Nate Grey
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X-Man (Nate Grey) is a fictional character, a superhero in the Marvel Comics Universe and related to the X-Men franchise. Created by Jeph Loeb and Steve Skroce, he first appeared in X-Man #1 (March 1995).
X-Man is an equitant of the regular Marvel Universe hero Cable, hailing from the “Age of Apocalypse” reality. He is the biological son of his dimension’s Scott Summers and Jean Grey, born of genetic tampering by the villain Mr. Sinister. Due to a childhood infection, however, Cable never achieved the vast telepathic and telekinetic powers of X-Man while Nate Grey was one of the most powerful mutants in existence during his lifetime.
X-Man was originally a four-issue mini-series replacing Cable during 1995’s “Age of Apocalypse” alternate reality storyline. However, Marvel transported Nate Grey to its regular shared universe after the storyline ended. Although derided by some[citation needed] for a concept perplexing to anyone not a diehard X-Men fan, the series ran until 2001, during which Nate struggled with being the most powerful person in a strange world. The series ended with his sacrificial death.
Despite his name, X-Man was only briefly a member of the X-Men, both in the Age of Apocalypse reality and in the regular reality.
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[edit] History
The story of Nate Grey begins in the Age of Apocalypse, an alternate timeline that shortly existed when Professor Charles Xavier was accidentally killed by his wayward son, Legion, who had traveled about twenty years into the past. This tragedy caused a chain reaction, resulting in the rule of the mutant madman, Apocalypse, over Northern America. During Apocalypse’s rule, one of his Horsemen and longtime-allies, the geneticist, Nathaniel Essex aka Mr. Sinister, realized that his and Apocalypse’s goals were no longer compatible. In order to rid himself of the dictator, Sinister formulated a plan. He took genetic material from his foster son, Scott Summers, and the imprisoned X-Man, Jean Grey, and, without their knowledge, used their DNA to secretly create an immensely powerful offspring - the ultimate telepath and telekinetic, whom he christened Nathan Grey (after himself and Jean). Young Nathan was force-grown in a tube in Sinister’s lab and let out several times as a child to check on his progress. Even then, he displayed telepathic powers at an incredibly high level, which convinced Mr. Sinister that he needed to build a “failsafe.” (X-Man # -1).
When Nate reached his mid-teens, he escaped, with no knowledge of his origin and a little help from Scott Summers. Whether this escape was an accident or Sinister wanted a “test-run” for his creation is unclear. Nate was lucky as he was quickly found and adopted by a ragtag group of mutant rebels, who, disguised as a theatre troupe, tried to help humans. The group, consisting of Toad, Mastermind, Sauron, Sonique and Brute, soon became his family and their leader, Forge, was the only father Nate ever knew. After some time, however, Nate grew dissatisfied with their life and his role in it. He wanted to know who he was, what his limits were and it bristled that Forge, afraid that Apocalypse might take notice of the boy, ordered him not to use his powers. Nate, being a teenager, rebelled more and more openly, which resulted in two others joining their group: one was a young girl named Theresa (Siryn), who was saved by the group, who then learned she was a mutant with sonic powers. The other was the mysterious Essex, who claimed he had worked in Apocalypse’s factories and now wanted to help the rebels against his former master (X-Man #1). Essex fuelled Nate’s rebellious feelings and urged him to use his immense psychic powers more and more, even making suggestions on how to better use them, e.g. using telekinesis as a means to fly. The result, however, was that Apocalypse’s pet telepath - the Shadow King - noticed the new, powerful telepath and Apocalypse dispatched his personal assassins, under the leadership of the deadly Domino, to capture or kill Nate. The assassins confronted the group and, after several deaths on both sides, Nate and his friends managed to beat them. At that time, however, Forge recognized that Essex was up to no good and confronted him. Essex, actually Sinister in disguise, murdered Forge and told the boy of his true origins. Like he expected, he managed to convince Nate to go after Apocalypse after the obligatory fight. However, what he did not expect was that Nate, in his rage, actually managed to wound Sinister mortally.
Wanting to honor Forge’s dying words, to look for Magneto, Nate did so telepathically - what he got was a vision of Magneto imprisoned and being tortured by Apocalypse. After saying goodbye to his lover, Theresa, Nate decided to fly towards Apocalypse’s palace, well aware that this might be his death. Entering New York City, he witnessed how humans and low-level mutants broke out of the genetic pens. He helped them against the Infinites, Apocalypse’s troops, and ran into the leaders of that break-out, his genetic parents, Jean and Scott. Nate and Jean instantly recognized that there was a bond between them. Scott asked him to join them, but Nate replied that he had to finish Apocalypse first and hoped to catch up with them later (X-Man #4).
