Black Swan is a German mutant raised in the Bavarian circus and highly trained in hand-to-hand, swordplay and gunmanship. He utilized his ability to infect the minds of others with disruptive "telepathic viruses" to become a successful mercenary and hit man, which brought him into conflict with the Taskmaster. He carried out an assassination on the four heads of the Japanese Four Winds crime families and organisation in New York, but although he carried it out surreptitiously, the credit was given to rival contractor Deadpool, who crashed through a skylight above the Four Winds at the same time, while firing wildly and in fact unknowingly missed the targets. When Deadpool was subsequently hired to kill Black Swan in Germany, the assassin beat Deadpool senseless, infected his mind with a mental "virus", and brought him to the U.S., having him brutally beaten every few minutes to prevent him from fully healing.