The Forgiven

Current Members

• Ghost Blade
• Inka
• Nighteyes
• Quickshot
• Visigoth
• Redblood

Origin

Many years ago, Raizo Kodo decided to veer away from his vampire brethren. He refused to drink blood from helpless humans, and over the years, he has convinced a select few to follow in his footsteps. Together, they visited a special "Penance Pool." Once baptized, they no longer felt a bloodlust and were hence forgiven. They would use their abilities to fight from the shadows and protect themselves from sunlight with their lightbender amulets.

Creation

The Unforgiven first appeared in Fear Itself: Hulk vs Dracula #1 by Victor Gischler and Ryan Stegman

Major Story Arcs

Fear Itself

When Sin released The Serpent, it released a number of celestial hammers that fell to Earth and caused chaos after luring worthy handlers. One such hammer was picked up by The Hulk, who turned into the World Breaker and caused destruction across the world. When he landed in vampire territory, Raizo Kodo offered the services of The Forgiven, his team of vampire superheroes. Dracula opted to imprison them in his dungeon rather than accept their offer, sending an army of monsters instead.

When Dracula’s strategy fails, he reluctantly accepts the help of The Forgiven. While Dracula was targeting the Hulk, The Forgiven targeted the hammer. His team kept Hulk busy and evacuated civilians while Kodo strategized. Unfortunately, he determined there was no military strategy that could stop the Hulk and left Dracula’s forces to their own choices. Kodo did not abandon the efforts though. He grabbed his team member, Inka, who had perfected the vampiric ability to mesmerize. She created an illusion that she was Betty Ross and convinced Hulk to destroy the hammer himself, freeing him from its influence and ending his attack on Dracula.

For their accomplishment, Dracula allows them to leave but refuses to reverse their banishment.

X-Men

A later recruit was Jubilee. With their help she was able to kick the human blood habit, living off the blood of other mammals instead. However, having Jubilee with them drew the attention of the X-Men who eventually located them on one of their bases, on an island in the South Chine Sea. Assuming they were regular "evil" vampires, the X-Men were quick to overreact and fought them. Luckily, Jubilee intervened soon after and stopped the pointless bloodshed.

However, they soon learned a large bounty was placed on Raizo and a bunch of contract killers were on the island, headed for them. Teaming up, the X-Men and the Forgiven were able to defeat all of the assassins, including an unknown figure who nearly killed Raizo. When the X-Men left, Jubilee made the choice to reaming with the Forgiven so she could learn more about their ways.

As for who was behind the bounty, it was the leaders of both the Mystikos and Siren sects, who are tired of the Forgiven and their undermining of the "true" vampire ways. However, Raizo and the Forgiven have no idea who is truly after them.

Haunted Hulk

An old blind vampire, starving himself of blood, had a prophetic vision of Red Hulk destroying the Penance Pool. He shared this vision with the Forgiven so that they may stop it from coming true and give more vampires the opportunity to choose this path.

Unknown to the Forgiven, Red Hulk was sent there by instructions from Doctor Strange. A similar baptism as The Forgiven might rid Red Hulk of the ghosts that haunted him. However, the mastermind behind the ghosts also manipulated the vision that influenced The Forgiven.

Once they realized, they offered Red Hulk a favor if he ever needed it.

Unforgiven

After training their newest recruit, Redblood, the Forgiven track the movements of a demon named Salomé. She was targeting a former Wakandan monster hunter, Zawadi, which also got the attention of Spider-Man. After they successfully saved the monster hunter with Spider-Man’s help, Redblood betrayed the team by killing Raizo by stealing his lightbender in the morning sun. She was able to get away before the rest of the Forgiven found his remains and vow vengeance.

With no leads on Redblood, The Forgiven agree to help the X-Men investigate a number of exsanguinated mutants, at the behest of former member, Jubilee. They track it to a vampire crime scene cleaner, The Curator, who was actually Dr. Powell, who the X-Men had a run in with before. He got the best of both teams until Nighteyes allowed her rage to overwhelm her. She went feral and drank him dry. Ashamed, she sowed doubt among her team that they were incapable of keeping on the path without Raizo. In this doubt, they deactivated their lightbenders and fell off the grid.

They went their separate ways, falling back on their old habits, until they are tracked down by Captain America, an old ally of Raizo, who had gifted them their high tech headquarters. He rounded them up to save Redblood. She has been manipulated by a vampire guru and Chthon disciple, named Bobby Quench, who is planning on sacrificing her this very night. They attacked the vampire stronghold, and Quickshot rigged his lightbender into a solar bomb. Redblood wanted to redeem herself, but Inka wouldn't let her. She turned to mist and dragged the lightbender into Bobby Quench's mouth, blowing him up from the outside.

Redblood rejoined the Forgiven, who trained with Zawadi so that they could be on call if Captain America would ever need them again.