BIOGRAPHY - page 2
Unfortunately, Belasco was neither dead nor his threat ended. Instead of killing their faithful yet inept servant, the Elder Gods had imprisoned Belasco in a dimension outside space and time. For the most part it lacked a name but, while some grew to call it Otherplace, many chose to call it Limbo, evoking an image of a zone between heaven and hell. It is unclear what was in Limbo prior to Belasco’s arrival (or if there had even been a place prior to this) or if it had been inhabited. However, after Belasco’s arrival, the pocket dimension was inhabited by an untold number of demons. Belasco’s children vanished from Pangea just as he was defeated, meaning it was possible the Elder Gods banished them to Limbo as well.
One of the features of this realm was that whoever ruled it could reshape it in their image as they 
desired. In order to rule, Belasco was directed by the Elder Gods in a ritual for creating his Soulsword, a symbol of his power and arcane might that signified his ownership of Limbo. To keep him in check, though, the Elder Gods then took Belasco’s Soulsword from him and hid it away deep in Limbo where he could not find it. The Screaming Tower was not only a dungeon of perils and guardians to protect Belasco’s Soulsword, but the Elder Gods also made it invisible to his senses so he could not even locate it. Give and take… the Elder Gods made Belasco ruler of Limbo, then deprived him of his symbol of office and left him vulnerable to future takeovers. [Mary Jane & Black Cat #2]
Despite this handicap, Belasco wasted no time in twisting the landscape into deserts and hellish wastelands. In one of the realm’s deserts, Belasco created a mountaintop citadel, high in the clouds. In the citadel itself, Belasco filled libraries with grimoires and other tomes dedicated to the dark arts. Here he would refine his powers and grow in strength. At his side, the most powerful demon of Limbo was S’ym. As powerful as he was, S’ym was very much under the command of Belasco. Despite this fealty, S’ym was hardly loyal to his master and plotted for the day that he might take control of the dimension. Throughout his control of Limbo, Belasco would be sure to keep S’ym on a very short leash.
With the stage set, his power base re-established, Belasco continued his quest for power. While 
his exile to Limbo had been a form of imprisonment by the Elder Gods, it was not just for punishment. The Elder Gods had wished for the sorcerer to redeem himself, at least in part, by freeing himself from this dimensional prison. From this place outside of time and space, Belasco was able to plot his escape outside the confines of time. In this manner was he able to affect events that took place during his seven centuries imprisonment in the Savage Land.
One such attempt was with a young girl named Maire O’Connell. Some five hundred years ago, Belasco managed to abduct this girl, who was in her teens, and bring her to his citadel in Limbo. 
There, he trained her as an apprentice and disciple. To this young girl, he gave a locket similar in appearance to the one he fashioned for Beatrice. Clearly, he intended to begin anew the same spell he began in the 13th century. Despite his intentions, the young Maire became arrogant in her new powers. To cure the young girl of this, Belasco reached into her soul and gave her her heart’s desire: to become immortal. Still, this did not seem to be enough. In order to ensure that his apprentice never tried to overthrow him, Belasco stripped Maire of her magic and cast her out of Limbo. Nearly powerless, though immortal, Maire would grow to curse her immortality and wished for a way to be released from her condition. She would have to wait for five hundred years before another apprentice of Belasco’s could help her. [Marvel Super-Heroes (2nd series) #1]
Belasco also kept an eye out for those that would eventually meddle in his plans. For centuries, the women of one family had taught their daughters a powerful mystical discipline known as the Winding Way. Prophecy decreed the end of this line would be a woman to wield a powerful, yet evil, weapon called the Soulsword. One such woman in this line of sorceresses was Margali Szardos, who was a mystic in a traveling circus in Germany. When her daughter, Jimaine, planned to leave her mother’s side to go with her lover, Kurt Wagner, who would later be known as Nightcrawler, Margali summoned the image of the Soulsword, declaring that it was part of her daughter’s destiny, one that she could not avoid.
Transfixed by this beautiful visage, Jimaine approached the image, only to see a demonic hand arise from the pentagram that created it. Clad in his dark, red robes, Belasco introduced himself and declared that the sword was not for the likes of them, but for someone else. Intending to use the sword in the meantime, Belasco started to strike at Jimaine and end her threat then and there. Before he could do so, however, Margali managed to end the spell that summoned him, returning the sorcerer to Limbo.
Still not convinced, Jimaine remained resolute in leaving. Becoming desperate, Margali cast another spell, reshaping her image to that of Belasco’s. In this form, Margali confronted her 
daughter, mocking her decision as causing a quicker rise of his power and eventual possession of the Soulsword. To seal her daughter’s fears, “Belasco” killed the trapeze artist who was to take Jimaine’s place in the show. Believing that actually she was meant to be killed by the “demon,” Jimaine decided to stay with her mother and hone her magical skills. Due to the nature of Limbo and prophecy, it would be many years from both their perspectives before Belasco and the Szardos sorceresses truly began their struggle over the Soulsword. [Excalibur #minus 1]
Several decades before his unthawing, Belasco apparently impregnated another woman, engineering the birth of his daughter, one day known as Witchfire. [Alpha Flight (1st series) #122-124] He also made time for a Faustian pact with the researcher, Ted Sallis. Dr. Sallis was part of a government project trying to recreate the Super-Soldier Serum. Sallis could not crack the science, so he hoped to cheat by using magic. Belasco offered inter-dimensional magic to help Sallis finish his work, in exchange for his absolute silence on how he achieved success, and his inevitable ruin in the future. The arrogant Sallis thought he could beat Belasco’s prophecy and agreed to these terms. Instead, Sallis was betrayed by his own wife, hunted by A.I.M. and injected himself with his serum of science and magic to keep it out of the terrorists’ hands. He was reborn in the Florida Everglades as the Man-Thing, guardian of the Nexus of All Realities. [X-Men: Curse of the Man-Thing #1]
There is little way of knowing how many other times Belasco might have influenced events during this time. With the ability to reach through time, even to the time he was still frozen in Pangea, Belasco’s dark influence could have touched untold numbers. Whatever he did do, however, only seemed to be a precursor or steppingstone to his final plan, which included the young girl named Illyana Rasputin.
