Jamie Madrox
James Arthur "Jamie" Madrox, also called the Multiple Man, is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer/editor Len Wein, he first appeared in Giant-Size Fantastic Four #4.
A mutant with the ability to create instant duplicates of himself, Madrox was mainly a minor or supporting character until his appearance in the 1987 miniseries Fallen Angels. The character underwent greater development under writer Peter David through his appearance in David's run of the monthly series X-Factor in the 1990s, and in David's second and ongoing run of the title in the 2000s.
The character has appeared in multiple television, film and video game adaptations, most notably in the 2006 film X-Men: The Last Stand, in which he was portrayed by Eric Dane.
Creation
Len Wein spoke on the creation of the character stating he wanted to name the character Xerox after the popular copying machine."My original name for the character was Jamie ZERROX (Zerrox, the Multiple Man. Get it? Boy, was I clever in those days, When I passed the name by then Editor-in-Chief Roy Thomas, he looked at me like I had three heads. "You're kidding, right?" he said. "Who's gonna pay off the huge lawsuit, you?" "But it's not even spelled the same," I said. "Not happening," said Roy. So I came up with a bunch of alternative until I came up with Madrox, that sounded like an action word, and thus it has been ever since."
Publication history
Jamie Madrox first appeared in Giant-Size Fantastic Four #4.In the 1990s, he played a major role in the series X-Factor. Writer Peter David later admitted that he was unhappy that he had to use Madrox in X-Factor, and it was only over the course of writing the series that he became one of his favorite characters. A MadroX miniseries was published in 2004, also written by David. He and the other members of his detective agency later starred in a revamped X-Factor monthly series that was again written by Peter David.
In 2018 he was featured in a second five-part solo series called Multiple Man written by Matthew Rosenberg and drawn by Andy MacDonald.
Fictional character biography
Youth
Jamie Madrox is born to a family living near the Los Alamos research facility in New Mexico; the background radiation may have stimulated his mutation. When Jamie is born, the doctor's slap causes him to multiply into two identical babies. Professor Charles Xavier, a friend of the Madrox family, suggests that they move to Kansas to raise the boy in privacy. Dr. Daniel Madrox, Jamie's father, creates a suit for him to wear which is designed to absorb kinetic energy, the source of the duplication.Later, Damian Tryp of Singularity Investigations makes his own offer to look after Jamie, claiming that Jamie is not just a normal mutant, but actually a "changeling", a predecessor to mutants who develops powers at birth. Jamie's parents refuse to give Jamie to Tryp. When Jamie is fifteen years old, his parents are killed by a tornado alleged to have been caused by Tryp, and Jamie begins to run the farm by himself along with his duplicates, or "dupes", until his suit is damaged.
Muir Island
Jamie Madrox goes to New York City for help where he meets Mister Fantastic of the Fantastic Four. He contacts Professor Xavier, who sends the youth to Muir Island with Moira MacTaggert, to work in her laboratory and help her with research. He later helps Moira and fellow mutants Havok and Polaris in searching for the escaped mutant Proteus. Proteus hijacks one of Madrox's duplicates as his own body, although this does not harm Madrox. Following the X-Men's battle with Proteus on Muir Island, Madrox is invited to join the X-Men, but he declines.One of Jamie's renegade duplicates joins Siryn in the search for runaway New Mutants Sunspot and Warlock. After finding the two, Jamie joins the Fallen Angels.
X-Factor
Jamie Madrox is one of the residents of Muir Island who comes under the mental control of the Shadow King. Following the destruction of Muir Island and the defeat of the Shadow King, he becomes a member of the second incarnation of the X-Factor team, which is assembled by Valerie Cooper as a U.S. government response team. Here, he develops a reputation as a prankster, forming a friendship with teammate Strong Guy. Also on the team is former New Mutant Wolfsbane who later joins his X-Factor Investigations.In the first day of the team, one of his duplicates is shot and killed, and Madrox learns for the first time that he cannot absorb a deceased duplicate. This makes him realize for the first time how independent his duplicates actually are. This becomes clearer to him when a duplicate, working for Mister Sinister, decides that it wants to absorb the original, which it does for a short time, until Jamie's dominant personality breaks free and reabsorbs the wayward dupe.
After he is exposed to the Legacy Virus while performing CPR on an infected Genoshan mutate, Jamie is forced to kill the Acolyte Seamus Mellencamp in self-defense. The clone later died from the Legacy Virus. The real Jamie survives, but sustains amnesia.
