[Supers] GURPS Unofficial Handbook to the Marvel Universe, Reboot Edition

[Otaku]

Might have another idea for you, Phantasm. Though mostly, I just realized something about one of my favorite mutant characters back in the day, and both the story and practical uses for him that were missed. So, if you'll indulge me (and if not, feel free to just skip this post), I'm talking about Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man, during the 90s when the X-titles x-ploded.* And... I don't really have anyplace better to discuss it. XP

Why wasn't Multiple Man on every X-team?

Due to his power set, it was iffy whether or not Jamie could overwhelm his opponents through just using his Dupes. He was a more or less athletic-but-normal human outside of his Duplication powers. Besides himself, he could only duplicate his costume and some clothing... not other equipment like a weapon. So... him being spread a bit thin across multiple teams? Not really dropping his effectiveness.

Yes, during the timeframe in question, you've got multiple telepaths and ultra-tech equipment to keep the X-teams in touch with each other, but by this point Jamie and his Dupes were in constant telepathic contact with each other. As long as Jamie's teammates didn't hate him, he'd be a common social connection for all the teams, besides an information relay. Going with the early 90s X-books, you could split Jamie and his 39 Dupes up between a "home" team (at the mansion, with Xavier), both X-Men teams (Blue and Gold Strike Forces), Excalibur, X-Factor, X-Force, and maybe even have Jamie tag along with Wolverine in Logan's solo book.

The real-world reason why is it gives you a constant pseudo-crossover, and excuse to discuss events happening on one of the other books. Though it would make oversights, where stories contradicted each other, more painful, it also provided an in-story reason for the kind of coordination a line-wide editor is supposed to bring to a family of books.

Now, even assuming this would have been a stupid idea for the real-world X-Men titles... well, I thought it might be a good use for the character even in your setting. I know you've changed some stuff about Multiple Man for it, so a similar idea might not work out as well. For example, while I initially wondered how - using my hypothetical 90s example - he'd fit in with teams like Excalibur and X-Force, I thought that Jamie was close in age to the New Mutants. I'm most familiar with Jamie from 90s X-Factor, where he seemed similar in age to Wolfsbane...

*I do not apologize for the terrible pun! X-cept I don't think this kind of wordplay counts as "puns"...

[Culture20]

The biggest reason to not have Madrox on every team in the 90's would have been a recognition of The Cell Phone Problem in storytelling. Of course, that already existed with all the telepaths, but Jamie would have been a visual reminder that the other characters from the other titles weren't being included in *this* book just because.

Also, Madrox's powers are a lot more than you expect. His limit of 40 dupes is only a mental block. If he's not conscious, that can be breached. Also, he can duplicate more than just clothing, but the items are not permanent, so he doesn't usually bother. If he were more forward thinking, he would keep himself armed at all times so that his dupes would be more of a force multiplier.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by Culture20

The biggest reason to not have Madrox on every team in the 90's would have been a recognition of The Cell Phone Problem in storytelling. Of course, that already existed with all the telepaths, but Jamie would have been a visual reminder that the other characters from the other titles weren't being included in *this* book just because.

It is as you said; it creates a problem, but one that already exists due to technology and other powers in the story. To me, it is a fun idea for teams that (mostly) should already have at least some clue about what the others are doing. Though, for the time period (early 90s), I can understand

1) Wolverine not wanting Jamie tagging around.
2) Cable not wanting Jamie tagging around (though post X-cutioner's Song, it might make sense)
3) Jamie not wanting Jamie tagging along with certain groups and/or stuck at home base.

Gives me a fun idea for a What If story, though. Considering we had at least one Dupes "go rogue" by maintaining his own life and keeping himself (and his memories) from being completely reabsorbed by Jamie, and hanging around with Mr. Sinister. Could have been an interesting story where, doing my stupid idea, different clusters of Jamies start to reject the others...

While I enjoyed the What If comics, I never said they were all winners. ;)

Originally Posted by Culture20

Also, Madrox's powers are a lot more than you expect. His limit of 40 dupes is only a mental block. If he's not conscious, that can be breached. Also, he can duplicate more than just clothing, but the items are not permanent, so he doesn't usually bother. If he were more forward thinking, he would keep himself armed at all times so that his dupes would be more of a force multiplier.

I had heard that someone (Xavier?) took over his body at one point, and was able to exceed his normal Dupe cap. He was also forced to exceed his normal limits in the Age of Apocalypse. Which is just me going "Yes, right." but in far too many words. XP

I didn't know about him being able to duplicate equipment. That absolutely makes him more useful, even if duplicated equipment gets reabsorbed. The way Jamie was written, I don't think he'd ever want to become a soldier, but boy would he be useful as one.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by Otaku

Yes, during the timeframe in question, you've got multiple telepaths and ultra-tech equipment to keep the X-teams in touch with each other, but by this point Jamie and his Dupes were in constant telepathic contact with each other. As long as Jamie's teammates didn't hate him, he'd be a common social connection for all the teams, besides an information relay. Going with the early 90s X-books, you could split Jamie and his 39 Dupes up between a "home" team (at the mansion, with Xavier), both X-Men teams (Blue and Gold Strike Forces), Excalibur, X-Factor, X-Force, and maybe even have Jamie tag along with Wolverine in Logan's solo book.

