A group of super-powered beings published by
Marvel Comics.
In the great X-Men mythos that has grown up over the years, one of the weakest
of all storylines appeared toward the end of the New Mutants comic created by one of the weakest of all comic writers, Rob Liefeld. In the
already fragmented mutant community, another group was introduced: the Externals.
The Externals were a group of super-powered mutants who had existed for years and
had not only their own special super-powers, but also were gifted with immortality.
They were bound together as a loose confederation and used their powers and
longevity to manipulate history, as a sort of mutant Illuminati.
The members of the Externals were from different periods of history and included
a whole range of personalities and abilities. The group included:
The Externals came to light when it was deduced that a member of the
mutant group dubbed the
New Mutants was a fledgling
External.
Through the mechanations of the External
Gideon, Roberto DeCosta,
the mutant
Sunspot, left the New Mutants to take over the business
dealings of his father, after his father died of a heart attack
induced by
Gideon. Gideon believed
DeCosta to be the new
External, but later discovered that he was wrong.
The actual External was discovered to be Sam Guthrie, known as
Cannonball. He seemingly came back to life after being disemboweled
by the villain Sauron.
In a long-overdue bit of housecleaning, Marvel got rid of the
majority of the Externals by having one of their number, Selene,
slay the others by draining their lifeforces in an attempt to
gain power for herself. Only Selene and Cannonball remain alive.
The problem with the whole External storyline is that the premise
of the X-Men comics is that these heroes are mutants, the next
step in man's evolution. If you are to believe this, then you
also have to believe that mutants are a recent development, not a
group of people that have been lurking in the shadows for hundreds and
thousands of years.