Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!dreaderd!not-for-mail Message-ID: Supersedes: Expires: 7 Jun 2001 22:56:38 GMT References: X-Last-Updated: 2001/01/15 From: racmx@yahoo.com (Kate the Short) Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.marvel.xbooks,rec.arts.comics.info,rec.answers,news.answers Subject: rec.arts.comics.marvel.xbooks FAQ: 3/5 Organization: Keepers of Frequently Asked Questions, racmx division Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.EDU Followup-To: poster Summary: FAQ for rec.arts.comics.marvel.xbooks--X-Men comic books Originator: faqserv@penguin-lust.MIT.EDU Date: 24 Apr 2001 23:00:24 GMT Lines: 743 NNTP-Posting-Host: penguin-lust.mit.edu X-Trace: 988153224 senator-bedfellow.mit.edu 1911 18.181.0.29 Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu rec.arts.comics.marvel.xbooks:244445 rec.arts.comics.info:9310 rec.answers:65966 news.answers:206354 Archive-name: comics/xbooks/main-faq/part3 Posting-frequency: monthly URL: http://www.enteract.com/~katew/faqs/ URL: http://www.enteract.com/~katew/faqs/racmxFAQ/faq3.html -= REC.ARTS.COMICS.MARVEL.XBOOKS =- Frequently Asked Questions Part 3 Version 2001.01, last updated January 2001 Compilation Copyright 2001 by Katharine E. Hahn SEND ADDITIONS / CHANGES / DEAD LINKS / MOVED LINKS / UPDATES TO: Kate the Short, racmx@yahoo.com (mailto:racmx@yahoo.com) ------------------------------ Subject: Table of Contents If your newsreader has a search/go-to command, you can quickly page through this FAQ by searching for any of the Contents as spelled. A plus sign in parentheses (+) indicates a change to the contents listed since the last FAQ update. Part 3: X-MEN COMIC BOOK QUESTIONS * Why do so many people hate Scott Summers? * How many Summerses are there, anyways? (+) - Simplified family tree - The third Summers brother - Timelost children * What's the relationship between the Phoenix, Jean Grey, Madelyne Pryor, and Rachel Summers? (+) - Is Maddie Pryor in Avengers Annual #10? - Is Jean or Phoenix dead on the moon? - When did Jean take the codename Phoenix? - Maddie's back? * Hey, is Cable really Nathan Summers? Or is Stryfe? Wait, is Stryfe Cable? Is Ahab Stryfe? Is Nathan Ahab? And who is this Nate Grey? Why am I so confused? (+) * What is the relationship between Wolverine and Sabretooth supposed to be? * Does Wolverine have any real memories anyway? How about real bones? (+) * Wolverine can regularly regenerate himself from a drop of blood, right? ------------------------------ Subject: THE ACTUAL FAQS THEMSELVES Background information on the creators and the X-titles editorial offices is based on over a decade's worth of articles, interviews, and personal questions, and as such is not directly attributed here. Now that some of Marvel's staff members are on Usenet, they are welcomed to correct and amend any of the answers listed below. --- Why do so many people hate Scott Summers? There tend to be two major schools of thought on this. People hate Scott Summers, aka Cyclops, because: * Of what he did to Madelyne Pryor * Readers find him dull and/or unimaginative On the first count, harsh people with long memories are not going to soften their opinion of a character's bad behavior. To them it is simple: Scott left his wife and child to run off after his first love in X-Factor #1. For the record, Madelyne did issue him an ultimatium and they had been having marital problems. The best defense of Scott is that Claremont had written him out and editorial staff of the time declared Scott (and Jean) must come back. Madelyne was an inconvenience and hence Inferno was born. On the second count, many dislike Scott as a one-dimensional follower of Xavier. Madelyne notwithstanding, they find his goody-two-shoes attitude just plain irritating. Next to Wolverine, he's a nerd. It's okay to like Scott, though. Usenet has lots of room for different opinions. --- How many Summerses are there, anyways? (+) Eternity only knows. But being a FAQ, we'll try to provide a reasonably accurate starting count. IN THE BEGINNING, lo, back in (Uncanny) X-Men #1, Scott Summers was presented to the world, ironically enough, as an orphan. His parents had died in a plane crash, and he knew of no other family. Also in #1 he meets Jean Grey. Simple enough so far. Fast forward to X-Men #54. Scott and the rest of the X-Men attended Alex Summers' graduation. Alex eventually becomes an auxiliary member (UXM #65) and becomes romantically involved with Lorna Dane. So far, still pretty straightforward. Fast forward now to issue #104. While in space, the X-Men met the leader of a pirate band named Corsair. Sometime later (#108) it turned out that Corsair was none other than Christopher Summers, father of Scott and Alex. Christopher and their mother Kate had been kidnapped by the Shi'ar when flying home from Alaska. Kate had died at the hands of the Emperor D'ken (Lilandra's mad brother). Scott