Nate Grey
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| X-Man | |
 Nate Grey as Mutant Shaman The image above is proposed for deletion. See images and media for deletion to help reach a consensus on what to do. |
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| Publication information | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | X-Man #1 (1995) |
| Created by | Jeph Loeb Steve Skroce |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Nathaniel Grey |
| Species | Human Mutant |
| Team affiliations | X-Men Brotherhood of Mutants Outcasts |
| Notable aliases | 19X, Shaman of the Human Tribe |
| Abilities |
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X-Man (Nathaniel "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).
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[edit] Overview
X-Man is an equivalent 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 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 seemingly 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.
[edit] Fictional character biography
[edit] Age of Apocalypse
In the parallel reality known as "The Age of Apocalypse," Mr. Sinister, an underling of the High Lord Apocalypse, artificially created Nate from genetic material from Cyclops and Phoenix. Sinister created Nate as the ultimate mutant and hoped to use him in his own bid for power against Apocalypse.
However, Cyclops, in his many subversive raids on Sinister's pens, helped Nate escape Sinster's hideout, neither knowing their connection to the other. Somehow, Nate wound up under the tutelage of Forge and several other mutant outcasts. Forge began the long process of teaching Nate how to control his powers as well as the benefits of being a "good guy." Nate also began to see the horrors of Apocalypse's world firsthand, and was determined to bring him down.
This alternate Forge was killed by a disguised Sinister who was following Nate's progress, and Nate then battled him, learning of his true nature and mortally wounding Sinister. Nate then left to battle Apocalypse, although that particular slugfest occurred during a time when the alternate X-Men were beginning their final gambit-- defeating this reality with the M'Kraan crystal. Holocaust interrupted Nate's battle with Apocalypse as the X-Men’s plan succeeded and the Age of Apocalypse was washed away, Nate, still fighting Holocaust, angrily rammed a shard of the powerful, reality-altering M'kraan crystal into Holocaust'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.
[edit] A New World
- See also: Earth-616
Nate arrived in Switzerland, and in his confusion, unconsciously resurrected Madelyne Pryor in his subconscious attempt to reach out to his "mother." Pryor helped Nate adjust to this reality, but they were both separated soon after. Nate wandered the earth, being contacted and confronted by many who would want to be his ally-- Professor X, Moira MacTaggart, Mr. Sinister, and others. Instead, Nate was beginning to find himself (with the help of Sinister's old underling, Threnody) and took refuge in New York. He believed Threnody to be dead, and also took up a firm friendship with Spider-Man.
When Zero Tolerance troops attacked Xavier’s mansion in Westchester and downloaded Cerebro’s files, Nate was telepathically alerted by Cable that he was the only one close enough to rescue the children of Jean’s sister, Sara Grey, from the Prime Sentinels. Nate did as requested and left Joey and Gailyn in the care of their grandparents, as the Sentinels were curious about the unidentified telepath and still searching for him.
During the next few weeks, Nate kept a low profile. One night, he went clubbing with the three girls and many people recognized him from his performances in Central Park. Nate was asked to sing with the band and, surprisingly, he did quite well, though he never had been on stage before. However, the show was interrupted by the arrival of Jackknife, who was hunting down and killing every single person that Nate had contact with. Jackknife was actually Jack Cole, one of the many misfits belonging to the Abomination’s group. Turned out that, during Nate’s battle with the Abomination, he accidentally unlocked Cole’s latent psychic powers. Jack couldn’t handle himself and became psychotic, blaming Nate for the voices in his head. In direct battle, Nate defeated the mentally imbalanced misfit when the police arrived. They asked him to surrender, but the crowd who witnessed the battle intervened, claiming that Nate was a hero. The next day, Jam lost an arm in a motorcycle crash. When Nate, Bux and Marita visited her in the hospital, something strange happened. After touching Nate, one of the medics in the hospital developed the ability to heal and Jam's arm was restored. The miracle boosted Nate’s popularity even more and Nate was now admired by hundreds of followers like some kind of messiah.
Still not knowing what happened to Threnody, Nate would have been surprised by the events in New York over the past months. Shortly after her body had been brought to the morgue, the corpse rose and Threnody walked out. In her wake, several dead reanimated themselves too, following Threnody and chanting her name. She made her way to the loft that she and Nate had lived in and kept track of Nate’s activities through the news. Over time, her appearance slightly changed as her belly grew from pregnancy.
Nate visited his ”parents,“ Scott and Jean, who were at the time recuperating in Alaska. The strength of the newly forged bonds between Nate and his “parents” was shown when, soon after, as the X-Men had been disbanded, Nate (alongside Archangel, Wolverine and Cable) was one of the few people Jean and Scott called for help, as they needed to defend the new race “the Mannites” from the mysterious “Death.”
