Category Archives: Multiple Man
Awesome Upcoming X-Factor Cover
Marvel’s December solicitations came out today, and while I’m not going to go through every single issue, I just thought I’d show you all the awesome cover to an upcoming issue of X-Factor. Two issues will ship in December. The first issue will deal with new villain Bloodbath, and the death of one of their team members. The second issue will finally deal with a cliffhanger that’s been around since very early on in the series.
The prophecy that Wolfsbane will murder Madrox and Layla Miller on their wedding night!
How’s it going to happen? Are they really going to die? Are they really going to get married!? To make matters worse (or funnier), Layla was still a little girl when the prophecy was made. Now she’s been aged through time travel to a young woman, perfectly not-creepy for marriage. She and Jamie have even kissed! Plus they share matching face tattoos from their journey together into the future (long story). So I’m excited to see what happens and this is the cover to one of those issues. And it’s an awesome cover.
Not looking too good for Madrox. Note the face tattoo. I told you so!
Review: X-Factor #225
X-Factor is my favorite comic book on the stands, mostly because it stars my favorite character: Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man. But it’s also a very fun comic, with great characters, great stories and occasionally great art. So I want to dedicate my blog to giving X-Factor as much love as possible. Writer Peter David has penned nearly 80 issues (!!!) starring the same group of B and C-list mutants from the X-Men franchise. X-Factor doesn’t get a lot of press, rarely does anything to draw attention to itself, but maintains enough fans to keep publishing.
X-Factor #225
X-Factor is the little series that could.
So I’m going to start reviews with the latest issue, X-Factor #225. I should have started with the last issue, X-Factor #224.1, but I couldn’t get around to it that weekend. Such are the distractions of a wealthy, studly, millionaire cowboy/astronaut such as myself. In this issue, the team is still recovering from the last big storyline, which involved the birth of Rahne’s demon baby, as well as the events of the separate series Avengers: Children’s Crusade. X-Factory had a brief but very meaningful cameo in that series, which I’ll get to in a moment. The crux of this new issue is that Madrox and his team are pulled into a murder investigation in Kansas, one that occurred on the farm where Jamie Madrox grew up.
But the victim isn’t as dead as she seems.
What is the Secret of Multiple Man’s Powers?
What are the dark secrets of Multiple Man’s powers? Writer Peter David, who has been in charge of Jamie Madrox’s recent revival, has hinted for years that he has some hidden revelation left to play. Though I was unable to find the actual quotes, he’s hinted at this revelation in multiple interviews across the Interwebs. David has told us that Madrox is something more than just a mutant. That his powers have some special origin. Even the character himself knows that something is up. But all we’ve gotten are hints and teases.
What could it be? How will it change the character? Is everything I know and love about Multiple Man going to come to an end!?
Sorry, that was a little overdramatic. To compensate, here’s Multiple Man as a kitty cat.
He has ALL the cutes!
Anyway, I don’t have any theories about what this secret could be. I just wanted to do an article examining what’s been hinted at so far. I know some Multiple Man fans have found and read my blog, so I want to do more articles and entries about my favorite comic book character! Maybe some others out there can help me think it through. Maybe we can get a discussion going on what people think it might be. PAD has said he’ll get around to the story eventually. But a little pre-discussion never hurt anyone!
Who is he and what can he do:
Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man, has the mutant ability to create duplicates of himself. Walking, talking, living, breathing duplicates who are capable of their own independent lives and thought. Typically, especially back in the day, most people just wrote Multiple Man as a one-man army, or a one-man technical crew. In his first appearance, he’d gone a little loopy and fought the Fantastic Four. But ever since then, he’s been a definite good guy. Even when he was in X-Corps, it was for a good cause. So Madrox has always been a good guy mutant, though he was never a member of the X-Men. Just a fringe sort of character.
And sometimes he annoys Wolverine
In movies and some cartoon shows, he’s been used as a villain. And again, he’s just a villain who can become a one-man gang.
Peter David changed everything with the MadroX miniseries in 2004. He had an idea that – since Madrox absorbs memories and such from his duplicates when he reabsorbs them back into his body – what if he were to send out several duplicates into the world to learn new skills and then absorb them at a later date? He’d gain a lot of knowledge with little work. So Madrox sent out duplicates who became monks, magician apprentices, detectives, priests and more. When their time came, they returned to the original Madrox and he absorbed them, combining all of their new knowledge into one person.
Madrox the Monk
David has used this idea to give Madrox something of a splintered, indecisive mind. If he could do anything, live and experience all sorts of lives simultaneously, why bother doing anything at all? Plus whenever he creates a duplicate, they tend to be some specific part of his personality, which had never happened before. He’d create a dupe and he’d get an angry dupe or a bitter dupe or a happy-go-lucky dupe or a dupe focused on cooking the perfect stew. It’s created a wonderful conflict for the comic book series. And he’s able to create multiple dupes when he needs them without having to worry about too much craziness.
