Ev Teel Urizen

Ev Teel Urizen is a fictional character in the Marvel Universe. It was created by writer Mike Carey. Ev Teel Urizen first appeared in issue 197 of X-Men (May, 2007).

Ev Teel Urizen is a mummudrai, a mental parasite constructed of energy latices that exists on the astral plane. Mummudrai are "born" with every living being in the womb. In Shi'ar legend, they are described as the a living being's first contact with the idea of "the other". While many die in the womb, some choose to remain in the host's mind, harmless and dormant. This was the case with Urizen, who stayed harmlessly with its host Ul'var Urizen.

Urizen fled from the edge of Shi'ar space following a trail of psychic energy to the X-Men's Mansion, seeking help from the X-Men's powerful psychics to stop Hecatomb before "he" (as Urizen refers to it) consumed everything.

Like all mummudrai, Ev Teel Urizen possesses the powers of telekinesis and telepathy and can inhabit and possess nearly anyone by performing jumps on the astral plane.

Fictional Character Biography

Origins

Ev Teel Urizen was born together with its original host, Ul'var Urizen. Mummudrai can meet a variety of fates, most dying in the womb, while others survive by consuming the minds of their hosts or choosing to remain dormant in the host's mind. Urizen chose the latter and peacefully existed within Ul'var.

Extraction and War

During a Shi'Ar war with another planet, the Heptarchy, Urizen was forcibly extracted from Ul'var and psychically dissected by Shi'Ar scientists and engineers whose goal was to create an artificial mummudrai from its template that could be harnessed into a controllable weapon. The weapon, termed the "Hecatomb" could be turned on and off and would ideally be placed near the planet. There it would consume and erase the minds of anything nearby, killing the planet's population while leaving the planet intact and inhabitable.

A flaw in Hecatomb's design, however, caused the weapon to malfunction. Hecatomb could not contain the vast amount of mental energy absorbed from the planet's population at one time and as a result, merged all the minds of the dead together with itself. Now consisting of the many horrified minds of an entire planet's population, the Shi'Ar technology to shut it off failed and only served to anger it and further exacerbate its insatiable hunger for thoughts and minds.

Flight and "Supernova"

Urizen eventually broke free from its Shi'Ar containment fields, but found itself chased by the Hecatomb. Urizen believes this to be due to the fact that it's "scent" was familiar to Hecatomb, since Hecatomb was modeled on Urizen.

Following a trail of psychic energy, Urizen fled from Shi'Ar space to Earth, a journey that took centuries. Following behind it, Hecatomb consumed any mind that it encountered along its path.

Eventually arriving at Earth, Urizen took possession of the deceased body of an old men, Paul Brunner, who had been hit by a truck. Piloting the dead body, Urizen reached the gates of the X-Mansion. Upon arrival, it jumping into the mind of the recently rescued and comatose Regan Wyngarde, leaving the X-Men to puzzle about the nature of an animated corpse of no one in particular suddenly stopping outside their gate. They were distracted, however, by the more pressing issue at hand--the Children of the Vault. During the conflict, Regan regained consciousness and was recruited by Rogue onto her new team of X-Men.

"Infection"

After defeating the Children of the Vault, Rogue's squad next came into conflict with Pandemic. Pandemic kidnapped Rogue to perform experiments on her to see if mutations could be caught and exploited like a virus. The team went to rescue her and during a conflict, the as of yet unrevealed Urizen protected Regan by attacking a soldier behind her, causing Iceman to suspect something was up with Regan, though she appeared unaware of anything strange. Later, after Rogue had been rescued while in critical condition, Sabretooth stated that Regan doesn't smell right and that there is something inside of her that "stinks like it's dead." Regan also ignored these comments.

"Red Data"

In "X-Men" #197, While the team rushed Rogue to a hospital on Providence, an island created by Cable, Regan demonstrated that she had been fully aware of something residing in her mind and was determined to remove it. Using her own powers of illusion on herself and some assisted hypnosis, Regan discovered where Urizen was hiding. This is technically the first time Urizen was revealed/introduced in totality. Urizen tried to hide behind a mental wall and even took Regan's own form to trick her, but Regan was hardly fooled and angrily expelled Urizen from her mind. However, Urizen forcefully took over Regan's body and made her way to Cable, whom it recognized as someone powerful enough to help it and to whom it explained the grave situation of Hecatomb's imminent arrival on Earth.

Urizen offered to bond with Cable and restore his lost telepathy and telekinesis, making the two of them stronger as one to face Hecatomb. Remembering the previous threat caused by another mummudrai, Cassandra Nova, the X-Men were distrustful of Urizen's motives and Cable initially refused. However, Hecatomb arrived as stated and began slaughtering the population of Providence to feed while searching for Urizen, eventually wielding the power of 8 billion minds as offensive weapons. Seeing that there was no other choice, Cable reluctantly agreed. Together, Cable and Urizen battled Hecatomb, but began losing ground when Hecatomb adapted its attacks to separate the two.

Death

In a last ditch effort, Cable/Urizen telepathically woke up Rogue, who was in critical condition and infected with Pandemic's "Strain 88", a virus that caused Rogue to instantly absorb a person's entire mind with one touch, effectively killing them. Before Rogue could get to the scene of the battle and eventually defeat it, Hecatomb managed to separate the mind meld between Cable and Urizen with a mind blast. In its final moments, Urizen screamed that it was dying and frantically begged Cable not to let Hecatomb assimilate it before Hecatomb finally consumed and "killed" Urizen.

Before Hecatomb could kill Cable next, Rogue managed to defeat it by absorbing all 8 billion of Hecatomb's merged minds into herself. Though Rogue now contains all the memories of every dead mind that Hecatomb absorbed, it is unknown whether or not Urizen's is among them.

Powers and Abilities

As a mummudrai, Ev Teel Urizen possesses significant telepathic and telekinetic abilities. It is able to possess anyone with a sentient mind (though things such as Cable's forcefield can stop it) and can exploit that individual's abilities (such as using Lady Mastermind's illusions or Mystique's morphing abilities). It can also reside dormant within a host's mind, though its ability to be detected is clear from Regan's own psychic abilities and Sabretooth's enhanced sense of smell. Also, like all other mummudrai, he can awaken/activate new or different mutations in mutants.

When mind-melded with Cable, Urizen's power (as a hybrid with Cable) is increased, giving them immense telekinesis (the ability to throw the Children of the Vault's "The Conquistador", a UCC-Type Tanker and the ability to levitate the entire island of Providence). After they are separated in "X-Men"#199, Cable says that his telekinesis and telepathy died with Urizen.