Fox’s The Gifted: A brief history of Fenris in Marvel Comics

Fox’s The Gifted season two, episode eleven, paved the way for a new generation to become the indomitable Fenris. Here’s everything you need to know about Fenris from the X-Men comics.

If episodes ten and eleven of Fox’s The Gifted, now streaming on Hulu, are anything to go by, it is likely that this second half of the season will see the rise of Fenris — a powerful force that emerges when the powers of Lauren (Natalie Alyn Lind) and Andy Strucker (Percy Hynes White) are combined.

In “MeMento”, viewers saw as Lauren became obsessed with a music box that belonged to the original Fenris, Andreas and Andrea Von Strucker, and listening to its music activated a new manifestation of her mutant ability. She has also been steadily getting stronger, as has Andy, due to his training in the Inner Circle. They had been sharing dreams almost continuously throughout the first half of the season, much as the Von Strucker siblings were rumored to do, a clear sign that their destiny is to be Fenris.

So, what is Fenris? In the X-Men comics, the Von Strucker twins were bio-engineered in-utero, with the X-gene spliced into their DNA. As a result, they had the ability to produce destructive energy blasts, strong enough to incinerate a human being, but only when they came into physical contact with each other, unlike the young Struckers on The Gifted, who have abilities separate from each other.

The Von Strucker twins were brought up in a strict Nazi household, headed by their father, Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker, leader of the terrorist organization Hydra. They thus grew up with extremist tendencies, and it wasn’t long before they went up against the X-Men, the Brotherhood of Mutants, the Avengers, and Alpha Flight.

Over the course of their careers, Fenris allied themselves with numerous villains, including the Hand and the Kingpin, and led criminal enterprises on their own, none of which were successful.

Eventually, Andrea was murdered by Baron Helmut Zemo while Andreas was trained to become a swordsman, using leather made out of his sister’s skin as his sword hilt, ensuring that some of the Fenris power remained (gross!).

Later on in the comics, a clone of Andrea brought Fenris back to full power but she too was killed, by Bullseye. Andreas himself was then killed by Norman Osbourne. However, they have since been mysteriously resurrected, presumably by their father, and currently run a secret club for super-villains called Club Fenris.

In the comics, there are no Strucker descendants to carry on the Fenris mantle. The Gifted’s Lauren and Andy are original characters for the show, and that gives the writing staff plenty of leeway to take the new Fenris in exciting directions. It will be interesting to see how the show’s Fenris develops, especially now that Lauren has found the Fenris twins’ DNA in the music box.

One thing is for sure, despite its absence for most of this season, Fenris will play an important part in the show over the next few episodes. If Lauren and Andy do in fact activate their power, they are going to be unstoppable, as we saw in the first season of The Gifted. However, the question remains, whose side will they be on? We can’t wait to find out!

The Gifted: Dawn Of The Mutant Age airs Tuesdays on Fox. For more on The Gifted and everything Hulu related, follow us on the Hulu Watcher Twitter Page @HuluWatcherFS or on the Hulu Watcher Facebook Page.