History
Little is known of the life of the woman known as Sage except that she had lived in a small village in the Balkan region of Europe whilst still a young girl, and that she had spent time in a harem under unknown circumstances. Just prior to her teenage years, Sage found herself immensely caught up in the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. She was forced to learn to fight to survive encounters with both soldiers and local bandits, and took weapons and equipment from the bodies of fallen combatants wherever she finds them. One day, Sage felt herself compelled to enter a cave in the nearby Hindu Kush mountain range. There, she found the powerful telepathic mutant named Charles Xavier, who had been trapped under a massive stone block by the alien being named Lucifer. Initially wary of him, Sage rescued the critically injured mutant but soon after they encountered a United Nations aid convoy being attacked by bandits. Sage drove off the attackers and then avenged the death of one young U.N. worker by brutally murdering the bandit that had raped and killed her.[1]
Hellfire Club
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Tessa in her Hellfire Club outfit
Years later, Xavier recruited Sage at the same time that he formed his original team of teenage mutant students he called the X-Men. Xavier kept Sage's presence at his mansion a secret as he intended to utilize her own mutant talents as a spy in his fight for peaceful coexistence between mutants and humans. Sage's first mission was to infiltrate the organization for the rich and powerful known as the Hellfire Club and to gain the trust of Sebastian Shaw, leader of the Club's Inner Circle at its New York branch. For years, Sage acted as Shaw's familiar, advising and counseling him in both his legitimate and illegal business practices, all the while gathering information for Xavier. Shaw found Sage's ability to function as a living computer invaluable and kept her in his employ for many years, even during the time he was deposed as leader of the Club.
Early in Sage’s time with the Club, its renegade White Bishop, Donald Pierce, attempted a coup of the Club's leadership. Pierce kidnapped Sage, believing that without her Shaw's position could more easily be compromised. She was rescued by Xavier and his team of New Mutants and, upon her return to the Club, Pierce was expelled.
Later, Sage ran afoul of one of the Club’s regular and valued patrons, a reclusive billionaire named Elias Bogan. Shaw had made a wager with Bogan during a game of cards whereupon if Shaw lost, Bogan would win the Club's then-White Queen, the telepathic mutant Emma Frost. Bogan had never lost a game before, but with Sage’s help Shaw won the bet.
Bogan honored the wager, but knew who was truly responsible for his defeat and exacted his revenge on Sage, capturing her and branding her face with facial tattoos. Rescued by the X-Man Storm, Sage soon affiliated herself with the X-Men, acting as part of their support crew. In order to shield herself from detection by Bogan, Sage consciously shut down her telepathic abilities, relying solely on her computer-like mind to assist her new teammates.
When Senator Robert Kelly announced his intention to run for the Presidency on an anti-mutant platform, Sage met with him to persuade him otherwise by convincing him that his actions were no different to those of the mutant terrorist Magneto. Kelly was not so easily swayed, however, and it wasn't until a mutant sacrificed his life to save Kelly that he realized his folly.
X-Men
Storm soon recruited her into a splinter group of X-Treme X-Men who set out to search for the diaries of the blind mutant seer named Destiny that predicted the future of mutantkind. On the new team's first mission, Sage was instrumental in saving the life of her teammate the Beast after an encounter with the self-professed enhanced human named Vargas. Sage used a heretofore-unseen ability to advance the Beast's evolution to its next stage, healing him of his injuries and activating his latent Secondary Mutation.
Sage
Eventually learning of Sage's deception, Shaw allied himself with Lady Mastermind, the daughter of former Hellfire Club member Mastermind (Jason Wyngarde), to exact revenge on his former assistant. Lady Mastermind trapped Sage in a convincing illusion, making her believe that she was once again Shaw's assistant back in the Hellfire Club. Sage was freed thanks to the efforts of Heather Cameron, an Australian mutant with the ability to manifest various super-human powers depending on what the current situation called for, and the X-Men defeated Shaw once more.
Sage later catalyzed the latent mutant powers of Heather’s brother Davis, who subsequently joined the X-Treme X-Men as Slipstream, as well as evolving her teammate Rogue's mutant ability to grant her control over the manifestation of the powers and abilities she has absorbed over the years.
Sage often used her computer-like mind to assist her teammate Bishop in his activities as a homicide detective, such as when they were called upon to investigate the attempted murder of Emma Frost, now a member of the X-Men and an instructor at Xavier’s school.
Later, when the X-Treme team encountered Elias Bogan once more after a murder at his Alaskan estate, Sage and Bishop were called in to investigate. A young mutant named Jeffrey Garrett was wanted for questioning after Bogan had his family killed and, in retaliation, he teleported Bogan's associates onto the nearby glacier where they froze to death. Garrett fled to the Xavier Institute where he came under the protection of Frost. However, Bogan had secretly possessed the young boy and when Frost scanned his mind, Bogan took possession of her. Sage and Bishop followed the trail to the mansion where Bogan captured them, but the timely arrival of Storm allowed them to escape and defeat the villain.
