Publisher: Marvel comics
Created by: Steve Gerber, Ross Andru
1st appearance: Shanna, The She-Devil #5 (August, 1973)
Nationality: Mexican
Team Affiliations: Lethal Legion, Black Spectre, Cult of Kali
Legal Status:
Height: 5′ 11″ Weight: 145 lbs
Eye color: Black Hair color: Black
Relatives: Buck Sinclair (father, deceased), Gemma Sinclair (mother, deceased), “Death Reaper” (daughter)
Abilities: Nekra is a formidable hand to hand combatant, even without the use of any of her powers. She is also proficient in various voodoo rituals, particularly the creation and manipulation of zombies. She’s developed her own unique hybrid of Voodoo practices, namely combining teachings of Black Talon and the Cult of Kali.
Powers: Nekra is a mutant sorceress who possesses a variety of superhuman abilities:
Emotional Empowerment: Nekra is able to grant herself various superhuman physical attributes by harnessing violent emotions within her, especially the emotion of hate. The precise nature of how she’s able to do this isn’t known, but it is possible this ability is partially psionic.
- Superhuman Strength: Given sufficient emotional passion, Nekra’s physical strength is increased sufficiently to lift 10 tons. She is capable of increasing her strength to much greater levels for brief periods of time while her aggressive feelings are at their peak.
- Superhuman Speed: Nekra can run and move at speeds that are beyond the natural physical limits of the finest human athlete.
- Peak Human Stamina: As her powers depend upon her negative emotions, Nekra is capable of exerting herself at peak efficiency for up to 1 hour before she’s no longer able to sustain her emotional intensity.
- Superhuman Durability: With her powers at their peak, Nekra’s body is highly resistant to most forms of physical injury. High caliber bullets typically bounce off of her and most blades break against her skin. She can also withstand falls from great heights, exposure to temperature extremes, and powerful impact forces usually without sustaining injury.
- Superhuman Agility: Nekra’s agility, balance, and bodily coordination are enhanced to levels that are beyond the natural physical limits of the finest human athlete.
- Superhuman Reflexes: Nekra’s reflexes are similarly enhanced and are superior to those of the finest human athlete.
Biography
Origin
Decades ago, Gemma Sinclair was an African-American cleaning lady at Los Alamos National Laboratory. While she was pregnant, an exploding lab experiment bombarded Gemma with radiation, causing her unborn child to mutate. Nekra was born albino-like with vampiric features. Loathed by her parents and community, Nekra ran away into the New Mexico desert to live alone when she was fourteen years old.
She soon encountered another child who had been mutated by the same explosion. Although his parents were white, he had been born dark-skinned and had developed fur and baboon-like features, for which he had named himself Mandrill. For six years they lived by theft and scavenging until they were attacked by a lynch mob that thought they were monsters. While filled with rage, Nekra discovered she was invulnerable to the mob’s attacks. Slaying a few of their persecutors, the two escaped and come to regard each other as if they were siblings.
The two later left to Africa, as part of the Mandrill’s ambitious scheme to overthrow multiple nations through Black Spectre, a cult of personality powered by the Mandrill’s pheromonal control over women. This effort was thwarted by Shanna the She-Devil. The two eventually escaped, kidnapping Shanna’s father in the process, and eventually killing him.
Their next plot was of similar means, whereby they used the Mandrill’s powers to raise a cult of black women to overthrow America. They were eventually defeated on the White House lawn by Daredevil, the Black Widow, and Shanna. Abandoned by Mandrill, Nekra was captured by authorities.
Cult of Kali & the West Coast
Nekra was held captive and drugged in a S.H.I.E.L.D. hospital, until a subliminal message from Hate-Monger inadvertently gave her the rage necessary to break free. While in the New York sewers, Nekra encountered the Cult of Kali, whom she persuaded that Nekra herself was the reincarnation of Kali. She then moved to the West Coast where she killed and replaced Adrienne Hatros, the reclusive sponsor of an emotional research clinic where Nekra hoped to overcome her own dependency upon emotions. This plot was foiled by the first Spider Woman.
Grim Reaper
Escaping again, Nekra fell in with the voodoo-master the Black Talon as a voodoo tutor, and with the Grim Reaper as her lover. When the Grim Reaper died in combat, Nekra was able to briefly reanimate him as a zombie, so lifelike that even the Grim Reaper did not realize he was dead. When Nekra’s love became greater than her hate though, the Reaper died again. Nekra took his corpse with her, in hopes of reanimating him again.
Nekra then had run-ins with Spider-Man, Hank Pym, and Alpha Flight.
Nekra finally managed to re-animate the Grim Reaper again, but this time there was a caveat: he had to kill one person every 24 hours in order to stay ‘alive.’ The Reaper then promptly chose Nekra as his first victim and killed her.
Hellstorm’s Agent
Sensing the potential threat of Doctor Druid, Daimon Hellstrom used his magics to reanimate Nekra, and sent her to investigate him. First she seduced Dr. Druid, then shot him in the forehead, killing him.
The Loners
Nekra was donating genetic material to an M.G.H ring that had sprung up in L.A. after the death of The Pride. She was defeated by Ricochet, Darkhawk, and the third Spider-Woman. She later returned to the Loners’ meeting place to get her revenge on them. Nekra easily battled and defeated all of the Loners and preceded to strangle Mickey, when she was struck from behind by a mysterious lady named “Namie”.
San Francisco & Utopia
During the riots in San Francisco, Nekra was seen fighting alongside Frenzy. She was taken out with a sucker punch energy blast by Ms. Marvel of the Dark Avengers.
When the mutants fought the Avengers on Utopia, Nekra, Frenzy, and Bling! took down Ms. Marvel.
Nekra reunited with the Grim Reaper as a member of the Lethal Legion as part of a failed scheme against Norman Osborn.
Chaos War
Nekra assisted a resurrected Grim Reaper in fighting the Dead Avengers. She was killed with the Grim Reaper when Vision self-destructed.