discovered he had grandparents in Alaska. In the meantime Jean Grey had gone through the whole Phoenix thing and died. In issue #168, Madelyne was introduced. Scott fell in love with her almost immediately, and she was not unamenable to his attention. Scott proposed in #174, they marry in #175. Scott and Madelyne disappeared for awhile, but baby Nathan Christopher was born in #201. To date, we have: * grandparents Philip and Deborah Summers * Christopher and Kate Summers (Kate deceased) * Scott and Madelyne Summers * Alex Summers * Nathan Christopher Charles Summers Now it starts to get complicated. In issue #141-142 the X-Men found about about a possible future (Days of Future Past) where the X-Men had been mostly killed and mutants were hunted down and killed or enslaved. This future had sent back an emissary, Kate Pryde, by the power of Rachel Summers. It was quickly established that time had already diverged because in Kate Pryde's past, Scott had married Jean and had a daughter Rachel. (Note that Nate wasn't conceived yet, much less born at the time of this storyline). Fair enough. Except that in #184 Rachel made her way back to this reality, and eventually to the X-Men. Scott had been absent at the mansion when Kate Pryde made her journey, and the X-Men agreed not to tell him until Rachel was ready. Rachel was already completely shattered by the fact that her mother was dead, and didn't know how to talk to Scott. (Both Scott and Jean finally found out the truth in X-Factor Annual #5.) Shortly before Inferno, Rachel returned in Excalibur: The Sword is Drawn (aka Excalibur Special Edition #1). She popped in and out of Excalibur until issue #75, when she was sent to the future. She was last seen in The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, starting the Askani and finally dying. In X-Factor #1, Scott (living in Alaska with Madelyne and Baby Nate) received a call from New York. Jean Grey was in fact alive, and Warren wanted to create a new mutant team. Scott left Alaska, Madelyne, and Nathan Christopher behind. Madelyne was not happy, but shortly afterward was kidnapped with her son by Sinister and the Marauders. Eventually, she was rescued by the X-Men, but not before losing the baby to Sinister's clutches. Fast forward to Inferno. Madelyne died, and Scott and Jean took custody of the child. All was fine and dandy until Apocalypse got ahold of the child and the baby got the Techo-Organic virus. Scott was forced to let the Askani take Nathan into the future. Off in the future, Nathan was cloned (Stryfe), trained as an Askani (Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, Askani'son), and eventually married to Jenskot (aka Aliya). His progeny (or adoptive son; it's stated both ways) was Tyler, going by the name Genesis (until he died in Wolverine #100). Cable came to the present in New Mutants #87. He was discovered to be the child, more or less, of Scott and Jean during the X-cutioner's Song crossover, with much angst all around. (At the time, Cable thought he was the clone.) One of the advantages of coming from the future is that you can be older than your parents. Scott married Jean in X-Men (Vol 2). #30. For the mother of three kids, she's never had a baby in our time. She is not pregnant so far, but dinos can't wait to see what happens if she does. To recap: * grandparents Philip and Deborah Summers * Christopher and Kate Summers (Kate deceased) * Scott Summers, aka Cyclops, and Jean Grey-Summers, aka Phoenix * Alex Summers, aka Havok * Rachel Summers, aka Phoenix II (deceased) * Nathan Christopher Charles Summers, aka Cable, and Aliya, aka Jenskot (deceased) * Stryfe, a clone (deceased) * Tyler Summers, aka Genesis (deceased) Scott fought Mr. Sinister several times, as Sinister is for some reason obsessed by Summers DNA. In X-Men #23, Sinister made a cryptic comment: "...but I care enough to wish you and your brothers to be protected from this illness." "Brothers?" "Excuse me?" "You said brothers--plural." "I'm sorry, did I? I meant your brother, Alex." Now, Scott has a complex family tree, with all the chronological displacement and clones, but he had been sure he only had one sibling. Shortly afterwards, Sinister (under the guise of Milbury), started stalking a guy named Adam X, including pitting him against Shatterstar in X-Force #29-30. In Captain Marvel #3, it was revealed that Adam X was the scion of D'Ken and a human woman. Due to blantant hints in the X-Men (see X-Men #39), it seemed pretty obvious the human woman was Kate Summers. In semi-confirmation on xbooks in 1998, Fabian Nicieza wrote: ADAM X was INTENDED to be the illegitimate offspring of D'Ken and Kate Summers. Taken from D'Ken and raised on a farming planet. BUT--and it's a big but--since I never had the opportunity to tell the entire story, what I intended is worth the screen it's printed on. So far this has not had any effect on the rest of the Summers clan, if