D’Ken was the first ruler of the Shi’ar Empire, and is brother to both Lilandra Neramani and Caly’see Neramani (Deathbird). D’Ken was the one kidnapped Corsair and Katherine Anne Summers, parents to Cyclops, Havok, and as recently revealed, Vulcan. Corsair made an unsuccessful escape attempt which resulted in D’Ken killing Katherine and ripping his unborn child from her womb as punishment. Corsair was enslaved and D’Ken, using Shi’ar technology, was able to keep Vulcan alive in hopes of making him into a slave one day as well. As Vulcan grew up, he was able to escape from D’Ken and make it back to Earth, where he found aide from Professor X and Moira MacTaggart.

D’Ken was unconcerned by this, he had bigger plans. He sought out the M’Kraan Crystal due to its fabled power. Despite his family’s objections, he finally found the Crystal on a planet only known as “The World”. At this point, due to her brothers machinations of power and disregard for Shi’ar beliefs, Lilandra allied herself with the X-Men to put an end to her brother’s quest. The Phoenix Force which was still weakened an inexperienced within its new host body, Jean Grey, flew to the Crystal to try and stop D’Ken. Unfortunately, the Phoenix, along with everyone else was pulled into the Crystal.

Once inside, they found an endless city, at the center was the heart of the Crystal- a sphere containing a Neutron Galaxy. D’Ken, along with the X-men were immobilized by a ray that was coming out of the orb. The effect of which was causing anyone caught in it to live out their greatest nightmare. The Phoenix was the only one unaffected by the rays, so she used the empathic link she had with the Crystal and discovered that the Sphere had a living shield that was breaking down. If gone unchecked, it would cause all of creation to be sucked into it. Phoenix tried, unsuccessfully, to stop it on her own, so she created a telepathic link to the X-Men, and using their combined power she was able to repair the M’Kraan Crystal and save the entire universe. Unfortunately, the Crystal’s immense power put D’Ken into a coma. With D’Ken incapacitated, his younger sister Lilandra became queen of the Shi’ar Empire.