Bogan returned to plague the X-Treme X-Men soon after when he captured and mentally enslaved Bishop, hoping to use him as a weapon against his teammates. With the aid of several of their former allies the X-Men were able to rescue Bishop, which allowed Sage to defeat Bogan once and for all.
Sage then accompanied her teammates back to New York to assist in the rebuilding of the mansion following an attack by Magneto, after which they rejoined the core X-Men team. Sage remained with Storm's team, which were now called the X.S.E. (X-Treme Sanctions Executive), who operated as international government-approved team, with full authority on mutant situations around the globe. Sage operated a computer system that monitored the team's activities and analyze relevant data.
When the X-Men were attacked by The Fury, it infected Sage with nanites through the glasses she used to keep in contact with her teammates. Taken over by the Fury, Sage proved a formidable threat to her fellow X-Men until they were able to damage the connection established through the glasses and free Sage from the mind control. Sage formulated a plan to use the team's powers to help Rachel Summers create a miniature black hole effect, which finally defeated the Fury.
When Sage learned that Sebastian Shaw was reforming the Hellfire Club with the help of Viper and Courtney Ross (actually Sat-yr-9), she manipulated the X-Men into a conflict with the Hellfire Club. With Shaw ousted, Sage maneuvered Shaw's recent recruit Sunspot into the position of Lord Cardinal of the Hellfire Club. Sage left the X-Men to stay and keep an eye on Sunspot to make sure he was not corrupted by power, as Sebastian was.
New Excalibur
Sage as "Diana Fox" aka Britannia.
Sage later mysteriously left the Hellfire Club and traveled to England to join a new incarnation of the British super-team Excalibur, alongside fellow X-Men Dazzler and the then-reformed Juggernaut. She helped them on various missions such as battling the Shadow King and returning to ancient Camelot to prevent it from being prematurely destroyed. Sage also played a key role in teammate Nocturne's recovery from a debilitating stroke.
In order to learn more about a new foe, Albion, and thwart his attempt to conquer Britain, Sage created the new cover identity and persona of Diana Fox. This persona appeared to be fully devoted to Albion and his goals. Despite the concerns of Pete Wisdom, her infiltration was a success and she quickly gained seniority among Albion's Shadow Captains, as "Britannia", in doing so making a rival of Lionheart. Sage was given a special suit as a member of Albion's army, which gave her flight and super-human physical strength. Eventually Sage was overcome by her own assumed identity, allowing the Diana Fox persona to dominate and becoming fully committed to Albion. During this time, she slew two of Excalibur's erstwhile allies in Shadow-X, Dark Cyclops and Dark Beast. Finally a confrontation with her teammates in Excalibur helped Sage's original personality reassert itself. Together with Excalibur, Shadow-X, and Lionheart, Sage defeated Albion and his Shadow Captains.
New Exiles
Immediately after the defeat of the Shadow Captains, a party was held in honor of Excalibur. While the team enjoyed the party, Sage felt guilt for her actions. The party was suddenly crashed by Psylocke and an alternate universe Thunderbird, members of the dimension-hopping Exiles team. They were then attacked by Rouge-Mort and drawn into a battle to save the multiverse from Merlin and Sage's old foe The Fury. Joining forces with the rest of the Exiles, Roma and the Captain Britain Corps, the team defeated Merlin, but not before he managed to kill Roma. Prior to her death, Roma managed to transfer all of her knowledge about the multiverse into Sage's mind. Sage was overwhelmed and she feared for her sanity. Fearful of what would happen if someone on Earth ever gained the knowledge in her mind, Sage joined the Exiles. The knowledge imparted to her by Roma caused her to suffer from hallucinations, as well as a reemergence of the Diana Fox persona, attempting to take control of her again. Sage fought these, staying in the Panoptichron rather than accompanying the other Exiles on missions. After she attempted to suppress the Diana Fox personality, and later fought and defeated it, the Diana Fox personality ultimately sacrificed itself to save Sage when she was almost killed by Merlin. Sage then saved the multiverse by merging with the Crystal Palace, becoming one with the Exiles team's computer base.