they know about it at all. Just when things were mostly sorted out, Marvel springs Age of Apocalypse on Summers devotees. As if there weren't enough chronologically displaced Summerses already, now we have Nate Grey, who inconveniently didn't stay in AOA but crossed over. Nate is the genetic progeny of Scott Summers and Jean Grey (test-tube baby, created by Sinister). Nate, going by X-Man, is essentially Cable except younger and without the T/O virus (and is much stronger as a consequence). For more information, see the Cable/Stryfe/ Ahab/Nate question. Rachel reappeared in the pages of Fantastic Four #414. Here, we learned she had a child with Franklin Richards, named Hyperstorm. This had to be in yet another alternative future, because Rachel wouldn't have had a chance to give birth in her own. One last time: * grandparents Philip and Deborah Summers * Christopher and Kate Summers (Kate deceased) * Scott Summers, aka Cyclops and Jean Grey-Summers (aka Phoenix) * Alex Summers, aka Havok * Adam X, aka Xtreme * Rachel Summers, aka Phoenix II (deceased) and Franklin Richards * Hyperstorm, aka Jonathan Reed Richards * Nathan Christopher Summers, aka Cable and Aliya (Jenskot) (deceased) * Nate Grey, aka X-Man, from an alternative timeline * Stryfe, a clone (deceased) * Tyler Summers, aka Genesis (deceased) The scary thing is this is the simplified version of the Summers family tree. I've kept it mostly to blood relations, but by widening the field just a little, it's astounding. "Three Degrees of Scott Summers" as applied to the entire Marvel Universe is something of a party game on racmx after the other discussions start to dwindle. --- What's the relationship between the Phoenix, Jean Grey, Madelyne Pryor, and Rachel Summers? (+) Okay, it's Ultimate Confusion time. Once upon a time, there was a X-Man named Jean Grey. She served well and true with the first team (in the 1960s run of the book), and was around for the new team, in the mid-70s. She was a telepath, a telekinetic, and was the girlfriend of the team's deputy leader, Scott Summers, also known as Cyclops. Well, during the first year of their new series, Jean Grey, in a selfless act of heroism (UXM #100), sacrificed herself, giving her life so that the rest of the team could survive a rather brutal reentry from orbit. Then, from the crash site, Jean seemed to burst forth from the water in a new form, a form that called herself Phoenix. She said she was still Jean Grey, but had tapped somehow into a universal power source which called itself Phoenix--hence her new name. Phoenix proved to be a bit out of the usual X-Men's power range. She not only saved the entire universe in her first major adventure, but was also capable of telekinetically rearranging reality around her to her liking. Unfortunately, she was also capable of being emotionally preyed upon by Mastermind and the Hellfire Club. The windup of this whole affair was the Dark Phoenix Saga, one of the few storylines from Marvel that actually earned the right to call itself a saga, and widely held not only to be the best single storyline in all of the X-titles, but also one of the best stories in all of comics. Torn between her human and cosmic sides, Phoenix eventually chose to commit suicide on the moon to save Scott Summers, her lover (UXM #137). In the words of the Watcher, "Though Jean Grey could have lived to be a god, it was important that she die...as a human." The death of Phoenix was also unusual in that it apparently affected the creative staff as much as the characters they were working on. Unlike a lot of comic book deaths (and all the cliches that go along with that term), Phoenix's was referred back to by the characters, and actually had some long-term effect on the path of the comic book. So much so that it was a shock in #168 when Madelyne Pryor was introduced, since she looked exactly like Jean Grey. Even more suspicious, she was the only survivor of a large plane crash which happened at the exact moment that Jean Grey died on the moon. Hmm. Now, there had been a prior (heh) appearance of a Madelyne Pryor in a Marvel comic--Avengers Annual #10 (note: first appearance of Rogue), also written by Chris Claremont, featured a little girl who said her name was Maddie Pryor, who was once sick but is much better now. A lot of energy was wasted trying to link the two Pryors together until Claremont, who was notorious for being lazy with walk-on character names, admitted that the Maddie in Avengers Annual #10 was named after a favorite singer of his, Madeleine Prior, the lead singer for the folk-rock group Steeleye Span, and that the two comic characters had nothing in common besides their names. In any case, Maddie's familiar looks and shared interests with Scott (they were both pilots) led to them getting married in UXM #175, and Scott leaving the X-Men to finally enjoy the peace and quiet of a married life. Around this time, however, Rachel