Calvin Rankin (Earth-616)

Calvin Rankin (also known as Mimic) is a Mutant villain turned hero, who joined the X-Men and for a short time, was the deputy leader of the team. Mimic's main quest had always been to find a way to control his mutant powers. On this quest he had battled and befriended the X-Men, the Hulk, Super Apdaptoid, Puppet Master and Factor Three as well as serving Onslaught and briefly joining Excalibur. He retained his mutant powers after M-Day and was a prisoner of the Thunderbolts for his past crimes.

Calvin Rankin was the son of a scientist who was working on various dangerous experiments. As a child, he was not allowed into his father's quarters where the experiments took place. However, at a young age, curiosity got the best of him and he decided to take a look at the experiments that his father was working on. While inside his father's lab, he accidentally knocked down a beaker filled with gas. The experiment his father was working on activated his latent X-gene. As the months and year passed, more frequently would Calvin be able to mimic the abilities of others.

(First appearance)

Calvin soon became the best at any sports, taking the abilities of the best players and using them without knowing any of it. Calvin soon became hotheaded and arrogant as his powers grew. But soon, all of his friends and classmates started to dislike and distrust Calvin, referring to him as some kind of robot, with all his knowledge and strengths. Calvin soon lost all of his friends, but Calvin blamed it on their own jealousy, noting that he didn't need any of them as he was better then all of them.

When his father found out what was going on, he knew that eventually, everyone would turn on them, so he moved with Calvin into an abandoned cave in hopes of figuring everything out. For months, Calvin's father was working on a machine that would take away Calvin's mimicking powers in hopes of having him live a normal life, but he told Calvin that the machine would make everything he mimics permanent, in hopes that Calvin wouldn't say no to the project. Unfortunately, the machine was so strong that one day it short-circuited every fuse in the county and a mob that was suspicious of what was going on in the mine, attacked Calvin and his father. Calvin's father set off an explosion to close the cave, before the mob would find their way in, but the explosion was too strong and it killed Calvin's father. In furious rage and screaming for vengeance, Calvin managed to dig himself out of the mimes and swore to his father that he would get his revenge on the people who forced this all to happen.

Calvin first ran into the X-Men when he was trying to get a date with Vera, who, at the time was dating Hank McCoy. Being the hot-head that he is, he was very aggressive in his conversation, so aggressive, that Hank attacked him, but was quickly surprised that Calvin knew all his moves and was in fact better then him in maneuvering them. When Bobby tried to attack him as well, Calvin retaliated with an ice beam. Some construction workers who saw the battle quickly realized that Calvin was a mutant and thought that he was attacking two normal teenagers. As Calvin was chased through the city by the angry mob, he quickly used his new-found powers to escape with ease. While thinking by himself, he realized that he was fighting two of the X-Men, but as all of his mimicking skills, the powers were only temporary. He decided to meet with all the X-Men so that he could trick them to be with him as he operated his father's machinery and gain all of their powers forever.

Xavier, who already knew of Calvin's presence, decided that there wasn't much they could do to keep him from learning their secrets. Calvin quickly found ways to learn about the X-Men and went to the Institute. Despite only being there to learn to mimic all of their powers, the X-Men welcomed him to their group with open arms, though most of them didn't trust him. Calvin was able to best all the X-Men in combat using all of their powers against them. After learning how to control all of their powers together, he decided to turn on the X-Men, so his own plans could continue. He kidnapped Jean in hopes the others would go after him, and while they were alone, he told her his shameful past, in hopes that she would understand his actions. As the X-Men grew closer, he made sure that they would follow him into the mine, and as he was gaining all of the X-Men's powers again, he activated his father's machine, the X-Men attacked him before he could enter, but he quickly bested all of them again, using Xavier as a hostage, he flew into the machine and activated it. However, the machine overloaded and the entire base was about to blow up, Calvin collapsed powerless and the X-Men dragged him and Xavier to safety, as the whole base blew up. Removing Calvin's memory of these events, Xavier hoped that Calvin would finally be able to live a normal life.

