Candra (comics)

Candra
Candra, X-Men #60 art by Scott Lobell
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	Gambit #1 (December 1993)
Created by	Howard Mackie Lee Weeks
In-story information
Species	Human Mutant
Team affiliations	Externals Assassins' Guild Thieves Guild
Notable aliases	Kandra, the Benefactress, Candra of the Floating Spires
Abilities	Telekinesis, Slowed aging process, Accelerated healing factor, Pyrokinesis

Candra, sometimes called Kandra is a fictional character, a mutant supervillainess appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.

She is a member of the Externals and has exhibited immensely powerful telekinetic abilities in addition to being immortal.

Candra's exact origin is unknown. Her story picks up when she had a deal with the Thieves' and Assassins' Guild of New Orleans, in which she provided them with abnormally long life in exchange for monetary tributes and information on an ancient civilization known as the Old Kingdom. This deal was broken by Gambit, whom she encountered when he journeyed back to the past to stop the Thieves' Guild from giving her the secrets of Apocalypse.

In an attempt to get back at Gambit, Candra convinced Bella Donna to abduct Cody, the boy sent into a coma by Rogue's first kiss, in an attempt to trap Rogue and kill her, however she managed to survive the ordeal and rescue Cody in the process.

It was later revealed that Candra had placed the sum total of her power into a gem, which was later referred to as the heart stone. With the stone intact, Candra would have been able to achieve true immortality as her essence would always be restored. However, at one point, the stone was stolen by a young Storm in Cairo, and many years later the heart gem was stolen from an adult Storm by someone claiming to be involved with the Shadow King, Storm's former master in Egypt. When Storm's teacher Achmed El Gibár died, Candra convinced the young thief Jamil, who seemed to be a powerful mutant, to join her, promising him even greater power. However, when Candra used Jamil to lure Storm to her and reacquire her Heart, it was discovered that Jamil was only a psychic projection created by the true thief and mutant, a young girl named Karima. After a lengthy battle, Cyclops destroyed the gem which in turn appeared to have killed Candra, as she dissipated into nothingness.

In fact while the X-Men managed to destroy Candra's body, her powerful psyche still lived on. In time, thanks to the ones Candra refers to as "sisters", she learned how to take strength from death which she used to augment her own remaining power and slowly pull the pieces of her body back together, a process hastened considerably by tributes from the Assassins' Guild. Now calling herself Red Death, Candra has become an immortal death powered telekinetic zombie.