Summers had successfully projected herself back in time from the "Days of Future Past" future. The daughter of Scott Summers and Jean Grey in that time line (Jean was still Phoenix, but had had a lobotomy performed so that she couldn't access her powers), Rachel was yet another in the endless line of mutants from the future coming back in time to try and make things better for their friends back up the time stream. Actually, she was one of the first--back when she did it, she was just the second who had pulled it off, so it hadn't become a cliche yet. Rachel ended up being adopted by the X-Men, but terrified by all of the differences she saw around her (Scott marrying Madelyne, for instance), she didn't tell Scott of her partial relationship to him. The birth of Nathan, son of Scott and Madelyne, also further distanced her; in her timeline, she was Scott's eldest child. This relatively nonconfusing state of affairs lasted for a while, until X-Factor was given the go by the Marvel editors. The whole "hook" of X-Factor was that the original X-Men would take secret identities and save mutant lives while posing as mutant exterminators. Because all of the original X-Men had to show up for the idea of the comic to work, the New Defenders title was cancelled to free up Iceman, Angel, and the Beast, while Scott Summers was shown to be a deserter to both his wife and son by being called from New York by... Jean Grey. Yes, to get X-Factor "right", they resurrected Jean Grey. In the pages of Avengers #263 and Fantastic Four #286, Jean Grey was found stuck in an energy cocoon by the Phoenix Force, and then freed by the genius of Reed Richards. The retconned story was now that Jean wasn't possessed by the Phoenix Force, as before, but merely Xeroxed by it, with her real body being placed under the sea in the cocoon so it could regenerate from the radiation damage. Meanwhile, it was the actual deity-like figure of the Phoenix Force itself who merely pretended to be Jean Grey during all the adventures it had with the X-Men, all the way up to, and including, the Dark Phoenix Saga. Now this last bit annoyed a lot of older X-fans, a population which some jokers have commented that Marvel apparently doesn't remember exist. The whole strength of the Dark Phoenix story was that it was Jean Grey, the human, who was able to overcome Dark Phoenix, the cosmic force, even if she had to die to do it. Despite the claims from Marvel that the Dark Phoenix story still had all its emotional strength and punch because the Phoenix duplicated the emotions and thoughts of Jean Grey and had even convinced itself that it was Jean Grey, it just doesn't hold up under even casual scrutiny. It's no longer a human choosing to die from love, it's a cosmic force pretending it's human who decides to fool a human it supposedly loves into thinking that it's committed suicide, when really it hasn't. No longer a sacrifice, it makes it a cosmic shell game, with Scott's and the readers' emotions as the victims. Hence you will get the odd comment on Xbooks about how the "real" Jean Grey died on the moon. Some simply refuse to accept the retcon. Eventually, Madelyne Pryor was revealed to be a clone of Jean Grey, created by X-villain Mr. Sinister, in yet another of his endless attempts to try and get some genetic material out of Scott Summers (in this case, apparently, a son). Seduced by the renegade demon S'ym, Madelyne was transformed into the Goblyn Queen (UXM #234), which brought about the crossover called Inferno. This transformation was revealed to be possible from yet another retcon. Now, when the Phoenix Force pretended to commit suicide on the moon (UXM #137), it sent a portion of itself back to the still-comatose Jean Grey beneath the waters of Jamaica Bay, in order to give her the memories the Phoenix had gained in her place. Jean rejected these memories, however, and instead the portion of the Phoenix imparted them to the then-dormant Madelyne Pryor, Jean Grey's clone by perennial villain Mr. Sinister. This was such a traumatic procedure that Sinister was resorted to giving her false memories of being the only survivor of a plane crash to ease her troubled mind. It was that portion of the Phoenix Force that allowed Madelyne to wield the powers that she did as the Goblyn Queen. All this was revealed by Mr. Sinister in UXM #243. Inferno ended when Madelyne killed herself in X-Factor #38 (who then fled as a psychic presence into Jean's mind, only to be expelled forever in X-Factor #50, but that's a minor subplot). The real Madelyne is dead. Meanwhile Rachel had ended up over in Excalibur, after becoming the new Phoenix in UXM #199. She remained so until the Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix limited series, when the Phoenix left Rachel for an unnamed better host. This is a few centuries into the future, however. This mini, by the way, is when Jean took on the name Phoenix