Nate Grey is an adolescent who is unprepared physically, mentally and emotionally to contain such devastating power. A power, if corrupted, that could consume him utterly, as well as all around him.
When Legion, the mentally unbalanced mutant son of Professor Charles Xavier and Gabrielle Haller, traveled back in time in an attempt to kill Magneto, he accidentally killed Xavier instead, creating a splinter universe known as the Age of Apocalypse. In that reality, mutants became the dominant species of the planet. Apocalypse rose to power enslaved humanity.
Sinister, an underling of the High Lord Apocalypse, artificially created Nate from genetic material from Cyclops and Jean Grey. Sinister created Nate as the ultimate telepath and telekinetic, and hoped to use him in his own bid for power against Apocalypse[1]. Nate aged to his teens rapidly.
Cyclops, in his many subversive raids on Sinister's pens, helped Nate escape Sinster's hideout with neither man knowing his connection to the other. Nate wound up under the tutelage of Forge and several other mutant outcasts who, disguised as a theatre troupe, tried to help humans.
Forge became a father figure to young Nate. Forge began the long process of teaching Nate how to control his powers as well as the benefits of being a "good guy." Nate was cautioned about using his powers indiscriminately as it could allow Apocalypse to learn of his existence. Forge also warned Nate the his powers could one day ultimately burn him out.
When Forge and his Outcasts stopped a train leading humans to a culling, Nate disobeyed Forge's orders and helped out. He saved a young mutant girl, Sonique. Nate convinced Forge to allow her to join them[2]. Later, they came across the wandering traveler Essex, who was really Sinister following Nate's progress in disguise. Essex encouraged Nate rebel against Forge's teachings and to use his powers. Essex convinced the Outcasts to investigate one of Apocalypse's factories which Nate destroyed[3].
The use of his powers alerted Apocalypse of his presence and he sent his minion Domino to either recruit Nate or kill him. Dominio and her team tracked Nate and his friends and killed most of them. Nate used his powers to wipe Domino's mind. However, he was too late to stop Essex from slaying Forge[4] Sinister revealed himself to be Essex. After learning Sinister's true evil nature Nate seeming killed him[5].
Still, Essex successfully convinced Nate to battle Apocalypse. Nate kissed Sonique goodbye and flew to Apocalypse's citidel in Manhattan. There, Nate met his genetic parents, Scott Summers and Jean Grey. Nate and Jean instantly recognized that there was a bond between them due to their telepathy. Scott and Jean were leading a break-out of the slave pens and Nate hoped to catch up with them after he had eliminated Apocalypse.
Nate made his move when the X-Men were waging their final desperate attempt to repair their unbalanced reality with the M'Kraan Crystal. In the final battle, Nate rescued Magneto, who recognized him a the boy Forge had once promised to send him one day. Nate battled Apocalypse's son Holocaust. Nate impaled Holocaust with a shard of the crystal. The resulting impact caused both of them to be shunted to the Earth-616 universe[6]
Nate fell like a meteor in the Alps in Switzerland and his falling caused a powerful psi-wave, which affected telepaths like Charles Xavier, Jean Grey and Psylocke and also was noticed by Blaquesmith.[7] He unconsciously resurrected Madelyne Pryor, a clone of Jean Grey, in his subconscious attempt to reach out to his "mother." Pryor helped Nate adjust to this reality, but they were both separated soon after when she was lured away from Nate by Selene.
Nate began to find himself with the help of Sinister's old underling, Threnody and took refuge in New York. He believed Threnody to be dead, and also took up a firm friendship with Spider-Man.
