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History

The Guardian Angel of Chicago[]

Derek Morgan lived in Chicago, Illinois. His mother left their family soon after he was born, his father was a veteran of the Chicago Police Department and his brother, Joe, followed his father's steps as an officer. After the death of their father in the line of duty, Joe was left with the responsibility of taking care of Derek. The orphans shared an apartment with Joe's pregnant wife, Lynn.[1]

During high school, Derek had his mutant powers activated. Gifted with features similar to a bird of prey, Derek experienced excruciating pain due to his retractable wings and was forced to drop out of school. Unemployed, he was considered to be a problematic individual by his family. While Joe operated as a police officer like their father, Derek decided to dole out justice in his own way, using his mutant power in a vigilante style. In addition to protecting people, he also robbed burglars, raising suspicion of how he was able to pay his share of the rent. One night, while his brother was on patrol, Derek stopped a mugger who assaulted the mayor's daughter. One of Joe's partners was able to identify that the angelic vigilante was a mutant and not a celestial figure. Around that time, mutants experienced extreme public rejection due to Magneto's brutal attacks against humanity. However, the local media described him as a hero and a "Guardian Angel".[1]

The authorities ordered to capture the winged vigilante by any means, so Joe went out on patrol. Derek swooped down and picked up his brother to reveal his identity while flying above the Hudson River in hopes of sorting out the misunderstanding and being accepted. Unexpectedly, Joe was not tolerant and wished to put his own brother under arrest. Since Derek refused to allow himself to be arrested on the sole fact that he was a mutant, Joe fired his gun at his brother and then both fell in the water. Derek was saved by the savage Jimmy Hudson under the telepath Karen Grant's orders, while his brother was rescued by the police. Grant offered him a place in her team, which was secretly idealized by Nick Fury. As Derek Morgan decided to leave with the duo, Karen Grant deleted his brother's memory of what happened and made him believe Derek had got a job at Cincinnati as a construction worker and left home.[1]

Runaway[]

As a vulnerable mutant, Derek Morgan accompanied Grant and Hudson in their quest to recruit more allies. Living as fugitive, one of their new allies was the former X-Man with fire powers Liz Allen.[2] The group of mutants found problems with Quicksilver and his lethal Brotherhood, who wished to carry on Magneto's legacy with terrorist mutants. To get more powerful, Grant recruited Bruce Banner, the fatal Hulk, to her cause. After confronting Quicksilver, the team got direct support from Fury to become a black ops unit aimed at dealing with mutant problems.[3]

As Ultimate X, the team was assigned by Fury to join Hawkeye in assessing an anti-mutant situation involving the use of a super-human Serum in the South East Asian Republic. Derek Morgan was given the codename "The Guardian".[4] The team tackled the twin cities of Tian, with Hawkeye ordering Morgan to retrieve the Serum and escape to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Triskelion.[5] However, the mission was interrupted by the rulers of the cities, Xorn and Zorn, who promised in Tian a heavenly utopia. Ultimate X defected and turned against Hawkeye. Morgan, alongside his teammates, decided to abandon Fury and stay in the paradisical cities.[6]

As defectors, Ultimate X was rebranded as the Runaways,[7] though they were actually spies for Fury inside Tian. Operating as super-heroes for Tian, the Runaways fought for innocents, rescuing them. Unbeknownst to Fury, Grant was loyal to Xorn and Tian, assuming her true identity as Jean Grey there.[8]

Tian saw a threat to its sovereignty in the mutant territory Utopia, which was conceived by Kitty Pryde with Tony Stark's support.[9] After the death of Xorn, Jean Grey decided to stop Pryde.[10] In the war between the two mutant nations, Morgan and Allen worked as Grey's war council, with the intention of absorbing Utopia by sending their forces to it.[11] In an attempt to vilify Pryde, Grey set Pryde's ally Jimmy Hudson loose on Tian to frame him as an Utopian terrorist. Morgan attempted to reason with his past teammate with no success. After Hudson was violently restrained by Grey, Morgan and Allen rebelled against her.[12] They joined Pryde's X-Men in order to evacuate Tian and stop an insane Grey by obliterating Tian. With Tian gone, Morgan lived with the X-Men in Utopia.[13]

Sinister Marauder[]

The X-Men soon saw the world at peril when world-devourer Galactus targeted Earth and joined other super-heroes to stop him.[14] Pryde was crucial to banish Galactus and her participation helped to restore mutants' credibility.[15] However, Earth would not last long. Due to the occurrsence of a cosmic phenomenon known as an incursion, Earth collided with that of an alternate reality and was destroyed.[16] Morgan and a group of other mutants, namely Jimmy Hudson, Mach Two, Quicksilver, and Armor, fell from their reality into the world it collided with. When the Multiverse was eventually rebuilt, these mutants became stranded in a world they did not belong with, suffering from amnesia as a by-product of their transition from one reality to another.[17]

Morgan and the other foreign mutants were abducted by the vile geneticist Miss Sinister, who brainwashed and turned them into her personal enforcers, as the New Marauders. When Jimmy Hudson's natural resistance to telepathy allowed him to break free from Miss Sinister's control and he went rogue,[17] the New Marauders were deployed to retrieve him. In the process, they confronted the young X-Men, who had tracked down Hudson after he was detected by Cerebro.[18] Following a brief confrontation against the X-Men, during which Marvel Girl learned of Miss Sinister's involvement, the New Marauders were ordered by their superior to leave.[17]

The New Marauders remained by Miss Sinister's side as she allied herself with Havok, Emma Frost, and Bastion to release Mothervine globally with the intent to make mutantkind the dominant species.[19] They were sent to recruit Xorn to Havok's cause, but two of the young X-Men, Jimmy Hudson and Bloodstorm, intervened and rescued him.[20] Shortly afterwards, the New Marauders were sent to attack Magneto, who had threatened Havok's plans.[21] Magneto evaded them and escaped using his time platform.[22] Following the capture of the young X-Men, Emma Frost finally rejected Miss Sinister's ideals, and took psychic control of the New Marauders and turned them upon their mistress. However, Miss Sinister activated a kill-switch she had implanted in their genetic code, instantly killing all of her former lackeys, including Morgan.[23]

Attributes

Powers

  • Transformation: Derek Morgan was a mutant who was able to shift between a human form and a winged avian form. His avian form had vertically slitted eyes, razor-sharp talons and prehensile wings. He may also have possessed enhanced sight, durability and healing.
  • Flight: In this form he was able to fly at high speeds.
  • Claws
  • Enhanced Strength: He appeared to have above average strength, able to lift his older brother aloft in the air for several minutes showing no signs of distress of weakening. [24]

See Also

Links and References

References

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