Art by Simone Bianchi and Simone Peruzzi
- Name: Nathaniel Grey
- Code Names: X-Man
- First Appearance: X-Man #1 (Mar ‘95)
- Powers: Omega Level Psi-Abilities
- Teams Affiliation: New Mutants
About
When writing any story there is an old adage “Show Don’t Tell”. What it comes down to is that audiences should be able to form their own opinion of a character based on what that character does, not from what people say about that character. If the writer wants to show a character as evil you can’t just say “he is a bad man” you need to provide evidence as to why. This comes up a lot in the origins of the “Mary Sue” trope (Warning: links to TV Tropes, if you want to have a productive day do not click). Many inexperienced writers will try and justify their character by having other, more established character talk about how great they are but not giving the audience enough of a reason to come up with that point of view themselves. Nate Grey was said to be the most powerful mutant alive, the Shaman of the mutant tribe, and good enough to be called X-Man. Writers never showed why he was worthy of all these accolades and that has made him one of the most divisive characters in the history of the X-Men.
X-Man has his roots in the enormous 1995 crossover, Age of Apocalypse. During the event the massive X-Men line of books was put on a four month break and replaced by different titles set in an alternate reality ruled by Apocalypse. Wolverine became Weapon X, Uncanny X-Men became Amazing X-Men, and Cable became X-Man. Written by Jeph Loeb and drawn by Steve Skroce, X-Man introduced a new hero, Nate Grey, a test tube baby formed from the genetic material of that Earth’s Scott Summers and Jean Grey. Mr. Sinister created the child to be the most powerful mutant ever, with the intent of using him to overthrow Apocalypse. Nate was rescued from Sinister’s pens by Sinister’s top lieutenants, Cyclops, and eventually fell in with Forge and a band of traveling mutants. Years past and Forge had helped raise the boy well, teaching him right and wrong as Nate became more discontent with the world under Apocalypse.
Art by Steve Skorce, Mike Thomas, and one of 4 inkers
A wanderer named Essex joined their caravan and began sowing dissent. He killed Forge and Nate went wild and confronted Essex. Essex told the mutant to read his mind and Nate was shocked to see his life, past, present, and intended future. Essex was a disguised Sinister and did all this for Nate to embrace his destiny and destroy Apocalypse. Leaving his creator for dead his flew off to face Apocalypse, he was locked in battle with one of the Horsemen of Apocalypse, Holocaust, when a white light shone across the horizon. Shoving a shard of the M’Kraan crystal into Holocaust, the Age of Apocalypse seemed to fade into nothing. The X-Men, in their own book, had succeeded at destroying the reality. With his hands gripped around the M’Kraan crystal, Nate closed his eyes and prepared to dissipate into the cold, dead world.
Art by Steve Skorce, Mike Thomas, and one of 4 inkers
When they opened, Nate’s eyes saw something very different than the world he once knew. He called out to his mother, or what he though was his mother, and soon crossed paths with an amnesiac Madelyne Pryor. Maddie helped Nate learn where he was and helped adjust him to this new reality. He then began a cross county tour of the X-Men Universe, crossing paths with Sinister, Rogue, and even Excalibur. He began working with the former prisoner of Sinister, Threnody, and did as he had in the Age of Apocalypse, he wandered. He met and fought with his genetic twin, Cable, who realized that this was him with a chance to be everything Nathaniel Summers was supposed have been. He eventually connected with his genetic parents and there was a begrudging respect. When he was captured by Apocalypse during The Twelve, Cyclops merged with Apocalypse and seemingly died rather than see his “son” be used.
Art by Ian Churchill, Scott Hanna, and Mike Thomas
Nate soon met back up with Maddie, well a Maddie. The version was actually an evil alternate universe Jean Grey who had been tracking Nate Greys across the multiverse to weaponize. Nate teamed up with his counterpart from Maddie’s Earth to stop her and the two swapped bodies to stop her. The alternate universe Nate was killed in the battle but his memory lived on, in his honor Nate Grey finally had purpose, he would become the Shaman to the mutant tribe. In this role he finally began to live up to his name and X-Man went across the globe protecting mutants from those who would take advantage of them. When an alien named the Harvester threatened to destroy the Earth, Nate selflessly exhausted all of his power to dissipate his and the Harvesters energy across the world and into every living soul. The Shaman was now truly a part of each member of his tribe.
