| Wiz Kid | |
|---|---|
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | X-Terminators #1 (October 1988) |
| Created by | Louise Simonson Jon Bogdanove |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Takashi "Taki" Matsuya |
| Species | Human Mutant |
| Team affiliations | X-Terminators Avengers Academy |
| Notable aliases | Wiz-Kid |
| Abilities | Technomorphic abilities |
Takashi "Taki" Matsuya or sometimes called the Wiz Kid is a fictional mutant character from Marvel Comics. Created by Louise Simonson and Jon Bogdanove, his first appearance was in X-Terminators #1 (October 1988).
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A very intelligent but dyslexic boy genius, Taki lost his parents and his ability to walk in a car accident. Shortly after, he was enrolled at St. Simons, a private elementary school for children with reading disabilities. Still angered and saddened by the loss of his parents, Taki secluded himself from the other students. Feeling like an outsider, Taki met Artie and Leech, two mutants who were looked after by X-Factor. Artie and Leech eventually join Taki and St. Simons, which is fully prepared to help young children who do have mutant powers.
During Marvel's Inferno crossover, Leech and Artie were kidnapped by the demon, N'astirh. Taki finds out he's a mutant with technoforming powers (see Powers and abilities) and tries to save them with the help of other X-Factor wards, Rusty, Skids, Boom Boom and Rictor. Together, the five form the X-Terminators, but Taki himself was also captured. N'astirh intended to use them and other mutant children to magically fuse Earth with Limbo and increase his own powers.
The three were deemed too old for the demon's schemes and he planned to kill them, but Taki made a bargain. Using his recently awakened powers, Taki created a super-computer that allowed N'astirh to cast multiple spells and allowed him to open the portal from Limbo to Earth even faster than before. Taki, feeling responsible, helps the X-Terminators defeat N'astirh and with the help of the New Mutants, they all manage to shut down the portal.
Afterwards the X-Terminators soon disbanded and Taki, Artie and Leech went back to St. Simons.
Sometime after his battles against demons, Taki develops a childish crush on one of his teachers. Snooping through her office he discovers the teacher's boyfriend is really a mutant-hating terrorist bent on kidnapping the mutant kids of St. Simons. Teaming with Artie and Leech, knowing full well he is violating the rules, Taki rousts the criminals in their hideout, bringing them and damning evidence to the attention of the police.[1] Later, an older woman, Ida Fassbender, who lives near the school sees evidence of Taki, Artie and Leech utilizing flying craft. Her paranoia gets the best of her and she causes a public incident which puts the trio's lives in danger. Fassbender realizes the depths of the problem she has caused and calms the situation. She invites the trio over, declaring they can call her 'Grammie' and visit whenever they want. [2]
Taki's subsequent whereabouts are unknown, but he is shown depowered as seen in Decimation.[3]
Taki is part of the new class of students when the Avengers Academy moves to the former headquarters of the West Coast Avengers.[4] He has somehow become repowered again, as he has called himself a mutant and is shown to still have use of his mutant powers to create advanced technology, such as a flying wheelchair.
Taki has the ability to rearrange parts of machinery made of metal, glass or plastic into various items or weapons that he can create. This ability is known as "technoforming". Taki is also an inventive genius.
In Ultimates Annual #1, the Defenders, a group of would-be superheroes, take in a wheelchair-using polio victim called Whiz-Kid, who claims to be able to alter the temperature of certain inorganic materials. The Defenders, however, keep referring to him as the "little wheel-fellow", and generally talk down to him; eventually it is revealed that they only allowed him to join so that they could get corporate sponsorship by having a disabled team member.
In the X-Men animated series, Taki was featured along with Rusty, Skids and Boom-Boom in episode, "No Mutant is an Island". In this version he is again in an orphanage, though the others are here as well. The episode mostly focused on X-Man Cyclops and Rusty as the latter, Taki, Skids and Boom-Boom were brainwashed by Zebediah Killgrave. Killgrave who adopts the four and uses them to storm the governor's mansion so he can make the governor his mind-controlled slave. Eventually, Cyclops saves Taki and the others.
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