Nate Grey: X-Man appreciation 2023

[Arachne]

Oh, I don't know, given some of the things he's done, Xavier should probably be considered anti-hero at best, and there's no question that Moira's a villain now.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Having Nate wander Arrako could be fun. He could team up with Alex Hayden from Agent X if he decides to join the outside world.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_X_(Marvel_Comics)

[The Myth]

Rating Nate's Rogues Gallery #11.

Marauders.
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First conflict: X-Man vol 1 #13.

Mister Sinister's cloned team of murderers.

Sinister (616) deployed this team to recapture Threnody who had escaped her servitude.

Nate found the runaway Threnody in the sewer system beneath Paris.
Telepathically learning of her's and the Marauders' connection to Sinister, Nate agrees to help Threnody anyway he can.

Blockbuster and Scrambler were the first to try and take out Nate. Scrambler was killed when he caused an explosion trying to render Nate's powers uncontrollable.
Nate and Threnody managed to temporarily sneak away.

When the Marauders tried tracking them down again Nate telekinetically triggered Scalphunter's gun, wounding Riptide and killing Prism.

Arclight gets lured in by a psionic illusion created by Nate, killing Blockbuster. Vertigo managed to drop Nate to his knees with her powers. Nate was still able to take control of Riptide and sent his shuriken flying, killing the remaining Marauders. Only Riptide survived, but Nate implanted him with false memories of what happened to report back to Sinister.

The Marauders were cloned and would face off against Threnody again in the lead up to Onslaught. This encounter however would result in Nate getting captured by Sinister.

Summary:
The team that was responsible for the Mutant Massacre gets massacred themselves. Killing each other due to Nate's mind games.
The outcome of the conflict shows just how brutal Nate can be.
Each member is unique and interesting, I was glad their clones got a round 2.

Rating: 5/10.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

https://screenrant.com/cyclops-son-t...inister-x-men/

A theory about Nate's potential return in Sins of Sinister.

[Arachne]

I'd like to see that happen, but there's two issues that I see:

This is the first time I've heard the suggestion that Nate's current plane of existence is outside of time. Time certainly did pass while the X-Men were there or Rosenberg's run couldn't have happened.

The second problem is that it seems Sinister himself seems to want to end this timeline. It's just that he can't.

I suppose Nate could come back to end Sinister when the timeline gets reset, but that would be kind of random.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

I'd like to see that happen, but there's two issues that I see:

This is the first time I've heard the suggestion that Nate's current plane of existence is outside of time. Time certainly did pass while the X-Men were there or Rosenberg's run couldn't have happened.

The second problem is that it seems Sinister himself seems to want to end this timeline. It's just that he can't.

I suppose Nate could come back to end Sinister when the timeline gets reset, but that would be kind of random.

Sinister might resort to creating another Nate but I don't know how satisfying that would be.

[Arachne]

Not very.

And the last thing we need is another clone.

I could see some time travel shenanigans being used to bring him back at some point in the event, though. It sounds like they're doing that with spoilers:

Storm

end of spoilers. At least from the solicitations.

[Arachne]

I'm confused about something. Early in Nate's history it was said his powers were too much for any human to handle and that's why they were killing him. IIRC though, in Counter X it was said Sinister designed Nate so he would die before he became a threat to Sinister. Was it ever determined which was the truth?

Edit: Found the reference.

20230312_151124.jpg

[The Myth]

I'm confused about something. Early in Nate's history it was said his powers were too much for any human to handle and that's why they were killing him. IIRC though, in Counter X it was said Sinister designed Nate so he would die before he became a threat to Sinister. Was it ever determined which was the truth?

Edit: Found the reference.

20230312_151124.jpg

It's both. In the last panel of X-Man #-1 Sinister states that Nate's powers would burn out by themselves, but Sinister not wanting to leave anything up to nature also programs the 'failsafe' into Nate's DNA.
20230313_125923.jpg

[Arachne]

Interesting. I wish MU would get the rest of X-man uploaded so I could read all this for myself.

