Standard Dire Wraith form

Dire Wraith brain drain

Years after diverging from the Skrulls and leaving the original homeworld, the Dire Wraiths attacked and destroyed a fleet from the planet Galador. This prompted the Galadorians to create the Spaceknights to defend their planet. The bravest of the Spaceknights, Rom, pursued some Wraiths to Earth, where he fought to keep them from overrunning the planet. Rom's key weapons were a Scanalyzer that identified Wraiths even in assumed form and a Neutralizer that banished the Wraiths to Limbo. The scanner was soon re-created by Forge and tuned to detect all superhumans, including mutants. The original Neutralizer was also modified by Forge to turn any super-powered individual into a non-powered person. This Neutralizer was the one used to strip Storm of her powers.

Hellhound in action

While on Earth, the Dire Wraiths underwent an cultural change: the males preferred their transitory assumed forms and came to rely more heavily on technology, while the females maintained their true shapes and sorcerous might. The females eventually came to dominate the males, and it was they who launched an attack on Forge in his Aerie to keep the government from using the Neutralizer against them. Luckily for Forge, Storm decided to return to the Aerie, and together with Naze managed to hold off the Wraiths until the other X-Men arrived. During the battle, the Wraiths also revealed another morphological form, the Deathwing, which spewed plasma from its mouth. These Wraith had also mutated Earth canines into the Hellhounds, semi-intelligent attack dogs whose very touch could paralyze. Eventually the Wraiths were defeated by the X-Men, and before long, the rest of the Wraiths on Earth were driven off as well.