Later during the summer, Calvin started studying again at Metro College, which happened to be the same school Jean Grey had recently been transferred to from the Xavier Institute. They were re-introduced by their common friend Ted Roberts. Calvin claimed that he felt like he had seen her somewhere before, and while Jean tried to deny it, Calvin decided to himself that he won't rest until he remembered where he had seen Jean before.

Very soon afterward, Calvin got caught in an explosion on the school grounds, and the blast brought back his memory. When Ted and Jean came to see if he was alright, his old persona resurfaced and he once again became arrogant and egotistic when Ted asked if he could help. Along with Calvin's memory, his powers also resurfaced. During this time, Professor Xavier was learning of Factor-Three, he knew the X-Men weren't enough to stop them, and he tried to ask Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch as well as Spider-Man to join the X-Men to fight the new Mutant Menace, but all declined. When the X-Men had a meeting at Jean's school where Xavier was going to tell them about this new threat, Calvin interrupted the meeting with the plan to join the X-Men.

Despite only joining in hopes of getting the X-Men's powers somehow forever, Xavier let Calvin join as he knew that the X-Men needed all the help they could get to stop Factor-Three. As Cyclops was feeling guilty for accidentally using his powers on Angel, he stepped down as deputy leader of the X-Men and Xavier appointed Calvin to take the position, as he was the most powerful. During their first training mission, the Puppet Master took control over Calvin in hopes of using him as his ultimate soldier. When the X-Men came to rescue Cal, he was forced to fight his new team-mates. When the Puppet Master ordered Mimic to kill the X-Men, Cal used all of his will power to fight the control of his new master, long enough for the very hurt Angel to enter the battle field and destroy the Puppet Master's hold on Cal. While the X-Men rejoiced in their victory against the Puppet Master, Calvin was struck by sadness, as he was finally coming to terms with the fact that he would never be anything but a man condemned to live in the shadow of other people's abilities, strengths and powers.

Still, as deputy leader of the X-Men, he did his best in order to train himself to be ready to fight Factor-Three. Even though he had proven himself loyal to Xavier's cause, he did not mingle well with the rest of the team, Cyclops especially, who, as the former leader of the team, didn't like Calvin's recklessness. They soon battled the Ogre and Banshee from Factor-Three and while mimicking Banshee's sonic screams, Mimic was able to defeat both of the new enemies. When the Ogre escaped, it was Mimic who had to fight him and using all of the powers he could mimic at the same time, he was able to defeat the Ogre once again.

A couple of days later, Mimic was pushed by Xavier for his biggest exercise yet. Tired and not understanding the point of it, Calvin noted that he didn't transfer to the Xavier Institute just to jump hoops for Xavier and began questioning Xavier's dream and why he should care if any mutants want to take over the world. When Cyclops told Cal to back of, a brawl started with the five original X-Men and Calvin. While hoping that the six of them would work it out, Xavier did put an end to the fight and told Calvin that he can't look past his arrogance and overwhelming ego and told him that it would be best that he left the school. Calvin got the picture that he was indeed not wanted there by anyone, and decided it was time for him to leave.

He did return a couple of hours later in hopes of telling off the X-Men, but instead he noticed that the entire team had been beaten by the Super Adaptoid. Just as soon as the Adaptoid was about to destroy the X-Men for not wanting to join him on his quest to rule the world, Calvin entered the fight, claiming that he wanted the power, in hopes of holding of the Adaptoid long enough for the X-Men to regroup. When he felt that his will was fading by the Adaptoid's beam, he attacked with all of his might, using all of the X-Men's powers at once. However, the powerful Super Adaptoid had all the powers of the Avengers, and eventually got the upper hand. However, when the Adaptoid was going to use his beam to change Calvin into a robotic slave, the power rebounded into the Adaptoid because of Calvin's power being borrowed, just like he was hoping for. The Super Adaptoid weakened, his last act in the battle was to throw Calvin down who was now too weak to fly. While the Adaptoid fell into the sea hoping to resurface, the Angel was able to save Calvin from a mighty fall. After the battle, the X-Men thanked Calvin for saving their lives and apologized for their past actions, Calvin told them that there was no need to apologize and, thinking that his powers might once again be gone forever, he stated that it was worth it, for him to learn the true value of the emotion called friendship, and for Calvin Rankin to finally become a man.