Is it possible that Nate's "genetic tattoo" only fixed Sinister's design flaw and not the fact that no one could handle that much power? (Or the other way around.) That would explain why Nate was suddenly dying again in the last Uncanny X-men run.

[The Myth]

That's a possibility, I always just assumed that the tattoo fixed both.
However, it could be that the tattoo only fixed the overpowering burn out. There's an interview with Warren Ellis in the back of the X-Man: Counter X tpb, where he states he intended for Nate to use his telekinesis on his own body to defuse Sinister's gene bomb.
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[The Myth]

In case people haven't seen it, here's some X-Man Counter X concept art.
tumblr_lvsysuN02w1qc63ooo1_1280.jpg

[Arachne]

Neat. I love behind the scenes stuff. Paul Cornell had some stuff on his blog about Nate's design in Dark X-men.

https://www.paulcornell.com/2009/12/...ee-dark-x-men/

Funny how the artists draw him with long hair in both sets of sketches, but it ends up short in the end.

[Drexelhand]

I appreciate your attempt to explain this but it still doesnt make sense. A woman has millions of eggs and a man releases millions of sperm and any combination of those will lead to a child with a different DNA signature. It doesnt make sense that a clone of Jean that mates with Scott would have a child with the same DNA a Jean and Scott spliced in a lab. Its way too random and there would be less than 0.001%. If anything Nate and Cable would be closer to cousins/half brothers with very close, yet not identical DNA

Here's the thing, you can't apply real world logic to a comic book world. Your username is Havok - a man absorbing that much solar radiation will not allow him to redirect it but will instead cause skin cancer. Your profile pic is Polaris - a woman cannot control the electromagnetic field and any attempt to do so will result in nothing.

But, let's say you can. Then let's take the Age of Apocalypse storyline: Bishop and Legion go back and change the timeline to a point decades before the formation of the team (that was retconned around the time Morrison made Xavier early 40s, but it was like that at the time of publication). Using your completely factual statement on the odds of insemination, in the altered 616, the only characters who would have been born, were those whose mothers were already pregnant with them. That means, that out of the O5, none of them would've been born. Out of the Second Genesis team, only Logan and Banshee would be present as the rest wouldn't have been born. Why? Legion and Bishop changed the timeline before they could be born.

The best way to approach such instances of the timeline changing in the Marvel Universe is that in the timeline, if the conditions are present for something to happen, then it will happen. Cable is one of those things. In the original timeline, Cable was born to Scott and Madelyne. When the timeline was altered, Nate was born in his place with the exact same genetics because that is what was meant to happen. The only way to prevent it would've been to kill Scott or Jean instead of Charles.

So, yeah, I believe that it's best to describe those confused with Nate being a variant of Cable who escaped the restoration of the 616 before the birth of the 295.

Exactly! Totally agree!

Moreover, Nate was created by Sinister as a weapon, so he definitely experimented a lot and chose the best combination of Scott and Jean's genes. The chance of a naturally-born Cable to have the same DNA should be zero.

And that is 100% correct. Except we can't take real world logic like that or it would completely destroy the story. So, we would need to see it how Beast describes changing the timeline in the Days of Future Past. Certain things will change, but what is destined to happen, will happen. Cable was destined to be born in the 616 and when Bishop and Legion changed it, he was as Nate.

[The Myth]

You can sort of tell how powerful Nate is at any given time by the color of his energy.

Pink - The weakest Nate has ever been after suffering nerve damage, reducing him to just low level telekinesis.

Yellow - Base level Nate, the yellow eye flash was one of Nate's signatures.

Orange - Technically this is the same as base level yellow, except when Nate's anger would explode his eye flash became darker and more flame-like.

Blue - After becoming shaman Nate's energy started being depicted as blue lightning.

White - When in possession of the Life Seed Nate emits a white light, probably to emphasize his god-like nature.

image (9).jpg

*note that this isn't 100%, as different colorists etc. But just thought it was a neat little observation.