When Zero Tolerance troops attacked Xavier’s mansion in Westchester and downloaded Cerebro’s files, Nate was telepathically alerted by Cable that he was the only one close enough to rescue the children of Jean’s sister, Sara Grey, from the Prime Sentinels. Nate saved them and Roust and left Joey and Gailyn in the care of their grandparents, as the Sentinels were curious about the unidentified telepath and still searching for him.[14]
For the next weeks, Nate kept a low profile. One night, he went clubbing with the three girls - Jam, Bux and Marita - and many people recognized him from his performances in Central Park. Nate was asked to sing with the band and, surprisingly, he did quite well, though he never had been on stage before. However, the show was interrupted by the arrival of Jackknife, who was hunting down and killing every single person that Nate had contact with. Jackknife was actually Jack Cole, one of the many misfits belonging to the Abomination’s group. During Nate’s battle with the Abomination, he accidentally unlocked Cole’s latent psychic powers. Jack couldn’t handle himself and became psychotic, blaming Nate for the voices in his head. Nate defeated the mentally imbalanced misfit when the police arrived. They asked him to surrender, but the crowd who witnessed the battle intervened, claiming that Nate was a hero. The next day, Jam lost an arm in a motorcycle crash. When Nate, Bux and Marita visited her in the Empire State Hospital, something strange happened. After touching Nate, Dr. Marcus Arlington III developed the ability to heal and Jam's arm was restored. The miracle boosted Nate’s popularity even more and Nate was now admired by hundreds of followers like some kind of messiah.[15]
Soon after Purple Man arrived. He used his powers and a few mercenaries to destroy Nate's popularity and claiming him as a terrorist. After Nate defeated Killgrave, he erased the memory of himself amongst all New Yorkers.
Psi-Ops, Stryfe and Ness
Together with his friend, Nate first met and fought versus Psi-Ops in New York City. Grey escape to Switzerland where he met Maddie, and together they fought and defeated the Great Beasts.
Using his precognition powers Nate saw the future, where he fought this Stryfe, and destroyed the Earth. The Witness of these events was a member of the Hellbent's - Ness. Together they were able to prevent this future, and defeated Stryfe in Latveria with the assistance of Cable and Maddie.
Soon after Grey, Pryor and Ness met again the Psi-Ops, and defeated them too.
Nate travelled to London where he saved from suicide a young woman Colleen O'Shaugnessy. Newspapers called him the Second Coming, the divine Messiah, and cause of that he was attacked by Crusader. They fought and Blackwood was defeated.
Nate visited his "parents", Scott and Jean, who were at the time recuperating in Anchorage, Alaska. Together, they fought and defeated the Guardians of the M'Kraan Crystal - Modt and Jahf.
The strength of the newly forged bonds between Nate and his “parents” was shown when, soon after, as the X-Men had been disbanded, Nate (alongside Archangel, Wolverine and Cable) was one of the few people Jean and Scott called for help, as they needed to defend the new race the Mannites from the mysterious "Death".[16]
Mysterio manipulated Nate to gain control of his powers. Berkhart create "Greyville" - the illusion world where Nate has an ideal life with his mother and older brother, his mentor, girlfriend and best friends Peter and Maddie. However, Nate was able to understand that the world around is just an illusion. He destroyed Greyville, found Mysterio and locked him in his own fantasies, where Berkhart gained control of Nate's powers and ruled the Earth.
Threnody and their child
Still not knowing what happened to Threnody, Nate would have been surprised by the events in New York over the past months. Shortly after her body had been brought to the morgue, the corpse rose and Threnody walked out.[17] In her wake, several dead reanimated themselves too, following Threnody and chanting her name.[18] She made her way to the loft that she and Nate had lived in and kept track of Nate's activities through the news. Over time, her appearance slightly changed as her belly grew from pregnancy.[19] The father of her child was obviously Nate.
Soon after Nate saved Thren from armies of zombies. She told him about her death, and her killer. She explained that her powers "fed" his energy, and this was the reason why he was getting weaker every minute with her. Nate said that he loved Melody, even if it killed him, but she escape from him to take care of their child[20], which she did not tell Nate.
Shaman of the Mutant Tribe
Madelyne Pryor returned soon afterward, but she was manipulating Nate in his sleep and making him destroy things. She finally revealed that she was a "Madelyne Pryor" from another dimension and she needed him to do something for her. This "Maddie" showed Nate how to shift between parallel earths and they traveled to Earth-998. She planned use him to destroy Asia, and finally take over the world, but Nate escaped. Jean sent Mr. Scratch and the Black Knights to search for him.
