Multiple Man

Template:Superherobox Multiple Man is a fictional character, a mutant superhero in the Marvel Universe and a former member of X-Factor. His real name is James (“Jamie”) Madrox. He first appeared in Giant-Size Fantastic Four #4.

Character Biography

Jamie was born to a family living near the Los Alamos research facility; the background radiation may have induced his mutation. When Jamie was born, the doctor’s slap caused him to multiply into two identical babies, which was rather a surprise to his parents and the doctor. Professor Charles Xavier suggested that the Madroxes move to Kansas and raise the boy in privacy. His father created a suit for him to wear which would absorb kinetic energy, the presumed source of the duplication. When Jamie was 15, his parents were killed by a tornado, and for the next few years he ran the farm by himself until his suit one day malfunctioned. He ran for help to New York City, where he met Mister Fantastic of the Fantastic Four. Mister Fantastic helped him with the suit and informed Professor Xavier of the dilemma.

Jamie was invited to join the X Men, but he declined. Instead, he moved to Muir Island to assist Dr. Moira MacTaggert with her research. He was a member of X-Factor when the group was under Val Cooper's control. However, during a battle with the would-be savior Haven, Madrox was apparently killed as a result the Legacy Virus. Unknown to all, it was a duplicate who had been infected and died; the real Madrox lived, amnesiac. Although he did not rejoin X-Factor, he did regain his memory and returned to the superheroic life.

For a time, he served as the majority staff for Banshee's X-Corps (who also paid ex-criminals for their service) whose responsibility was to police other mutants who got out of line. As the advisor, the pilots, the surveilance, the grunt laborers... Heck. probably the custodians and the concession stand operators, he was vital on the early successes of the organization. Unfortunately things turned sour when a number of the members began rebelling and a number of Madrox's dupes were controlled by Mastermind II to help destroy Paris. Ultimately, he was able to regain control of them, but the memory left him with deep guilt.

A Madrox miniseries began in 2004, written by Peter David, who had previously written the character in X-Factor. It shows Madrox working as a private detective in the "Mutant Town" area of New York. It also reveals that he has sent "dupes" out to lead alternate lives, including one who spent years as a Buddhist monk; this has allowed him to gain years of unexplained expertise in certain martial arts.

Powers and abilities

Jamie’s power is the ability to create duplicates of himself at will through an unknown process whenever he is struck, or even when he snaps his fingers or stamps his foot. Each of the duplicates is completely capable of independent thought and can create duplicates of himself. The original Madrox can absorb them back into himself at will, at the same time absorbing the memories, skills and experiences of the duplicate. The dupe usually appears to his side, or often near a focused area, such as a finger.

During his brief time with X-Factor, the number of duplicates was probably around 40, but have grown far larger since then. Duplicates have independent minds from the original, but are usually willing to merge back as they don't necessarily see it as death. However, there have been exceptions where duplicates had wished for independence completely.

When Madrox merges back, he retains memories (albeit somewhat imperfect), knowledge, and experiences of the dupe. He also uses merging as a form of healing - Originally, uninjured Madri "shared" the damage when they remerged (e.g., if an injured Madrox merged with an uninjured Madrox, the resulting Madrox had an injury half as severe as the original injury). Now, however, the core Madrox can reabsorb injured or even near-dead dupes without taking on any of their physical injuries at all.

Alternate versions

In the Ultimate Marvel universe, Madrox is a member of the Brotherhood. In the Age of Apocalypse, his duplicates became Apocalypse's soldiers, the Madri.

The animated series X-Men: Evolution features Multiple Man (under the name Multiple) as a member of a "junior team" of X-Men, roughly equating to the New Mutants. The reason for the name change was that, being a kid (assumed to be the youngest in the Evolution version of The New Mutants), he was far from being a Multiple "Man" in this instance.