The strong-willed Princess-Majestrix Lilandra rules as Empress of the Shi’ar. But despite her acts of goodwill, the legacy of her Neramani bloodline comes with a history of cosmic war and upheaval.
Born for the Throne
Lilandra Neramani is the youngest child born to Emperor Neramani, ruler of the royal family of the Shi’ar Empire, a sprawling intergalactic conglomerate of planets and cultures governed by the Shi’ar race. At some point, Lilandra’s oldest sister, Cal’syee murders their mother and an unidentified sister and was exiled, leaving Neramani’s only son, D’ken, heir to the throne.
Lilandra is sent to study at the Chandilar Academy. A very intense Lilandra proves to be an excellent student but does not gain a working knowledge of warfare until she single handedly defeats an assault by the parasitic Brood. When D’ken claims the throne, he swiftly cements his harsh policies and power base. Always despising the shifting loyalties, corruption, and politics of the royal nest, Lilandra wanders the starways after Academy, exploring alien cultures and worlds, experiencing hardships that fortify her spirit and strengthen her.
Lilandra eventually returns to the Empire to command the Imperial Navy, training Shi’ar soldiers, and enforcing Shi’ar law across the Empire, also serving as the super-powered Imperial Guard’s grand admiral.
Avian Evolution
As one of the Shi’ar, Lilandra had mammalian and avian characteristics with feathers in place of hair on her head and forearms. She can lift 1 ton, and her adrenal system grants her 20 times human endurance and stamina.
She has a limited telepathic sensitivity, especially with the X-Men’s leader Charles Xavier, AKA Professor X, but it is unclear if this was intrinsic, or due to her affiliation and psychic bond with Xavier’s telepathy.
She often wears form-fitting battle armor and is trained in the use of most Shi’ar weaponry but prefers to carry an energy sword that she wields with great proficiency.
As Majestrix, Lilandra carries a multi-pronged staff, but it is unclear if this staff was a weapon or purely ornamental. She’s an excellent hand-to-hand combatant, highly trained in warfare tactics and sword fighting, is an experienced interstellar pilot, and has exceptional abilities in diplomacy, mediating, and governing.
Familial and Fierce Foes
Emperor Neramani’s only son, D’ken, heir to the Shi’ar throne, is ruthless and power-hungry, which pits the siblings against each other. D’ken uses the Imperial Guard, who are loyal to the throne alone despite Lilandra’s position in their ranks, to arrest Lilandra, go up against her allies, and his cabal of followers cause her many headaches.
Lilandra’s older sister, the ferocious Cal’syee, murders their mother and their other sister. Despite being exiled and her name banned from Shi’ar history, she becomes known as Deathbird and attempts to usurp the Shi’ar throne by capturing Lilandra. Though her allegiance shifts when the Shi’ar go up against the Kree.
After the Kree Empire’s Supreme Intelligence and his allies the Skrulls, covertly manipulate Lilandra, the Shi’ar and Kree Empires declare war on one another. Lilandra commissions a Nega-Bomb to wipe out the Kree but Earth’s Avengers convinced her otherwise. However, in a tragic turn of events, the Skrulls steal the bomb and all but wipe out the Kree, leaving Lilandra feeling responsible. She claims the remaining Kree Empire under Shi’ar rule, delegating her sister Deathbird as its viceroy.
An Earth mutant and former Xavier student Gabriel Summers, AKA Vulcan, attacks the Shi’ar for past injustices, fell in love with Deathbird, and together they help restore D’Ken to the throne, imprisoning Lilandra for a time. They temporarily team up against the Scy’ar Tal race when they attack the Shi’ar, but once that alliance ends, Lilandra and the Starjammers continue their battle against Vulcan.
Heroes in the Truest Sense
During Lilandra’s time as the Imperial Guard’s grand admiral, the Guard’s praetor, Kallark, AKA Gladiator, develops feelings for Lilandra, which apparently remains unrequited.
Lilandra’s true love is Charles Xavier. Though they live on entirely different worlds, they stay connected through Xavier’s telekinesis and ultimately marry. When complications arise and their respective duty to their people calls, their marriage is annulled. She is a friend and close resource to his X-Men, who often come to her aid against world-ending threats. She sees the X-Men as a shining example that her people can follow.
Lilandra joins the Intergalactic Council and often allies with the freedom-fighting pirate Starjammers against those that attempt to usurp her throne.