at Rachel's request. Hard as it is to believe, it's the first time Jean Grey ever used the name. So who's the Madelyne lookalike running around in X-Man? At first, readers thought the Madelyne running around in X-Man was a construct; Nate Grey apparently created her in X-Man #5 out of her memories floating around in the ether. This was revealed in X-Man #25. In the same issue, Nate tried to uncreate her and found he couldn't do it. Of course, no answer is ever so simple in an X-Men comic book. In the Counter-X issues of X-Man, Nate eventually found out that the "construct" theory was a ruse. Evil Queen Madelyne was actually an alternate reality version of Phoenix (Jean Grey). Writer Steven Grant said that Queen Madelyne wanted to fool Nate, so in order to make the ruse work she hypnotized herself into being Madelyne Pryor. This doesn't explain a ghostly Madelyne that appeared in Cable #76. Some readers figure that Queen Madelyne herself tapped into our Madelyne's memories floating around in the ether, and that might explain the psionic connection in the issue of Cable. So, as it currently stands, barring any future retcons, the relationship is as follows: * Phoenix: a really bored cosmic force who currently lends its powers to an unknown individual. * Jean Grey: Never had the Phoenix Force, but now calls herself Phoenix. * Madelyne Pryor: A clone of Jean Grey, had a portion of the Phoenix force, killed by Jean. * Rachel Summers: Was this timeline's Phoenix, but has now gone into plot limbo. * Queen Madelyne: An evil, alternate-reality Jean Grey who tranced herself (and Nate Gery) into thinking she was Madelyne. On a final note of desperation, I have here some assorted notes from concerned parties on this star-crossed issue. Al Patterson commends the FAQ for not even "getting into Madelyne's transformation in X-Men/Alpha Flight, which demonstrated conclusively the authors clearly never intended Maddy to be what she became." (The firefountain did not affect mutants, but Maddy was transformed into Anodyne, a healer. That should be impossible if she was a clone of Jean). Likewise, David Goldfarb reminds me that in the first Genosha storyline Madelyne is shown having a flashback in virtual reality (UXM #238) which shows her as the little girl from Avengers Annual #10, singing "Gone to America," which is one of Steeleye Span's biggest hits. And then Ken Arromdee chirps up, saying "You need to mention Excalibur #52 here." Paul O'Brien is of substantial help at this juncture. You see, Excalibur #52 does not help matters. While it was supposed to clear up Rachel's relationship to the Phoenix, in many ways it complicated it further. This issue consists of the Phoenix telling its story to Xavier, Jean Grey and Excalibur as Rachel was lying in a coma. Unfortunately, the story the Phoenix told did not jibe with what had come before. In Rachel's timeline, the X-Men never met Phoenix. Jean Grey was killed in a nuclear explosion in Pittsburgh. Any differing stories would be "memory implants". That was according to writer Alan Davis. Sadly, that contradicts all of Claremont's stories that clearly had Phoenix as Rachel's mother. Phoenix: The Untold Story was published to set up Rachel's past. In fact, that was the whole point of Rachel's part in UXM #199: claiming the legacy of her mother. Phoenix:TUS, by the way, is UXM #137 with the original ending. Rachel's memories were not messed up until Excalibur; she didn't have that problem during her stint with the X-Men. Mojo was more likely a cause, as Longshot went through similar difficulties. Another sticky point was the nuclear bomb. Odds are good Kate Pryde would have mentioned that.... But why would a celestial avatar lie? Apparently it did, as Phoenix admitted to manipulating Rachel in later issues. But why? This issue only gets messier. At this point, since we now have all of the possible reference contradicting themselves, this neutral researcher says "to hell with it" and closes the subject. --- Hey, is Cable really Nathan Summers? Or is Stryfe? Wait, is Stryfe Cable? Is Ahab Stryfe? Is Nathan Ahab? Who is Nate Grey? Why am I so confused? (+) It's important to remember two basic things about Cable: he was created much later than his vastly rewritten history would make him seem, and the person who created him (Rob Liefeld) didn't set out to make him anything in particular other than a cyborg with a big gun (history has shown how such a character is appealing to Liefeld). When Liefeld landed the job as new penciler for the New Mutants, he immediately sat down and started sketching out new characters. He didn't have names for any of them, he didn't have backgrounds, they were just pretty pictures with no personalities. On the page he sent off to his editor, Bob Harras, he had a note much to the effect "Hey, here're some new characters I just thought up. Use 'em if you want to, toss 'em if you don't like 'em. But here