After gaining entrance to Apocalypse’s stronghold, Nate freed Magneto and then was engaged in a battle with Apocalypse’s son, Holocaust. While the X-Men desperately worked at their plan to restore the true reality via the M'Kraan Crystal, Apocalypse actually stole a shard of the crystal, intending to travel to the other reality to team up with his counterpart and conquer an entire universe. Nate yanked away the shard, before finding himself once more up against Holocaust. As the X-Men’s plan succeeded and the Age of Apocalypse was washed away, Nate, still fighting, angrily rammed the shard in his foe’s chest, while still holding on to it.
The consequences of that act were unexpected and far-reaching, as Nate and Holocaust were both transported to the actual reality, when it reasserted itself (X-Men Omega).
[edit] A New World
Nate ended up in Earth-orbit and crashed down to Earth in Switzerland, letting out a telepathic scream, which was heard by all telepaths (X-Men Prime). Exhausted, Nate woke up, surrounded by snow, something he had never seen in his young life. Believing to be still in the AoA reality, he was very confused and was hit by a truck. The driver, feeling guilty, gave him a ride into town. As his memories caught up with him, Nate became convinced that something was very wrong. Seeing a mother with her children, he felt reminded of Jean Grey, without realizing why. He asked a passer-by, whom he briefly mixed up with Forge, for help and subconsciously influenced that man to help him. The man, Sven, brought Nate to his home, put him to bed and left to buy some food. Drowsily, Nate thought of Jean again, when suddenly he was being covered with a blanket. The person who did it - the spitting image of Jean - introduced herself as Madelyne Pryor. It became quickly clear that, while Maddie was offering help, she herself was in need of it. Amnesiac, though not admitting it, she had some very weird memories of the X-Men and of Mr. Sinister, something Nate realized they shared. Becoming fast friends, they journeyed through Europe until Pryor was convinced to leave Nate by Selene, who wanted Pryor as a member of the newly reformed Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club.
In the meantime, Nate’s arrival had not gone unnoticed by other parties. One was fellow AoA refugee Sugar Man, who had arrived twenty years ago and lived in the shadows of Genosha (a country that used to enslave mutants), as its secret mastermind. Sugarman ordered his bounty hunter, Rex, to bring him young Nate. Rex tracked down Sven in a bar and questioned him about Nate, before killing him and then confronting Nate. However, Nate took him out quickly, only to feel weak and drained afterwards, so he decided to flee.
Nate spent the next weeks trying to acclimatize himself to his new home. He took a job as handyman on a boat. However, he still suffered from inexplicable sudden bouts of weakness, alternating with phases of ravenous hunger and thirst. As he woke up one night and saw a famished emaciated version of himself in the mirror, he realized that something was very wrong with him. The same night, Rex once more tried to get Nate for the Sugarman and, while defending himself, Nate was close to burning himself out. In the last instant, he was rescued by another AoA refugee, the Dark Beast. McCoy, like Sugarman, wanted Nate for himself and offered to become Nate’s mentor. He also hinted that Sinister deliberately built Nate not to last, but he -Beast- could fix that. Nate wanted nothing to do with the sadistic scientist from the AoA and psi-blasted him, before departing.
Worried by Beast’s hints, Nate decided to look for the X-Men and ask them for help. However, at the same time, Xavier was alerted to the presence of a telepath with a signature similar to Cable’s by Blaquesmith, who had been studying his readings about Nate ever since he dropped to Earth. Xavier was concerned that Nate was apparently able to shield himself from Cerebro, which shouldn’t be possible, and entered the astral plane to search for the telepath himself. When he found him, Nate had just erased the memories of an entire crowd of mutant haters and, sensing that he was being watched, Nate dragged Xavier astral form into reality - something that the professor had believed impossible.
When Xavier tried to introduce himself as the leader of the X-Men, Nate’s impulsiveness and suspicious nature once more got the better of him. As far as he knew, Magneto was leading the X-Men. He angrily lashed out at Xavier and vowed to kill the next person to come after him. Xavier fought him psychically but, noticing that Nate would not let up, although the strain on the his own health was considerable, Xavier decided the best way to end this was to pretend to be killed and retreated back to the mansion.
Soon after, Nate had a chance encounter with Rogue, who was on a leave of absence from the X-Men. Recognizing her as the leader of the X-Men and Magneto’s wife, he helped her defeat the X-Cutioner. Learning that he did not trust Xavier, Rogue got Nate an appointment at Moira MacTaggert’s mutant research center on Muir Island to let himself be examined. Upon arriving, Nate’s attitude led to a brief mix-up with Excalibur, who thought him an intruder. However, once the misunderstanding was cleared up, Moira ran her tests. Analyzing the results, she found a fatal flaw in his powers: they would burn him out and kill him at the age of 21 at the latest. In the meantime, Nate discovered that part of the Muir complex was used to incarcerate mutant criminals and was reminded of the pens in AoA. Doing a mindscan on Moira, he learned of her connection to Xavier and his test result. Nate lost control and angrily lashed out with his powers, but Excalibur and Moira managed to convince him of their good intention by letting him perform another mindscan. Still, Nate was confused and departed.
