A Sordid Story
At some point, Shaw spent time in Afghanistan, where he befriended Xavier, both unaware of their shared potential as Sinister’s host. While there, both Shaw and Xavier’s lives were saved by Tessa, a young Afghani mutant. In America, Shaw was invited to join the Hellfire Club. Soon after joining, Shaw learned of the Club’s secret leadership, the Inner Circle, a group dedicated to world domination through amassing economic and political power, and who commonly dressed in 18th century regalia for meetings and social gatherings, signifying their abandonment of the modern age’s focus on the greater good. Through his determination, Shaw quickly became one of the Circle, which had been renamed the Council of the Chosen by Buckman, the White King, and Shaw claimed the title Black Bishop, in Circle tradition of using chess piece nomenclature. Worried about Shaw’s development, Xavier asked Tessa to become Shaw’s assistant, but secretly spy on Shaw’s activities; similarly worried about Shaw, Tessa agreed.
Over time, Shaw gathered allies, including cyborg Donald Pierce (who was indebted to Shaw for unrevealed reasons) and multiple mutants: Chantel (now Shaw’s fiancée), the mass-manipulating Harry Leland, and telepathic Emma Frost. Buckman had the Council devote considerable financial backing to Dr. Steven Lang’s Project Armageddon, supposedly to research mutation for the Club’s benefit. However, Buckman and Lang secretly hated mutants, and Armageddon’s true goal was the extermination of mutantkind through mutant-hunting robots known as Sentinels. Shaw ignored Frost, Chantel and Tessa’s warnings that Buckman would betray him; and when the Sentinels were launched, one was sent to destroy Shaw’s allies. During the subsequent battle, Chantel was killed saving Shaw, who destroyed the robot. That night, Shaw and Frost killed Buckman and his Council, claiming chairmanship of the Club, returning the Council’s name to the Inner Circle, or “Lords Cardinal,” and took the title of Black King as the Circle’s Lord Imperial, and continued building the Sentinels, reasoning that their inevitable construction should benefit him. To consolidate his power, Shaw became a ruthless murderer, and filled the rest of the Circle with his superhuman allies. When Atlantean sovereign Namor McKenzie, AKA Namor the Sub-Mariner, rejected Circle membership, Shaw spitefully sent Sentinels to attack Atlantis in retaliation, earning Namor’s ire. Viewing Xavier’s X-Men as a threat to his agenda, Shaw and the Circle sent the mercenary Mitchell Tanner, AKA Warhawk, to bug the X-Men’s mansion, allowing the Circle to spy on them.
The Circle overtly moved against the X-Men when they competed with them over neophyte mutants Kitty Pryde and Alison Blaire, AKA Dazzler. Simultaneously, while pledging the Inner Circle, Jason Wyngarde, AKA Mastermind, tried to subvert X-Man Jean Grey, unaware Grey was actually the cosmic Phoenix Force mimicking Grey. The Inner Circle and X-Men battled in the Club’s Manhattan headquarters, but when “Grey” broke free of Mastermind’s control and turned the tide against the Club, Shaw was forced to retreat. Shaw used the X-Men’s attack to make police believe them a public threat and convinced his old friend U.S. Senator Robert Kelly producing Sentinels were vital to national security. Given direct approval from the U.S. President, Shaw oversaw Project Wideawake’s construction of Sentinels, using them to mask his pilfering government technology and research for his own benefit. Soon after, he recruited businessman Emmanuel Da Costa (Xavier’s student Roberto Da Costa, AKA Sunspot’s father) into the Inner Circle. When immortal sorceress Selene applied for the open Black Queen position, Shaw reluctantly accepted her, fearing her animosity. Shaw and Frost unsuccessfully tried to turn young mutant Angelica Jones, AKA Firestar, into an assassin, specifically to eliminate Selene, who made no secret of wanting Shaw’s position of power.
When estranged Xavier student Rachel Summers, AKA Phoenix, tried to assassinate Selene, the Lords Cardinal tried to capture her, but conflicted with the X-Men and Earth-811 (“Days of Future Past”)’s Nimrod Sentinel, a battle that killed Harry Leland as he saved Shaw’s life. Shaw invited then-X-Man Magneto to join the Circle as the White King, believing an alliance between the two groups would ensure mutual survival in the largely anti-mutant world; Magneto eventually accepted the offer. A power struggle developed between the two men, resulting in a battle where Magneto defeated Shaw. A subsequent vote amongst the Inner Circle ousted Shaw as Black King, his work on the Sentinels leveraging heavily against him. Shaw apparently remained a Club member, and continued his company’s Sentinel operations. Shaw apparently reclaimed the Inner Circle once Magneto left.
