Who the Clix? is a series of articles featuring information on comic book characters that have been made into figures for the popular tabletop game Heroclix. These articles are meant to help Heroclix players learn more about the characters behind their favorite pieces.

Today we look at those parasitic aliens: The Brood

Appearances in Heroclix: Mutations and Monsters, Critical Mass

First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #155

Notable Members: Brood Queen, Brood Warrior

Created by: Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum

Little is known of the origins of the Brood. The first hero to encounter the Brood is the Kree warrior Mar-Vell. While on a rescue mission, Mar-Vell’s team goes into a region infected with Brood and are ambushed by Brood warriors. They are soon taken prisoner by a a Brood-infected Devros, the very man they were there to rescue. The local Brood Queen infects each captive with Brood embryos. Mar-Vell and his medic Una manage to escape, destroy the leaders of the colony and destroy their embryos using Una’s omni-wave projector, specially modified to eliminate Brood embryos. The pair then rescue Colonel Yon-Rogg before escaping the planet with the help of Deathbird.

Deathbird later allies herself with the Brood in order to gain their help deposing her sister Lilandra, empress of the Shi’ar Empire. Once Lilandra is defeated, Deathbird gives the Brood her sister, the X-Men, Carol Danvers and Fang of the Imperial Guard. The Brood infect all of their captives except for Danvers, who they experiment on because of her half-human/half-Kree genetics. Wolverine’s adamantium skeleton is able to stop the Brood embryo long enough for his healing factor to purge it. He then proceeds to rescue the others and they all escape, except for Fang.

The Brood Queen does not pursue the X-Men because the queen embryo in Cyclops tells her that the X-Men are returning to Broodworld. The heroes try to help the Acanti race recover an important supernatural force needed for their species to persist. The infected X-Men transform into Brood warriors and just as Wolverine is just about to mercy-kill his friends, Danvers arrives. She now calls herself Binary and has amazing new powers as a result of the Brood experimentation. Binary releases the Acanti power and before it moves to its new host, it cures the X-Men and Lilandra as well as transforming the Brood Queen into a crystal statue before causing Broodworld to explode, while making sure the heroes are safe.

Whether as a result of this confrontation or mere happenstance, the Brood later begin to arrive on Earth at different times. These encounters lead to multiple infections and confrontations with the X-Men and other heroes such as Ghost Rider and Carol Danvers, who has again assumed the identity of Ms. Marvel. During the invasion of Annihilus and his Annihilation Wave, the Brood are driven to the brink of extinction.

Some Brood are in the arena on Planet Saakar. One of them, a genetic queen, becomes an ally of Hulk and returns with him to Earth. The “Earth Hive,” the shared consciousness of every insect on Earth, cripple this queen by rendering her infertile and poisoning the last generation of hivelings. A genecist known as Kaga has begun growing and genetically engineering Brood in connection to M-Day research.

SWORD scientists eventually find a way to safely remove a Brood embryo from a human host. However, the Brood they are studying escapes and begins attacking the facility, leading to rescue missions led by Abigail Brand and the X-Men. They soon discover that the Brood’s near extiction has had a dangerous event on the galactic eco-system; the Brood served as a predatory species keeping other, more dangerous species, in check. Bishop also informs the X-Men that there will be a race of benevolent Brood in the future. Armed with this knowledge, the X-Men becoming willing hosts to Brood embryos in an attempt to imbue these embryos with compassion. After connecting to the hive-mind via these embryos, they discover a “mutant” Brood that has a sense of morality. The X-Men rescue this mutant Brood and leaves him abord the SWORD’s orbital station with their removed embryos, so that he can raise and teach the Broodlings compassion.

A mutant Broodling eventually comes to learn at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. He is nicknamed “Broo” by a fellow student and exhibits intelligence, non-violent tendencies and chooses to wear clothing and glasses in an attempt to appear less threatening to Earthlings. Broo also hopes to one day join the Nova Corps.

During the War with the Builders, the Brood Queen is a member of the Galactic Council. She and J’son, former Emperor of the Spartoi Empire, make a deal: J’son surrenders the planet Spartax to the Brood in exchange for one planet out of every ten that the Spartoi Brood proceeds to conquer.

Growing ever more desperate, the Brood eventually make a pact with the symbiotes. However, the symbiotes betray and possess the Brood until Spider, the X-Men and SWORD manage to defeat them.

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