From the Throne Room
When D’ken later sought the ultimate power of the interdimensional nexus known as the M’kraan Crystal, Lilandra opposed his plans in the Shi’ar High Council, and was arrested as a traitor. After a brief civil war amongst their people, Lilandra’s personal force, the Pathfinders, freed her, though most were killed in the effort. A psychic wave emanating from Earth telepath Charles Xavier, boosted across space when he harnessed Earth’s collective will to prevent a Z’nox invasion, overtook Lilandra, mentally connecting her to
Xavier, bonding them in heart and soul. However, D’ken’s telepaths also sensed this rapport, and as Lilandra fled to Earth to seek Xavier’s help, D’ken sent his agents to capture Lilandra. When she met Xavier in person, he used his telepathy to instantly teach Lilandra English, moments before she was captured and returned to Shi’ar space by D’ken agent Davan Shakari, AKA Eric the Red; Xavier’s heroic mutant X-Men pursued. Lilandra begged D’ken to stop his schemes but was unable to convince him. During a fierce battle between the X-Men and the Imperial Guard, the Starjammers intervened, turning the tide in Lilandra’s favor.
D’ken was defeated but was driven insane by the Crystal’s energies. Lilandra was briefly exiled on Earth while awaiting the High Council’s commuting her traitorous actions. She and Xavier established a full psychic bond, experiencing each other’s complete minds. Later, Lilandra returned to the Empire with Xavier, and took the throne with him as
her Imperial Consort, though his Earthly responsibilities soon took him home. Lilandra’s strong-willed, but fair leadership proved to be more moderate than D’ken, her governing policies keeping the Shi’ar tendency to conquer new worlds in check and giving many previously conquered races a voice in the Empire.
Though believed dead by most, D’ken loyalists secretly hid his comatose body and plotted against Lilandra, disliking her leadership style and resenting Xavier’s appointment. Lilandra’s forces stopped her uncle Ka’ardum’s attempts to dethrone her, secretly exiling/imprisoning him. When Xavier’s student Jean Grey seemingly became the incredibly powerful Phoenix (which was the cosmic Phoenix Force impersonating Grey) and destroyed the star D’bari, killing billions, Lilandra took the Imperial Guard to Earth’s moon to neutralize the threat, reluctantly clashing with the X-Men. In the process, the Phoenix Force committed suicide, seemingly destroying itself.
Cal’syee, now called Deathbird, later allied with the Brood and had Lilandra kidnapped, implicating Earth in the crime. One of Deathbird’s loyalists, the Fleet’s Admiral Lord Samédàr, planned on destroying Earth, but the X-Men rescued Lilandra, with Samédàr exposed as a traitor. However, soon after this, Deathbird helped the Brood abduct Lilandra and the X-Men; though they escaped, they found themselves unwilling hosts for Brood eggs until the space-wandering Acanti cured them, then returned to Earth to save Xavier from his own Brood infection. Though Deathbird had usurped the Shi’ar throne in her absence, Lilandra posed as Majestrix Shi’ar in leading an intergalactic tribunal in trying the Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards, AKA Mister Fantastic, for saving the life of the planet-devouring Galactus. After the embodiment of all life, Eternity, showed the tribunal Galactus’ place in the cosmic scheme of existence, Richards was freed. After a time on Earth with Xavier and his students, Lilandra returned to Shi’ar space and joined the Starjammers in rebelling against Deathbird’s rule. Sometime later, sensing that Xavier was dying after a brutal beating by mutant haters, she enlisted the Starjammers’ help in getting to Earth, bringing Xavier to Shi’ar space, where his body was healed by highly advanced medical technology. Unable to return him to Earth due to damage to the Starjammers’ hyperspace drive technology, Xavier joined the Starjammers in battling for Lilandra’s reclamation of the Empire. Later, to gain control of the Empire, shape-shifting Warskrulls captured the Starjammers and, posing as Lilandra’s allies, overthrew Deathbird and placed a mind-controlled Lilandra back on the throne.
Unknowingly mentally influenced by the captive Xavier, Deathbird sought the X-Men’s help, and after a pitched battle, the Warskrulls were defeated. Deathbird relinquished the throne to Lilandra, claiming she had tired of the Empire’s complicated political affairs. Xavier subsequently left for Earth, reluctantly leaving Lilandra behind, the two communicating through brief hologram transmissions periodically; however, the distance and their respective duties eventually caused the two to grow apart.