[edit] Shaman to the Mutant Tribe
Madelyne Pryor returned soon afterwards, but she was manipulating Nate 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 or alternate realities, and she had Nate take them to the alternate reality that she was from. She wanted to use Nate's vast power to help her rule her earth. Nate rejected her, and was located by that alternative reality's version of himself, he was a broken version of Nate Grey(meaning he could never reach his full potential in power) and was slightly insane from his experiences, he also considered himself a shaman to the people of that earth. Nate read this alternate version of himself's mind to learn the intricacies of alternate realities. Nate also learned how Madelyne would take Nate Grey's from these alternate realities hoping to find a functioning Nate Grey or a Nate Grey that wasn't broken to use them as weapons so she could rule her earth. He also showed Nate how to talk with a dead man so that they could get information from him about Madelyne, the dead man was that realities Forge who was at one time Madelyne's lover. Forge revealed that Madelyne was really an evil Jean Grey from another parallel earth and was an impostor posing as Madelyne who at one time ruled that earth. That realities real Madelyne had died but it was said she would return again. Forge also told them how Madelyne (now revealed to be an evil Jean Grey) had used him to make her a machine so she could travel from parallel earth to parallel earth. At this point they were attacked by Madelyne's personal body guard Mr. Scratch and in the process merged parts of themselves to throw him off. Mr. Scratch's mutant power was that no other mutant power had any effect on him so the Nates had to literally change characteristics to fool him.
After the merger only one Nate remained so Mr. Scratch crippled him and brought him back to Madelyne, who quickly realized that Mr. Scratch had the wrong Nate. The broken version of Nate told Madelyne he sent Nate somewhere she would never find him. She killed the broken Nate and began to power her parallel earth machine to find Nate again, but Nate returned and put an end to her world conquering days. As a result of the merger of the two Nates, a black x-shaped tattoo appeared on Nate's chest to act as a genetic brand - passed on to him from the alternate version of himself - 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 and considered himself a Mutant Shaman, a teaching he embraced from the alternate version of himself. Nate became immensely powerful, and had few qualms about using his power to mete out justice to his fellow mutants. He then dealt with and stopped the madman Qabiri from destroying all alternate earths on the Spiral of Earths. Qabiri was a being from a alternate earth far upspiral, he wanted to destroy every earth below his on the spiral of earths because he feared that someone from these lower earths would one day invade his earth and bring it to ruin. Qabiri succeeded in destroying several alternate earths before Nate was able to stop him.
Finally, he confronted the Anti-Man, an alien sent to Earth to insinuate his genetic code into all living cells on the planet so that his people could harvest the resulting energy. To save the world from destruction, Nate merged himself with the Anti-Man, in essence "poisoning" the cells of Earth with his presence, and dissipating both of them across the globe.
Dark Beast commented that the peculiar circumstances of X-Man's demise would theoretically allow him to be restored to life.
[edit] Powers and abilities
X-Man has the ability to tap into the enormous psychic resources of the astral plane in order to manipulate matter and energy. This grants him incredible psychic powers including telepathy and telekinesis. 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 opponent's thought processes (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 the object's molecules around his 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 defeated a severly weakened Exodus, a mutant who at the time did not possess his vast psionic powers that had previously allowed him to simultaneously defeat the combined efforts of the X-Men and the Avengers in combat, crush Genosha via a force field; mentally resist Professor X's mental attacks, immobilise Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Jean Grey and Crystal in a force field, and amplify the hatred of Genoshan mutants for humans and shield himself from physical attacks[1].
This defeat left Exodus humiliated - especially since he was centuries old while Nate was only 16 (he confirms himself to be physically 17 later on) [2]. In addition, an alternate version of Jean Grey, Queen Jean, described Nate Grey as the ultimate telekinetic with the statement; "It is what all Nate Greys have been on every earth"[3]. This, in addition with his telepathy, makes X-Man one of the most powerful mutants in Marvel history, among such company as, The Scarlet Witch, Franklin Richards, Jean Grey, Mad Jim Jaspers, Mr. M, and Hyperstorm.
Upon examination by Moira Mactaggert, she suggested his psionic powers rivaled that of a Phoenix Force-imbued Jean Grey[4][5]. In another instance, he was measured as having a psionic energy output matching that of the Dark Phoenix [6] and in an encounter with a being called Thundra who was capable of absorbing endless amounts of psionic energy, was overloaded upon attempting to consume Nate's energy[7]. His raw power was further demonstrated when he unintentionally crushed the city of Quito in Ecuador while in his sleep[8].
[edit] Relationship to Cable
Nate Grey (X-Man) and Nathan Christopher Summers (Cable) are genetically identical "twins": both are descended from the genetic material of Scott Summers and Jean Grey. Nate was grown in a laboratory in an alternate dimension by Mr. 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- including their mutant powers, 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 likely match 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] In other media
[edit] Wolverine and the X-Men
He appears in the final scene on the end of the first season episode along side with Mr. Sinister and Apocalypse.
[edit] Video games
X-Man is a hidden character in the PSP version of X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse.
[edit] Trading card games
X-Man appears as a character in both the VS System and OverPower trading card games.
