Mutant Liberation Front

The Mutant Liberation Front, or MLF, is a Marvel Comics supervillain group, primarily enemies of X-Force. Created by writer Louise Simonson and artist Rob Liefeld, the Mutant Liberation Front first appeared in The New Mutants #86 (February 1990).

The Mutant Liberation group consisted of young terrorist mutants, formed under the mutant time-traveler Stryfe. After his apparent death, the group reforms under Reignfire.

History

The Mutant Liberation Front first appeared in New Mutants #86. In this brief initial appearance only five of the original eight members can be seen clearly; Strobe and Stryfe appear in only one panel each, with their faces obscured, while all that can be seen of Forearm is his two right arms in a single panel. The MLF was primarily the antagonist of the New Mutants and their successor group, X-Force. They are eventually defeated by a consortium of X-Force, X-Factor, and the X-Men during the "X-Cutioner's Song" story arc. A second incarnation is assembled later by a villain known as Reignfire.

The team seemed mainly organized of disillusioned, anarchic mutant youths. Stryfe founded the group sometime after coming to the 20th century (from roughly 2,000 years in the future). They were likely assembled as a tool while Stryfe assembled his master plan which he executed in "X-Cutioner's Song". The exact size of the organization is unknown, but they were seen to have had several advanced bases around the world and employed a number of presumably human guards.

The team's first mission was to rescue Rusty and Skids, two New Mutants who had been captured by the government. Rusty and Skids would not be seen for some time later, but when they were it was revealed that they stayed with the group due to mind control devices Stryfe implanted in them. It was never indicated that any of the other members had similar implants.

After the organization was dismantled in the "X-Cutioner's Song", four of the imprisoned members (Forearm Reaper, Tempo and Wildside ) were liberated and recruited by a mysterious villain named Reignfire, who was believed to be a futuristic version of Sunspot. Already among the ranks of the new MLF were former New Mutant Dani Moonstar (undercover on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D.) and Locus. X-Force's Feral also defected to the MLF, and Tempo betrayed them and went her own way. After a few minor missions, including a group that infiltrated Muir Island to obtain information on the Legacy Virus, the group was captured by members of Operation: Zero Tolerance and never reformed.

Members

Founding members

First appearing in New Mutants #86, the original incarnation were pawns of Stryfe and either forced or duped into serving him for a variety of reasons.

• Rusty Collins (Russell Collins) - Pyrokine able to generate fires from his body, preferably his fists. Killed when he was drained by Holocaust.
• Dragoness (Tamara Kurtz) - Utilizes stored bioelectricity to create stinging blasts or create flames in the atmosphere. Sometimes uses robotic dragon wings and a jet pack for flight. Retain her powers following M-Day. Had a cameo in the 'Utopia' crossover, helping out mutants to escape Norman Osborn's "Dark Reign (comics)", but was wounded in battle.
• Forearm (Michael McCain) - Superhuman size, strength, stamina, sturdiness, as well as two additional arms and genius-level intellect. Strangled to death by Anaconda in the Madripoor Bloodsport tournament.
• Kamikaze (Haruo Tsuburaya) - Able to excite the molecules of anything he touches to create violent explosions and flight. Accidentally decapitated by Archangel.
• Reaper (Pantu Hurageb) - Emits a neural disruption force, which, when focused through his scythe, can cause paralysis. Accidentally mind-wiped by Cable.^[1] Depowered, but temporarily regained powers from Quicksilver. Sucked into Abyss' dimension but escaped and survived.
• Skids (Sally Blevins) - Generates a force field around her body that sloughs off physical impact, absorbs energy, and counteracts friction allowing her to slide across surfaces. Currently an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Strobe (Juliana Worthing) - Emits an aura of intense heat, which can melt objects, concentrate the energy into heat beams, or use thermal updrafts to fly. Depowered.
• Stryfe (Nathan Summers) - Vast telepathic and telekinetic abilities. Clone of X-Force's Cable. Resurrected once again and last seen teleporting away after being defeated by the combined team-up of Cable's and Storm's rival versions of X-Force after he tried and failed to corrupt Hope Summers into turning evil.
• Sumo (Jun Tenta) - a Japanese counterpart to the Blob who likewise possesses super size, strength, stamina, immoveability and invulnerability. Killed when he was shot in the head by Cable with special weaponry.
• Tempo (Heather Tucker)- Able to manipulate the flow of time in a certain area, allowing the speeding or slowing of the movement of objects, as well as natural flight. Killed when shot by a tank during the "Age of X" storyline.
• Thumbelina (Kristina Anderson) - Able to shrink to minuscule size while proportionally increasing her power and density (sister of the Nasty Boys' Slab). Current whereabouts unknown.
• Wildside (Richard Gill) - Able to distort the senses of his opponents, however he rarely uses his powers as he prefers to maim and kill his victims by hand. Accidentally mind-wiped by Cable.^[1] Depowered.
• Zero (Ambient-Energy Dampening Actualization Module Unit Zero or ADAM Unit Zero) - A silent android that Stryfe brought with him from the future. It is capable of advanced teleportation, and is the group's primary means of transportation. The Zero android later appeared inert.^[2] It was believed destroyed,^[3] but revealed to have survived.^[4]

