History
On three occasions, the Swift Tide (including at least Kharsa and Sycorax, but not Garanna) stopped assassins at the gates of the Imperial City.
Discovering the location of an ancient eldritch artifact called the Unforgotten Stone, the Swift Tide arrived at a diplomatic meeting between the Imperial Atlanteans and the Chasm People, encountering Prince Namor and Lady Dorma of Atlantis. Informing Attukar, king of the Chasm People, and the delegates from Atlantis of what they had discovered, Kharsa led the Swift Tide in repelling an attack by rebel Chasm People; and was impressed by Namor, Dorma, and Attukar's son Attuma joining the fight.
The Swift Tide was dispatched to locate and retrieve the Unforgotten Stone before it could fall into the hands of the surface-dwellers, joined in their mission by Namor, Attuma, and Dorma.[1] Going northwards, the Swift Tide stopped at villages to tell their stories, saving a rural village from a group of bandits. Defeating and pursuing them, the Swift Tide was confronted to an eldritch horror that the bandits fed and thought to have mastered. Sycorax freed her allies from the horror's mental hold, and Kharsa swiftly destroyed it.
When the Unforgotten Stone was activated by Soviet scientists, the Swift Tide were engulfed by its eldritch power; Kharsa commanded Namor, Dorma, and Attuma to fall back, telling them that if the Swift Tide didn't make it they would need to live to tell their people what had happened. Kharsa ordered Sycorax using her magic to push the three nobles to safety while she led the Swift Tide deeper into the eldritch darkness emitted by the Unforgotten Stone.[2] Along with the other members of the Swift Tide, Kharsa was corrupted by the Unforgotten Stone and merged with her mount, a great white shark - replacing her feet with fins, turning her skin grey and eyes solid black, and giving her fangs and claws. Kharsa redubbed her team the Black Tide and decimated Namor and Attuma's retinue, but was convinced to spare the three nobles by Sycorax, who sensed they too had been affected by the Unforgotten Stone's power. Kharsa led the Black Tide on a rampage, slaughtering the Chasm People and Atlantean delegates at the Orreki Reefs, among them King Attukar,[3] before attacking Atlantis itself.
Frozen in mystical ice by Dorma channeling the power of the Unforgotten Stone, Kharsa and the other members of the Black Tide were banished to the depths of Harran's Rift,[4] removed from the Atlanteans' memories and hearts. She swore revenge on Namor and the rest of Atlantis.[1] Decades later, the Black Tide's prison thawed and they were able to roam freely, albeit under guard. Kharsa was reluctantly approached by Namor, who sought the Black Tide's aid in repelling the alien god Knull and his horde of Symbiotes.[5] Kharsa and Sycorax were unleashed from the Black Tide's prison to help fight Knull's invasion, the shark-Atlantean hybrid complementing Namor on how he had grown before asking if he was ready to deal with her inevitable betrayal.
True to Kharsa's promise, she and Sycorax escaped during the chaos and returned to Harran's Rift, slaughtering the guards present before freeing the other members of the Black Tide.[4]