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Victor Borkowski (Earth-616)

From Marvel Database

Character Template Help
Real Name
Current Alias

Identity

Alignment

Affiliation

Relatives
Unidentified parents

Universe

Base Of Operations

Characteristics
Gender

Height


Eyes

Hair
No Hair,
Formerly brown

Skin

Unusual Features
Spiked carapace instead of hair.

Status
Citizenship

Marital Status

Occupation
Student

Education
Currently in high school level classes

Origin
Origin

Place of Birth


Contents

History

Victor is a sixteen-year-old mutant. Born and raised in Fairbury, Illinois, he lived a normal life despite his reptilian features. The close-knit community accepted the boy for who he was until anti-mutant sentiment began to spread. For his own safety, his parents sent him to the Xavier Institute where he quickly excelled academically.

Anole as a New X-Men

When the adviser system was set up at the Xavier Institute, Victor chose Karma as his adviser. However, during the formation of training squads throughout the school, he was reassigned to Northstar's Alpha Squadron. At first, he was quite friendly with Hellion and the other Hellions, but he became closer to his teammates. He was especially close to Northstar and was deeply affected by his death. (He, like most of the students, was unaware of Northstar's resurrection until Northstar was sent by Serafina to kill the X-Men). Victor was gay, and Northstar helped him to come to terms with his sexuality. It is uncertain whether or not he came out to the rest of the school. Victor's chosen foreign language is French.

Anole was one of only 27 students at the Institute who didn't lose his mutant powers in the event known as M-Day. The squad system was dissolved, and the remaining students were merged into one group. Shortly afterwards, Emma Frost set up an all-out brawl amongst the remaining students to determine who would become the team of X-Men trainees; Victor was not selected, yet still resided and trained at the Institute.

When Northstar attacked the Institute, Anole found him and was able to temporarily snap him out of the mind control set in place by the Children of the Vault. However, Victor's joy at seeing his former mentor was short-lived, as Jean-Paul returned to his mind-controlled status and viciously beat him.

Victor is seen with many of the other "supporting cast" of students and Rockslide telling scary stories. Santo later outed Victor as gay to some of the other students, though Loa was already aware and said that everyone already knew. Later all the students started listening to a tale Blindfold was making up for them. Soon they realized that her story wasn't make-believe, and she apologized just before the group was sucked down into the dimension of Limbo. They were attacked by a large group of demons, and Victor argued with Rockslide, saying that he was supposed to lead them, since he was a "New X-Man". When Rockslide was mysteriously shattered, Victor attempted to take charge, rallying the students around the defenseless Blindfold, only to have his right arm severed at the shoulder by a demon. He wondered why he wasn't dead from losing too much blood and why it didn't hurt. Anole now had a huge reptilian arm that replaced the one he had lost. It seemed his mutation also endowed him with the ability to recover limbs, though they emerged as more completely mutated/reptilian versions of the originals. The arm itself was spiky, resembling his scalp, with razor sharp claws and appeared to be immensely powerful. After defeating Belasco, Anole and Pixie were made members of the New X-Men squad on recommendation of Rockslide, who threatened to quit if they weren't appointed.

Anole

Victor was later seen playing pool while Rockslide and X-23 tried to convince him to cut off his other arm. When he refused Rockslide called him a sissy. Anole got offended and pushed him out the window while Rockslide proclaimed, "I swear I didn't know! Don't be so sensitive!" After Rockslide refused to blow himself up Anole called him a sissy to get him to do it. He then offered to try and blow up Santo himself.

During Messiah Complex, Professor Xavier detected the first mutant birth since Decimation. Realizing the importance of the child, and that others may seek to harm or kill the baby, the X-Men went to its birthplace to protect it. The X-Men found the town destroyed by the Purifiers, who abhor the child as the anti-Christ prophesied by Nimrod/the late Reverend William Stryker and sought to kill the baby. Upon discovery that the child was not dead, but missing, the X-Men divided into teams to search for it. Some of the New X-Men and Armor decided to launch a pre-emptive strike against the Purifers to see if they had the baby, as well as to seek revenge for their murdered classmates. Anole snuck into the base using his camouflage powers and while he checked the Purifers' computers, Rictor, who was undercover, confronted him. They were ambushed by the Reavers, who mortally wounded Hellion in the fight. Pixie managed to teleport the team out and they were spread between Washington and the Institute. It's currently unknown if he suffered any injuries.

In Divided We Stand, Victor received a warm welcome from the citizens of his hometown, stating "The town practically threw me a parade." Northstar, contacted by Cyclops, found Anole, who went into hiding after he accidentally attacked his own father. Northstar discovered Anole on a tree limb beside a tree house, the teenager not too happy to see his former mentor. At first, Jean-Paul made jokes, thinking Victor was having a problem with fitting in, as both a mutant and as a gay teen. Victor explains that his town accepted him for who he was - his problems came from Northstar, along with the other X-Men, for stealing the New X-Men's innocence. He told Northstar that they should have been playing video games and going on dates, "...not fighting the Devil!" Victor placed a lizard-like stuffed animal at the base of the tree with a note reading "Mom and Dad. I'm sorry and I love you. Victor." He told Northstar that his parents would look for him at the tree house first once they began searching for him, and he called the tree house his own X-Mansion. Just before Anole departed, he elbowed Jean-Paul in the face - similar to how Northstar attacked him in the past - and told him to tell all of the former X-Men not to come looking for him.

Despite telling off Northstar, Victor answered the call of Cyclops and joins the X-men in San Francisco as he was mentioned in the Secret Invasion and also joined the Young X-men at the request of Dani Moonstar.

Anole was an instrumental member of the X-men in combating the Skrull invasion of San Francisco by using his ability to camouflage.

In addition, Anole was a member of the Young X-men team and assisted Greymalkin into coming to terms with his sexuality, which led him to be buried for 200 years by his bigoted father.

Powers and Abilities

Powers

Anole-like Physiology:

Anole's new arm
  • Spiked Carapace on Head
  • Enhanced Agility
  • Long Elastic Tongue: incredibly long tongue (apparently longer than his own body length) which he is capable of rapidly and abruptly extending out of the mouth. The tongue has a sticky tip on the end, which serves to catch anything that he would otherwise never be able to reach.
  • Scales
  • Wall-crawling
  • Camouflage
  • Reptilian Regenerative properties

    Abilities

Skilled Team Leader, Talented Actor.

Notes

Anole camouflaging
  • Despite only rare appearances, Anole seems to have developed quite a fan following and has been the student outside of the New Mutants and Hellions squads to be featured regularly. It is unclear what direction Anole's character will take under the new creative staff, but he appeared in New X-Men #21 alongside the regular cast members.

Trivia

  • In the New X-Men: Yearbook Special #1 it's listed he likes theater, Frisbee and basketball and dislikes traditions and bad action movies. He was voted Best Actor by the student body.
  • Anole was supposed to commit suicide in a jettisoned New Mutants storyline. Writers have been trying to figure out what to do with him next, despite him having become one of their (and many fans') favorites.
  • It was clearly implied through dialogue that Victor was gay, and his sexual orientation was confirmed by the writers online and was recently reaffirmed in The X-Men: 198 Files.
  • One reason why he may not have taken the name "Chameleon" is because there is a Spider-man villain of the same name.

Links

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