Author: Robert Diehl
Created:
Updated: Version 1.3, last modified July 3, 2001
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Issue: X-Man 63
Date: May-00
Story: No Direction Home Part 1 (22 pages)
Feature Characters: Nate Grey
Regular Characters:
Guest Stars: Forge
Villains: Scratch; the Gauntlet including Beckham,
Lau,
Helen Burnside, Glass, Yoshida
Other Characters:
Credits: Writer: Warren Ellis, Steven Grant
Pencils, Inks: Ariel Olivetti
Colors: Christie Scheele
Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft
Editor: Jason Liebig
Editor-in-Chief: Bob Harras
Special Thanks To: Tim Bradstreet
Synopsis: Note: here begins X-Man as a "Counter X"
book.
Forge flies his ornithopter to meet Mr.
Scratch, in a futuristic New York City. He has
been a busy inventor and a war victim. ("They
held me down and made me watch as a
French girl with red eyes ate my hand.")
Scratch is a servant of the queen, with brain
damage; he takes Forge by subway to show
him that they built his greatest invention, then
he kills him to keep it secret.
Beckham is a dictatorial businessman, who is
killed in the elevator by a creature exploding
from inside his body, while his assistant Helen
watches. She screams all the way to the
hospital.
Nate (sporting a new look, similar to the
urban punk Calvin Klein model on the back
cover) arrives, psychically calms her down,
and asks for information. He is self-appointed
shaman for the mutants of this world, and
isn't quite human any more.
Helen takes him to a building where her
organization is holed up. It is a tesseract
(bigger on the inside), with a big guard,
whom Nate mentally shuts down. He
announces himself to the inner group of
mutants, who have stirred up something
deadly.
Issue: X-Man 64
Date: Jun-00
Story: No Direction Home Part 2: Nowhere to Hide
(22 pages)
Feature Characters: Nate Grey
Regular Characters:
Guest Stars:
Villains: Gauntlet including Helen Burnside, Yoshida;
a
Broken Man
Other Characters:
Credits: Writer: Warren Ellis, Steven Grant
Pencils, Inks: Ariel Olivetti
Colors: Christie Scheele
Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft
Editor: Jason Liebig
Editor-in-Chief: Bob Harras
Synopsis: Nate breaks through Gauntlet's telepathic
blocks and makes them talk. They are a
(Skull-and-Bones-like) group of rich,
powerful mutants who have rejected the
Xavier-Magneto debate and gone exploring
alternate universes, both heavenly and hellish.
In the broken universes, they disturbed
something big and purple, with an external
spine, which breaks through. Gauntlet
scatters, leaving Nate to fight it alone. The
monster wants vengeance but won't say why.
Nate severs its arm and beats it back, for now.
Issue: X-Man 65
Date: Jul-00
Story: No Direction Home Part 3: Lost Worlds (22
pages)
Feature Characters: Nate Grey
Regular Characters:
Guest Stars:
Villains: Gauntlet including Yoshida; a Broken Man
Other Characters:
Credits: Writer: Warren Ellis, Steven Grant
Pencils, Inks: Ariel Olivetti
Colors: Christie Scheele
Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft
Editor: Jason Liebig
Editor-in-Chief: Bob Harras
Synopsis: Nate stands in the imploded ruins of
Gauntlet's headquarters, and wipes the minds
of witnesses. He links together with Gauntlet's
minds and makes them admit they did
something heinous in one of the broken
universes, and a native wants revenge.
Nate calls them idiots, the goes down to the
broken universe to fix things. He finds the
Broken Man, who doesn't trust him. He says
Gauntlet trapped them there and stole their
children, and he throws a rock at Nate.
