Black Swan is a German mutant raised in the Bavarian circus and highly trained in hand-to-hand, swordplay and gunmanship.
He utilized his ability to infect the minds of others with disruptive "telepathic viruses" to become a successful mercenary and hit man, which brought him into conflict with the Taskmaster.
[2] The modified Nijo would become Agent X, while Black Swan was rescued by a Portuguese fishing boat, and Deadpool was rendered temporarily amnesiac.
The three were reunited, along with Taskmaster and Sandi Brandenberg,[3] and Black Swan demanded the return of his personality and abilities, for which he required Agent X's help, proposing a three-way mindmeld to restore each man.
Agent X, having anticipated treachery, had called upon a small army of heavily armed mercenaries to surround the area, but they proved no match for Black Swan's newly augmented telepathy and were quickly incapacitated.
Together with the mercenary called Outlaw, Deadpool, Agent X, and Taskmaster were able to overwhelm Black Swan's healing ability and kill him.
[6] Black Swan even proposed to team up with Deadpool, who was forced to grudgingly accept as he needed allies in his current condition.
She constantly warns that worse things are coming, and they need to prepare, but no matter what they do it's only delaying the inevitable because in the end everything dies.
[8] After the Illuminati try to deal with the next two incursions that occur on their own, they succeed only through luck, and seek help from the Black Swan, who shows she had the strength to break out of her jail cell all along.
[13] After Namor was kicked out of the Illuminati, he released Thanos, Proxima Midnight, Corvus Glaive, Black Swan, and Terrax of Earth-13054 in order to form his incarnation of the Cabal.
[14] During the Time Runs Out storyline, Black Swan was with the Cabal claimed the ruins at Wakanda as their base and started destroying worlds that would be a threat to Earth-616 during the incursions.
[17] During the Secret Wars storyline, Black Swan and the rest of the Cabal worked with Maker into making a life-raft that would save them from the final incursion involving Earth-616 and Earth-1610 where it was deployed during the fight between both its inhabitants.
[20] Upon being teleported to Doomgard by Sheriff Strange, Black Swan was confronted by God Emperor Doom and ended up serving him.
Black Swan, Proxima Midnight, and the unidentified cloaked ally of Thanos snuck onto Collector's ship where they had an encounter with Thor Odinson and Beta Ray Bill.
[25] The first Black Swan has the ability to implant a telepathic virus in the minds of others which disrupts the natural functions of their brains to cut off access to and override motor coordination, disorient their concentration, etc.
She has displayed multiple powers including energy beams from her eyes, flight, super strength, the ability to generate holographic visuals from her hands, and also telepathy which she has kept hidden from the Illuminati and uses to secretly converse with her fellow prisoner Terrax.