ALLIANCE OF EVIL

Written By: 
Last Updated: 
1st June 2006

Originally the Alliance of Evil was working for Apocalypse, but he decided to drop them after seeing how miserably they performed in battle against X-Factor.

Membership: Frenzy, Tower, Timeshadow, Stinger

First appearance:
X-Factor (1st series) #4 [hinted at]
X-Factor (1st series) #5 [fully]

Last appearance: New Mutants Annual #7
[Since then, one member died and another joined a different team; the remaining two have been forgotten about.]

Before

  • Tower made his first appearance in X-Factor (1st series) #2 as a mutant mercenary.
  • The other characters are completely new.

 

 

Chronology

 

X-Factor (1st series) #4: Both Tower and Frenzy try to abduct Rusty Collins from X-Factor's care; talking about this assignment they mention a "master".
X-Factor (1st series) #5: The Alliance of Evil and X-Factor fight over a mutant with power-increasing abilities. Blackmailing this man with the safety of his family, the Alliance of Evil wins. In his hideout the “master“ is seen, he calls himself Apocalypse.
X-Factor (1st series) #6: X-Factor is able to trace the Alliance of Evil down and fights them. During the battle, the augmenting mutant dies. Seeing his agents fall in battle, Apocalypse leaves his minions to the authorities.
X-Factor (1st series) #7: In a TV interview Tower blames X-Factor for the deaths that occurred during the battle.
X-Factor (1st series) #33: The Alliance of Evil demonstrates against the Mutant Registration Act and provokes a fight with X-Factor. After they are defeated, Freedom Force shows up to take them to prison.
New Mutants Annual #7: The Alliance of Evil (without Timeshadow) are working for Harness. She wants to recreate Proteus and uses her son Piecemeal to soak up his resident energies. The Alliance of Evil has to make sure that they are not disturbed while feeding. X-Force interferes and defeats the Alliance, but Harness and Piecemeal get away.
New Warriors Annual #1: The Warriors and the New Mutants interrogate Frenzy and learn that Harness works together with AIM.

Afterwards

  • Frenzy was next seen still imprisoned in the Avengers: Deathtrap – The Vault graphic novel. She later joined the Acolytes and stopped using her codename. Like most other Acolytes she instead let herself be called by her last name, in her case “Cargill“. [Uncanny X-Men #298] She was later mind-controlled by Jean Grey to temporarily join an interim team of X-Men and provide them with inside knowledge of Genosha, ruled by the Acolytes‘ leader, Magneto. It is unknown whether she returned to Genosha after she regained her free will and if so, whether she survived the island nation getting slaughtered by a new breed of Sentinels.
  • Tower was seen terrorizing the inhabitants of a small village in South America just before the X-Cutioner killed him. [Uncanny X-Men Annual #17]
  • Apocalypse went on to employ various other henchmen, including the Dark Riders and his various Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
  • Stinger and Timeshadow have made no appearances outside the Alliance of Evil. Timeshadow‘s last comic book appearance is dated 1988, Stinger’s from 1991. Harness and Piecemeal have also not been seen since 1991, in the Kings of Pain crossover which linked them with the Alliance.

Members

Tower

First appearance: X-Factor (1st series) #2
First Alliance of Evil appearance: X-Factor (1st series) #4
Last appearance: Uncanny X-Men Annual #17 [killed by the X-Cutioner]

All Alliance of Evil appearances: X-Factor (1st series) #4-7, 33, New Mutants Annual #7

Powers: shunt mass through his body from an extra-dimensional source in order to shrink down to miniature size or proportionately increase his natural size, strength, resilience, and density

Frenzy (Joanna Cargill)

First appearance: X-Factor (1st series) #4

All Alliance of Evil appearances: X-Factor (1st series) #4-6, 33, New Mutants Annual 7, New Warriors Annual 1

Powers: superhuman strength, endurance, and steel-hard skin that protects her from all forms of physical injury and temperature extremes

Stinger

First appearance: X-Factor (1st series) #5

All Alliance of Evil appearances: X-Factor (1st series) #5-6, 33, New Mutants Annual #7

Powers: bolt-thrower able to generate bio-electricity within her cells and discharge it as lightning bolts from her fingertips

Timeshadow

First appearance: X-Factor (1st series) #5

All Alliance of Evil appearances: X-Factor (1st series) #5-6, 33

Powers: propel his corporeal form in and out of dimensional sync, allowing him to materialize phase-form duplicates of himself, travel at accelerated speeds through our timeframe, and move completely out of reality for a fractional time period

Associates

Apocalypse (En Sabah Nur)

First appearance: X-Factor (1st series) #5

All Alliance of Evil appearances: X-Factor (1st series) #5-6

Powers: metahuman strength, speed, endurance, reflexes, durability, can absorb outside sources of energy to increase his strength, teleport himself over vast distances, discharge massive amounts of raw plasma, omnimorphic molecular structure that allows him to assume any physical form, shape his limbs into weapons or devices, and alter his size and mass, and a techno-organic factor in his bloodstream, enabling vast regenerative potential

Michael Nowlan (“The Source”)

First appearance: X-Factor (1st series) #5
Last appearance: X-Factor (1st series) #6 [reabsorbed too much of his own power]

All Alliance of Evil appearances: X-Factor (1st series) #5-6

Powers: release plumes of bio-matrix energy that supercharge the mutagenic energy levels of others, granting mutants temporarily enhanced powers or overloading their abilities so that they rage out of control

Harness (Erika Benson)

First appearance: New Mutants Annual #7

All Alliance of Evil appearances: New Mutants Annual #7

Powers: generate a thin coil of bio-plasmic energy from the back of her hand, which she can use as a whiplash or to collar her opponents, causing them to experience paralysis and intense pain, A.I.M. personal battlesuit increases her strength and durability, is equipped with proximity and telescopic targeting sensors, a teleportation unit, and an array of weapons including arm blades, machine guns, computer-guided lasers, and omni-directional repulsor rays

Facts: Harness is actually Piecemeal’s mother, and she also has a daughter who is a potential mutant, left in control of A.I.M. after her capture.

Piecemeal (Gilbert Benson)

First appearance: New Mutants Annual #7
Last appearance: X-Factor Annual #6 [committed suicide]

All Alliance of Evil appearances: New Mutants Annual #7

Powers: attune his body to specific energy wavelengths, allowing him to sense these signatures from afar and absorb them into his body upon close proximity, causing him to become bloated with the energy he stores

Facts: Piecemeal was responsible for reanimating Kevin MacTaggert, Proteus, in Uncanny X-Men Annual #15, and joined with him body and mind. This amalgamated Proteus ultimately decided he didn’t want to live in this world, and chose to end his/their life in X-Factor Annual #6.