Issue: X-Man 66
Date: Aug-00
Story: No Direction Home Part (22 pages)
Feature Characters: Nate Grey
Regular Characters:
Guest Stars:
Villains: Gauntlet including Yoshida, Helen Burnside;
Broken Men
Other Characters:
Credits: Writer: Warren Ellis, Steven Grant
Pencils, Inks: Ariel Olivetti
Colors: Christie Scheele
Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft's Jason
Levine
Editor: Jason Liebig
Editor-in-Chief: Bob Harras
Synopsis: Nate, fed up with the Broken Man's "bile and
ellipses," reads his mind to get some answers.
Gauntlet took their children to grow human
organs to sell, and trapped the adults there.
Five weeks our time, and a century of theirs,
they adapted their species enough to break
through the barrier. One volunteered to go
wreak vengeance, but failed.
Nate goes in his stead, and demands the
children back from Gauntlet. Helen helps him,
but they realize the children are already dead.
Nate reaches out with his mind and executes
all the Gauntlet by incineration, except Helen,
who was the one that suggested they take the
children in the first place. He sends her down
to the broken universe, then buries the dead
children.
Issue: X-Man 67
Date: Sep-00
Story: The Infinities of Evil Part 1: Further Down the
Spiral (22 pages)
Feature Characters: Nate Grey
Regular Characters:
Guest Stars:
Villains: Madelyn Pryor, Scratch
Other Characters: Qabiri, Melchior
Credits: Writer: Warren Ellis, Steven Grant
Pencils, Inks: Ariel Olivetti
Colors: Christie Scheele
Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft's Jason
Levine
Editor: Jason Liebig
Editor-in-Chief: Bob Harras
Synopsis: On a higher plane, Qabiri realizes the
imperfect universes are able to reach up, so
they must be forced to choose perfection or
destruction. Over the objections of his peers,
he goes down spiral as missionary-soldier.
Six months ago: Nate dreams of himself
destroying Quito, Ecuador. He is staying with
Maddie in Buenos Aires; she's been taking him
around the world. He knows he has used his
power but doesn't remember how. Maddie
offhandedly kills a beggar child. He sees a
paper saying Quito was destroyed and realizes
he did it and goes there. Maddie too easily
convinces him to take her along.
Above the city, he sees he has sketched
Maddie's face in the destruction. She tries to
continue her control of him, but he resists,
saying he made her (iss. 25). She reveals she's
not that Maddie but came through her like a
door. She's the real Madelyne Pryor and has
been slowly taking over his mind. She has him
to take her home, to a futuristic Manhattan
(see iss. 63), where Scratch greets them.
Issue: X-Man 68
Date: Oct-00
Story: The Infinities of Evil Part 2: Danger Signs (22
pages)
Feature Characters: Nate Grey (AOA)
Regular Characters:
Guest Stars:
Villains: Madelyn Pryor, Scratch
Other Characters: alternate Nate Grey 998
Credits: Writer: Warren Ellis, Steven Grant
Pencils, Inks: Ariel Olivetti
Colors: Christie Scheele
Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft's Jason
Levine
Editor: Jason Liebig
Editor-in-Chief: Bob Harras
Synopsis: Six months ago on Earth 998, Nate and
Maddie are greeted by Scratch. He says
Maddie, the Queen, has been "fishing" for
Nates for eight years, since the Maker (see iss.
63) made a machine to travel to other worlds.
In the palace, servants prepare Nate to be
knighted. Maddie can manipulate him, having
got him to create a shell for her to inhabit on
his earth. She telepathically shows him the
double helix of alternate worlds and says her
original Nate self-destructed, so she has
finally found on that worked, and he is her
weapon.
She brings forth a spy and orders him to kill
her. She disintegrates, though Nate says he
didn't do it. Maddie says they conquer Asia
tomorrow, but he flies away, following a voice
in his head around the world, and finds
another Nate.
