Sebastian Hiram Shaw is a fictional character, a supervillain who appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. He was frequently an adversary of the X-Men. A mutant, Shaw possesses the ability to absorb energy and transform it into raw strength. He is the leader of the New York branch of the Hellfire Club, an exclusive secret society bent on world domination, although to the public, he is a legitimate businessman and ordinary human. He once funded the mutant-hunting Sentinel program to keep it under his thumb. In 2009, Shaw was named IGN's 55th Greatest Comic Book Villain of All Time. Created by writer Chris Claremont and artist/co-writer John Byrne, the character first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #129 (January 1979). Comic artist John Byrne based the appearance of Sebastian Shaw on that of British actor Robert Shaw. Sebastian Shaw was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His power first manifested shortly after he was accepted to engineering school (speculated to be Carnegie Mellon University) and his father Jacob Shaw died after he contracted an incurable disease.