The Shadow King (Amahl Farouk) is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is particularly associated with the X-Men family of comics. His nemesis is the X-Men's leader, Professor X, while he also figures into the backstory of the X-Man Storm. As originally introduced, Farouk was a human mutant from Egypt who used his vast telepathic abilities for evil, taking the alias Shadow King. Later writers established Farouk as only the modern incarnation of an ancient evil entity that has been around since the dawn of humanity, who became one with Farouk when he grew older. The character has appeared in various adaptations of X-Men stories, including X-Men: The Animated Series and Wolverine and the X-Men. Farouk made his live-action debut in the television series Legion, portrayed by Aubrey Plaza and Navid Negahban, where he was the show's primary antagonist. Publication history Created by writer Chris Claremont and illustrator/co-writer John Byrne, the character the Shadow King first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #117 (January 1979) as the telepathic mutant Amahl Farouk. X-Treme X-Men and X-Men: True Friends reveal the Shadow King to be an entity of the astral plane which has existed since the dawn of humanity, an ethereal demon preferring to enslave the bodies of telepaths and psychics and use their capabilities to enslave others. As a side effect of its greed, hedonism and lack of self-control, the Shadow King's long-term telepathic hosts are often morbidly obese. Fictional character biography The Shadow King's origins are unclear. All that is known is that he was living in Morocco until the 1800s before taking Farouk as a host. He claims to be a multiversal manifestation of the dark side of the human consciousnesses, spawned by the first nightmare, and has since been feeding on the shadows in their souls, transferring from host to host since the dawn of humanity. For many years, the Shadow King's primary human manifestation was Amahl Farouk. When Amahl Farouk's powers developed he could psychically control those around him, and merged with the Shadow King. As Farouk, the Shadow King originally confronted Professor X (inspiring him to form the X-Men). As Amahl Farouk in the 1930s The Shadow King was known as Amahl Farouk in 1931, working for two of Adolf Hitler's special agents (Wolfgang von Strucker and Geist). Von Strucker and Geist planned to dethrone King Edward of England and replace