Unfortunately, Calvin's powers resurfaced again, this time, more powerful then ever. His mimicking powers were in fact, draining people and killing them. As the Beast was trying to find a way to cure him, Calvin was rendered comatose in a battle with the Hulk. Many believed him to have perished in the battle, but years later Calvin recovered by duplicating the healing factor of Wolverine.

As Calvin woke up, his powers once again started going hay-wire, draining people of their life forces. Mimic relocated to a small research station in Siberia were friends of his late father tried to analyze and stop his mimicking powers. Later, X-Force responded to a distress call at the station and found Calvin, where his powers had brought him to the brink of insanity. He blamed X-Force for the deaths of other researchers. He mysteriously disappeared after causing an explosion with Sunspot's powers.

Mimic would continue to try to find ways to stop his powers from killing everyone near him, and salvation would come from the most unlikely foe; Onslaught. After helping him stabilizing his powers and helping him reform his mind, Mimic became one of the few servants of Onslaught. Members of X-Force later encountered Mimic again, along with his comrade Blob, who had also joined Onslaught's ranks.

Mimic was later captured by Operation: Zero Tolerance. He retained Professor X's telepathic signature, which was detected by Excalibur. They traveled to his location hoping to find Xavier, but freed Rankin instead. He briefly joined Excalibur and left them on good terms.

With Professor Xavier still in jail for his crimes as Onslaught, Mimic joined Mystique's Brotherhood of Mutants to assist them in freeing the real Xavier. That group disbanded when they were done with the task.

Mimic lost his templated powers temporarily due to the High Evolutionary's use of a device that halted the use of all mutant powers. Since that device was halted and mutants regained their powers, Mimic did as well.

Calvin Rankin continued his vigilantism after his powers returned and lived a care free life, until recently when Baron Zemo and Songbird captured him alongside his old comrade The Blob and made them prisoners in the Folding Castle's Detention Quadrant.^[1]

Dark X-Men: The Beginning #1

Powers and Abilities

Powers

Mimicry: Mimic constantly emits invisible, psionic waves that perform a full-spectrum genetic scan on anyone within a 10 foot radius of him, allowing him to imprint the personal enhancements of unlimited number of other superhumans/mutants onto his genetic code and retain them until the person he mimicked the power from is over a mile away. This was however until his ability was 'upgraded' and he was then able to retain any and all abilities he mimicked within a matter of seconds.

These abilities were supposedly further enhanced by Onslaught when Rankin and Blob encountered X-Force.

In his first appearance he permanently gained the ability to use the powers of the original X-Men and Charles Xavier:

Angel's wings
Beast's physiology including enhanced strength and agility
Cyclops' optic blasts
Iceman's cryokinesis
Phoenix's telekinesis
Professor X's telepathy

When interacting with normal humans, Mimic will imitate their skills, personality traits, and intelligence. Thus, when in the vicinity of athletes, he gains superior athletic ability. Also, when in the presence of a scholar, not only does his knowledge expand, but so does his potential to learn (I.Q., E.Q. etc...)

Abilities

Calvin is a self-taught biochemist.

Strength level

Superhuman, able to lift at least 1 ton.

Paraphernalia

Equipment

Ruby-Quartz lenses.

Notes

This version of Mimic is not to be confused with the Exiles' version of him.

Trivia

Skrull-X has the powers of the original X-Men, making him similar to the Mimic.

The original Mimic as created by Stan Lee and Werner Roth is not a mutant, but receives his powers after breathing gas in his father's laboratory. Later, X-Men writer Scott Lobdell claims it merely awakens Mimic's latent mutant powers, but this point is never made in the comics themselves and remains a point of discussion.

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