Ahmanet

"You want to know what lies beyond the veil of death? You will...when I kill you!"

- Ahmanet

Ahmanet (also known as Princess Ahmanet, The Mummy and The Monster) is the titular main antagonist of the 2017 horror fantasy action-adventure film, The Mummy, which is the first film of Universal Studios' Dark Universe series.

She is a powerful ancient Egyptian mummy with godlike dark powers and has returned from the dead on a quest for world domination. Her return as the reanimated mummy was result of her making a deal with Set, Egyptian God of Death. Storms and Evil, for dark powers she had, allowing her to cheat death itself.

She was portrayed by Sofia Boutella, who also played Gazelle in Kingsmen: The Secret Service and Jaylah in Star Trek Beyond.

Appearance and Concept
With discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb by Howard Carter in 1922, alongside notions of a curse associated with mummies (see Curse of the Pharaohs for more information) and process of mummification on deceased Egyptians in the past, The Mummy is conceived as one of Universal Monster's iconic character, depicted as cursed undead being and reanimated mummy who awakened by desecration of his/her grave and proceed to wreaking havoc on humanity. With more horror films and other mass medias in 20th century popularizing the idea about both curses associated with mummies (particularly Egyptian ones) and concept of mummies rise as undead monster, The Mummy's characterization began to taking more sinister turn as the character's ambition expanded to world domination and possessing additional dark powers stemmed from very maladies that keeping him/her alive as undead being.

For Dark Universe franchise's version of The Mummy, Ahmanet is conceived as ancient titular female mummy and former princess unlike other well-known incarnation called Imhotep who happened to be male and an Egyptian High Priest, and her debut film in the series re-imagines The Mummy's origins where the character emerges in modern world for the first time as undead being as opposed to 1930s. Also, before they come up with the idea of The Mummy's incarnation being female, they originally intended the character to be male like Imhotep, which implied that Imhotep's origins will be rebooted or a new character based on him created altogether. But following the release of X-Men: Apocalypse, the filmmakers of Dark Universe series become worried that their concept for The Mummy as male character become too much similar with main antagonist of the film. As result, the character's concept is reworked once more into female mummy named Ahmanet.

Background
Ahnamet was born millennia ago in Cairo, capital city of ancient Egypt. She was beloved by people of Egypt thanks to status and reputation of her father, Menehptre, as closest ally of Egyptian rulers at that time. One day, Menehptre became the next Pharaoh after the previous one died, and this led her become princess, resulting her reputation improves that citizens of ancient Egypt loved her more.

Princess Ahmanet was first in line to replace her father Menehptre and determined to become the queen of Egypt, but found obstacles when his new wife gives birth to a son who stood between her and the throne. Determined to usurp the throne by any means necessary, Ahmanet went to the dark path where she sold her soul to Set, Egyptian God of Death, Storms and Evil, who promises to make her the Queen in exchange for gaining a corporeal form. After executing her family, Ahmanet prepares to make a human sacrifice, only to be captured by her father's loyal priests and condemned to be buried alive.

Wary with whatever calamity that will consume the world should her body disturbed by anyone, Menehptre's priests then arranged to have her body sealed in a secret prison underground.

Resurrection
In present day Iraq, soldier-of-fortune Nick Morton and his partner Chris Vail accidentally discover the tomb of Ahmanet after staging an airstrike on an insurgent stronghold. Accompanied by Jenny Halsey, an archaeologist and former lover of Nick's who arrived upon hearing the news of secret ancient Egyptian tomb, Nick and co. explored the area, with Jenny correctly concluding that it is actually a prison due to the area was different compared to regular Egyptian tombs she familiar with and demonic design of Ahmanet's sarcophagus. During the exploration, Vail was bitten by a camel spider and shrugged it off, unaware that the said spider was cursed by Ahmanet as conduit for her dark powers so she can mind-controlled anyone who bitten by it as her unwilling thrall. After extracting Ahmanet's sarcophagus from a pool of mercury, Nick's superior, Colonel Greenway, places the sarcophagus on a transport plane headed to England with intention of having it studied there.

Little did they know that the sarcophagus' removal from its prison awakened Ahmanet inside from her slumber. In-flight, Ahmanet uses her dark powers to activate a mind-controlling spell within the venom that run through Vail's blood vessels, turning him into her slave. She then had brainwashed Vail to broke her sarcophagus, but fails and she instead had his pawn to kill Greenway and attacks the group before the reluctant Nick shoots him dead. Though she lost her pawn in process, this nevertheless distract the group long enough before summons a huge wave of crows then assault the plane, causing it to crash and kill everyone on board except for Jenny, who is parachuted off the plane by Nick. The crash also shattered the sarcophagus, releasing the prisoner inside.

Choosing Nick
A day later, Nick awakens in a morgue in Oxford, apparently survived the crash and had a vision from Vail's ghost that he has been cursed by Ahmanet, who seeks to use him as a replacement vessel for Set. Because his death, Ahmanet decided to choose Nick instead.