Issue: X-Man 69
Date: Nov-00
Story: The Infinities of Evil Part 3: Double Vision
(22
pages)
Feature Characters: Nate Grey (AOA)
Regular Characters:
Guest Stars:
Villains: Madelyn Pryor, Scratch
Other Characters: alternate Nate Grey 998
Credits: Writer: Warren Ellis, Steven Grant
Pencils, Inks: Ariel Olivetti
Colors: Christie Scheele
Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft's Saida,
Wes
Editor: Jason Liebig
Editor-in-Chief: Bob Harras
Synopsis: The Asian army is attacking, and one of
Maddie's Black Knights resents having to die
to defend her, so Scratch kills him with his
bare hands.
Nate 998 introduces himself to Nate AOA.
Nate AOA is suspicious and attacks him but
gets knocked back, then Nate 998 opens his
mind and explains that Maddie has lured
many alternate Nates there, then killed them
all when she found them defective. Nate 998
survived and has tried to help, although he
admits he is insane. He has formed a hidden
tribe and become their shaman. He takes Nate
AOA there, shows him Forge's preserved
corpse, and gets him to animate it, to reveal
Maddie's secrets. It explains that Maddie
ruled the world as her empire but died at the
end of the 19th century and, contrary to her
expectations, did not resurrect. The world
dissolved in war, and then Maddie returned
and began to reconquer it. Forge made devices
to let her see and travel to other universes.
They became lovers, and she admitted she was
actually an alternate Jean Grey.
Scratch interrupts, destroys the corpse, and
makes threats.
Issue: X-Man 70
Date: Dec-00
Story: The Infinities of Evil Finale: Worlds Without
End (22 pages)
Feature Characters: Nate Grey (AOA)
Regular Characters:
Guest Stars:
Villains: Madelyn Pryor, Scratch
Other Characters: alternate Nate Grey 998
Credits: Writer: Warren Ellis, Steven Grant
Pencils, Inks: Ariel Olivetti
Colors: Christie Scheele
Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft's Troy
Peteri
Editor: Jason Liebig
Editor-in-Chief: Bob Harras
Synopsis: Two Nates can't take down Scratch, while his
soldiers kill villagers. Our Nate blasts away
impetuously, and Scratch breaks his spine
with one blow, then crushes Nate 998's throat
and says no mutant power can effect him.
Nate 998, dying, transfers the brand that
keeps his body from destroying itself to our
Nate, then dissolves. Scratch brings our Nate
to Maddie; he is crippled, but his power is
intact, and she telepathically orders him to
destroy Asia. A huge fireball grows across the
east, but it's just an illusion, and Maddie
realizes she has the wrong Nate. She kills
Scratch's guards, pulls the real Nate's location
from this one's mind, destroys him, and
orders Scratch to prepare the Engines of God
and then execute himself.
Our Nate in 998's form is back on our earth,
unconscious in an alley, where a woman
takes him in till he recovers.
Scratch tells Maddie he knows she's Jean; she
attacks but can't harm him. He suggests they
wed and rule together; then Nate interrupts
and destroys the Engines: Maddie/Jean is
confined to this universe. She confronts Nate;
he says, "A Jean Grey gone bad is an
omnivore." She sucks the life force out of all
her followers and attacks again; he says Nate
998 fixed him, and he gives her the power she
wanted, but it is too much and destroys her
city.
Six months later on our earth, Nate heals one
mutant who killed another, and says he is the
shaman of all mutants as his tribe.
Issue: X-Man 71
Date: Jan-01
Story: Fearful Symmetries Part 1 (22 pages)
Feature Characters: Nate Grey
Regular Characters:
Guest Stars:
Villains: Burning Tiger (Qabiri)
Other Characters: Jeremy, Margo, Sister Perpetua,
Nicola
Zeitgeist, Citydweller, Prof. X (Nate Xavier),
alt. Thor, Technocrat (Randy)
Credits: Writer: Steven Grant
Pencils, Inks: Ariel Olivetti
Colors: Christie Scheele
Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft's TP
Asst. Editor: Lysa Hawkins
Editor: Jason Liebig
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada
Synopsis: Thirty years ago in Kansas, a meteorite
makes
a big crater near two geriatric adulterers.
