History ComicBook / XMan

* AbortedArc: ''Something'' was building up with the Hellfire Club between issues #7-29: Black Queen Selene was grooming Madelyne Pryor as her Black Rook; Trevor Fitzroy was back and uninvolved with Bishop; Madelyne Pryor was seducing Sebastian Shaw, and lastly Selene, after losing control over her "pet" Madelyne, telephatically warned Tessa (Shaw's secretary) and Fitzroy their dalliance would bring them dire consequences. This plot was never explored further.

Nate was killed off in the last issue and stayed "dead" until a point during ComicBook/DarkReign where he under went a UnexplainedRecovery and went up against ComicBook/NormanOsborn and his team of Dark X-Men before being captured.

* BarefootLoon: Nate was often a bit odd, but plunged into this territory towards the end of his solo series when he became a 'Shaman' following a MindMeld with a CrazySane alternate counterpart, gaining a strange and rather detached view of the world, seeing himself as its multiversal protector (which also meant he would punish those from Earth-616 who committed crimes against other worlds), and veering straight into CrazySane territory (he once responded to a YoureInsane with one word: "Probably"). The barefoot part just cements him (along with his messiah complex and RealityWarper powers) as being rather disturbin

* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: None of the members of Nate's supporting cast were ever seen or mentioned again after the series ended, save for the very thin exception of Threnody who was given a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo as a potential recruit in ''ComicBook/AvengersTheInitiative'', before finally popping up again in 2018 in an issue of ''Deadpool'' as part of the New Orleans Assassins Guild. And of course Madelyne Pryor appeared again, but she was also an established character long before Nate himself arrived on the scene.
* DependingOnTheArtist: How old Nate actually looks-he's meant to be about 17, and later, his late teens/early twenties. However, some artists draw him built along Cable's lines (while they're counterparts, Cable's had a lifetime of extensive physical training to bulk him up, while Nate's still a kid, and even if Sinister designed him to be in peak physical shape, you'd expect some disparity) and looking closer to his late twenties, while others draw him more slender and looking more like his actual age, and others still draw him looking about 15, at most. However, some degree of athletic build is a constant, with his frequently being referred to as 'Muscles' or similar.

* TheNeedless: By the end of the series, Nate doesn't actually need to eat, drink, sleep or breathe (to the point where he doesn't even notice that he's in a cell full of raw nitrogen), and does human things mostly to reassure humans and mutants alike.

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** Counter-X era villain Mr Scratch reappears in the Krakoan era in the form of his Earth-616 counterpart, using the same catchphrase as the one he used in Nate's series.

See [[Characters/MarvelComicsXMan here]] for Nate's character page.

The book followed Nate Grey, an alternate version of ComicBook/{{Cable}} hailing from the ''ComicBook/AgeOfApocalypse'' reality, and his exploits at finding his own place in the world after being transported from his reality to the the main Franchise/MarvelUniverse, as well as dealing with various villains trying to manipulate him for his vast superpowers. In 2000, it was heavily {{Retool}}ed and a year later cancelled because Creator/JoeQuesada thought that there were too many X-Books. Nate was killed off in the last issue and stayed "dead" until a point during ComicBook/DarkReign where he under went a UnexplainedRecovery and went up against ComicBook/NormanOsborn and his team of Dark X-Men before being captured. After Osborn's defeat, he was captured again by Sugar Man but rescued by the New Mutants and then joined the team.

[[redirect:Characters/MarvelComicsXMan]]

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''X-Man'' was a Creator/MarvelComics ComicBook series starring Nate Grey, a {{psychic|Powers}} of [[CosmicEntity near-cosmic levels of power]] who was an AlternateUniverse [[AlternateSelf version]] of {{Comicbook/Cable}} of the ComicBook/XMen.