Nate returned to Paris, still hoping to find Madelyne. However, he heard someone else calling out to him psionically. In the sewers below the city, he found a girl named Threnody, who was on the run from the Marauders. As Sinister’s prisoner-turned-assistant, it was her task to scan for new mutant activity. However, when she registered Nate’s signature, she kept it secret, hoping that this powerful mutant could help her to escape from her master. Learning that the Marauders served Sinister, Nate immediately took Threnody’s side and finished them off with frightening ease before leaving with Threnody.
At the same time, Xavier had invited Cable and Blaquesmith to the mansion to discuss the situation regarding this young Nate Grey with him, Moira, Jean Grey and the X-Men leaders, Storm and Cyclops. Suspicious because of Nate’s similarity to Cable’s evil clone, Stryfe, and in awe of the sheer scope of his powers, they noted that the major difference between Nate and Cable, who are genetically identical, was that Nate’s unbridled power threatened to consume him and those around him. Meanwhile, Cable’s immense potential was thankfully stifled thanks to the techno-organic virus in his system. Blaquesmith was adamant in his opinion: the boy should not exist in this timeline and needed to be destroyed. Knowing that the X-Men would not approve, Blaquesmith mindwiped the others and sent Cable to find Nate and properly deal with him. Cable tracked Nate to the sewers of Paris and, from there, followed him to the Swiss Alps, when suddenly Cable’s techno-virus went wild and he started experiencing flashes of Nate’s memories and vice versa. As Nate frantically cried out “stop,” everything around him stopped: wind, snow, birds. The weakened Nate and Threnody found a house and, as Nate was wondering why he was drawn to Switzerland in the first place, the house’s owner - Cable - arrived too. Nate, of course, started a fight. He reasoned that Cable was responsible for his pain, plus he knew all the people he distrusted. Unexpectedly, their battle was interrupted by a being who had been buried around the same area - Exodus, who wanted Nate’s mutant energies. Cable saved Nate, who, in turn, buried the beaten Exodus in the tomb that was originally his prison. However, Nate was seriously ticked off by now - so far, everybody in this world had treated him like a criminal or wanted something of him and he had enough of it. Blaquesmith intervened, attempting to kill Nate, while Cable only reluctantly rejoined the fight, still trying to reason with the boy. As that failed, Cable worked Nate into such a fury that the boy overloaded himself and collapsed. However, despite Blaquesmith’s urgings, Cable did not want him to die. In Nate, he saw himself again, healthy, young and with a new chance. He healed the boy, recharging his “psionic batteries,” a choice which cost him a lot as his techno-organic virus resurged.
Madelyne Pryor, who was now a member of the Hellfire Club, returned to find Nate, since she felt a connection. Pryor encountered and killed Threnody, and discovered that she (Pryor) had been reconstructed by Nate, later becoming independent of him. Pryor was felled by the combined effort of Nate and Phoenix (Jean Grey) and left him without his TK. Following that encounter, Nate was recruited by the Brotherhood, and Dark Beast used his technology to help Nate unconsciously use his lost powers. Nate left the Brotherhood after disrupting their plans to use a lethal gas, and ended up in NYC, where he has remained until recently, when he traveled to the Arctic to glimpse his future and saw that he would die in battle with a masked man (who turned out to be Stryfe) and take half the world with him. Nate then fought the Great Beasts, and shortly after, lost his telepathy to the Shadow King's psychic shockwave. Then, Stryfe's return happened and Nate, Maddie and Cable fought him off with the help of Witness, a man who had seen Nate's dream of apocalyptic destruction and had vowed to find Nate and prevent it from becoming reality. With Witness' help, Nate was able to defeat Stryfe without resorting to the type of power that would have caused such destruction. Afterwards, Nate was targeted for termination by the Psi-Ops: Gauntlet, a strike force of telepaths with hi-tech weapons. He ended up defeating them, but only barely, and in the process, both Ness and Madelyne apparently died. Later, Nate had a few run-ins with Scott and Jean, and learned to respect them a lot, enough that he joined the team on a mission to save the Mannites. Then Nate was captured by Pestilence II, and brought to Apocalypse, who planned to transfer himself into Nate's young body. However, Cyclops managed to break free and disrupt the transfer, causing Apocalypse to merge with him instead. Nate was shaken by his "father's" death, and set off to find his proper place in the world.
