NEMESIS

PERSONAL DATA

HISTORY

Several billion years ago the renegade Oan Krona attempted to view the beginning of the universe. In the process, he unwittingly unleashed an entropy wave that devoured several billion years of potential energy from the universe. There were two results of this: one is that the universe was born "old", the other was the creation of the Anti-matter universe. In this negative universe the world of Qward forms as an evil counterpart to the positive matter universe's planet Oa. Two beings are born on the moons of these respective worlds, each embodying their universe, they are the Monitor and the Anti-monitor. Once these two beings become aware of each other, they immediately begin to battle and a cataclysmic, simultaneous strike from both sends the two into suspended animation. In the wake of this titanic struggle was born a new world, one of neither positive or negative energy. This new world existed as the balance between Oa and Qward, between Positive and Negative, between Good and Evil. It was Nemesis.

As both the Guardians of Oa and the Weaponers of Qward amassed their forces, so too did a balancing force come to be on Nemesis, and at the head of this army was the Nemesis. From amongst the nobles of the planet, one was selected to become the living embodiment of the balance and this noble became the Nemesis, avatar of the balance. Thus was the way of things for many ages, the armies of both sides waging their battles to further good or evil in their universes, and the armies of Nemesis intervening only if one side sought to cross the boundary and upset the balance. The last Nemesis inherited the mantle when his predecessor chose to destroy herself. She had done what was forbidden, she had fallen in love. Rather than let the conflict between her duty and emotions bring tragedy to her people, she destroyed herself. In guilt over his own role in her destruction, the warrior-priest she had fallen in love with chose to become the new Nemesis.

Then, ten millennia ago, a queen of one of the negative universe worlds sought to spread her armies across the positive matter universe. She knew that the armies of Nemesis would oppose her, though, and devised a plan. The queen sent her champions to do battle with the Nemesis. While he was engaged in combat with these beings, her armies swept across the Nemesis planet. The Nemesis was soon faced with a choice, surrender himself to the queen's forces or see his people slaughtered by her armies. The Nemesis surrendered and became her prisoner. With the Nemesis out of the way, the queen sent her strike force into the positive matter universe. She was met by a group of planetary avatars that beat back her armies and her war with the positive matter universe reached a stalemate. However, the Nemesis was still a prisoner and the universes reacted. Things changed, there were great cataclysms in both universes, but slowly a balance was again reached.

This balance lasted until over decade ago, when the Anti-Monitor awakened and slowly began to consolidate his power on Qward. His renewed presence gave strength to the forces of the negative universe and the Queen once again launched her own attack against the positive matter universe. Her victory was assured except for the reincarnations of the planetary avatars. These forces of good struck back and eventually defeated the Queen in her home plane. The heroes returned home triumphant, and in the wake of their victory the Nemesis was freed from his millennia-long captivity. He wreaked a terrible vengeance upon those of his captors who remained in the Queen's palace.

Then, drawn by the overwhelming evil of the Anti-monitor, the Nemesis battled his way across Qward until he came face-to-face with the master of that world. But the Nemesis was still weak from his captivity and was easily defeated. He barely managed to escape to the positive matter universe. In his quest to return to his world, the Nemesis then encountered the beings known as the Sovereigns, themselves exiled from their home worlds by a force called the Rapture. Their leader, Cascade, tried to help Nemesis reach his homeworld but he instead arrived on Earth, in Antarctica. Weakened by his captivity and battle with the Anti-Monitor, the Nemesis collapsed to await his inevitable death, but instead Kei Manga Corp., a mysterious multinational entertainment conglomerate with highly advanced technology, found him.

In the wake of the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Kei has been co-opting several of the surviving parallel dimensions, including the home of the planetary avatars. Kei used these worlds as stages to produce entertainment for various dimensions. Using Nemesis' memories as a template they turned the struggle of the planetary avatars against the negative universe into one of these shows.

This show proved to be so popular that Kei began new adventures for the avatars, casting the Nemesis in the role as villain. Still nowhere near his full power, and indebted to Kei for saving him, Nemesis went along with this until the time crisis known as Zero Hour. The crisis took its toll on the entire universe, including Kei, which lost many of its co-opted worlds. Afterward, the Nemesis could no longer hold himself in the role of villain. Kei decided to make him a hero, or better yet, an American "Super-Hero". They assigned him a "secret identity" in the form of a Japanese college student and sent him to New York with the simple instructions to be a super-hero.