Later, covertly manipulated by the Kree Empire’s Supreme Intelligence and his allies the Skrulls, the Shi’ar and Kree Empires declared war on one another. Lilandra ordered the construction of a Nega-Bomb, a device that could utilize negative matter to destroy all life for light years around, but a delegation of Earth’s Avengers convinced Lilandra to rescind the order; however, the Skrulls (longtime Kree enemies) stole the bomb and detonated it in Kree space, killing trillions. Lilandra regretfully claimed the Kree Empire in the Shi’ar’s name, and named Deathbird her viceroy of the Kree Empire.
After helping to successfully repel Galactus from devouring the Shi’ar homeworld, Lilandra was later appointed hegemonic head of the Intergalactic Council, and reluctantly presided over the decision to confine humans to Earth by transforming the planet into an interstellar prison and erecting a barrier around the planet, to prevent human interference in galactic affairs. The Council ultimately learned its ruling had been manipulated by the Supreme Intelligence and opposed the Kree plot, though it cost the Shi’ar control over the Kree Empire in the resulting war against them. Later visiting with Xavier, Lilandra was unaware that his mind had been switched with that of his disembodied genetic twin, Cassandra Nova. As Xavier, Cassandra killed many Shi’ar and drove Lilandra insane. Nova influenced the Imperial Guard into attacking the X-Men; however, the two teams ultimately defeated Cassandra. Subsequently, Lilandra was forced to temporarily step down from her duties as majestrix to recover, and her marriage to Xavier was annulled. In Lilandra’s absence, D’ken’s secret cabal of followers made power plays to keep Lilandra from the throne.
Vulcan then vengefully assaulted the Shi’ar Empire for injustices suffered in the past but was captured by the Imperial Guard. D’ken’s loyalists allied Vulcan with fellow prisoner Deathbird, and the two fell in love. Vulcan’s powers restored D’ken’s mind, and they overthrew Lilandra, returning D’ken to the throne. The X-Men and the Starjammers freed Lilandra from captivity, and opposed D’ken’s rule. Lilandra revoked her uncle Admiral Ka’ardum’s exile, and he turned much of the Shi’ar military to Lilandra’s side.
After capturing Xavier, Deathbird and Vulcan were married just before Lilandra’s forces attacked. During the melee, Vulcan murdered D’ken and claimed the Shi’ar throne for himself. Several X-Men subsequently joined the Starjammers in aiding Lilandra’s opposition to Vulcan’s rule. The Empire began to fracture over the following months, as Lilandra, the Starjammers, and Ka’ardum’s forces battled those Shi’ar loyal to Vulcan.
As both sides prepared for battle, they were attacked by the Scy’ar Tal race, who sought revenge against the Shi’ar for taking their homeworld away from them in the past. Temporarily working with Vulcan, Lilandra, the Starjammers, and the Shi’ar defeated the Scy’ar Tal. However, Vulcan then turned on the Starjammers, capturing many of them, as Ka’ardum defected to Vulcan’s forces. Lilandra and the remaining Starjammers continued their battle against Vulcan on the edge of the Empire.
Vulcan recanted Lilandra’s previous edict that there would be no more expansions in the Shi’ar Empire, taking over multiple territories. Vulcan soon led the Imperial Guard in a massive assault on the reunited Starjammers; during the battle, Deathbird was gravely wounded and left comatose by Lilandra, and the Starjammers freed their captive
teammates and escaped. Vulcan then tried to annex the Kree by declaring war upon them and their Inhuman king Blackagar Boltagon, AKA Black Bolt. The Imperial Guard captured Lilandra and delivered her to Vulcan, who was convinced not to execute her by Ka’ardum and Gladiator. The combined forces of the Kree, Inhumans, and Starjammers launched a counterattack and pilfered Shi’ar computers to gain Lilandra’s precise location.
Concurrently, Peter Quill, AKA Star-Lord’s Guardians of the Galaxy joined the Starjammers’ rescue attempt of Lilandra, hoping she could bring hostilities to an end. This group eventually rescued Lilandra with the unexpected assistance of Gladiator, who defected to Lilandra’s side. Immediately following Lilandra’s reclamation of her throne, Fraternity
of Raptors member Razor, having usurped Earth hero Chris Powell, AKA Darkhawk’s body, apparently murdered Lilandra during a battle between the Shi’ar Death Commandos and the Starjammers. Lilandra perished in Gladiator’s arms.