Nate met his counterpart from Earth-2098, who told him that the Red Queen tried to use his powers, but failed, and began traveling to different realities, in search of the perfect weapon, a "working Nate Grey". But in all realities she found only a "defective" Nate's, until she met X-Man.
Together both Nate's went to a hidden village. X-Man, under the guidance of the Shaman, used his powers to talk with Forge, who told them the truth about the Queen Maddie. Immediately thereafter, the village was attacked by Scratch and the Black Knights. Scratch destroyed Forge's body, paralyzed X-Man, and almost strangled Shaman while the Knights killed all the villagers. Shaman used his powers to stabilize X-Man's power, gave him his X-Gene insignia and send him home to Earth-616.
Realizing that his powers now completely under his control, Nate returned to Earth-998, destroyed the Engines of God, and killed the Red Queen.
After the defeat of this evil "Queen Jean", Nate set out to make a difference in the world. Nate became immensely powerful, and had few qualms about using his power to mete out justice to his fellow mutants. He then dealt with and stopped the madman Qabiri from destroying all the worlds on the Spiral.
"Death"
As a protector of the Earth Nate confronted the Harvester, an alien from the race of "farmers", who was sent to Earth 30 years ago to prepare the planet for harvesting. His race insinuate their genetic code into all living cells on the planet at the dawn of life and patiently watched the evolution of life for millions of years. Thirty years ago they finally decided to harvest their "ripe crop". Since Nate wasn't suitable for them, he transformed his body into energy and merged himself with the Harvester. He then spread both of them over the cells of every living thing across the globe, that "poisoned" the "crop" and made it not suitable for harvesting.[21]
Return
Nate returned a few months[22] later, in a small town, where his presence caused several of the inhabitants to dreamwalk and continuously repeat "I'm an X-Man." Norman Osborn sent his team of X-Men, consisting of Mimic, Weapon Omega, Dark Beast and Mystique, to investigate and to raise public opinion. Both Mimic and Omega were overwhelmed by Nathan's energies and went on a rampage leaving Mystique and Dark Beast alone with a patient that they were examining. Shortly Nathan once more took physical form, much to Beast's shock and horror, believing Mystique to be his mother Jean Grey, since she had taken her form.
Nate angrily attacked Beast but didn't realize that Jean was actually Mystique who managed to distract him long enough in order to save Dark Beast's life. Following the incident; Osborn tasked his X-Men to hunt down and possibly capture Nate for experimentation and to feed Weapon Omega. Osborn's X-Men contacted H.A.M.M.E.R.'s PSI-division (which had taken a cult like appearance); the PSI-Division managed to contact Nate only for him to absorb most of their psychic energies and learn what had happened to the world and to the mutant race in his absence. He angrily demanded to know what Osborn's X-Men, (presumably) had done.[23]
Nate attacked Avengers Tower. After defeating Venom and incapacitating Sentry with stories of their past friendship, he battled both Osborn's Dark Avengers and Dark X-Men. He seemingly died after his defeat, but it was just a ploy to possess Norman Osborn's mind. The only one aware of the ruse was Mystique, due to her psychic defenses. She wanted Nate to free her of Osborn's control or she would reveal him to the others.[24] However, Nate intended to restore the world to the way it was. He planned on showing the X-Men that they didn't have to feel trapped on Utopia or that the Avengers could be at their former glory. However, he was fighting a hard battle against Osborn, whose will was strong enough to match his own. He also demanded that Mystique try redeeming herself. Mystique later recruited the rest of the Dark X-Men to enter and explore Osborn's mind. While fighting Osborn, he finds the Green Goblin personality buried in Osborn's mind. The battle with Nate weakened the inner defenses restraining the Green Goblin. With the Green Goblin free, Osborn was vulnerable against Nate's attacks while he fought the Green Goblin. With the Dark X-Men still in Osborn's mind and the Green Goblin free to attack Osborn and the Dark X-men, Nate's plan was coming together perfectly.