What’s the secret of his powers:
Jamie Madrox is a mutant, which means he was born with his powers. He comes from the X-Men franchise: superheroes who are a different race from human beings. Mutants are born with their powers, and then a lot of them just happen to become superheroes or super-villains. That’s how Madrox has always been and I hope he’ll always be.
But Peter David has insinuated that Madrox is something more than just a mutant. Chief among the issues at stake is the fact that Madrox can also seem to duplicate objects. His dupes don’t come out naked, they’re wearing his clothes. And he can duplicate other physical objects as well. What’s up with that? And unlike most mutants whose powers develop at puberty, Madrox has been creating duplicates since he was born and the doctor spanked him on the butt. David explained this at one point, stating that the puberty thing was part of evolution. If a baby was born weird back in the old days, the parents would probably kill it. So to spare mutants, they started developing their powers later in life.
But Madrox is one of several mutants who had their powers from birth. Other examples are Nightcrawler, Marrow, Leech and other Morlocks.
Along with the interviews, here are three panels from the entire run of X-Factor that seem to indicate the secret origin. The first is from issue #17. I mentioned how Madrox sent some duplicates out into the world to learn different things. Well the dupe who studied to become a detective became such a good detective that he learned the secrets of Multiple Man’s powers.
And it drove him to drink
The detective duplicate doesn’t want the real Madrox to find out the truth. So he gets himself killed by shooting a corrupt police captain, resulting in him getting shot and killed by the corrupt captain’s men. So Madrox never gets to reabsorb the dupe and his knowledge.
The next panel comes from issue #204. (The series jumped from #50 to #200 as part of a marketing stunt, so don’t get weirded out about the numbering.) Basically, some bad guys are planning to take down Madrox and X-Factor and they’re running a simulation. The bad guys are surprised that Madrox is able to pick up one of their own weapons and then duplicate that rifle along with himself.
They are perplexed
The third panel comes from the most recent issue, #224.1. Madrox is explaining his powers to a family.
There's always a chance that kid might be a robot
So there you have it. Peter David has definitely been hinting at something more with Multiple Man’s powers. But what could it be? I don’t think it’ll be something as obvious as revealing that the Madrox we’ve been following all along has actually been a duplicate of some higher Madrox. But I have no other theories. There’s another duplicator in the series, Clay, who has the same powers, and he’s hinted at something larger. Could both Multiple Man and Clay be some kind of descendants of a Grand Multiplier? I just don’t know.
Why I don’t like the idea:
Madrox rose to prominence as my favorite character in part because he’s just a regular mutant. The X-Men franchise is full of hundreds of mutants. Most of them join a team, like the X-Men or the Brotherhood or the Marauders or whoever. Most of them are pigeonholed into some specific superhero or super-villain role. But in everything, Madrox has only ever been just a guy. Yes, he’s on X-Factor and yes, he’s been one of the good guys. But he’s purposefully turned down membership in the X-Men. He’s not just another member of the X-Men. He’s more of a regular Joe. And I love that about him. He’s not special. He’s not super unique. He’s just another mutant trying to live his life.
So to make him unique, give him some special secret origin to his powers, would just ruin that idea.
It’s like the original idea of having Wolverine be the first homo sapien who has simply survived this long. Or to make him an actual wolverine who was hyper-evolved into human form. Both are cool comic book origins, and both were actually considered at one point, but Wolverine is better as just a regular, normal mutant who then accomplished everything Wolverine has accomplished.
There’s something special with being mediocre.
Madrox Lives!
The day we’ve all been waiting for has arrived: the full X-Factor teaser has been released and Multiple Man lives! My fears of Jamie Madrox dying were for naught. Behold, faithful readers, of the awesomeness that is X-Factor!
He may be tucked way down off to the side, but at least he's there!
Madrox dying would have really put a crimp in my comic book reading habits. For all you non geeks, I figure it would be like if your favorite sports star was no longer playing the sport. Or if your favorite TV character left the show. The final season of Scrubs just wasn’t as good without JD. Of course I watched it, but it felt less than itself. That’s what a Madrox-less X-Factor would have been like.
And it’s not just Madrox, but Longshot and Polaris as well, which was one of my guesses from the last post. So that’s very exciting. Granted, there are now 11 characters on the team. That means less panel-time for everybody. But I’d like to think that writer Peter David knows what he’s doing. The man rejuvenated Multiple Man, after all! I’ve got to have faith!