It was not long before Nemesis encountered the New York-based hero team Justice Inc. The team's membership was at a low ebb and they invited Nemesis to join after a battle with a new incarnation of the Fearsome Five. Soon after the team's roster expanded again and it was this version of Justice Inc. that would gain global recognition. At first Nemesis seemed almost child-like in his behavior, but this was due to his complete unfamiliarity with American culture. As time passed he began to once again assume the air of a monarch in exile.

Through a set of unusual circumstances Nemesis began a romantic relationship with his teammate, Cat. The two seemed utterly incompatible, the stoic Nemesis and the flighty Cat, but it had been millennia since Nemesis had allowed himself any feelings and he had allowed himself to fall blindly in love. Things seemed to be going well enough at first but the strain of trying to live a "normal" life began to take its toll on Nemesis.

Things really began to go wrong after the death of Tarantula. The relationships between the members of the team became strained almost to the breaking point. Nemesis, unfamiliar with interpersonal relationships found it difficult to cope with what was happening and his relationship with Cat suffered. The next blow came when the AI called OMEGA was defeated by the Guardians. OMEGA had been implanting nanites in several heroes, including the members of Justice Inc., to control them but a means were found to remove them. In the process of removing the nanites from Nemesis, it was discovered that his DNA was human. This shocked Nemesis. He was an alien, his physical form was just a manifestation, a container for the Nemesis energies, how could he be human?

Shortly after the OMEGA incident, Nemesis was kidnapped by agents of Kei Manga Corp. They had been monitoring him ever since he came to New York and had detected the tampering that resulted from the removal of OMEGA's nanites. They released Nemesis, but not before subjecting him to a mysterious procedure, apparently to "correct" any damage done by the nanites. This increased Nemesis' concerns, why had Kei Manga been worried about the effect of the nanites? The next shock nearly destroyed Nemesis.

During an adventure Justice Inc. traveled several centuries into the future and while there Nemesis' powers began to fade. Eventually he lost his powers completely and was horrified to see that he had become human, the form he assumed as university student Arasaka Konei. When the team returned to the present Nemesis' powers returned, but the mystery as to why they had vanished remained.

Next, Justice Inc. confronted the terrorist organization H.I.V.E., a confrontation which ended in a battle on a satellite. During the battle, the team faced off against antimatter clones of themselves. Nemesis wound up using his energy absorbing powers to draw his duplicate into himself, but afterward his powers began to grow unstable. This was due absorbing his anti-self, but also because of the approaching Nemesis planet, whose arrival would spark the Revelations crisis.

Early in the Revelations crisis, Justice Inc and several other hero teams attempted to stop the rampage of the creature called Brimstone. Brimstone had been returned to Earth through the machinations of Philip Adler and its power was being augmented by the Spear of Destiny. When Nemesis attempted to enter Brimstone's plasma body the power of the Spear stripped him of his own powers. The now-powerless Nemesis was rescued before he was destroyed by Brimstone.

Now completely human, Nemesis was determined to find out the truth about what was happening to him. Using Metalmorph's morphonite to compensate for his lack of powers, and accompanied by his teammates Nightflick and Edgerunner, Nemesis went to Japan to confront Kei Manga Corp. The three snuck into Kei headquarters and into the central core, which existed in its own pocket dimension. Eventually they were detected by Kei security, but at this point the rest of Justice Inc. arrived, transported to Kei by the lunar princess of the planetary avatars to help Nemesis. Justice Inc. defeated Kei security and found their way to Kei's Research and Development labs, where Nemesis learned the horrifying truth of what had been done to him.

When Kei had first found Nemesis he was comatose. They could not revive him, but discovered a way to tap his energies. When they decided to create entertainment based on the memories they scanned from him, Kei decided they needed a Nemesis. Since they could not revive the real one they would make one. They could tap the power, they just needed a vessel and one of the Kei engineers volunteered his teenage son. The boy, the real Arasaka Konei, was killed in the procedure but Kei didn't care. Much to their delight, not only had they succeeded in re-engineering Arasaka's body to contain the Nemesis energies but but in transferring some of the power they had also transferred the mind and spirit of Nemesis. He awoke thinking he was in his own body, and as long as Kei kept transferring power from the "real" Nemesis, he would never know the difference. The problems started with the interference caused by OMEGA's nanites, were worsened when Nemesis absorbed his anti-duplicate, and reached a critical point with the imbalances caused by the coming Revelations crisis.