Ahmanet herself escapes from the sarcophagus and begins feeding on rescue workers to regenerate her decomposed body. Turning the workers into zombie minions, she lures Nick and Jenny into a trap, forcing the two to fight off the minions as they unsuccessfully try to escape. At the last second, Prodigium soldiers appear and subdue her, before brought Jenny and Nick along with them.

Arriving at Prodigium base underneath the Natural History Museum of London, as Ahmanet is brought to their custody, Nick is greeted by Dr. Henry Jekyll, the head of the Prodigium, a secret society dedicated to hunting supernatural threats with Ahmanet being the most recent of the said threat that appeared as of now. According to Dr. Jekyll, before Ahmanet, they have dealt with other threats such as Gill-man, a powerful vampire that hinted to be Dracula (the proofs of former two are Gill-man's severed arm and a vampire' fanged skull respectively among his display), and beast inside him: In his past experiment to prove existence of monster inside human psyche, Dr. Jekyll once drank an experimental serum he made himself as part of such experiment, bringing negative aspects of his psyche to life as monstrous persona called Edward Hyde. Dr. Jekyll then confirms that Nick was cursed when he unlocked Ahmanet's tomb and reveals his intention to complete her ritual and allow Set to possess Nick in order to destroy Set and end his evil for good. He also revealed that Jenny also worked for him as one of his agents to confirm the threat that Ahmanet posed to the world.

Escape and Battle in London
Meanwhile, Ahmanet summons another spider to possess a Prodigium technician and frees herself from captivity, before unleashed her vast supernatural powers to fight her way to the outside wreaking havoc, death, and destruction in the process. In the midst of the chaos, Jekyll succumbs to his own dark impulses and transforms into Edward Hyde, nearly killing Nick before Nick manages to stop Hyde with the serum Jekyll uses to suppress himself. Nick and Jenny then escape Prodigium, while Ahmanet steals back the dagger, summons an army of deceased English crusaders to serve her.

With Nick escaped and her dagger now in her hands, Ahmanet unleashed her dark powers to disrupt electricity in London and creates a massive sandstorm that ravages the city, killing thousands in process. Nick and Jenny then incapacitated the mummy with RPG, stopping her rampage and staggered her in process. Destruction and deaths she left behind angered the exasperated Dr. Jekyll, resulted am argument between him and Nick who questioned his previous decision to capture her alive.

Ahmanet, who recovered from the blast, sent another wave of her attack, this time to invade Prodigium base for Nick with her undead army, having enough from his troubles. A violent battle ensues with Dr. Jekyll and his men sacrificed their lives so Nick and Jenny could escape with guidance of Vail's ghost through subway tunnels beneath London, but are attacked by Ahmanet's minions who catch up with them.

Defeat
Ahmanet captures Jenny and drowns her, hoping to break her hold over Nick. Nick puts up a fight, but gives up and lets himself embrace Ahmanet, using it as a ruse to steal the dagger and stab himself. His body is possessed by Set, who proceeds to join Ahmanet to uphold his end of the bargain until he sees Jenny's dead body, at which point Nick regains control and uses Set's powers to suck the life out of Ahmanet, turning her back into a shriveled mummy.

Personality
Ahnamet was nothing more or less than the ultimate personification of evil, darkness, violence, murder and most of all; destruction. She was extremely power hungry, arrogant, ruthless, and murderous. More than that, she even murdered her own father who promised her to become princess one day, after she was the one who was responsible for the death of the current Pharaoh.

Powers and Abilities
As Dark Universe's incarnation of The Mummy, Ahmanet possesses similar powers and abilities with previous incarnation of the character, the dreaded Imhotep (particularly Sommers' version of the character). But because her dark powers came from meddling with Egyptian Witchcraft and pact with Seth instead of curse of Hom Dai that Imhotep subjected to, Ahmanet's powers less vary in spite of similar with former and therefore, not as powerful as Sommers' version of Imhotep. Even so, Ahmanet is still powerful in her own right, as she had unique abilities of her own.

