out on his own terms. That's something, right?
https://uncannyxmen.net/characters/empyrean
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Update on...EMPYREAN
Update on...EMPYREAN
"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." -- Oscar Wilde
Re: Update on...EMPYREAN
Fun fact (well, fun for me...) is that Fabian Nicieza's brief return to this character forced me to completely re-write his PD.
Empyrean's basic "hook" is he was an opportunist taking advantage of mutants suffering from the Legacy Virus. He helped them by reducing the painful flare-ups of their mutant powers that were a common symptom of Legacy, absorbing energy in the process.
I thought Empyrean was absorbing power from their mutant energies, thereby relieving their pain. However, Nicieza intended that Empyrean was absorbing their pain, and thereby inhibiting their mutant energies. As an empathic siphon, Empyrean can absorb energy created by the pain of others, neutralizing that pain at the same time. Once he has sampled a particular kind of pain, he can also transfer the suffering to others.
This was the confusion from his previous appearances, where Empyrean basically only used his power openly twice -- once to zap Blob with "a mere sample of the pain being suffered around the world" (something I dismissed as metaphor at the time) and when he disabled the entire X-Men and Brotherhood by making their mutant power signatures all flare up at once. Something even Cyclops speculated on at the time, I believed the focus of Empyrean ability was absorbing mutant energies (to inhibit flare ups) or agitating them in a way that caused painful feedback.
In actuality, his ability can absorb and neutralize specific forms of pain, and then recreate the full physiological effect of that pain in healthy people. So he could cause mutant powers to flare up because that was a form of pain he had sampled from others, thanks to being an empathic siphon.
Anyway, a "brief" look Behind-The-Scenes at my particular mania.
Empyrean's basic "hook" is he was an opportunist taking advantage of mutants suffering from the Legacy Virus. He helped them by reducing the painful flare-ups of their mutant powers that were a common symptom of Legacy, absorbing energy in the process.
I thought Empyrean was absorbing power from their mutant energies, thereby relieving their pain. However, Nicieza intended that Empyrean was absorbing their pain, and thereby inhibiting their mutant energies. As an empathic siphon, Empyrean can absorb energy created by the pain of others, neutralizing that pain at the same time. Once he has sampled a particular kind of pain, he can also transfer the suffering to others.
This was the confusion from his previous appearances, where Empyrean basically only used his power openly twice -- once to zap Blob with "a mere sample of the pain being suffered around the world" (something I dismissed as metaphor at the time) and when he disabled the entire X-Men and Brotherhood by making their mutant power signatures all flare up at once. Something even Cyclops speculated on at the time, I believed the focus of Empyrean ability was absorbing mutant energies (to inhibit flare ups) or agitating them in a way that caused painful feedback.
In actuality, his ability can absorb and neutralize specific forms of pain, and then recreate the full physiological effect of that pain in healthy people. So he could cause mutant powers to flare up because that was a form of pain he had sampled from others, thanks to being an empathic siphon.
Anyway, a "brief" look Behind-The-Scenes at my particular mania.
"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." -- Oscar Wilde