Xenos is a young man from Penn City, Pennsylvania, a Rust Belt city that fell on hard times and never recovered. Those circumstances make for desperate people willing to make desperate choices which an arms dealer named Nikos Aegeus thoroughly uses to his advantage by first offering jobs to the townspeople and then ruling them with a proverbial iron fist. Xenos’ skills for tech and design make him a valuable asset to Aegeus. It’s a position which Xenos abhors but is coerced into being or risk Aegeus randomly killing townspeople as the consequence.
After the Justice League defeats Aegeus and removes his threat an unpleasant fact confronts Xenos. Despite his best intentions of keeping the people of Penn City safe from random murder by the tyrant, he is labeled an outcast and made unwelcome to continue living among them. Fortunately for Xenos, Batman and Frost understood Xenos’ reasoning and recognize Xenos for his talents. In this way Xenos comes to represent the principle of forgiveness. In issue #6 Xenos accepts their offer to work as the Justice League’s tech and design guru and moves into their Sanctuary HQ (which is also the Justice League’s first HQ). At the end of this story he confides to Ray his regrets and feelings about not being able to return home. This leads into a later conversation between the two about the effects of anger and disappointment and the importance of forgiveness and compassion.
Xenos is very happy about his work with the Justice League and his romantic relationship with Ray and indulges him in his love of classic movies.
Xenos is a Greek word that means guest, stranger, foreign, foreigner, alien, new, or novel depending on the context. It’s most commonly used in English as the suffix in the word “xenophobia”, fear of strangers or foreigners.
Xenos first appears in Justice League of America #5 (2017) and was created by Steve Orlando and Andy MacDonald. Art by Andy McDonald and HI Fi from Justice League of America #6 and Ivan Reis (second image).
Read Ray’s profile here.
All rights reserved DC Comics