In the battle with Kei that followed Nemesis' original body was destroyed and he, along with the rest of Justice Inc., were catapulted into a series of parallel Earths. Journeying from dimension to dimension the team eventually returned to their own universe, but not to Earth. They were diverted to the abandoned planet that had once been Nemesinian homeworld. There Nemesis was contacted by the spirit of his predecessor and he learned the fate of his people.

After the Nemesis had been captured his people were enslaved. They remained so for three thousand years until a leader arose amongst them and they freed themselves. The Nemesinians tried to resume their role as protectors of the balance but with the Nemesis still captive, they could not access their power. Instead they abandoned their world and went out into space. There they allied themselves with another starfaring race and over time the two races became one. This new race resumed what they thought was their sacred mission, but in truth their purpose had been corrupted over the millennia. Instead of keeping the two universes apart, they now roamed the positive matter universe passing judgment over any world they saw as having become too evil or too good. And now they were on their way to Earth, drawn their by the presence of Adler and the Antithesis.

Nemesis' predecessor explained that the Nemesis power was no longer needed, that since his capture the universes had found their own balance. Nemesis still needed power, though. His people were still his responsibility, even after 10,000 years. He could not let them destroy Earth. It was then that the Furies offered him a new role, that of Earth's avatar of justice, whose previous host had been killed by Adler. They charged him with preventing the apocalypse that would occur if the armies of Nemesis attacked. Nemesis accepted and he and the rest of Justice Inc. returned to Earth in time for him to reclaim leadership of his people and defeat Antithesis, Kristallnacht, and their followers. Afterward Nemesis reluctantly chose to lead his people to a new homeworld and left for space, leaving Cat behind.

Once their new home was established, Nemesis selected a group of warriors from his people and began to forge them into an interstellar force to replace the Green Lantern Corps. He also recruited former Justice Inc. member Azure Star, who had regained his powers and was exploring space. Soon after this Nemesis and Azure Star found themselves assisting Justice Inc., who had been exiled into deep space by Vandal Savage, against the wizard Mordru. After Mordru's defeat Nemesis returned with Justice Inc to Earth and asked Cat to marry him. She accepted, but the wedding would never happen.

Days before the wedding was to occur, Justice Inc. found themselves in battle against Death Spider and his new team, the Enforcers of Injustice. During the fight, Nemesis chose to stay on the sidelines to protect Cat's adopted daughter, deliberately defying the will of the justice avatar. On Cat and Nemesis' wedding day the Furies pulled him from Earth, stripped him of his powers, and imprisoned him in limbo as punishment for defying their will.

Nemesis' final fate remains a mystery. His body, originally that of young Arasaka Konei, was reanimated by Konei's spirit and used to exact vengeance against Kei Manga Corps and Arasaka's father. Months later an alien calling herself Mercy, claiming to be a Nemesinian from the future looking for Nemesis, joined the new Enforcers of Justice. Some of her teammates suspected that she was really Nemesis, disguised so as not to reveal his presence to Cat and Justice Inc., however this would mean that Nemesis had somehow regained his original body and powers. The truth may never be known because Mercy died helping stop the Qwardians from creating a new Anti-Monitor. The fate of Nemesis' people is also unknown, though a group of them were assisting the Qwardians, apparently hoping that the return of the Anti-Monitor would restore the source of their power.

POWERS & WEAPONS

All Nemesinians possess the ability to absorb and project energy. Since their bodies were merely containers for their energy they possessed the limited ability to alter their physical appearance. The Nemesis was the most powerful among his people, his power would increase depending on the intensity of the imbalance caused by an incursion from one universe to another and he could sense where these incursions occurred. In the engineered body on Earth, Nemesis was far below his normal power level, but he was still more powerful than a typical member of his race.

When he was the Justice Avatar Nemesis had all the powers of a Nemesinian at increased levels. This is easily explained by the nature of the avatar, it allowed Nemesis to manifest his self-image when the powers were in use. Nemesis could also sense when great injustices were happening, a signal from the avatar that it was needed. As the avatar he also possessed a "punishment" attack, one that would strike at an offender's soul with an intensity in proportion to the injustice they had committed.

Warp Zone | DC Heroes | Justice Inc. | Nemesis