Second incarnation

The next incarnation appeared in X-Force #26, with Danielle Moonstar having defected. This team, which also consisted of Dragoness, Forearm, Tempo and Wildside, was originally organized by Reignfire but had both Moonstar and Wildside as their leader at one point or another.

• Feral (Maria Callasantos) - Cat-like physiology grants her razor-sharp teeth and claws, a furry orange hide, a prehensile tail and flexible spine. Possessed animal-like senses, strength, speed, agility, flexibility, reflexes, and endurance. Depowered. Killed (and partially eaten) by Sabretooth.
• Locus (Rayna Piper) - Can teleport herself and others, but only to places she has been. Flight and the ability to fire energy blasts. Killed by Sabretooth
• Moonstar (Danielle Moonstar) - Acting as an undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Can cast empathic-based illusions and concentrates her psychic energy into the form of arrows that can cause severe psychic trauma in her victims. Depowered. Granted powers of the Valkyrior by Hela.
• Reignfire - Absorbs solar energy, metabolizes it, and uses it to increase his physical strength, project pyrokinetic burst of heat and fire, and utilizes it for flight. Protoplasmic life form patterned after Sunspot. Originally intended to actually be a future version of Sunspot. Crushed by a Celestial Golem.

Third incarnation

A more recent incarnation appeared led by Stryfe again, who was in fact an alternate version of Domino. They appeared in X-Force vol. 2 #4, and opposed Skornn. Forearm, Thumbelina and Zero had rejoined the team.

• Cannonball (Samuel Guthrie) - Produces thermochemical energy and when he expels it, it propels him through the air. This also forms a blast field, giving him great durability. Currently an Avenger.
• Jon Spectre- Could make his body intangible. From a future when mutants, humans and Apocalypse fought with each other. Depowered.
• Stryfe (Neena Thurman) - Believed to have the same probability manipulation powers as her Earth-616 counterpart.

Associate member

• Selby - Ability to instinctively decrypt and rewrite computer programs. Current whereabouts unknown.

Humanity's Last Stand

In Punisher vol. 3 #12, Humanity's Last Stand created a Mutant Liberation Front as their agents. The team was made up of normal humans given drugs or costumes to empower them and were used to defame mutants. They were able to produce duplicates of an agent when one was killed. Their suits were all equipped with teleportation devices.

• Blastfurnace - A robot that pretended to be a mutant. Resistant to physical and energy-based attacks due to its armor. Could shoot fire from its wrists and mouth.
• Blindspot (Kylie Kopeikin) - Projected intense flashes of light from her hands. Killed by Simon Trask.
• Burnout (Kristine Calverly & Megan O'Toole) - Drugs granted superspeed. Calverly burned up when she was denied more of the drug. O'Toole took over the role on the team, but was probably killed when Trask blew up the compound.
• Corpus Delecti (Michael Black & Adam Fisher) - Black was a re-animated corpse with enhanced strength. Had a personal energy field which shocked anyone who came in contact with it. Black was killed by Blastfurnace. Black's consciousness was transferred into Fisher's body. Fisher was killed by the Punisher.
• Deadeye (Mark Randall & Jay Burnell) - Battlesuit that fired energy blasts from his left eye. Used tiny robotic drones to locate enemies. After Randall was killed, Burnell became the new Deadeye. Burnell was later killed by the Punisher.
• Thermal (Molly Peterson) - Fired blasts of extreme hot and cold. Current whereabouts unknown.

Other versions

Ultimate Marvel

In Ultimate X-Men #81 an unnamed, three-faced mutant identifies himself as a member of the Mutant Liberation Front, a mutant-supremacist group, and is killed by a Sentinel. Since then they have become a major part of the Sentinels story arc, where they are led by the Ultimate version of Stryfe. Pyro, Wolfsbane and Zero are also members.

References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Weapon X vol. 2 #12
2. ↑ Deadpool vol. 1 miniseries
3. ↑ Excalibur #80
4. ↑ X-Force vol. 2 #5

• Uncannyxmen.net feature on the MLF