Identical quintuplets from a Chinese farming family, the brothers Tao-Yu were taken into government custody for study after their mutant nature manifested. The brothers were trained to control their power, and became government agents as the Collective Man. The brothers were among the heroes of Earth gathered to partake in a “contest of champions” between the Grandmaster and Death herself. As an unwitting agent of Death, the Collective Man exhausted himself defeating Sasquatch. The brothers later learned that their mother was dying. Determined to visit her, they took a helicopter, forcing the government to send Ho Ti, the Chinese God of Happiness, to reclaim them. The brothers opposed Ho Ti, who relented after sensing the happiness that the brothers’ mother felt on seeing her sons for the first time in twenty years before she died.

The brothers subsequently returned to government service; however, their growing disdain over the government’s mistreatment of other mutants led them to join the Jade Dragon and Nuwa in forming 3Peace. Allying themselves with Reignfire’s Mutant Liberation Front to free captive Chinese mutants, 3Peace were ultimately betrayed by Reignfire to the government-sponsored China Force team, but they were able to escape.

The brothers were then unwittingly drawn into a plot by the fallen god Marduk, who boosted their power to enable them to permanently absorb their countrymen’s collective life force and transfer it into the Genesis Well, thus allowing Marduk to re-empower himself. Opposed by Citizen V and the V-Battalion, the brothers combined and grew to giant size, liquefying V-Battalion council member Goldfire with a simple turn of their head. The brothers were seemingly killed when Citizen V used his Adamantium-coated sword to burst their engorged form, after which the V-Battalion gathered their remains in order to reverse-engineer their powers, allowing them to put the entire population of Rumekistan into a slumber so as to oppose Marduk’s plan.

As a byproduct of their enhanced power, the brothers were eventually able to reform and returned to serving the Chinese government. When the X-Men traveled to China to investigate the mutant Shen Xorn, they were confronted by the brothers, who used their increased power to create a veritable army of Collective Men to oppose them.

After the House of M fiasco mutants all over the world started to lose thier powers. Collective Man however is one of the few mutants who retained thier powers. Collective Man was seen on the Xavier Compound with other mutants.

He was later leading the People's Defense Force, fighting The Unspoken alongside Ban Luck who is a member of G.R.A.M.P.A, the Mighty Avengers, the Young Avengers, the New Avengers and The Avengers Resistance.

Powers and AbilitiesEdit

Powers

Molecular Synchronization: The Tao-Yu brothers can mentally alter the synchronization of their bodies’ atoms, enabling them to merge into a single being. In their collective state, the brothers possess their combined strength, speed, endurance and intellect.

Reflective Synchronization: they also can physically transform other people into Collective Men such as themselves, which they can then merge into a giant form with significantly enhanced abilities.

Enhanced Strength
Enhanced Speed
Enhanced Endurance
Enhanced Durability
Enhanced Senses
Enhanced Intelligence: gain increased knowledge by merging, can also tap into the psychic energy of any number of individuals