After a brief battle between the Green Goblin and the Dark X-Men, Nate was defeated when Green Goblin forced Mimic to replicate Omega's powers, turning the pair into a powerful siphon that drained Nate's energies. Now returned to the physical world, a powerless Nate was tortured in front of the Dark X-Men as an example to them, after which Norman asked him if he had any last words before he was "used as coal" in Dark Beast's Omega Machine, but a gloating Norman cut off Nate before he had a chance to finish speaking. Nate was taken away to the machine.
After the fall of Norman Osborn and H.A.M.M.E.R., many prisoners were freed, including Sugar-Man. Once Sugar-Man was freed he found unconscious X-Man connected to the Omega Machine. Sugar-Man made some modifications to the Omega Machine to use X-Man's powers to open portals to other dimensions.[25] Meanwhile, Cyclops sent a team to find him. Cypher discovered the Sugar-Man's secret base in New York, and New Mutants defeated Sugar-Man and his New Mutates, and rescued X-Man.[25] However, X-Man's powers were burnt out by the Omega Machine. He was then taken to Utopia for recovery, where Cyclops started to build a relationship with him.[26]
New Mutants
Despite his diminished powers, X-Man joined the New Mutants squad. While still dealing with the loss of his immense powers, Hope Summers and X-Man had a heart to heart conversation and training session in the Danger Room.[27]
After the Schism, Nate chose to take his father's side but didn't remain on Utopia. He went along with the New Mutants to 1128 Mission Street in San Francisco.
Residual Telekinesis: Nate only has some residual telekinesis left of his powers.[26] He can still move large boxes with exertion, but has difficulty multitasking with the telepathy.[27]
Former powers
Formerly X-Man was one of the most powerful mutants to exist and one of the most powerful beings in the Universe. He had psionic powers beyond those of any other mutant in the world, and was easily among the most powerful mutants in general. As he grew, he possessed enough power that he could destroy entire worlds if he wished.[28] His power is such that upon examination by Moira MacTaggert, she suggested his psionic powers rivaled that of a Phoenix Force-imbuedJean Grey[10][29] even at such a young age. These former powers included:
Astral Plane Tap (formerly): Ability to tap into the virtually unlimited psychic resources of the astral plane in order to manipulate matter and energy (even down to the molecular level) and up to a potentially unlimited scale.
Astral Travel (formerly): Capable of forging psi-links to travel in astral form.
Material Astral Projection (formerly): Give substance to astral energy to solidify psychic forms or forge protective psi-armor and even pull the astral projections of other telepaths into the physical world such as Charles Xavier.
Telepathy (formerly): He possessed telepathy of the first order and was unmatched by any. His telepathy proved great enough in power and scope as to allow him to read thoughts across vast distances, and even interface with multiple minds, simultaneously. His telepathy was so great that even while inexperienced and weakened, his powers enabled him to easily block and even overcome telepaths such as Charles Xavier.[8] He was even able to hide his mind from Cerebro, which is impossible for even the strongest mutants to accomplish.
Intuitive Multilingual (formerly): Capable of intuitively translating new languages.
Psychometry (formerly): Could read residual thought imprints left on objects touched by people.
Dimensional Sense (formerly): Capable of sensing dimensional rifts or anomalies.
Precognition (formerly): Nate was also a powerful precog. Once he saw the future, where he fought this Stryfe, and destroyed the Earth. But by using knowledge of the future, he was able to prevent it. Nate possibly used his precognition powers to concoct his plan against Norman Osborn. X-Man's precognition works by displacing himself into a timestream that shows every version of every future. X-Man claims he has over 300 ways to see the future. X-Man's precognition can also be considered time manipulation because he enters a different timestream.