In one of his attempts at world domination, the mutant supremacist known as Magneto had raised an ancient city from the ocean floor in the Bermuda Triangle. After Magneto’s defeat by the X-Men, ownership of the island fell to the outlaw team’s hands. Shortly thereafter, the team began the process of exploration, attempting to figure out what ancient, extinct people had created the island’s temples. As they explored, the X-Men were unaware that they were being watched through the scrying pool of Belasco. To this day, it is unclear what the origins of the city are or if Belasco’s masters had any hand it its creation or destruction. Nonetheless, Belasco became interested in its new inhabitants, and one of them in particular.
The strongman of the team, the metallic Colossus, was being visited by his young six-year-old sister, Illyana. Much like Maire five hundred years ago, Belasco became fascinated with the young 
girl and saw her innocence and potential in completing the spell he began so long ago. Calling out to the little girl, Belasco told Illyana to follow his voice and she would be led into paradise. As the rest of the team was in the middle of training, most of the X-Men did not notice as the six-year-old walked into the labyrinth. Unlike her teammates, Kitty Pryde did notice and chased after the young girl. Despite being half her age, Illyana managed to keep ahead of Kitty and even disappeared. Still in chase, Kitty walked into the shadows and found herself teleported away on a stepping disc of light.
Still hot on Illyana’s trail, Kitty found her way into the courtroom of Belasco, who already held Illyana under his thrall. Introducing himself, Belasco quickly captured Kitty and placed her inside a crystal that nullified her powers, preventing her escape. Topping this, Belasco used a second spell to remove Kitty’s skeleton, preventing her from being freed and escaping. Horrified, Kitty was trapped within the crystal as her skeleton hung in the air before her. Turning his attention to Illyana, Belasco offered a trinket: a locket containing a pentagram, whose points were grooves where a small stone might fit. Clearly, Belasco meant to resume his spell. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #160]
Much of what happened in the next few minutes and, relatively, in the next few decades, is a little unclear. The events that transpired have only been viewed through the prism of a secondary timeline, which supplanted the first. The following, however, is known for sure. The X-Men team of Storm, Colossus, Wolverine and Nightcrawler originally managed to catch up with Illyana and Kitty and engaged Belasco. Caught unprepared, the dark sorcerer fled further into his citadel, his prize seemingly lost. Wishing to save their youthful charge, the X-Men sent Illyana home, through one of the luminous stepping discs, though they decided themselves not to return for the moment. Instead, they meant to hunt down Belasco and make him pay. As a result of this decision, Illyana managed to return home (in a timeline parallel to Earth-616) but the X-Men became stuck in Limbo forever.
It is unclear how long the X-Men remained in Limbo, though it was long enough for Colossus to grow old. During these decades, Belasco’s demon servant, S’ym, killed both Wolverine and Colossus. Wolverine’s flesh was left to rot, leaving his adamantium skeleton lying in the corridors. Colossus’ chest was caved in and his inert metal body was draped upon the wall on the same spot, left to hang for eternity. Presumably, Nightcrawler resisted as well. However, in time he became the faithful servant of Belasco, who darkened Nightcrawler’s inner soul into a mirror of his 
outward form: demonic and cruel. Having been imprisoned in the crystal, Kitty Pryde would have been unable to resist. It was presumably directly from this state that Belasco transformed Kitty into a form that mocked her name, the partially feline Cat.
It had been known for some time that Ororo possessed magic in her blood. It was a part of her heritage for generations, but not developed up until that time. Having lost his prize, Illyana, Belasco seemed interested in using this side of Ororo’s heritage toward his goals. As her elemental powers began to wane, Belasco began to teach Ororo the art of sorcery. Presumably, this was more of a result of his coercion than her allowance.
As time passed, Ororo gained in power and skill. Eventually, convinced that she was powerful 
enough, Ororo turned on Belasco, attacking him with her combined powers of sorcery and elemental control. Belasco reeled from the attack and fell to the floor. Having suffered for too long at the dark lord’s hands, Ororo went against her oldest belief and delivered the killing blow, murdering Belasco. In doing so, however, she utterly failed. Ororo had forgotten that Belasco had been given immortality by the Elder Gods and any death would be fleeting. Ororo herself, however, had perverted her very soul, becoming as cruel and dark as the man whom she had tried to slay. Once more alive, Belasco commanded his servant to bow before him, as she was now seemingly in his thrall forever.
Overconfidence, however, remained one of Belasco’s weaknesses. Convinced that Ororo’s perversion of her own soul was irrevocable, Belasco continued Ororo’s training and allowed her to have a section of Limbo of her own to remake. Over the years that followed, Ororo would try to regain the lost bit of her soul by creating a garden, which she called her Oasis of Life. She formed her new sanctuary by creating a single acorn, a thing of beauty and nature, and allowing it to grow naturally into a gigantic tree over the years. As it grew, so did her sanctuary. Ororo freed herself from Belasco’s oversight and began to live elsewhere in Limbo at her Garden in defiance of him. [Storm & Illyana: Magik #1-4]