The character first appeared in ''X-Man'' #1 (March, 1995), created by Creator/JephLoeb and Steve Skroce. ''X-Man'' was originally planned as a four-issue miniseries that was part of the ComicBook/AgeOfApocalypse crossover. It was later promoted to an ongoing series thanks to PopularityPower. Initially written by Jeph Loeb, it changed several writers before Terry Kavanagh came aboard; he wrote the book for most of its run. The series lasted for 75 issues (March, 1995- May, 2001).

Nate was created by his universe's version of Mister Sinister using DNA taken from ComicBook/{{Cyclops}} and ComicBook/JeanGrey (in the main universe Sinister had to manipulate Cyclops into marrying a clone of Jean Grey to achieve the same result) to create a being powerful enough to destroy his nemesis, Apocalypse. Nate was one of four beings that were accidentally transported from the ComicBook/AgeOfApocalypse reality to the main MarvelUniverse after it was destroyed due to a combination of [[TimeTravel changes to history]] and the explosion of a CosmicKeystone. (The other survivors being Sugar Man, Holocaust and Dark Beast—all villains.)

The book followed Nate's exploits at finding his own place in this new world as well as dealing with various villains trying to manipulate him for his vast superpowers. In 2000, it was heavily {{Retool}}ed and a year later cancelled because Creator/JoeQuesada thought that there were too many X-Books. Nate was killed off in the last issue and stayed "dead" until a point during ComicBook/DarkReign where he under went a UnexplainedRecovery and went up against ComicBook/NormanOsborn and his team of Dark X-Men before being captured. After Osborn's defeat, he was captured again by Sugar Man but rescued by the New Mutants and then joined the team.

As of Marvel NOW!, he was at a loose end, with a brief appearance in ''Fearless Defenders'', a mention in ''All New X-Men'', and a mention and an appearance in two issues of Cable's 2017 run being the only hints that the Marvel editorial staff even remembered that he exists. This, however, changed when he returned in 2018's ''Uncanny X-Men'', which leads into an X-Event in January 2019 called ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan''.

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!!This series contains examples of:

