When Shamash-Shum-Ukin came to the throne of Babylon the Great, he heard tales of great powers possessed by certain men learned in sorcery. Powers that were capable of bending and warping the fabric of reality, of tearing open the barriers of time and space, and allowing a person to see things long gone and yet to come. Shamash-Shum-Ukin decided to acquire these abilities, one way or another.
Then one day the cruel and despotic King Shamash-Shum-Ukin looked on his city under siege from the forces of Assyria. He fled to his citadel and, utilizing his skills in wizardry, sent himself and his ziggurat many thousands of years in the past, to a city called Akbitana. He had been a feared ruler of men in his own age, and was a dreaded sorcerer in this one. The populace of Akbitana looked on his citadel with terror, and he liked it this way, as he continued in his weird experiments in the exploration of time itself.
His new reign ended with the arrival in his home of a barbarian bandit from the far north. Now, with his edifice crashing down into ruin around him, Shamash-Shum-Ukin saw his wondrous well of time, from which he had drawn many strange things, as his one remaining route of escape, and dived down, smiling, into its star-speckled depths. He wondered with excitement what bizarre and glorious vistas awaited him, what new heights of power he might reach on the other side, and was sure that his destiny would be a brilliant one.
"It's not looking too good for you boys tonight, is it?" the female member of the X-Men known as Rogue said teasingly to the two men stood on the other side of the pool table from her, posing provocatively with her cue, the white streak in her auburn hair bright in the light of the barroom.
Logan, known to his teammates as Wolverine, merely grunted, seemingly unconcerned at how comparatively poorly he and Alex Summers, A.K.A. Havok, were doing against Rogue and Betsy Braddock, A.K.A. Psylocke, in tonight's game. "Never be too sure of anything, darlin'," he said, getting into position to take his next shot.
"I still wish Longshot'd come with us," Alex sighed. Betsy gave him a teasing wink in response. The four of them had come out to this bar tonight to unwind after some of their recent adventures, such as battling the Brood and restoring the Savage Land. All thoughts of fun and relaxation were rudely interrupted though by a sudden flash of intense light from outside, followed a second later by the squeal of a cars' breaks, and then a dull thudding noise as of two objects violently colliding.
"That don't sound good," Logan growled. They joined the other bar patrons rushing outside to see exactly what had happened, and see if they could offer some assistance.
A number of people were already gathered around the man lying sprawled in the road. The driver of the car that had slammed into him was among them, his face pale with worry. "He just appeared out of nowhere!" he was saying. "There was no way I could stop in time!"
"He appeared in that flash of light," someone else remarked. "Hey, you don't suppose he could be one of those mutant types, do you?"
"Whoever he is, he needs an ambulance, and fast!" Rogue exclaimed, running over with her three companions.
"He's not going to make it, Rogue," Betsy said sadly. "Just look at his injuries." Blood bubbled at the man's mouth and his broken body jerked spasmodically. He gave a choked gurgle...and did not move again.
"Poor guy," Alex said as the four of them began to walk slowly away, the sound of an ambulance in the distance and getting nearer. "I wonder who he could've been?"
"Did you notice the clothes he was wearing?" asked Betsy. "They were so strange, like something from ancient times."
"You get any of his thoughts, Betsy?" Rogue asked her as they re-entered the bar.
Betsy shook her head. "There wasn't enough time."
"Whoever he was," Logan said, "His story's over now, and there ain't nothing we can do about it."
The corpse of the strange man in the archaic robes was put inside a bodybag and onto a stretcher. The "John Doe" would join the other bodies in the hospital morgue tonight. No one had any way of knowing that the body was that of Shamash-Shum-Ukin, tyrant of ancient Babylon and time-travelling sorcerer, who had met his inglorious end millennia beyond the era he was born in.
Author's Note: In case anyone's wondering, the character of Shamash-Shum-Ukin is not my own. He was created by Roy Thomas, and first appeared in Issue 7 of Marvel's Savage Sword of Conan magazine, in a story titled "The Citadel at the Center of Time", where he was a foe of Conan. His eventual fate was left unexplained in the original story, and this is my version of that fate.