Untold eons ago, there were beings known as the Old Gods. And when their light went out of the universe in a fiery calamity, a race of New Gods was born in their wake. They were split between two opposite worlds, New Genesis and Apokolips, and these planets, which represented light and dark, were continually at war. It was on the planet Apokolips that young Uxas was born, son of King Yuga Khan and Queen Heggra. When Yuga Khan’s ambitions got the better of him and he became trapped in the Source Wall, Uxas killed his own mother. After taking the power of the Omega Effect from him, Uxas also had his brother Drax killed. Seizing the planet’s throne, with all familial obstacles out of the way, Uxas gave himself the name Darkseid.
There was a time when Darkseid was very nearly “corrupted” by good. Against all odds, he fell in love with a young woman named Suli, a scientist who believed in using her knowledge to spread enlightenment throughout the universe. She bore Darkseid a son named Kalibak, but not long after, Darkseid’s mother Heggra had Suli assassinated, seeing how she had spread her positivity and love to him and made the queen’s son “weak.” It was then that Darkseid got his revenge and poisoned his mother, forevermore scoffing at the very idea of love. Nevertheless, Darkseid eventually took another wife, Tigra, who bore him a son named Orion.
As the ongoing war raged between Apokolips and New Genesis, a bizarre plan was hatched to put a halt to the endless conflict. The terms of the pact were that the son of the leader of New Genesis, Highfather Izaya, would be traded for Orion, the son of Darkseid. Upon receiving the infant son of Izaya, named Scott Free, Darkseid immediately banished him to the fire pits, where a life of pain and degradation eventually forged the child into the super escape artist Mister Miracle. Orion, meanwhile, was raised on New Genesis, and it was foretold that someday the son would slay his father.
Believing humanity contains some portion of the Anti-Life Equation, Darkseid has sought to conquer the Earth several times over, beaten each time by humanity’s protectors, but never truly vanquished. arkseid. Ruling over the hellish world of Apokolips, Darkseid doesn’t merely mean to conquer a planet or subjugate his enemies; he seeks to rob the entire universe of its free will and replace it with his own.