* NinetiesAntiHero: Surprisingly, (especially considering that his 616 counterpart, Cable, was pretty much the TropeCodifier) not all that much. He's never had much compunction about killing, and even as a teenager he's so built that it's perfectly obvious that he's Cable's brother, but, even at his worst, he's just been in a KnightInSourArmour.
* AdaptationalHeroism: The [=AoA=] counterparts of Mastermind, Toad and Sauron that appeared in X-Man's solo title were all cases of this, notably Sauron who was a grumpy JerkWithAHeartOfGold and even tried defending Nate and [=AoA=] Siryn from [=AoA=] Sinister while injured.
* AllLovingHero: Has shades of this throughout his solo run, particularly during his New York hero/street prophet era, culminating in his Shaman era and again after his return from apparent death. ComicBook/NormanOsborn regards this attitude as amusingly quaint. However, this should not in any way be mistaken for [[GoodIsNotSoft 'soft']] or even, for that matter, [[WellIntentionedExtremist 'good']].
* AlternateCompanyEquivalent: The Protectorate (heroes of an alternate earth) to ComicBook/TheAuthority. Curiously, several members of the former were actually versions of pre-existing Marvel characters.
* AlternateTimelineAncestry: He and his counterpart {{ComicBook/Cable}} are considered basically the "same" person, despite the fact that that Nathan's mother was a clone of [[ComicBook/JeanGrey Nate's mother]].
* AnnoyingYoungerSibling: He was this, in some respects, to {{ComicBook/Cable}}, who occasionally tried to help him, even risking his life to save Nate, seeing him as being the kid that Cable could have been and therefore being determined that he'd get the chance to live his life. Nate, partly suffering from an inferiority complex and mostly just wanting to be left alone, and to have nothing to do with Cable. It didn't help that being close to each other or getting into telepathic contact was physically painful, at least at first, and Nate softened over time, even trying to protect Cable during a flashback in the ''Metus'' arc of Cable's 2017 series.
* ArchEnemy: Apocalypse by design. Thereafter, a case could be made for either Sugar Man or Holocaust, with Dark Beast being a close runner up. His return in 2018 pits him against Legion, the two being portrayed as different sides of the same coin, and in broadly the same situation, a comparison that Nate makes himself (they're both "grandchildren of the atom" with vast RealityWarper powers).
* ArmourPiercingQuestion: Gets one in ''ComicBook/UncannyXMen2018'', from Armor, fittingly, after he explains his motives (he's dying, so he's trying to save the world before he goes, and UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans) which is more or less the only moment where he's actually caught off-guard.
--> How do you know that the pain and hurt you're causing is worth it? How do you know you aren't making things worse?
* BackFromTheDead: Madelyne Pryor, and eventually Nate himself. Twice.
* BadassAdorable: As a physically five or six year old child, he casually displays the sort of psychic powers that would challenge Jean Grey at her Non-Phoenix peak.
* BadassBeard: In ''Uncanny X-Men'' and ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan'', though it vanishes towards the end, shortly after he develops MysticalWhiteHair.
* BadassBoast: When riled up, he gets ''very'' free with these, varying from the [[LargeHam extremely hammy]] to the [[ColdHam cold and understated.]]
** As the Purple Man finds out when Nate turns the tables on him...
--> My body's only vulnerable until my mind decides otherwise.
** In ''ComicBook/UncannyXMen'', he delivers a succinct one to a team of X-Men including ComicBook/JeanGrey, Psylocke, Storm, and Iceman, before demonstrating it, more or less effortlessly, referencing Apocalypse's famous boast in ''WesternAnimation/XMen.''
--> You will break against me like waves against a stone.
** On discovering that [[spoiler: rather than being powerless and in the Age of Apocalypse,]] he was instead trapped by Legion [[spoiler: (in his mind)]], he gives a calm, cold one that merges into a BreakingSpeech.
--> I know what you are, David. But I'm afraid you have no idea what I am. Your father failed you. To soothe your broken mind he told you that there is a real you buried in there. He told you that the mind is the self. What you are. I know the mind is but a tool. And tools can be taken away. [[GrandTheftMe This is my mind now.]]
** This one, however, takes the cake for hamminess, just after pulling a GrandTheftMe on [[spoiler: Legion]].
--> Your plan to destroy your God has failed, X-Men. Now it's your God's turn.
* BadPowersBadPeople: Or rather, Extreme Powers, Extreme People in his case. The fact is, very rarely do superheroes get power on the scale that Nate wields it, and for good reasons from a storytelling point of view (read more on that in the Story-Breaker Power entry below). While Nate's powers are not intrinsically bad, most of the characters at Nate's power scale are villains—and Nate himself has a track record of going for rather over-scale solutions. After years of struggling to write situations and villains to challenge a character as powerful as him, writers finally gave up in 2018 and put him through a FaceHeelTurn, though it at least didn't come out of nowhere and was both ''somewhat'' in character and moderately sympathetic. He's dying—again—and desperate to prevent the 616 universe from going the same way as his reality while he still can (in ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan'', this is modified to [[spoiler: 'I'm trying to give you [the X-Men] a chance to break out of your TheoryOfNarrativeCausality mandated cycle of struggle and heartbreak'.]]).