Powers

 * Unholy Undead Physiology: Like Imhotep, Ahmanet currently exists as an immortal undead being. Her power stems from her pact with Set, the Egyptian god of death and evil, which keeps her soul earthbound and her body partially alive. The exact limit of her abilities have yet to be determined, nor have her limitations been shown to be connected to any ancient gods or darker spirits from the Underworld. This is very reason why Menehptere's priests taking extreme measure to keep her body remained sealed in secret prison and pool of mercury as forced mummification is not enough to kill her.
 * Supernatural Strength: From the dark otherworldly forces which sustain her unnatural life-force, Ahmanet possesses prodigious physical strength in comparison to mortals. Her level of strength seems to be related to her level of decay and regeneration; the more undead and decayed she is, the weaker and more easily restrained she is, even by mortal means such as steel chain links. Feeding on the flesh and fluids of the living gradually grows her strength just as it regenerates her body. She can easily break free of chain restraints as well as send grown men high into the air with the slightest touch.
 * Supernatural Durability: In addition of enhancing her strength, dark otherworldly forces which sustain Ahmanet's unnatural life-force also provided her enhanced durability. At first, in her decayed stated, her durability was handicapped that Prodigium soldiers easily incapacitated her. But once she began to regenerate, her bodily tissues become durable and gradually substantially hardens. In her wholly regenerated form, she become nearly invincible and able to shrug off RPG blast which can blown mortal men into pieces.
 * Supernatural Mobility: Ahmanet is unnaturally fast and agile thanks to dark forces that keeping her alive until present day, as she can quickly move from one place to another as if she performed teleportation. Even so, this attribute is severely handicapped in her corpse form, forcing her to regenerate so her speed and agility reach its peak.
 * Supernatural Reflexes: Ahmanet's reaction time is unnaturally fast thanks to dark forces that keeping her alive, as she can easily evade attacks seconds before they hit her.
 * Stealth/Invisibility: When escaping from the Prodigium, Ahnamet can channeled dark forces that empowering her to easily sneak through the soldiers and even hid her presence with her powers.
 * Immortality: Her immortality, as discussed, stems from her reanimation due to her awakening from being removed from the place of her burial, she was released as a malevolent spirit bound to her own corpse due to her pact with Seth, giving her the powers to transcend death. She also gained inhuman resilience towards pain and was only mildly handicapped by damage to her body, making her immune to the crippling or even fatal effects of injury.
 * Flesh/Life Force Consumption: After her reanimation, Ahmanet's corpse was emaciated, desiccated, and decayed from over three millennia of entombment. She was little more than a skeleton and dried flesh. As per her powers of necromancy and powers connected to the forces of darkness, Ahmanet possesses the power to "feed" upon or absorb and assimilate the flesh, organs, and vital fluids of living victims whilst she remains in her undead state, leaving the victim a desiccated corpse like herself. The process is painfully fatal to the victim while also proving uncomfortable for Ahmanet as her skin, organs, and bones painfully regenerating themselves from within and around her undead corpse. This is the power she shared with Imhotep. In addition, she could turn the drained corpses of her victims into undead minions to assist her.
 * Regenerative Healing Factor: Ahmanet had demonstrated that she could heal from any form of physical injury and was only hindered by. She must first however kill mortal humans by sucking them dry of all organs and fluids to restore herself back to a living being. Even after this, Ahmanet can heal herself as well as reassemble herself in case any of her limbs are severed from her body.
 * Egyptian Witchcraft: When Ahmanet realized that she can't become a Pharaoh, she resorted to meddling with various forms of Egyptian Witchcraft frowned by Egyptian priests at that time and even made a deal with Set to gain god-like powers such as:
 * Sand Manipulation: Much like Imhotep, Ahmanet possesses potent ability to control sand to the point conjuring destructive sandstorm that can form a giant face. Being released from underground prison inside her sarcophagus was enough to cause a sandstorm nearby. While in London, she used verbal incantion to summon a sandstorm, which caused all the glass in the area to shatter into sand.
 * Flight: Ahmanet can levitate on the air for a brief of time.
 * Necrokinesis: Ahmanet's meddling with Egyptian Witchcraft and deal with Seth gave her the power to resurrect the dead similar with Imhotep. She demonstrating invoking Set's power as a verbal incantation to take over corpses. She demonstrated such powers when she resurrected newly deceased Nick as well as resurrect an army of mummies from both her victims and deceased English crusaders to do her bidding.
 * Mind Control and Hypnosis: Ahmanet possesses the ability to mentally controlled mortal beings through her witchcraft skills, be it human or animals, with her control over them ranges from simply in form of hypnosis to telephatic control to manipulate her victims' actions like puppet. When entombed in her sarcophagus, she used a camel spider to passed her control over it to Vail through its bite as conduit so she can control him to free her. But when her pawn ultimately killed, Ahmanet retaliates by controls a swarm of crows to crashed the airplane. She would later summon a smaller spider to have crawl into the ear of an unsuspecting Prodigium technician to possess him.

Abilities

 * Combat Proficiency: Ahmanet, being an ancient Egyptian who trained to become a Pharaoh, is proficient in combat and fighting abilities.
 * Exceptional Intelligence: Ahmanet is extremely sophisticated, wise and smart, even before becoming an undead being.
 * Persuasive Skills and Charisma: Even before she gained her dark powers, Ahmanet proved to be charismatic as she can easily persuade and manipulate other people to get what she wanted, including her father to help her become a princess.

Family

 * Menehptre † - Father and Victim
 * Unnamed stepmother † - Stepmother and Victim
 * Unnamed newborn half-brother † - Half-Brother and Victim

Allies

 * Set - Master and Superior

Enemies

 * Nick Morton - Chosen One and Killer
 * Jenny Halsey
 * Dr. Henry Jekyll/Edward Hyde

Trivia

 * Ahmanet is the first titular character of The Mummy film series to be portrayed as a female, as past renditions saw the Mummy's being presented as male figures, thus making her the first female Mummy to be represented in the franchise.
 * In addition to making her the first female mummy, this film also tells a new, original story centered around the titular character, as opposed to re-using the story of Imhotep, the first mummy, or Kharis, the second mummy.
 * Ahmanet is loosely based on the Egyptian goddess Amunet.
 * Her name means gift of the moon.

Mumia (Dark Universe)