they are." Easily visible among the detritus are most of the Mutant Liberation Front, and the two characters who would become Cable and Stryfe. Walter Simonson, husband of then-NM-writer Louise Simonson, recalls the design process: The design for Cable [was] originally one of several designs Rob did for a villain (designs done for Stryfe IIRC). Bob Harras liked the design as did Weezie and asked if they couldn't make a good guy out of him. Weezie was already working on creating a new leader for the New Mutants (something Bob was also interested in) and the military background/attitude was always intended to be a part of the character. Weezie was tired of the Prof. X attitude of whiny leadership that was always agonizing over sending the New Mutants into harm's way and thought that an interesting story direction would be to create a leader who knew the score, understood the dangers, and would in fact view the NMutants essentially as soldiers, being sent into battle. Cable was introduced in Liefeld's first issue of the New Mutants (#87), as the not-yet-then tired idea of a mysterious mutant mastermind who has been behind the scenes for years, but who we, the readers, have somehow just never managed to see yet. He took over the leadership of the New Mutants straight off, and we learned that he had an archenemy, called Stryfe, whose face was always concealed by a pointy helmet. Now remember, at this time there was no background to either of these characters. They had been in existence less than a year. Their creator hadn't even thought up names for them, let alone backgrounds. When the word came down that New Mutants was going to be turned into X-Force, with Rob Liefeld as its plotter/penciller, it was decided that a neat way to end the New Mutants would be to unmask Stryfe for that dramatic final panel. The only trouble was, nobody knew who he was really supposed to be, so they didn't know what his shocking secret identity should be. Of course, since Cable grew out of the design for Stryfe... So, there they were. Stryfe and Cable were now twins. Nobody knew why, but they were, so they started doing stories around that. Around about this time Claremont was briefly writing X-Factor (#65-68) (although under Whilce Portacio's plots). The son of Cyclops and Madelyne Pryor, Nathan Summers, had by this time become a small plot embarrassment (after all, it was tough to have Cyclops mooning over Jean Grey again when he had a baby boy by his previous marriage to worry about). Chris Claremont had never really liked the tot, and apparently most of the readers shared his sentiments, so in a plot involving Apocalypse and the Moon, Nathan came down with a techno-organic virus, and was only barely saved when a visitor from the future, Askani, zapped him up the timestream to save him with her futuristic medicine (X-Factor #68). The reason? Nathan would become important to saving a bunch of mutants in the future, so she couldn't let him die in the present. Ken Arromdee reminded me to include here the folk legend of the Marvel edict against having main characters of their superhero titles with young children. Supposedly because their target audience will not identify with such people, creators are strongly discouraged from having any major characters with young children. A quick rundown of the major births in Marvel, with perhaps the sole exception of Crystal and Pietro's Luna, shows how strong this apparent edict is. It's highly possible that the Nathan/Askani storyline came about from this pressure as well. Around about here Cable was revealed to be from the future. Since Nathan was now in the future, it wasn't too far to suggest that Cable was really Nathan. Of course, since Stryfe was obviously connected to Cable somehow, now the question became "Which of the two was really Nathan?" Now a neutral observer would probably point out at this time that this whole mess could have been avoided if these lads had been created with the usual backgrounds most writers give their characters: you know, like who they are. But that wasn't the hand that the X-writers had dealt themselves, and X-readers had no end of fun watching a bunch of plotlines swirl and weave about whether Cable was Stryfe's clone, or vice versa, or how maybe they were both clones, or maybe they had nothing to do with Nathan at all. Finally, in the Cable series, most of the answers were provided. Cable is Nathan Christopher Charles Summers (Cable #6), and the cyborg parts are actually the parts of his body that are infected by the technovirus, which he holds in check with his amazing telekinetic powers. Stryfe is his clone, last seen reduced to a mental presence in Cable's head. This still leaves us with Ahab. Ahab was the Master of the Hounds from a "Days of Future Past" future--the one that Rachel Summers was from. Hounds are mutants with powers useful for tracking other mutants, who are controlled substances in that