Left alone, it eventually discovered that when it attempted to assimilate humans to form a new collective mind, their minds are wiped out and the humans essentially die, adding just their physical mass. Desperate to locate the rest of the Phalanx, to once more feel the sense of unity and togetherness they shared, it absorbed more and more people, hopping to gain the strength needed to signal them. However its energy signature is detected by Agent Abigail Brand of S.W.O.R.D. alerting the X-Men, horrified to find this Phalanx member had absorbed an entire town. As the X-Men face it they can't prevent this Phalanx from turning into a Babel Spire so it could contact the Technarchy, yet, things do not go as it hoped, and the X-Men eventually destroyed the techno-organic virus as Storm wonders, "It said we didn't understand. Could we have understood one another? Is there anything we shared?" Cyclops' response, "I doubt we'll ever know." Clones of the Phalanx (and others) remain captive in Mister Sinister's prize collection. However, despite Sinister's best efforts, they were wiped from existence by the Phoenix Force. The Shi'ar Massacre Another group of Phalanx later almost decimated the Shi'ar Empire in the absence of the Imperial Guard. With their bodies now pitch-black, except for a few red and blue glowing sensor slits, this new breed only displayed the basic Phalanx and Technarchy features while shapeshifting or when individuals were damaged. These Phalanx also considered themselves as "pure" Phalanx compared to such sects like the one on Earth and hadn't any reservations about infecting mutants with the transmode virus as they almost transformed Rogue. The Phalanx made their way to Chandilar, the throneworld of the Shi'ar Empire where they tried to assimilate the "Nest", actually the hatching chamber where all Shi'ar eggs were being nurtured. Had they succeeded, the entire next generation of Shi'ar would have become part of the Phalanx collective. However, Beast developed a device that would emit a certain frequency to separate the organic from the technological part, causing all Phalanx within its range to dissolve but not before thousands or more Shi'ar were massacred. The rest of this group later conquered another planet, but were destroyed by the Magus after the construction of a Babel Spire. Annihilation: Conquest A new breed of Phalanx is seen in Annihilation: Conquest, the sequel to the Annihilation crossover, as the primary villain with