Jamie usually isn't in contact with any dupes that aren't in his immediate proximity. During the X-Factor run he explicitly sends a number of them off to pick up skills. Many end up living different lives and have to be tracked down to be reabsorbed. One actually goes "bad" and tries to become the primary as well.

IIRC, Jamie's psychological block was 50 dupes rather than 40. Of course, that was surpassed quite a few times even in the 90s especially when he was fighting himself.

I had heard that someone (Xavier?) took over his body at one point, and was able to exceed his normal Dupe cap. He was also forced to exceed his normal limits in the Age of Apocalypse. Which is just me going "Yes, right." but in far too many words. XP

I didn't know about him being able to duplicate equipment. That absolutely makes him more useful, even if duplicated equipment gets reabsorbed. The way Jamie was written, I don't think he'd ever want to become a soldier, but boy would he be useful as one.

Actually, during a Hydra story line they tried to mind control him unsuccessfully but just ended up causing him to make more dupes than there were hydra agents before he overwhelmed them.

His ability to dupe equipment has been inconsistent. I suspect certain writers just take liberties.

On a far nastier note, Jamie has duped into someone causing them to explode on a few occasions. (Fist into mouth, dupe, pop, new dupe emerges from the corpse.)

Jamie's has had a long term Shield agent dupe as well as a lot of other professions. I'd be surprised if one wasn't spun off to be a soldier at some point. He's a great candidate for wildcard skills or wild talent (the yea, I sent a dupe off to master spend a few years practicing just that skill...).

[Otaku]

Please bear with me Phantasm, as I clear some things up in this side-discussion I started with Culture20 and naloth. I realized I've created a pretty major tangent in your thread, especially as you've already adapted Jamie Madrox (Multiple Man) to this setting!

Not that I'm complaining about the discussion! I'm glad Culture20 and naloth have helped me learn about what happened with Multiple Man after I stopped reading the X-Men titles. In my case, I had to give them up (just didn't have the cash) in the early 2000s. A lot of where my memories of Jamie's powers/skills differ from your (Culture20 and naloth's) accounts seems to be due to this.

I found out why Jamie's age seems inconsistent. He was 21 when introduced in 1975; given how time does(n't) work in Marvel Comics, Jamie wouldn't have been much older 20 years later. He likely skewed towards the older end of New Mutant/X-Force-age characters, at least during "the 90s", but still in that range. Meanwhile I think Rahne Sinclair (Wolfsbane) was near the lower (younger) limit. If they aged Jamie up in the mid-2000s, I'd have missed that. Not sure if Eric Dane, the actor who played Jamie in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) was supposed to pass as younger (he'd have been in his early 30s during filming), or they aged up Jamie's character. I mean, I thought Multiple Man looked like he was in his late 30s/early 40s in that film, but that was probably just me. XP

Jamie's mental connection with his Dupes isn't as strong as I remembered, but there still is something there. I can't find details, but here's what vaguely remember from events during the X-Cutioner's Song crossover of '92 to '93: Jamie on a spaceship to (or already on) the moon, noticing he "lost contact" with a Dupe that was babysitting X-Force team members back at (I think) the X-Men's mansion. Which Jamie said meant the Dupe was either unconscious or had been killed. What I can (mostly) confirm is that Jamie has to reabsorb a Dupe to gain their memories, experiences. Even this isn't foolproof; he lost the ability to clearly distinguish his memories from those of a Dupe and there was that Dupe who went rogue. I believe the latter had been reabsorbed at times, but had managed to keep himself separate.

Speaking of that one, then there's Jamie's Dupe limit. I might be remembering wrong, but I thought we had a 20-20 split when Jamie "Prime" and the rogue Dupe squared off with each other, but maybe it was 40-40? I am seeing both 40 and 50 cited as Jamie's maximum duplicate number. Another iffy thing is what happens when Jamie and/or Dupes are injured and merge together. I can't believe I forgot how Melloncamp died. @_@ I also got an abridged look at the whole "sending out Dupes to learn and then be reabsorbed" thing that happened, and... wow is this all confusing. A good use of Duplication, but confusing nonetheless. I haven't even touched upon the "Changeling" aspect of the character.

But all of this has been helpful to me. Once again, I must apologies for the extreme tangent, and I do thank those who willingly indulged me. I also won't be surprised if I got something else wrong. XP

[Phantasm]

I recently re-read X-Factor v1 #76 to 80*, when X-Factor!Jamie and Rogue Jamie went toe to toe. There was a panel where they said "38 Jamies KO'ed", after noticing they'd stopped duplicating and went about knocking them out to stop the fight, meaning the "primes" of both were still active. (At the time, they were going with "the dupes disappear when the 'prime' Jamie is knocked unconscious.")

That's when I was first aware of the "40 total". After one of his bodies (possibly the core body, but who can say) died from the Legacy Virus, the number of dupes suddenly skyrocketed, possibly to infinite. (To model this kind of boost, I'd probably borrow Super-Speed or Non-Combat Speed from ATR (detailed in Powers) to increase the number of dupes in combat and non-combat scenarios, respectively, by the SSRT.



* I was hunting down credits for something; the issue of the Jamie-vs-Jamie fight itself had lyrics over a radio for a song parody, allegedly by Weird Al, of Particle Man, entitled "Multiple Man", but the indictia didn't say whether Weird Al had actually written them for Peter David to use.