Biography - Page 5
After his apparent death, Shaw understandably fell off the radar. Somehow, several months later, he returned from the ‘dead,’ bearing no visible injuries other than a scar across his left eye. At some point, he made contact with Tessa, who connected him with the resources he needed. Shaw resumed working, this time to rebuild the empire he had lost.
He approached the mutant Holocaust, a refugee from the dystopic “Age of Apocalypse” reality, and proposed a partnership that would prove mutually beneficial. Shaw explained he could build him a new containment suit to help him control his powers—in exchange for a favor. After Shaw completed his end of the bargain, Holocaust helped him with his mission of capturing the members of Cable’s X-Force, a team mainly comprised of the remnants of the New Mutants. With Tessa’s help, they ensnared most of X-Force, and then sent them after their leader, Cable. Their gambit backfired, however, when Cable managed to free each member of X-Force by restoring their memories. The team departed with their leader, and Shaw accepted this defeat in battle. [X-Force (1st series) #48-50]
After his failed venture with X-Force, and losing his new employee Holocaust to the much more powerful Onslaught [X-Force (1st series) #48-50, X-Man #15], Shaw accepted a meeting with his old nemesis Selene and her colleague Trevor Fitzroy, the time-traveling mutant who had slaughtered Emma Frost's Hellions. With the looming threat of the Sentinel-backed Operation: Zero Tolerance, Selene believed mutants needed to band together once again to consolidate power, and proposed reactivating the Hellfire Club with her and Shaw as the Black King and Queen. 
She also nominated for membership the time-traveler Fitzroy, whom Shaw deemed valuable because of his knowledge of the future, and Madelyne Pryor, the clone of Jean Grey also known as the Goblyn Queen—the very woman responsible for the “Inferno” that had ravaged New York City. Tessa advised Shaw to use caution in allying himself with such devils—advice he ignored in favor to the power they possessed.
On Liberty Island, Shaw and Selene granted Madelyne the title of Black Rook, but only after she earned it through trial by combat. Later, Madelyne met with Shaw in secret and revealed that she wanted to ascend to the role of Red Queen, opposite Selene. Shaw was surprised to see her taking the initiative to act without her Queen’s consent. Madelyne further surprised Shaw by healing the scar that had adorned his face ever since his mysterious resurrection. The two soon began a sexual relationship. [X-Man #21-25]
Shaw and Madelyne went public with their relationship, establishing themselves as the most powerful ruling couple in the Hellfire Club. [X-Man #28] Sometime after news of Shaw’s union with Maddie spread outside the walls of the Hellfire Club, a tabloid called the Inquiring Eye decided to investigate the identity of the mysterious redhead now hanging on Shaw’s arm. A reporter named Irene Merryweather began investigating the story. It quickly turned deadly: in response to her prying, someone from the Hellfire Club put out a hit on her and her magazine. Although everyone at the Inquiring Eye was murdered, Irene survived and continued her investigation. Incidentally, it was not Shaw who did this, but his cohort Donald Pierce, who was overzealously trying to please Shaw in order to reacquire membership in the Inner Circle. Shaw later allowed Pierce to return to the Hellfire Club as its White Bishop—but only on a probationary basis. He tasked Pierce with executing his “Tomorrow Agenda,” with Inner Circe reinstatement serving as the prize for success. [Cable (1st series) #48-53]
Because his patricidal son Shinobi still controlled the Hellfire Club Inner Circle in New York City, Sebastian had to move his base of operations to the Hellfire Club in Hong Kong, where he resumed some of his old for-profit ventures. He saw opportunity for profit in the Legacy Virus epidemic devastating the mutants of the world, particularly in the rumors of a panacea called the Elixir Vitae. Upon discovery, Shaw intended to maintain full control over the Elixir Vitae and sell it to the mutant population at an immense profit. Unfortunately for Shaw—and mutants worldwide—his old associate Storm destroyed the only remaining sample of the fabled serum, supposedly to prevent a single entity from controlling it. [X-Men (2nd series) #61-64]
Meanwhile, Shaw hadn't given up on his goal of monopolizing the X-gene. His plans didn’t stop with merely controlling those who possessed the gene, though; he also tried to seize control of the ability to remove the X-gene in others. When he learned that one of Worthington Industries laboratories was trying to reverse-engineer Forge’s mutant-neutralizer gun, Shaw plotted to steal the prototype. With it under his control, he could threaten mutants who resisted cooperation and neutralize those who opposed him, much like he did with the Sentinels. Like many of Shaw’s schemes, however, this one also failed, as the gun was destroyed during the heist. Still, Shaw breathed a sigh of relief knowing the weapon would never be used against him. [X-Men Unlimited (1st series) #17]
Around this time, Shaw was contacted by a mysterious Askani monk named Ch’vayre, who offered to help him achieve greater power and wealth—music to Shaw’s ears. From Ch’vayre, Shaw learned of the immense power of the ancient mutant Apocalypse, and how he could harness it. [On a side note, Shaw didn’t know of his own connection to Apocalypse. It was Apocalypse, after all, who granted Mr. Sinister his powers, while it was Sinister who tinkered with Jacob Shaw’s genetic code, which may have been what granted Sebastian his own powerful mutation.] 
