Selene (comics)

Selene Gallio is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Chris Claremont and Sal Buscema, the character first appeared in The New Mutants #9 (November 1983). Selene belongs to the subspecies of humans called mutants, who are born with superhuman abilities. She is often associated with the Hellfire Club's Inner Circle and is despised as an enemy of the X-Men.

Selene was portrayed by Kota Eberhardt in the 20th Century Fox X-Men film Dark Phoenix (2019).

Selene first appeared in The New Mutants #9 (November 1983), written by Chris Claremont and illustrated by Sal Buscema.

Selene is thousands of years old and functionally immortal, with her millennia-long life attributed to her ability to drain the life essence from other beings to extend her own existence indefinitely. Her name derives from the ancient lunar goddess Selene, daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia. Claiming to have already been old when modern mankind was just emerging, Selene was born over 17,000 years ago, somewhere in what is now Central Europe, "after the Oceans swallowed Atlantis and before the rise of the Aryas". Her tribe's elders recognized her for what she was and commanded the entire tribe, including her own mother, to sacrifice their lives to feed her.

Selene was revealed to have been an old enemy of the sorcerer Kulan Gath. Gath was active during the Hyborian Age (before any recorded civilizations) and is known to have faced both Conan the Barbarian and Red Sonja. In fact, Sonja reportedly managed to kill him and his spirit would not manifest again until the modern era. Thus, Selene was active at least as early as the Hyborian age.

Selene came to reside in Rome during the height of its empire. She approached Eliphas, a well-respected senator whose wife had left for a general named Mascius. Selene offered Eliphas immortality in exchange for helping her kill and absorb every soul in Rome. Eliphas went about drawing pentagrams and performing rituals at several locations in the city, but warned a small girl to get her family out. The girl's father alerted the authorities and Eliphas and Selene were captured before the spell could be carried out. Just before they were burned at the stake Selene killed the guards. She then cursed Eliphas for the perceived betrayal with an eternal life of torture, transforming the latter into a vampire-like creature. Eliphas was buried alive for 700 years until being discovered by a farmer in a field.

In relatively recent times, Selene was trapped for centuries in the Amazon in the Romanesque town of Nova Roma. She was worshipped as a goddess and worked to maintain the isolation of the town so she could maintain control. Eli Bard finally locates Selene in Nova Roma. Still in love with her despite her curse, Bard realizes of having to make an offering to her before approaching her. She also was able to marry several times and have descendants, including Amara Aquilla. Her most recent known husband was Marcus Domitius Gallio, a senator of Nova Roma.

In Nova Roma, Selene attempted to kill Amara Aquilla. She knocked Amara into a lava pool, thereby releasing the latter's latent mutant powers as Magma. Selene fought and defeated Magma, and plotted to turn Danielle Moonstar into a psychic vampire like herself and conquer the world. Selene fought the New Mutants, and was cast into lava and buried alive.