Art by Quique Alcatena
Years later Norman Osborn sent his Dark X-Men to investigate a strange occurrence in a small town. The residents nearly walked off a cliff in a trace like state chanting “I Am X-Man”. Interviewing one of the townsmen in a hospital something unexpected began to happen. A figure began to incorporate out of thin air, trying to find his way home, the Shaman of mutantkind pulled himself together if for but a moment. The leader of the Dark X-Men, Mystique, reported this back to Osborn and used H.A.M.M.E.R.’s psychic hive mind to track X-Man down. As they reached out to Nate he surprised them all by supercharging himself on the psychic energy. He reincorporated himself in front of Osborn’s headquarters and charged in to battle the Dark Avengers, revealing that he and Sentry had been partners somewhere in Bob’s forgotten past. He amazed those assembled with his godlike powers and it looked as if none could stop him. None except a god. Ares, the god of War stepped up and killed X-Man.
Art by Leonard Kirk and Brian Reber
Mystique went to visit Osborn and put her cards on the table. She knew he wasn’t alone in his brain, Nate Grey had made residence there. He worked to destroy Osborn from the inside out but the combined strength of Mimic and Weapon Omega was enough to temporarily remove X-Man’s powers. Osborn strapped Nate down and wheeled him off to be the power source for his Omega Machine.
Scott Summers decided that it was time to clean up old business and set Dani Moonstar and her team of New Mutants on a rescue mission. Their goal, infiltrate a defunct H.A.M.M.E.R. and rescue Nate Grey. His fellow Age of Apocalypse refugee Sugar Man had taken Nate, still trapped in the Omega Machine, and was using him to open a portal home. The New Mutants were able to defeat Sugar Man at the cost but because he had been trapped for so long, X-Man had lost the majority of his powers, leaving him only with low level telekinesis. He joined the New Mutants in Utopia and became a sparring partner with Hope Summers, the adopted daughter of Cable. He followed Dani after the Schism to a house in San Francisco with the rest of the New Mutants and eventually, he and Dani began a romantic relationship. Nothing is known of what Nate has been up to in recent years but it can be assured that the Shaman will one day return to his tribe.
Art by Marko Djurdjevic
Must Read
Just like the character is better in concept than execution, almost every elevator pitch with Nate is better than the comic it birthed. From that I want to judge the must reads based on the concept and few books reinvented themselves with a better concept than Warren Ellis had with X-Man, Shaman of mutantkind. Ellis, as always, had a fabulous pitch that writer Steven Grant (not the Moon Knight identity) ran with. It took a very generic superhero and gave him an angle that made him unique. Sure it ended up being just a Superman character dealing with global threats but it felt different, almost cult like. The run is poorly collected, the first seven issues are collected in Counter X Volume 3 and only the first (#63) is available on Marvel Unlimited.
Art by Ariel Olivetti
Ranking
Look, I know that Nate was requested by a ton of people and he has his fans but I don’t think he is a good character at all. Even at his best he acted like a second rate, cookie cutter, Warren Ellis competence porn character. And at his worst he has all the qualities of an author-insert character who would have never lasted those #75 issues if he didn’t have the letter X in his name. His appearance in New Mutants signaled the decline of the quality in that book and his chapters in Age of Apocalypse are the most tedious the get through. I understand the appeal, the Shaman look is a fantastic character design, the concept of Cable without the power restriction is interesting, and the ties to Age of Apocalypse and the Summer’s family tree are very appealing to a fan. The problem is with as much material as there is for the guy, you have to dig through a ton of rough to get to the diamonds. Nate could be an interesting character in the future but for now he is will be sitting right above the X-Cutioner as number 19 in the Xavier Files.
X-Man was requested by several annons from tumblr, /u/LettuceLeif, /u/VLDT, and, /u/dohheyhithere. Thanks for the request and sorry that I hate it all so much! If YOU have a character you want me to do, leave a comment and I’ll get it added to the list.
Make sure to check out our interview with X-Men ’92 writers Chris Sims and Chad Bowers for more 90’s X-Men awesomeness. Issue #1 comes out in two weeks.
If you liked what you read be sure to subscribe to the tumblr so you never miss an update. You can also follow me on twitter@Xavierfiles where I throw out my thoughts about the X-Books that come out each week. That’s also where I harass Cullen Bunn and Dennis Hopeless about getting Maggott back into the X-Men books, join in on that fun with #BringBackMaggott! Or like the Facebook page!
Next week we meet the master of the hot knives and I get mad at Warren Ellis for doing a self-insert well. We got some Pete Wisdom coming your way. See you then.
Zachary Jenkins co-hosts the podcast Battle of the Atom and is the former editor-in-chief of ComicsXF. Shocking everyone, he has a full and vibrant life outside all this.
