Fictional Obituary: Harry Leland / Black Bishop, Marvel Comics (Spoilers through Uncanny X-Men #209)

Fictional Obituary: Harry Leland / Black Bishop, Marvel Comics (Spoilers through Uncanny X-Men #209) Harry Leland, the Black Bishop of the Hellfire Club's Inner Circle, has died after suffering a heart attack during the confrontation with Nimrod in Central Park. His final effort helped save Sebastian Shaw and others caught in the attack. Leland was a senior member of the small group that directed the affairs of the Hellfire Club's New York establishment. He belonged to a world of private influence, formal dress and carefully observed distinctions of rank. Within that setting, he worked alongside Shaw, the Black King, and fellow members including Emma Frost and Tessa. A physically imposing man, Leland possessed the mutant ability to increase the mass of people and objects. The power made him an important member of the Inner Circle, although its demands on his concentration and endurance left him vulnerable. His apparent authority could conceal considerable fear, and he admired a courage in Shaw that he sometimes doubted in himself. His loyalty to Shaw and the club endured through repeated setbacks. Leland remained in the Inner Circle after being seriously injured in a confrontation with the X-Men, continuing to support its ambitions and participate in its operations. His place there involved both personal attachment and a willingness to use his abilities in the service of the group's interests. Those interests often brought harm to others. Leland took part in the capture and intimidation of the X-Men, and his membership in the club cannot be separated from that record. His former opponents had substantial reasons to distrust him. His death nevertheless brought recognition of the courage he had shown on behalf of people who had only recently been his enemies. For Shaw and Tessa, the loss is personal as well as a vacancy in the Inner Circle. They knew Leland as a colleague through the club's successes and defeats, and were among those whose survival his last actions helped secure. He leaves a complicated memory among his associates and adversaries. Alongside the Black Bishop's power and the injuries he helped inflict, there will be the memory of Harry Leland's loyalty, his fear, and the courage he found when others needed him.