Jamie is the motivation for the government-sponsored version of X-Factor to break ties with the government and go underground when the team is tricked into thinking Jamie and his duplicates are actually a squad of super-powered terrorists. Eventually, the team discovers this was a manipulation and the group goes rogue, splitting from the government.
He then serves as majority staff for Banshee's X-Corps. Banshee hires ex-criminals to police other mutants but things get bad when Mystique goes on a murderous rampage and has Mastermind's daughter mind control them. The X-Men manage to defeat the renegade X-Corps members, he transfers to one of Xavier's official "non X-Men" mutant teams in Paris's X-Corporation, fighting Weapon XII in the Channel which results in the death of teammate Darkstar.
Mutant Town
After the fall of the X-Corporation, Jamie Madrox begins working as a private detective in the "Mutant Town" area of New York, along with former X-Factor teammates Wolfsbane and Strong Guy. In the passing time, Madrox has been sending out his duplicates to lead lives of their own. Among these dupes are a Shaolin monk and an Olympic gymnast. By this point, his powers are developed to such an extent that any dupe who gains sufficient skills can pass their knowledge to Jamie, giving him a wide variety of training instantly.The side effect of excessive withdrawal from absorbing the duplicates leads him to gain their new personalities as well, which gives him a form of dissociative identity disorder, in which any new dupes may spontaneously generate any individual personality aspect of Jamie Prime, making them unpredictable, as they more often than not disobey his orders or manifest as personalities that are too volatile or meek.
X-Factor Investigations
Following the elimination of all but a couple of hundred mutants from the face of the Earth in the "House of M" storyline, it is revealed that Jamie Madrox has upgraded his private detective agency to a new building, under the name X-Factor Investigations. He bought the building using money from a Who Wants to Be a Millionaire-type show, using a room full of dupes as lifelines.Still suffering from uncontrollable duplicate personalities, Jamie sends one to talk a de-powered Rictor out of jumping off a building who instead pushes him off. The dupe calls himself "The X-Factor" and threatens Madrox that he will come out whenever dupes are made, and Madrox will not be able to tell before being reabsorbed, and Jamie's new team adds Rictor to the group, along with M and Siryn. Celebrating a victory after discovering he is not a mutant, but a changeling, Jamie has sex with Siryn, and an accidentally forgotten duplicate with M. When Jamie discovers and absorbs the duplicate, both women are furious with him.
Later, Layla Miller, without a home after House of M's reality is shattered, reveals to Jamie that one day they will get married, and Wolfsbane will kill them both on their wedding night.
During "Civil War", a duplicate Jamie had created a few years ago eventually becomes an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.; since he is an enforcer of the Superhuman Registration Act, he registered M and Rictor. However, the true Jamie and X-Factor stand opposed to the legislation, going so far as to make a public statement regarding their position, leading Jamie to go in direct opposition to the neutral stance taken by X-Men leader Cyclops upset at for Jamie withholding the truth about M-Day. Jamie also declares that the empty Mutant Town will be a sanctuary for superheroes being pursued by the government.
Agent Madrox met "his" end when he was surprised and re-absorbed by the original Madrox during an investigation of a Hydra cell. Jamie continues the task of hunting down his stray duplicates and reabsorbing them, but he leaves one, John Maddox, who has carved out a life for himself as an Episcopal priest, husband and father, and Jamie decided not to reabsorb him. Siryn also discovers that she is pregnant by Jamie.
"Messiah Complex"
During the 2007 - 2008 "Messiah Complex" storyline, Cyclops sends Jamie Madrox and Layla Miller to go see Forge having built a machine that allows to monitor alternate timelines. Madrox sends two dupes to find information on two timelines that showed "spikes", after the birth of the Mutant baby, due to two different timelines: one in which the newborn becomes the planet's savior and another where it becomes its dominator. Before anyone can react, Layla jumps into the portal along with one of the dupes, and Madrox collapses into a coma.Layla and one Madrox duplicate arrive eighty years in the negative future to discover that the mutant race has been severely decimated. Mutants are imprisoned in concentration camps overseen by humans. Layla and the dupe are captured and tattooed with an "M" for mutant over their eyes. There, they encounter a youthful Lucas Bishop that would gladly go back in time to kill the mutant baby responsible for the way this timeline has turned out. Layla straps a stolen grenade to the duplicate, killing him and sending his memories of the event back to Jamie so he can tell of Bishop's treachery. When Jamie awakens, he develops an M tattoo because his body takes on scarring from duplicates. Jamie leaves and returns to X-Factor Investigations, disillusioned due to Layla's loss.
The other duplicate later returns as the character Cortex.