With the help of a centuries old being called the Harbinger, Shaw discerned Apocalypse’s resting place to be in a chamber in the Swiss Alps. He traveled there with Ch’vayre and Donald Pierce. After fighting off the security—and Cable, who was there to prevent Apocalypse’s awakening—they entered the chamber, only to find it vacant. Enraged, Shaw decided to make Ch’vayre suffer for the disappointing information he provided. He trapped Ch’vayre in one of the temple’s hibernation chambers, dooming him to centuries of slumber.
As cathartic as it was to entomb Ch’vayre, it did not free Shaw from the threat posed by the inconsolable Cable. Shaw and Pierce fought with him—a fight to which Pierce took voraciously. When the temple began to rumble, however, Shaw fled to the outside to catch his ride home, with Cable and Pierce close behind. Shaw diverted Cable by reminding him that the innocent Ch’vayre was still trapped inside the temple. With him out of the way, he boarded his helicopter and escaped. Pierce tried to tag along, but Shaw, deeming his trial operation with the Tomorrow Agenda a failure, kicked him out and left him for dead in the Alps. Pierce would not forgive Shaw for this act. [Cable (1st series) #44, #50-53]
Shaw later learned that some of his patented Sentinel technology had been stolen and somehow incorporated into X-51, the Machine Man. Shaw worked with his old colleague Henry Peter Gyrich to track down this renegade machine. Initially, he wanted to capture X-51 intact so he could have complete control of its systems and the advanced technology it contained. He hired the mutant mercenary Mystique to retrieve X-51’s head, the last piece of it that remained. However, X-51 reactivated itself and merged with an LMD, putting a kink in Shaw’s plan. Mystique betrayed Shaw when she learned he had hired her to retrieve a Sentinel—a machine designed specifically to hunt her kind—and attempted to kill him in retaliation. 
Surprisingly, X-51 intervened and saved Shaw’s life. Shaw’s surprise continued when X-51 then identified him as a mutant—something Shaw’s Sentinels were specifically programmed not to do. Shaw had a difficult time explaining his detected mutant status to Gyrich, who still didn’t know about his genetic status. Rather than being outed, Shaw blamed a glitch in the system.
When Gyrich tried to destroy X-51 using its predecessor, X.E.R.O., Shaw, still vying for control of the unit, secretly tried to sabotage the mission. Despite his plan failing, X-51 survived the attack. At that point, however, Shaw reached the limits of his patience and vowed to have the Machine Man destroyed. He called in an old debt from Omoto, a Japanese superhuman who owed the Shaw family for saving his life, but Omoto, too, failed to defeat X-51. At that point, Shaw sent his latest Mark VII Sentinels after X-51. They appeared to destroy the Machine Man, leaving Shaw satisfied that the Machine Man no longer unlawfully possessed his intellectual property. [X-51: The Machine Man #0-7]
Meanwhile, Shaw continued dealing with the meddlesome Irene Merryweather, who was continuing her investigation into his life. Shaw put out at least two hits on sources she was seeking before finally kidnapping her. Surprisingly, he had Tessa meet with the captive Irene and telepathically inform her of all the intimate details of Shaw’s family history and upbringing. After Merryweather learned just about everything there was to know about Shaw, the man himself arrived and confronted her. He told her she would never have the opportunity to publish her story, as he intended to buy every publishing house and newspaper to prevent it seeing print. Still, to keep her quiet, he offered her membership in the Hellfire Club. Irene refused and instead contacted J. Jonah Jameson, publisher of the Daily Bugle, whom she must have considered incorruptible. [X-Men: Hellfire Club #4]
Despite successfully squashing the hit-piece about his life, Shaw’s world began to unravel when Elias Bogan finally decided to exact his revenge on his assistant Tessa meddling in his affairs years earlier. Bogan kidnapped Tessa and psychically tortured her. He then ransomed her to Shaw, but the price he demanded—Shaw’s entire fortune—was too high. Shaw refused. Thankfully for Tessa, Storm intervened and rescued her. [X-Treme X-Men (1st series) #41]
Having been forsaken by Shaw, Tessa—now calling herself Sage—remained with the X-Men, at which point it became apparent that she had been working as a mole for Professor Xavier all along. Her mission from the very beginning had been to spy on Sebastian Shaw and keep tabs on his activities for the X-Men. 