They hear a baby inside and open it, but then
flee in horror and turn to stone. Kansas burns.
Present: Nate offers to help a nun who put out
her own eyes because she saw visions. He says
she's a mutant, gets her to trust him, and takes
her flying, letting her see through his eyes.
She tells him about her visions of horrible
demons attacking humanity. He thinks she's
seeing alternate earths and asks to trigger a
vision, to see if he can cure her.
The vision: Zeitgeist observes a ruined White
House, Citydweller a ruined New York. Prof.
X (alt. Nate) and Thor attack Qabiri: Thor by
main force; he gets pureed; Xavier by creating
a dreamball. Qabiri says X and Zeitgeist have
the power to travel to other worlds and are
therefore a threat to his. Technocrat devises
scorpions to eat Qabiri's force field. Zeitgeist
arrives and blasts him.
Perpetua, who is Zeitgeist's alternate, appears
and offers to help Citydweller. Nate catches
Zeitgeist, whose power was cut off by Qabiri.
X is dead; Nate assembles the remaining
group and prepares for Qabiri's attack.
Issue: X-Man 72
Date: Feb-01
Story: Fearful Symmetries Part 2 (22 pages)
Feature Characters: Nate Grey
Regular Characters:
Guest Stars:
Villains: Burning Tiger (Qabiri)
Other Characters: Sister Perpetua; the Protectorate:
Citydweller,
Nicola Zeitgeist, Technocrat (Randy), White
Bird (Amara), Nightfighter; alt. Thor, Prof. X
(Nate Xavier) (both in flashback)
Credits: Writer: Steven Grant
Pencils, Inks: Ariel Olivetti
Colors: Christie Scheele
Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft's DG
Asst. Editor: Lysa Hawkins
Editor: Jason Liebig
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada
Synopsis: On Earth 253: Citydweller says Qabiri
appeared in Times Square an hour ago and
started burning all the world's cities. The
Protectorate confronted him, he demanded
their world-walkers, blasted a few of them,
then flew away to destroy more cities.
Citydweller dies; Zeitgeist says she's the spirit
of the age, so if it dies, she does, too. She says
their Prof. X was Nate Xavier, our Nate says
that explains a lot, then goes to talk to Qabiri.
Nightfighter is rounding up the few survivors
on Earth and taking them to their space
station Foldcastle.
Nate finds Qabiri, who immediately blasts him
and is shocked to see it had no effect. They
call each other insane, Qabiri for wanting to
destroy every earth less evolved than his, Nate
for thinking he's a shaman. They prepare to
fight.
Zeitgeist sees Qabiri fall to earth and gets
Technocrat to port them there: Nebraska,
which is on fire, and Technocrat overloads
from the heat and explodes. Zeitgeist climbs
down the crater to make sure Qabiri is dead,
then realizes it's Nate. Qabiri explodes the
world, making ours now Earth 611.
Issue: X-Man 73
Date: Mar-01
Story: Fearful Symmetries Part 3 (22 pages)
Feature Characters: Nate Grey
Regular Characters:
Guest Stars:
Villains: Burning Tiger (Qabiri)
Other Characters: Sister Perpetua; Nicola Zeitgeist,
Hassan, Idris
Credits: Writer: Steven Grant
Pencils, Inks: Ariel Olivetti
Colors: Digital Chameleon
Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft's Jason
Levine
Asst. Editor: Lysa Hawkins
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada
Synopsis: Nate flees with Zeitgeist and Perpetua, and
they find themselves on a broken world of
molten acid. They find Hassan there, who also
looks like Zeitgeist and Perpetua.
Qabiri gets to our earth, Edinburgh, to be
precise, and burns people, demanding to
know where Nate is.
Nate realizes the three women aren't
alternates but pieces of one whole. He forces
them together, and they become Idris, just as
Qabiri arrives and attacks. Idris beats him off,
then flees again with Nate. She had fled
Qabiri's world and scattered herself among
the universes. Nate wants to go reassemble
her, hoping to learn something that can stop
Qabiri.
