- "You can't pull that trick on me, or anyone else. Not anymore. You need hope for that. And there's none of that here."
- ―Andre Deschaine to Tandy Bowen[src]
Andre Deschaine was a former jazz musician who acquired despair-feeding powers after being exposed to the Darkforce and the Lightforce during the explosion of the Roxxon Gulf Platform. He became the secret leader of a sex trafficking ring in New Orleans, which he used to feed on the despair of his victims to ease his migrains. Eventually, Deschaine hoped that he would ascend to a god-like being, intending to put all of New Orleans's population into a desperate trance, which caused him to cross paths with Cloak and Dagger, notably abducting the latter and severely affecting her powers.
Biography
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Early Life
- "The headaches got so bad, I decided to kill myself. I went to the water, and I climbed as high as I could, it started raining. I climbed, I jumped that should have been the end of it. But then something happened that night."
"The rig explosion"
"Just like that, I was alive. And they fate as they would have it, gave me a way to make the headaches stop...For a little bit of time." - ―Andre Deschaine and Tandy Bowen[src]
Andre Deschaine had a passion for jazz from a young age, eventually becoming a jazz musician. Deschaine regularly played his trumpet at a location called Club Delight with the rest of his band. He was forced to stop playing after suffering from intense migraines on a regular basis, eventually even leaving his beloved trumpet out on the street. Jazz was one of the few things that were important to him and being unable to play contributed greatly to his state of depression. In addition the club burned down, causing Descaine to lose his favorite place in the world.
Attempted Suicide
After some time, Deschaine decided that he had nothing worth living for and planned to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge. However, before he could jump, his attempt was interrupted by a nearby explosion. At this point, he was not aware that the exposure to Darkforce and Lightforce energy in this incident imbued him with superhuman abilities and a connection to the Darkforce Dimension.[1]
He woke up in Church of All Saints Hospital, being taken care of by a nurse, Lia Dewan. Dewan explained that witnesses had seen his suicide attempt but that she would take care of him and that she could make him feel better.
Newfound Abilities
- "90% percent of the time, the people that come my way, I help, give them counselling. choices. shelter.....But the other 10% percent they can't be helped, so they help me."
- ―Andre Deschaine to Tandy Bowen[src]
While in hospital, Deschaine came into contact with Lia Dewan and in his mind, he could see a metaphysical record store. The record store's shelves were empty except for the vinyl records connecting to Dewan. Playing the record immediately gave him a rush of positive feelings, comparable to that of a narcotic. He convinced Dewan to leave her job and come with him where he would be able to give her back her love for music.
With Dewan, Deschaine started a support group. He was able to get a feel of people's emotions, memories and lives through physical contact with them. Deschaine was able to drain or use their remaining hope, emotions and memories to temporarily prevent his recurring migraines at the victim's cost, usually leaving someone in a near-emotionless state of despair.
Using the support group as a cover, Deschaine and Dewan continued to take in those in need, helping those that were easily assisted and taking advantage of the more serious cases. The latter part of this organisation developed even further from being a source of comfort for Deschaine to becoming a full business strategy where girls in need were kidnapped, drained of hope and then used in a sex trafficking operation. The girls were transported via privately owned ambulances which drew no attention and allowed for easy escapes. Because of the negative effects of Deschaine's powers, the girls had little interest in fighting back and became easy to manipulate or abuse.[1]
Meeting Tandy Bowen
To be added
Abducting Dagger
Having discovered too much, Tandy was captured by Lia and Deschaine, drugged and drained of hope. Deschaine displayed the ability to leave his victim completely unaware of whether they were experiencing reality or a hallucination that was induced by himself. Tandy was monitored by Lia at the Viking Motel where many other girls were kept for use in the sex trafficking operation.[2]
While Tandy and the other girls were kept hidden, Deschaine kept up appearances by still regularly helping those that came to the support group in need and even meeting Tyrone Johnson who came looking for Tandy. Deschaine used his abilities to convince Tyrone that Tandy had likely given up on him and that Tyrone should no longer bother trying to find her. While Deschaine selected the appropriate records in his record store to manipulate Tyrone, he was unaware that Mayhem, who had been trapped in the Darkforce Dimension had learned of his secret and had gained access to the record collection as well.[1]
Becoming a Loa
While Deschaine was able to temporarily prevent his migraines and improve his own emotional state by absorbing hope and power from his victims, he longed for a more permanent solution. After seeing a Voodoo veve symbol in the Darkforce Dimension, he sought to find the meaning of it and hoped that it was a sign for him. He found Chantelle Fusilier who practiced Voodoo and was much more familiar with such symbols. Chantelle told Deschaine that the symbol appeared to reference something he could unlock in order to increase his powers and ascend to a more god-like being, however, she could not give him more information as it was something that needed to be discovered by him. When Deschaine made physical contact with Chantelle, he found that she immediately understood his ability and entered his sacred record store along with him. Deschaine saw Chantelle as a potential threat now that she was aware of his true nature and allowed her to relive a pleasant early memory of her adopted niece while he played a record of her heartbeat and slowly stopped it, killing her.[1]
After using Lia once again to help him feel better, Deschaine drained her of her emotions and mental capacity and left her, unconscious, on the side of a road. When Tandy and Tyrone investigated, Deschaine was able to communicate indirectly with them in Lia's mind, telling them that he wanted an audience large enough so he could draw enough despair to finally be able to play a "blue note" and become a god.