Upon learning this, Shaw was furious: the woman he trusted most in the world had been a spy since the beginning.
Shaw wasted little time in trying to retrieve Tessa. During his coup to wrest control of the criminal underworld of Sydney, Australia, Shaw hired Regan Wyngarde—aka Lady Mastermind, the daughter of his old associate Jason Wyngarde—to help him get Tessa back. At Shaw’s bidding, Lady Mastermind trapped Sage within a mental illusion in which she was still Shaw’s personal assistant at the Hellfire Club. However, Sage’s superior mental conditioning allowed her to see through the illusion and break free. Shaw corrected this flaw by knocking Sage unconscious. He then had Lady Mastermind orchestrate a game of mental reprogramming inside of Sage’s mind in which she was to execute her treacherous “Sage” persona, and revert to the more loyal, obedient “Tessa” persona. However, with the help of her friends in the X-Men, Sage broke free of the illusion and redirected the mental damage back onto Lady Mastermind. [X-Treme X-Men (1st series) #6-9]
All was not well in the rest of the world at this point. While the incorrigible resilience of the Sentinels proved to be a problem on several occasions, no occasion was more lethal than when an anti-mutant fanatic seized control of a dormant Sentinel factory in Ecuador and activated an assembly of Wild Sentinels. Acting on their master’s orders, the Wild Sentinels proceeded to destroy the mutant population living in the island nation of Genosha. These Sentinels obliterated 16 million mutant lives, cutting the mutant population of the planet in half in one day. Shaw’s old associate Emma Frost was working as a teacher on Genosha at the time, and miraculously survived the attack only because of the surprising activation of a secondary mutation. She was understandably upset about the slaughter of her students and 16 million of her brethren. Even though it is uncertain whether Shaw had any direct involvement with the particular Master Mold facility that spawned these Wild Sentinels, it didn't matter in Emma's mind, as she couldn't disassociate Shaw's financing of the Sentinels with the destruction they wrought. [New X-Men (1st series) #115-116]
If the Genoshan genocide caused Shaw to reevaluate his goals in life, he kept it to himself. Instead, he continued pursuing his old ambitions of making money and ruling the Hellfire Club, now eyeing the prestigious title of Lord Imperial. He also turned the New York Chapter of the Hellfire Club into a strip club—in his words, a "haven for mutants with money to spend." [New X-Men (1st series) #142, Weapon X (2nd series) #20] He later forged an alliance with Courtney Ross, who wanted to become the Hellfire Club's White Queen, and the assassin Viper. Unbeknownst to him, Sage, who had been observing his activities since their encounter in Australia, kept tabs on this alliance as it formed. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #449]
At some point, Shaw actually managed to ascend to the position of Lord Imperial, making him the Hellfire Club’s most powerful member. Now in supreme power, he extended invitations to the new Hellfire Club to Sunspot (the mutant son of his deceased associate Emmanuel da Costa), Emma Frost, and, despite their recent troubles, Sage. Sage ostensibly accepted the offer and once again joined Shaw at his side as his assistant. Sunspot also accepted, mainly because he wanted to use the power and influence of the Hellfire Club to end the international mutant slave trade. When the X-Men, following Sage’s tail, confronted Shaw at the Hellfire Club villa in Paris, Shaw told them that he wanted to change, and intended to use his status as Lord Imperial of the Hellfire Club as a force for good.
It is unclear if Shaw had genuinely reformed, and if it had anything to do with the devastation the Sentinels had wrought. 
It’s far more likely Shaw had just conceived of a way to profit from abolishing the mutant slave trade, perhaps because it eliminated cheap competition for labor. Regardless, nothing ever came of this potential reformation, as it was at this moment that Shaw’s past mistreatment of Donald Pierce returned to haunt him. Pierce ambushed him and the X-Men at the villa and vied to take the role of Lord Imperial for himself. Shaw personally challenged Pierce in combat and, although he sustained several deep cuts across the chest due to Pierce’s claws, absorbed enough kinetic energy to then behead Pierce with an uppercut. Still, he had to taken to the hospital to get treated for his injuries. Due to his absence, he lost the title of Lord Imperial to Sunspot.
As he was taken away on a stretcher, Shaw told Sage that her withholding of information from him constituted yet another betrayal on her part—a charge Sage did not deny. Instead, she countered that she would have faithfully served Shaw for as long as he would have her, had he not been so obsessed with power. She even admitted that she had always sensed a nobility in him that she respected. However, his ambition was so repulsive to her and other potential allies that he had no one to blame for his downfall other than himself. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #452-454]
