Courier (comics)

Courier is the alias of Jacob Gavin Jr., a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is a sometime ally of the X-Men member known as Gambit. Created by writer Fabian Nicieza and artist Joe Madureira, he first appeared Deadpool: The Circle Chase (1993).

Fictional character biography

Courier was a foot soldier and employee of the New Son, to whom Gambit was indebted after New Son saved him from perishing in the Antarctic where the X-Men left him after his 'trial' exposed Gambit's connection to Mister Sinister, the Marauders, and the Mutant Massacre. Courier would deliver assignments to Gambit on the behalf of New Son, who had not yet deemed the mutant thief worthy of a face-to-face encounter.

It has been stated, by Wolverine and other sources, that Courier is part of a business that has performed such tasks for many years, and that Courier's father is an important business figure in the Marvel Universe, having bought stock in AT&T when he was only ten years old. He has the mutant ability to control every cell in his body.

Missions

During his time as a 'go-between' from New Son to Gambit, Courier sent Gambit on many missions, although it was not initially stated as to the significance of the missions or if they were linked together under some grand purpose.

One of the first missions that the Courier sent Gambit on was to steal a Celestial gauntlet from the twelfth tomb of Garbha-Hsien, aka Saul of the Externals, who became a dictator in Asia for a thousand years due to his Celestial spacecraft, which was later stolen by En Sabah Nur (Apocalypse). The tomb had been recently discovered by Elysian Enterprises.

The next mission, which closely followed the first, was to retrieve the cargo of a convoy to Croatia from Elysian Enterprises, at which Gambit failed. Choosing instead to destroy it.

Following his failure, the Courier sent Gambit on a mission to test his loyalty to New Son, stealing the files of Dr. Moira MacTaggert, an ally of the X-Men, from right under Storm's nose while the pair were visiting Muir Island, under the guise that he was going there to find out the truth behind his recently augmented powers.

It is after this that the Courier and his connection to New Son becomes of greater interest to Gambit, who secretly follows the Courier to get more information about the New Son. After this, Courier is not seen for some time, and when next he meets Gambit it is to aid the X-Man in discovering the truth behind 'the Shattering', an event in which Charles Xavier sent the majority of the X-Men away for various reasons. Hoping to find the truth, the pair find clues when they encounter former Marauders Sabretooth and Scalphunter. Mr. Sinister shows up and wants to have Sabretooth in return for a device that will expose any traitor to the X-Men, but Gambit refuses. Instead he chops off one of Courier’s fingers for Sinister to study, but after leaving Courier mentally kills the cells of his finger and grows another one.

Courier's next mission for New Son was a solo project, in which he retrieved Quiet Bill and Huey to New Son's citadel, also marking the first time he ever set foot in the complex himself. Quiet Bill was a mutant helped by Gambit many months before, who had the power to 'open the door to everywhere'... in this case meaning alternate realities.

Partners

Through several adventures involving the Thieves Guild and a magical time-traveling gem called the Momentary Princess, Gambit learned that both he and Courier were destined to go back to London in the year 1891 and save the Guild from the External Candra, in the process saving Gambit's surrogate father and mother, Jean-Luc Lebeau and Tante Mattie. Courier travelled with Gambit, Sekmeht Conoway and two mercenaries The Mengo Brothers and stormed Dr. Doom's citadel in Latveria (now under the rule of Stryfe), gaining use of his time platform (previously thought destroyed by X-Force).

While in 1891, Courier and Gambit locate the Thieves Guild and learn that because of a previous failure, Candra has taken Jean-Luc LeBeau and Belize Marceaux hostage and has not renewed the guild pact, making members of the Guild age rapidly. Candra needs knowledge regarding Dr. Essex (Mr. Sinister) to prepare herself against Apocalypse, and Gambit offers to provide it, yet the Guild have learned Essex’s whereabouts too and prefer to work off Candra’s debt themselves. Gambit grabs Jean-Luc and leaves, and the pair head to New York, where Essex lives under the alias of Dr. Milbury.

As a female

Courier in female form from Gambit vol. 3 #13. Art by Yanick Paquette and Sean Parsons

When Courier and Gambit reach New York, they find Sinister disguised as an obstetrician. Courier shapeshifts into a woman and makes an appointment, but Sinister discovers that 'she' is a mutant with morphing abilities and captures her. After injecting 'her' with narcotics, Courier begins to lose consciousness, melting along the way. As he does, he touches Sinister’s face, revealing he uses make-up to cover his pale face, and evidently could not yet shapeshift. To prevent him from deforming, Sinister places Courier in a large jar of liquid to sustain his form. He offers to make a deal with Gambit. He restores Courier from liquid state, in exchange for a cell sample of the shapeshifter, which Sinister uses to give himself the ability to morph. Upon doing this, however, he was not aware that Courier's 'default state' was not that of a woman, leaving Jacob stuck in a woman's body forever, although still possessing his cellular control abilities.^[1]

Using Gambit's enhanced abilities, the pair return to their own time, with Courier still trapped in the body of a woman, and many people referring to her as 'Jacklynn'. He continues to work for New Son and begins hiring assassins to kill Gambit as part of New Son's planned 'assassination game'. It is at this point that another New Son operative, Fontanelle, investigates Courier's dreams; she tells him to choose between Remy and the New Son.

Choices

Courier makes his choice, calling the X-Man Archangel and the Thieves Guild to help Gambit, betraying New Son. The New Son brings Courier into his citadel, and he protests his recent brutalities, using Quiet Bill as an example, but does nothing to stop him. At the climax of the Assassination Game, Courier is there when New Son is revealed to in fact be an extremely powerful alternate version of Gambit himself.

In the wake of the revelation, Gambit asks Courier to impersonate Professor Charles Xavier and infiltrate Robert Kelly's Commission on Superhuman Activities to get information about the New Son. Courier agrees, but while in Washington comes up against fellow shape-shifter Mystique, herself impersonating a member of staff, who realizes Courier is an impostor when "she" stands up to get "herself" a drink. He is captured, but rescued soon after by Gambit, and Courier continues his investigation in Washington.

Courier was last seen during Gambit's final confrontation with New Son, where it was revealed that the word "Son" was actually spelled "Sun". He aided Quiet Bill in pulling Gambit out of an alternate reality before it was destroyed by the cascading energies created when Gambit killed New Sun, burning out Gambit's powers in the process. Courier asks if Remy will miss being so powerful, but he declines. He asks what Gambit wants, and Gambit suddenly kisses him, saying he wants to keep everyone on their toes.

Since M-Day it remains to be seen if Courier has retained or regained his powers.

Powers and abilities

Courier has the ability to control and 'talk to' every cell in his body, giving him the ability to shape-shift (amongst other things). These abilities are so powerful that he can tune his body so that it does not register as a mutant on scanners, and can keep his cells alive after they have been cut off, and order them to 'die', and can re-grow severed limbs. However, his powers do have limitations, such as that he cannot create matter beyond the normal human cell growth. For example: when he was forced to grow back his own finger after Gambit cut it off, he lost an inch of height for quite some time because the matter had to come from somewhere.^[2] Also, the willing transformation into a female form took him some hours.^[3]

References