For anyone interested, here are the full X-franchise teaser images for all their titles. None of the character reveals have made me want to pick up a book that I wasn’t already planning to pick up. Though now I’m even more excited to be getting Wolverine and the X-Men since Iceman and Toad are on the team. My brother Cippy is getting Cyclops and the Uncanny X-Men.
First is Wolverine and the ‘Gold Team’.
Click to enlarge
Second is Cyclops and the ‘Blue Team’.
Click to enlarge
The only sadness in all of this is that my other favorite X-Character, The Mimic, is not on any team. Oh well. Back to comic book oblivion for him.
Madrox Update – A Possible Stay of Execution?
Remember last week when Marvel Comics was teasing the possible death of my favorite comic book character, Jamie Madrox the Multiple Man? Well this week the teaser swings back in the other direction, indicating that Madrox may not be dying after all. He may still be around come the new X-Franchise revamp this winter. Clearly Marvel knows a thing or two about marketing. As a comic book geek, I’m on the edge of my seat.
Behold! The X-Factor teaser cover now has 3 distinct hidden characters!
Click to englarge
Could one of those three silhouettes be Multiple Man? Focus on the silhouette on the left. He’d got Madrox’s style of hair, and he’s clearly got some sort of collar, just like Madrox’s signature trench coat. This greatly increases the odds from last week, when Marvel had yet to reveal Strong Guy and that area was just one big blob of black. Back then, in the long long ago, I surmised that maybe there were two characters hidden in Strong Guy’s shadow. Now that there are 3, that gets my hopes up! Behold last week!
See the difference?
As I wrote last time, Marvel is making a big push for the X-Franchise in 2012, everything from Uncanny X-Men to New Mutants to my personal favorite, X-Factor. The teams are going to get new lineups with a bunch of new drama to deal with. Marvel is teasing this big push by releasing the covers for the upcoming issues, only with all the characters blacked out as silhouettes. Then week-by-week, they’re unveiling which characters are hidden in which silhouettes and will be on which team.
I read comics based primarily on the characters. So this teaser strategy is perfect in determining which X-books I’m going to be reading.
Hopefully next week (or the week after) we may find out once and for all if Madrox is making the cut.
That’s the extent of the news, but if you’re interested in comic book stuff, I think I’m going to break this down a little bit more. So we’ve got three characters, one of which has short hair, one of which has a bit longer hair to the ears and one of which has either big hair or is wearing some kind of a hood. I think this means we have two guys and a girl, or a hood.
Let’s break it down:
Who are we missing? Out of the current X-Factor team, the three missing characters are Madrox, Longshot and Darwin (though he’s on sabbatical). They do not yet appear on this cover. Both Madrox and Longshot have similar hair, and could be either one of those two short-haired male characters. Darwin could be wearing a hood. So perhaps nobody dies in November and the team stays exactly the same with the addition of Havok, that blonde guy in the middle with the blue glowy powers.
Remember the 90s? Back in the mid-90s, there was an X-Factor series very similar to the current series. Both were written by Peter David, both were about a mutant team spun-off from the X-Men and both featured the same characters. In fact, Multiple Man and Strong Guy both became popular in the mid-90s X-Factor. Havok was on that team as well, along with Wolfsbane and a few others.
The 90s were X-Treme!
So with Peter David still writing, and Havok joining the team, we’re clearly looking at some kind of 90s reunion sort of series. Comic book fans love references to old stuff, and the 90s X-Factor was incredibly popular. Heck, love for that series is what gave birth to the current X-Factor after all. So Marvel is definitely banking on that. Which means, why kill Multiple Man? Keep him around for the 90s reunion!
Which leads me to believe that the ‘hooded’ figure is actually 90s member Polaris! She’s the chick up there with the green hair. Polaris and Havok have been out having an adventure in space for the past few years. They’re a couple. So it only stands to reason that Polaris would join Havok in X-Factor, as well as add to the 90s reunion.
So I think Polaris is that hooded or big-haired character.
And I’m going to go out on a limb and say Longshot in the character in the middle, with the hair that goes down to his ears.
Or we might just have some random new character add some new blood to the team!
They could all be Madrox! Remember, Multiple Man’s super-power is that he can make duplicates of himself. Walking, talking, thinking duplicates of himself. And the catalyst for Peter David’s recent revival of Multiple Man was that he sent a bunch of duplicates out into the world to learn different things. Then when the main Madrox reabsorbs them, he gains all that knowledge. Perhaps the main Madrox will still die…but then a bunch of duplicates from around the world will return and join the team. That would account for the different hairstyles and the possible hood.
We shall see! I’ll stay on this story all month if I have to!
Henchman-4-Hire 