Deschaine returned to the empty area where his favourite place, Club Delight, used to be and collected all those people he had drained to place them together as an audience for his trumpet solo. With the brainwashed and manipulated crowd humming along, Deschaine continued playing, lighting up his veve brighter and brighter. Amongst this crowd were Mikayla Bell and Melissa Bowen. Despite an attack from Cloak and Dagger, Deschaine managed to play long enough to unlock his ascension into becoming a Loa before his physical body was killed.
Rise and Fall
No longer content with feeding on one person at a time, Andre began abducting people all over the city, adding them to his "audience" in the Darkforce Dimension. Tandy and Tyrone confronted him in his lair, but Andre brushed off her attacks and mocked their attempts to stop him. He proceeded to separate the two, forcing each of them to confront the source of their fears, with Tandy facing down her father and Tyrone battling a perfect version of himself. The duo managed to regroup and switched opponents, but Andre simply separated them once again. Unfortunately, Tandy and Tyrone finally overcame their deep-seated fears and escaped from Andre's control. Using her powers to exploit his sensitivity to bright light, Tandy managed to free Melissa, Mikayla and Mina Hess while Tyrone stole his trumpet, greatly reducing his power. As the three women held him in place, Tyrone teleported Tandy in front of Andre, stabbing him in the heart with a sword of light. Together, they confronted him in his own mind. Hearing the source of his own pain, Tandy used her dagger to put Andre's record on a loop, turning his power against him and ending his threat once and for all.[3]
Personality
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To be added
Powers and Abilities
- "No, you're just messing with me, just like you did with Mikayla right? Cause that's what you do, right? You get inside people's minds and you cause them pain?"
"I don't cause anyone's pain. I understand it, feel for it, commiserate it with mine. It's the only way to tamp down my migraines." - ―Andre Deschaine and Tandy Bowen[src]
- Despair Perception: Deschaine is capable of causing fear and despair via visions. He can read his victims' minds and emotions to bring out their deepest fears, allowing him to access the Darkforce Dimension. He is also able to tell if someone has lost hope or if it has been taken. One example is that he was already aware of the one time Tandy Bowen was stealing other people's hopes even though he didn't know about her powers when they first met.
- Emotion/Memory Manipulation: Deschaine can manipulate the emotions and memories of his victims in order to feed off of their despair and bend them to his will. These abilities appear to manifest in the dimension as a metaphysical record store where some memories, emotions and even life functions appear to Deschaine in the form of vinyl records. These records are linked to the victim and can be played to force the victim in question to experience whatever the record represents. Deschaine has even gone so far as to manipulate a victim's heartbeat via a vinyl record, stopping the playback and killing the victim. However if a good memory is playing on the record player, the victim will temporarily regain their hope as long as it is playing. An example of this was when Mayhem accessed Deschaine's record collection after Deschaine had tried to place Tyrone Johnson in a state of despair. Mayhem removed the depressing record and instead played a record from Tyrone's category which invoked a memory of how much Tandy meant to him, placing him back in a positive mental state.
Relationships
Allies
- Bo
- Tyrone Johnson (Illusion) † - Creation
- Nathan Bowen (Illusion) † - Creation
- Kenneth Fuchs (Illusion) † - Creation
Enemies
- Mikayla Bell
- Del
- Tandy Bowen/Dagger - Killer
- Tyrone Johnson/Cloak - Killer
- Chantelle Fusilier † - Victim
- Mayhem
- Lia Dewan - Former Ally
- Melissa Bowen
- Mina Hess
Appearances
| Appearances for D'Spayre |
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In chronological order: |
Trivia
- In the comics, D'Spayre was a demon created by the Dweller-in-Darkness, who would feed off of people's anguish to feed him sustenance.
Behind the Scenes
- Floyd Anthony Johns Jr. was a stunt double for Brooklyn McLinn in the role of Andre Deschaine.
Gallery