[edit] Shaman to the Mutant Tribe
Maddie returned soon afterwards, but she was manipulating him in his sleep and making him destroy things. She finally revealed that she was a Madelyne from another dimension and she needed him to do something for her. This Maddie showed Nate how to shift between parallel earths, and tried to use him to power her engine for traveling between worlds. Nate rejected her, and found that reality's version of himself, who was slightly insane from his experiences. The two Nates fought Maddie (who was really an evil Jean) and in the process merged parts of themselves to throw her off. As a result of the merger of the two Nates, a black x-shaped tattoo was on his chest to act as a genetic brand - passed on to him from an alternate self - that prevented his powers from killing him as they had threatened to do from the start.
After the defeat of this evil "Queen Jean", Nate set out to make a difference in the world. He became a shaman and collected a group of followers around him which he took care of, guided, and led. Eventually he caught wind of a plot to destroy the earth by a malevolent alien species and decided to intervene. This ancient alien race had infused the primordial waters of earth with their seed, assisting the evolutionary jump. They had waited for millions of years and had now come to harvest what they had planted. After trying to fight the alien, Nate had an ephiphany: the way to counteract the alien seed would be to disperse his essence into every living thing on earth. So, embodying the heart of hero, Nate sacrificed his life to stop the alien menace.
On the notion of a possible revival of the character, Marvel Comics, and Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada has stated that while Nate Grey is a great character, the sheer complexity of his history would be too hard for new fans to understand (although a revival as a supporting character, as opposed to the star of his own book, is not out of the question).
Recently, X-Man will be featured in an upcoming AOA What-If story, written by Rick Remender.
[edit] Relationship to Cable
Nate Grey (X-Man) and Nathan Christopher Summers (Cable) are unlikely brothers: both are descended from the genetic material of Scott Summers and Jean Grey. Nate was grown in a laboratory in an alternate dimension by Sinister from the genes of Scott and Jean, while Cable was born to Scott and Madelyne Pryor (a clone of Jean also created by Mr. Sinister), infected with a techno-organic virus, and raised in the future. As a result, their genetic and psychic profiles are identical, which can cause a painful feedback to both parties when they interact, although Nate is much younger (having done no time travel) and much more powerful (Cable would be at Nate's power level, but must constantly devote his mental resources to fighting the Techno-Organic virus).
Moreover, Nate and Cable hail from completely different backgrounds. The juxtaposition of the two characters allowed writers to address issues of identity and nature versus nurture and explore the complex nature of family relationships in the X-Men world. When Cable was de-aged in Cable and Deadpool, he greatly resembled Nate Grey.
[edit] Powers and abilities
X-Man has incredibly powerful telepathic and telekinetic abilities. He can use his telepathy to read minds and even read residual thought imprints left on objects touched by people (psychometry), communicate with others by broadcasting his thoughts, control minds, create illusions by altering the perceptions of others, fire psionic blasts that can scramble an opponents thought processess (causing the victim either intense pain, or rendering them unconscious), project his mind into the astral plane and even pull the astral projections of other telepaths into the physical world, and sense dimensional rifts or anomalies. His telekinesis allows him to move, levitate, and manipulate matter by using his thoughts, create defensive shields by focusing his telekinetic energies around himself and others, and channel his psychic powers into explosive psionic force blasts. By levitating himself, he can fly at amazing speeds, and he can phase through solid matter by mentally shifting his molecules around another object's as he moves forward. His mental fine motor skills are so acute that he can mentally manipulate dust particles and water vapor to refract lightwaves and create holograms. He also has creative uses of his powers such as using his telekinesis to channel the Earth's magnetic field through the electrocurrent of his brain and generate devastating electromagnetic pulses. X-Man even learned that he could use his telekinesis to transport himself into other dimensions by mentally bending the dimensional barriers that separate one reality from another.
One of the most impressive moments that displayed Nate's powers was when he easily defeated Exodus, a mutant with vast psionic powers who managed to defeat the combined efforts of the X-Men and the Avengers in combat. This easy defeat left Exodus humiliated especially considering he is centuries old while Nate was only 16 (he confirms himself to be physically 17 in X-Man #68). In addition, Queen Jean in X-Man #68 described Nate Grey as the ultimate telekinetic, as "what all Nate Greys have been on every earth." This, in addition with his telepathy, makes X-Man one of the most powerful mutants in Marvel history, among such company like Franklin Richards, Jean Grey, Hyperstorm, and Mad Jim Jaspers.
[edit] Other Appearances
X-Man is a hidden character in the PSP version of X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse. The character has made no other appearances in X-Men related media.
[edit] External links
- The X-Man Homepage
- Uncannyxmen.net Spotlight on... X-Man
- MDP X-Man
- X-Man on the Marvel Universe Character Bio Wiki
Categories: Articles with unsourced statements | Brotherhood of Mutants members | Marvel Comics mutants | Fictional telepaths | Marvel Comics characters who can fly | Fictional characters with telekinesis | X-Men comics | Fictional Americans in Marvel Comics | Fictional interdimensional travelers | Fictional characters who have been genetically engineered | Fictional characters with precognition | X-Men
