Publication History
The character is first alluded to when a shadowy figure with Onslaught's distinctive word-balloon coloring and design is seen speaking with a frightened Mystique. "Onslaught" is first mentioned when the Juggernaut crashlands in Hoboken, New Jersey, having been hit hard enough by Onslaught to send him across the country. The character fully appears when it communicates with Jean Grey on the astral plane. Onslaught then imprisons Juggernaut within the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak and defeats the X-Men.
Onslaught is a psionic entity, revealed to have been created from the soul of Professor X and Magneto, when the dark part of Magneto's soul leapt into its counterpart in Xavier's soul. This took place when Xavier wiped Magneto's mind at the conclusion of the Fatal Attractions storyline, after Magneto tore the adamantium out of Wolverine's body. Wolverine's healing factor was overloaded to the point where it shut down and it was unclear if he would survive. Onslaught was eventually able to manifest itself as an independent entity from Xavier after an encounter with Nate Grey resulted in Xavier's astral form being 'forced' into the real world, thus 'teaching' Onslaught how it could give itself its own body. The villain intends to pursue Magneto's goal of saving mutantkind and giving them control over the planet. However, upon seeing the truth from Dark Beast's memories of his Earth in what happens if mutants controlled the world, Onslaught decides neither humans nor mutants should rule, and intends to destroy both races. After kidnapping Franklin Richards and Nate Grey, usurping their psionic powers to greatly increase his own, changing his physical form, Onslaught fights the Avengers, Fantastic Four, the Hulk, and the X-Men (Spider-Man attempted to get involved in the fight, but he was kept occupied by fighting Onslaught's Sentinel forces).
When the Hulk is able to destroy Onslaught's armor, however, the villain then exists as pure psionic energy. This results in many of the non-mutant superheroes sacrificing their lives by entering Onslaught's form, disrupting the villain from within and weakening it, enabling the X-Men to finally destroy Onslaught. In the aftermath of the battle, all the combatants are presumed dead except Franklin Richards, Nate Grey, Quicksilver, the Hulk (who was physically separated from his alter ego Bruce Banner during the fight), the Magneto clone known as Joseph, and the X-Men.
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