Sometime later, in a bid to gain power within the Upstarts, a young power-monger group secretly sponsored by Selene, Shinobi staged a hostile takeover of Shaw Industries and attacked his father directly, using his density powers to induce a heart attack in Sebastian. Shinobi taunted Sebastian with the possibility of Leland being his true father, then tried to kill him in a massive explosion. Sebastian secretly survived and began rebuilding his resources. After recruiting allies, including Tessa, Sebastian briefly brainwashed former Xavier students on the X-Force into attacking Nathan Summers, AKA Cable. Soon, in the face of growing global anti-mutant threats, Sebastian and Selene reformed the Inner Circle as Black Queen and King, and operated from various Club headquarters across the globe; Shinobi subsequently went into hiding. Sebastian later tried to claim Fu Manchu’s Elixir Vitae from the Wilson Fisk, AKA Kingpin, believing he could create a profitable cure for the mutant-killing Legacy virus, to gain a position of power within the mutant community, but the X-Men and the Master of Kung Fu, AKA Shang-Chi, stopped him. Shaw worked with Donald Pierce again in trying to steal technology from En Sabah Nur, AKA Apocalypse, but Cable destroyed it before they could; Shaw severed ties with Pierce again.
When X-51, AKA Machine Man, was infected with anti-mutant Sentinel technology, he attacked Shaw, who repeatedly attempted to destroy Machine Man before he could publicly exposé him as a mutant, especially to U.S. government allies. Reporter Irene Merryweather began researching an expose on Shaw, who went to great lengths to prevent the story, including inviting Merryweather to join the Club; whether the story ever saw print remains unrevealed. When he eventually learned of Tessa’s true loyalty to Xavier, a furious Shaw allied himself with Regan Wyngarde, AKA Lady Mastermind, in unsuccessfully trying to brainwash Tessa into leaving the X-Men and returning to him. Shaw soon turned the Club into a lucrative strip joint using telepathic mutants to fulfill the fantasies of wealthy mutants, but swiftly turned his attention toward restoring the Club and Circle to their former glory, with himself as the Lord Imperial, and former Xavier student Roberto Da Costa as the Black King. One of their first efforts was to allegedly fight international mutant slave trading. Shortly after, a vengeful Pierce attacked the Club, but was defeated by Shaw, who was hospitalized for injuries sustained in the battle. Da Costa took control of the Club while Shaw was incapacitated, but upon recovering, Shaw began planning a coup against Da Costa. At some point, Sebastian located and killed Shinobi in revenge.
When Mister Sinister was physically slain, his fail-safe plan activated. But Xavier, Shaw and the X-Man Remy LeBeau, AKA Gambit, thwarted Sinister’s plans. With Da Costa’s departure from the Club, Shaw returned and recruited Sinister’s female clone Claudine Renko as “Miss Sinister” (now Sinister Claudine Renko). In his planned coup d’état, Shaw played all sides of the new Inner Circle against each other, and manipulated the X-Man Logan/James Howlett, AKA Wolverine, in this quest, but failed to brainwash Wolverine’s son Daken into becoming Shaw’s personal weapon. Later, to gain the favor of Namor, Emma Frost, now an X-Man, made Namor believe she executed Shaw for his crimes against Atlantis, but secretly imprisoned him within power dampeners in the X-Men’s brig for his crimes against mutantkind. Shaw was present when Selene used sorcery and technology to raise a dead mutant army to attack the X-Men; Shaw faced both Shinobi and Leland before being returned to captivity on the island of Utopia in their detention center, X-Brig, which Frost intended to keep a secret.
Shaw was later taken off the island by Emma, Kitty Pryde, Fantomex and E.V.A. Fantomex threw him off their craft. Emma and Shaw fought but Emma gained the upper hand and erased his memories. Found by the Lights in Pakistan, he’s taken back to Utopia where Hope, the mutant messiah, is told of his crimes. She believed he was a new person and invited him to join her team. When the Avengers invaded Utopia, Shaw was taken to the Avengers Academy where he agreed to be imprisoned as long as he had some books to read. He used these books, hitting himself with them to build up and absorb the kinetic energy and to secure his escape. He then attempted to free the mutants being held and attacked the Academy staff. He attempts to convince the Academy’s students to walk away from an impending battle as a way of repaying Hope’s belief in him, and takes his leave.
Regaining his memories, Shaw returned to the Hellfire Club and its Inner Circle. He joined Magneto’s X-Men after the M-Pox crisis, leading Magneto to rejoin the Hellfire Club as White King again. But it didn’t last long as Magneto uncovered Emma and Claudine Renko’s plans with Mothervine, a manufactured drug that can rewrite DNA and RNA in a human fetus, and can also amplify mutant powers. Shaw takes it and experiences a secondary mutation as his powers become amplified, and he battles Magneto, but the drug has a nasty side effect, one that accelerates his aging process. Emma then spikes his drink with a paralytic agent that prevents him from releasing his absorbed energies, and he perishes.
Shaw is later resurrected and joins mutants on Krakoa, a sentient entity and island that Xavier, Magneto, and Moira MacTaggert, AKA Moira X, help establish as a new home for mutants. He entered through a gateway with other nefarious villains to join all mutants in an effort to begin anew with mutantdom. Invited to join the Quiet Council of Krakoa, he with the other Council members, helped determine Krakoa’s laws as a sovereign nation-state, and leads the Spring section alongside Emma Frost and eventually Kitty Pryde. Their section represents the Krakoa’s commerce arm known as the Hellfire Trading Company.