Sage later seemed to have been permanently absorbed and rendered comatose along with the rest of her Exiles team.[2]
X-Treme X-Men
Sage was apparently revived from this state, though. Referred to as "Ambassador Sage", she assumed a leadership position in the S.W.O.R.D. of an alternate reality in which sentient robots, led by Prime Minister Danger, exterminated the human population. Sage observed her old teammate Dazzler and an alternate reality Wolverine called Howlett attempting to rescue Kurt Waggoner from the robots, and rescued them in her robotic space ship.[3]
Giving away little of how she ended up in this reality, Sage nevertheless subsequently joined Dazzler's group of multiverse-hopping X-Men. She remained the pilot of their space ship as they hunt down "evil" versions of Charles Xavier. At Dazzler's request, Sage also began to utilize her telepathic powers once again.[4] When the sorcerer Lord Xavier possessed the team's own "Disembodied Xavier Head" and resurrected "Nazi Xavier", he then proceeded to open up a multidimensional rift that allowed the Exterminators to escape their prison.[5] As the team attempted to deal with this threat they were joined by teams from other realities, and Sage and Dazzler were reunited with some of their former colleagues, including Wolverine and Gambit. Sage was teleported back to her home reality, where she interfaced with the "black box" of the Dreaming Celestial, and uncovered the Exterminators' lost history. In doing so she also ascertained that the only way to defeat them was once again to imprison them, in an inescapable reality.[6] When this was accomplished, Sage was left in her home reality with her fellow X-Men.[7]Attributes
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Powers
Sage
Cyberpathy (Computer Brain): Sage is a mutant with astonishing advanced intellectual capabilities forged from a mind that works in the same way as an computer would. Her cyberpathic abilities allow her to have abilities that branch off into several other mutational powers.
- Kinetic Memory: Her mind works in the same way as a computer with unlimited storage capacity, only much faster. She is able to perform several mental functions at once without losing focus on any of them. Also, it allows her to instantly recall specific information with incredible speed and accuracy. She's able to store everything that she experiences in a photographic memory and retrieve it immediately without the typical human pause for thought. The sheer speed of her thoughts lead into augmenting her analytic ability so that she is able to make snap decisions about her surroundings and create complex scenarios at that same speed. As such, Sage is able to track the probability of an event by piecing together stored data.
- Multitasking: Tessa is able to perform multiple tasks at once by allocating a partition of her brain to each task. For example, Sage can use her mind to replay a movie she had watched previously, play a game of internet chess, and focus on battling an opponent without any one task distracting her from another.
Biokinesis:
- Genetic Sight: Tessa is capable of 'seeing' a person's genetic code, reading complex DNA sequences for latent and manifested mutations, thereby allowing her to sense mutants and, in many cases, understand how their powers work more thoroughly than they themselves do.
- Jump-start: After analyzing the DNA of another superhuman mutant, Sage is able to selectively unleash latent mutant powers, evolve existing mutation powers as to enhance them or beneficially modify existing mutations in other people. Once begun, the procedure is irreversible and can often result in unpredictable side effects.
- X-Factor Sense: She has the ability to sense the presence of the mutant gene in others who are in close proximity to herself.
Telepathy: Trained by Xavier, himself, Sage learned a great degree of telepathic talents which include reading and projection thoughts, send out her astral form, cast illusions, psionic defense and manipulating the minds others.
- Firewall: Sage is capable of creating her own unique cyberpathic-telepathic protection against other mental abilities. By erecting a psionic "firewall" Sage is able effectively protect herself from mental attacks, probes and detection of the mental variety while creating a defensive force that reflects any offensive mental action back at her attacker. Though by consciously closing off her mind by using this psionic feat Sage inadvertently shutting down her own telepathic abilities.
Abilities
- Super-Genius Intelligence: Thanks to her computer mind she is considered one of the smartest people on the planet.[8]
- Master Martial Artist: Sage is skilled in the martial arts, and is a formidable hand-to-hand combatant thanks to her having complete conscious control over her own body.[citation needed]
- Weapons Expert: Sage is also self-taught in a wide range of firearms, which she can use with considerable skill and accuracy. She is also exceedingly smart.[citation needed]
Paraphernalia
Equipment
Weapons
Notes
- Sage has a pressure point on her body the allows her to reboot her mind like a computer.[9]
- There is often a misconception that Sage is able to control computers with her mind (cyberpathy), or that she is a cyborg. Neither is the case. Sage must interact with computers in a normal fashion, or through her virtual-reality glasses. Though she has been referred to as a cyberpath at times,[citation needed] this refers to her mental processing abilities and not control of computers. Though she possesses computer or machine like attributes, these abilities are all functions of her mutant powers. Sage is fully human (or mutant) without any cybernetic enhancements.
See Also
- 265 appearance(s) of Sage (Earth-616)
- 9 appearance(s) in handbook(s) of Sage (Earth-616)
- 14 minor appearance(s) of Sage (Earth-616)
- 33 mention(s) of Sage (Earth-616)
- 5 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Sage (Earth-616)
- 161 image(s) of Sage (Earth-616)
- 22 quotation(s) by or about Sage (Earth-616)
- 2 victim(s) killed by Sage (Earth-616)
- 1 item(s) used/owned by Sage (Earth-616)
Links and References
References
- ↑ X-Treme X-Men #44
- ↑ Exiles (Vol. 2) #6
- ↑ X-Treme X-Men (Vol. 2) #7
- ↑ X-Treme X-Men (Vol. 2) #7.1
- ↑ X-Treme X-Men (Vol. 2) #12
- ↑ Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3) #61
- ↑ X-Termination #2
- ↑ Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #9
- ↑ New X-Men #140
- ↑ Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z Vol 1 9