Power Amplification (formerly): He could increase another mutants powers to incredible levels.[30]
Immense Telekinesis (formerly): Previously Nate was capable of very fine control over objects down to the molecular and even subatomic level. He could telekinetically move the chemicals in someone's brain around.[31] He could disassemble and reassemble complex devices within minutes. On larger scale, Nate could levitate great weights, but his upper limit remained undisclosed. He was able to crush the entire city of Quito in Ecuador, in just a few moments, in his sleep.[32] He was able to psionically isolate the entire planet's gravitational pull.[33] His control and power was so great and finely tuned, that instead of stopping an explosion like most telekinetics, he just curved the shockwave and shrapnel around him. He could also use his telekinesis to bend light around his body and become invisible.
Flight (formerly): By telekinetically levitating himself, he was able to fly at amazing speeds.
Force Fields (formerly): Nate was able to create protective force shields that could protect from even the most powerful of attacks. There did not appear to be any correlation between field strength and the thickness of his telekinetic fields.
Telekinetic Holograms (formerly): His mental fine motor skills were so acute that he could mentally manipulate dust particles and water vapor to refract lightwaves and create holograms.
Invisibility (formerly): Nate can telekinetically deflect light around himself, to become invisible.[34]
Concussive Blasts (formerly): Could project his telekinetic energies as powerful blast beams directed from his brains that could apparently affect matter with concussive force. His telekinetic blasts were possibly the strongest on earth, strong enough to punch through solid steel.
Intangibility (formerly): Could phase through solid matter by mentally shifting his molecules around another object's as he moves forward.
Electromagnetic Pulses (formerly): He also had creative uses of his powers such as using his telekinesis to channel the Earth's magnetic field through the electro-current of his brain and generate devastating electromagnetic pulses.
Dimensional Teleportation (formerly): X-Man even learned that he could use his telekinesis to transport himself to any location[35] and even into other dimensions[36][37] by mentally bending the dimensional barriers that separate one reality from another.
Healing (formerly): He could heal himself and others.[28]
Psionic Evolution (formerly): After becoming one with the earth, X-Man has ascended to a higher state of existence. Because of this, he could exist as pure energy and is no longer restricted by the boundaries of the physical world.
Physical Reconstitution (formerly): After his apparent death against the Anti-man, he has learned to rebuild his body by absorbing psionic energy. He used this power to regain his physical form after becoming one with the earth. Nate can also reverse the process and turn his body into pure astral energy.
Physical Possession (formerly): Along with learning to rebuild his physical form, X-Man's heightened state of existence has allowed him to convert his body into pure psychic energy and possess people. He used this power to possess Norman Osborne. While possessing someone, he can also explore their mind from the inside. It is possible that if he possesses a mutant, he can use their powers along with his own.
Pseudo-Vampirism (formerly): Nate somehow was infected by Morbius, and has been transformed into a being similar to a vampire.[38] In this form he had red eyes, fangs and claws, and possibly possessed other vampiric powers like Morbius. Nate eventually cured himself of his vampirism, though how he was able to do this is unknown. According to Spider-Man, Nate either isolated and destroyed the vampirism virus with his telekinesis or just learned to live with it.
Phoenix Force (potential avatar): According to the Shi'ar the carriers of the Grey Genome, as well as Omega Level Mutants and telepaths, all have the potential to bond with the Phoenix Force. Nate satisfies all three criteria, that makes him a possible Phoenix Avatar. His former strength was also comparable to the Phoenix[10][29][39], and he was once surrounded by an aura similar to the Phoenix raptor.[40]
Nate Grey possessed the normal human strength of a man his age, height, and build who engages in moderate regular exercise.
When using telekinesis he was able to lift incredible amounts of weight.[43]
Weaknesses
Nate was originally designed so his powers would kill him when he completed his task of destroying the world. Because of this, his powers were slowly destroying him. After receiving the genetic brand, his powers stabilized.
X-Man, Blink and Morph were originally supposed to be a team of X-Men by themselves, but it was later changed, and therefore never followed upon. Soon the series Exiles was created, and X-Man continued instead.[44]