Issue: X-Man 74
Date: Apr-01
Story: Fearful Symmetries Part 4 (22 pages)
Feature Characters: Nate Grey
Regular Characters:
Guest Stars:
Villains: Burning Tiger (Qabiri), Melchior
Other Characters: Idris
Credits: Writer: Steven Grant
Pencils, Inks: Quique Alcatena
Colors: Digital Chameleon
Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft/OG
Asst. Editor: Lysa Hawkins
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada
Synopsis: At the high end of the chain of parallel
earths
is the Brilliant City: perfect and unchanging,
till Nate and Idris arrive. The inhabitants
confront them; Nate tells them to stop Qabiri,
but they disavow him. Nate leaves to avoid a
fight, and finds Qabiri about to destroy Earth
611. He says he wants to talk; Qabiri blasts
him, but he's just a telepathic projection. He
threatens to destroy the Brilliant City unless
Qabiri chases him down. He says he was
recently on a lower earth, where change was
constant and life precious; he wonders if that
isn't better than the unfeeling Brilliant City.
Melchior attacks Idris, contaminated by the
lower earths. Nate rescues her and warns that
Qabiri is right behind him. They attack him,
also contaminated, so Nate has time to restore
Idris's missing parts. He says she's a mutant, a
changed being in a changeless place.
Qabiri demolishes the city; Nate tells the
inhabitants to do what Idris did: to look up.
Great beings look down upon the spiral of
earths, and even the Brilliant City is a broken
world to them. Arrogance collapses, as does
Qabiri; Idris decides to leave and be Sister
Perpetua, and Nate helps her forget.
Issue: X-Man 75
Date: May-01
Story: Till the End of the World (39 pages)
Feature Characters: Nate Grey
Regular Characters:
Guest Stars:
Villains: a Harvester
Other Characters: Mike, Carla; Jeremy, Margo (in
flashback)
Credits: Writer: Steven Grant
Pencils, Inks: Quique Alcatena
Cover: Ariel Olivetti
Colors: Digital Chameleon
Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft's Saida!
Editor: Lysa Hawkins
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada
Synopsis: In a sunflower field in Kansas, Mike and
Carla
are running away. They are confronted by a
Harvester, exuding energy; Mike blasts it but
only hurts Carla as a side effect. Carla decides
she doesn't want to see the world but wants to
stay and be happy, but Mike knows her mind
has been destroyed. He agrees to go back, but
not before burning a mayday in the field.
Nate, orbiting the earth, sees it and descends
to Picayune, Kansas. He masks his presence,
but Mike sees him anyway, freaks, and blasts
him. Nate explains he's the mutant shaman,
come to help. Mike explains the town has
been under mind-control for years, since the
arrival of the editor of the Picayune Sun, who
sees and blasts Nate. Nate tries to read its
mind and realizes it's an alien; they fight, but
the alien tells Nate to look and understand
what it is. Nate leaves, to get perspective, and
realizes its energy is interwoven throughout
the world. He returns; the alien says its race
has observed the solar system since before it
formed. They seeded the primeval Earth with
mitochondria (cf. Star Wars Episode I),
spurring life. The harvest is now ripe.
The Harvester arrived thirty years ago (iss.
71), analyzed the genetic structure of two
humans, and formed a body. Since then it has
spread its net throughout all mitochondria.
Nate offers himself instead, but the alien
doesn't want strange power. Nate takes Mike
to the highway, then goes back to stop the
alien, who has begun to harvest and powder
the humans in town. It warns Nate that
destroying it will destroy the world; Nate
plans to turn all his power on himself, instead,
making both of them into beings of pure
energy, and his "tainted" energy will poison
the world for the aliens. They both dissolve,
becoming part of every living creature.
Mike observes and sees that everything has
changed. Nate has opened his mind so he can
be the next shaman; he says goodbye to Carla.
The series ends.
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