timeline. Back when Cable still didn't have a past, Ahab was introduced in the Days of Future Present (FF Ann #23, X-Factor Ann#5, NM Ann #6, XM Ann #14) crossover. During one fight scene Cable and Ahab got close to one another, and Cable was shocked to see some similarity to himself in Ahab. This was compounded by having Ahab say: "What's the matter? See someone you know?" (XM Annual #14). Since Cable was revealed as Nathan instead of Ahab, a new past for Ahab was needed. A new character introduced in Excalibur #72, Rory Campbell, was obviously intended to end up becoming Ahab, thus freeing Cable from that unneeded bit of history. To that end, Rory lost his leg (Excalibur #90) and became Mutant liason for the British authorities (Excalibur #101). But wait... we're still not done. Everyone go grab some refreshment or something now, you've been sitting long enough reading this answer. In the 1995 crossover, for reasons too bizarre to get into now, Cable ceased to exist. In the Age of Apocalypse timeline, his counterpart was Nathan, called the "X-Man". Nathan, who shares a name that fans of the X-titles should recognize as being a warning bell, is a genetic construct of the Mr. Sinister of that timeline. Once again, for various reasons that you had to be there to deal with, Nathan was one of the few survivors of the Age of Apocalypse into the normal timeline. On top of this, Cable reappeared with the resurgence of the original timeline, so now we have, in one way or an other, two (and a half, counting the psyche of Stryfe) versions of Scott and Madelyne's son roaming around the Marvel Universe, none of which is actually native to that universe. I don't think Hallmark prints enough cards for there to be enough for Scott Summers to send one to each of his relatives on Christmas. Nate Grey, at least, is easily distinguishable by his name, and the fact he is at least 20 years younger than the others. He is also, just to be nitpicky, the son of Scott and Jean (albeit by test tube), not Madelyne. --- What is the relationship between Wolverine and Sabretooth supposed to be? Once upon a time, this was one of the big Unanswered Questions in the X-titles. Of course, once upon a time the Bernard the poet was a recurring character in X-Men as well. Dig those groovy rhymes! Wolverine and Sabretooth were originally designed, most likely by John Byrne once he got his hands on them, to be son and father, respectively. Nothing was ever made of this, besides the usual murky hints behind the scenes. As time went by the relative popularity of Wolverine versus the great obscurity of Sabretooth (up until recently, he was still a second- string villain found working for no-name crime bosses in Spider-Man titles) made such a revelation rather silly in the eyes of Marvel, so they just shifted the whole thing over to them both just having some sort of relationship in the past, but of an unspecified sort. Recently, Wolverine and Sabretooth have been revealed simply to be former secret agents who worked on the same team with other mysterious mutants such as Maverick. A blood test performed by some considerate S.H.I.E.L.D. medical technicians in Wolverine #42 finally gave us a definite answer: they aren't related by blood at all. Sabretooth once believed himself to be Logan's father, but that was merely a vestige of the Weapon X's memory implant procedures. --- Does Wolverine have any real memories, anyway? How about real bones? Apparently, almost all of Wolverine's memories are constructs, thanks to the ever-dependable Weapon X program and the demands of Marvel writers. What he had as his original skeleton has become even more of a muddled pile of murk thanks to the Fatal Attractions storyline. A brief synopsis of what was once known to be true will be attempted here, but as discussions on xbooks have shown, this question is a retcon in action, and even Wolverine fans are still confused over the whole affair. Those of us who are just neutral bystanders will have to be content with what follows, and leave the heavy arguments to the knowledgable Wolvie sages on xbooks. IN THE BEGINNING, like, pre-X-Men (Hulk #181), even, Wolverine was just designed to be a spunky teenager working for the Canadian government, who had claws stuck in his gloves. One gets the opinion that perhaps there were some slight budgetary problems in the Canadian Secret Service at the time. There was a suggested subplot which would reveal him to be a "super- evolved" real wolverine, made into human form by the High Evolutionary, but that was never followed up on. Now, when Wolverine was put into the X-Men, Chris Claremont decided that since he was in the X-Men, he needed to have a mutant power. Furthermore, he didn't like the idea of having the adamantium claws just part of the gloves, as then "anyone who could get the gloves could be Wolverine." So, he revealed that the claws are actually housed in Wolvie's arms. Eventually, we find out that all of Wolverine's skeleton is bonded with adamantium. Adamantium is the hardest known non-magical substance in the Marvel Universe, capable of ignoring point-blank nuclear strikes. Chris Claremont also revealed that Wolverine was much older than he'd originally been planned to be. Wolverine's vaunted healing factor wasn't mentioned in the stories until UXM #142, although it was first shown in the UXM issue in the mid 110's when Wolverine got his arm chomped on by a dinosaur. Time passes. We learn that Wolverine may have gotten his adamantium from the Canadian special weapons project, Project X. There is a good clue out that the adamantium bonding process was stolen for Project X from Lord Darkwind, a Japanese nobleman who performed the same sort of operation on Bullseye, a nonpowered assassin and foe of Daredevil's. Lord Darkwind's daughter, Lady Deathstrike, has been hunting Wolverine for years to kill him, since him having that skeleton is an insult to the heritage of her father. The process was either stolen by or for James Hudson, head of the Alpha Flight project, which was responsible for the superpowered protection of the Canadian provinces and interests. Then comes the Weapon X storyline (MCP #72-84). Wolverine, who up to this point is thought to just be a fast-healing mutant of indeterminate age, is now revealed to apparently have had some form of natural "bone claws" where his metal ones ended up, because when they were filling him full of adamantium, that's where a bunch of it pooled up (sounds more like a scientist was skipping on quality control, but, hey, it's comics). The idea of the Weapon X project was that it would create all these super-soldiers, and then release them back into the general public with no memory of who they were as "sleepers." So they wouldn't remember their experiences at the Weapon X facilities, they were all programmed with false memories. To help keep watch over this odd idea, a computer program named Shiva was written, who could take over one in an almost endless series of robots to hunt down and destroy any Weapon X soldier who, somehow, showed signs of remembering who he really was. Currently, Wolvie has fooled Shiva into thinking it killed him. So, with that added to the muddle, we then get the unusual Fatal Attractions crossover, where Magneto pulled the adamantium off of Wolvie's bones through his skin pores (X-Men #25). So, Wolvie (aside from hurting real, real bad) was growing new bone claws because he originally had bone claws (and they got covered in adamantium), and Magneto removed the original ones. The lastest addition to this saga is that the adamantium was preventing his mutation from expanding any further. In this case, that meant his turning into pure animal, with the unbearably heightened senses and uncontrollable instincts (Wolverine #92). The memories problem was repaired by Epsilon Red (by the same people who brought you Omega Red). As of Wolverine #100, we have a new incarnation of Wolverine. To Larry Hama's credit, Wolverine did get his adamantium back. For a few panels. Then Wolverine rejected it and lost what was left of his mind. The current version is now a mutant who can withstand almost any amount of physical abuse. Elektra took it upon herself (Wolverine #101) to help Logan return to humanity, and it mostly worked. To make matters worse, Sabretooth had been the recipient of Wolverine's old adamantium. The stuff was then ripped out of Sabretooth and given back to Wolverine by Apocalypse, who made Wolverine his horseman Death for a short time. Wolverine #145 displayed the moment in a flashback, but the first appearance with the metal back was as Death in Astonishing X-Men Vol. 2 #1. --- Wolverine can regularly regenerate himself from a drop of blood, right? Only if you only reread one annual. In Uncanny X-Men Annual #11, the X-Men get involved in this very symbolic quest to determine the worthiness of the entire human race, and all that other light afternoon sort of entertainment. In the end, only Wolverine is left to strive for the goal, this immensely powerful alien god-gem gadget thingee. Unfortunately for Wolverine, the alien Horde is right behind him, and slaughters the poor mutant--but not before a single drop of Wolvie's blood lands on the immensely powerful alien god-gem which super-cosmically charges the superpowers of that blood to regrow an entire Wolverine, adamantium bones and all. In short, don't try this at home, kids, at least not without an immensely powerful alien god-gem of your own. The simplest evidence against Wolverine having this amount of regenerative ability, however, is that in the numerous issues with no alien god-gems in sight that Wolverine gets pounded in, none of the blood he's leaked so copiously over everything has ever grown into another Wolverine. *** Continued in Part 4 *** -- Kate the Short * http://www.enteract.com/~katew/