* BarefootSage: He has shades of this during his "street prophet" period.
* BareHandedBladeBlock: Against [[WarGod Ares]] himself, no less.
* BenevolentBoss: In a strange sort of way, to the Horsemen of Salvation. They're all brainwashed to follow his commands and share his desires, but he's polite and respectful to all of them and refuses to let them fight the X-Men alone for his sake. So, they quite justifiably don't ''want'' to be his minions (Angel possibly excepted), but he treats them well while they are.
* BerserkButton: Trying to control or manipulate him. He really, ''really'' does not like it... Which makes his own habit of MindControl more than a little hypocritical, as is occasionally pointed out - though it has to be said, his internal monologue in ''Age of X-Man'' notes how much he hates it, so he isn't entirely lacking in self-awareness.
** Mutants abusing humans or humans abusing mutants.
** [[MommasBoy He got pretty pissed at Mystique for making him think that his mother was alive.]]
* BigBrotherMentor: Peter Parker takes on this role to him.
** And Nate in turn takes on this role to Franklin Richards.
* BreakOutCharacter: Arguably the most popular character to come from the ''ComicBook/AgeOfApocalypse'', as even Blink (the other big BreakoutCharacter from that series) didn't get a solo title so popular it lasted a whole six years, much less a BatFamilyCrossover. Though, Blink ''did'' get adapted into the live-action ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast'', so her fans might argue that she had the last laugh.
* BullyingADragon: This happens to him fairly often in his solo series, as his extremely high power level combined with his unassuming appearance and inexperience makes him a dragon very few see coming. The bullies range from people who know full well what they're getting into (Holocaust, Dark Beast—though as Nate gets older and more controlled, Dark Beast wisely becomes absolutely terrified of him) to the more traditional jerks who just come along with no idea of the power they're messing with (the Purple Man and Mysterio being among the jerkiest).
* CasualDangerDialogue: Neither the ComicBook/DarkAvengers nor the Dark X-Men particularly faze him, and when both teams attack him at once he proves more than capable of holding them all off while [[AwesomenessByAnalysis verbally dissecting their powers and explaining why they won't work]].
** He takes this UpToEleven in ''Uncanny X-Men'', having a long, calm conversation with Jean about ethics and his actions, while the rest of the X-Men are hammering away at him [[NoSell and getting absolutely nowhere]].
* CapeBusters: The Gauntlet, a team of low-level telepaths dedicated to taking down Nate. They proved to be formidable enough threats thanks to psi-blocking armour and the fact they didn't care much about casual victims or collateral damage.
* CassandraTruth: During the ''Onslaught Saga'' he sensed very early on that something was wrong with Professor X (as this was in their first meeting, this led to a distrust of the Professor and his X-Men in general) and tried to warn the Avengers. They more or less brushed him off, even if they were polite about it... and considering that they knew Xavier well (or thought they did), and didn't know Nate at all, this isn't entirely surprising. They quickly regretted it as the Onslaught persona assumed full control and seized control of New York.
* CharacterDevelopment: Nate gets this in pretty epic fashion, going from scared FishOutOfWater with far too much power under too little control, his powers flickering on and off near at random, who regards most issues as not being his problem, to a KnightInSourArmour hero and cocky teen, still very aware that he's nearing the point where his body is going to burn out, to an incredibly powerful, controlled, kind and rather messianic hero. Then, after his DePower, his DeadpanSnarker tendencies resurfaced, coming to terms with his drastic loss of power, find somewhere he belonged and trying to do some good along the way.
** Following his return, with full powers, in ''ComicBook/UncannyXMen2018'' and ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan'', he seems to have become a WellIntentionedExtremist, with his occasional messiah complex apparently having gone UpToEleven. Part of it is an act. How large a part that is, however, is ambiguous. By the end of ''Age of X-Man'', he's become more thoughtful and realised that trying to break all connections/relationships, and trying to force peace, just doesn't work.
* CharmPerson: His high-order telepathic powers make him very capable of this, though he only ever uses it unconsciously. This is still more than enough to turn him into a ChickMagnet.
* TheChessmaster: Like [[{{ComicBook/Cyclops}} his father]] and [[{{ComicBook/Cable}} older brother]] before him, Nate develops into one who even Apocalypse admits is "brilliant". For context, Nate had anticipated conflict between Apocalypse and his X-Tracts in ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan'', and reversion to his past personality, so left a menorah from the prime reality in a perfectly convenient position to be used as a weapon against him by Kitty Pryde that he couldn't defend against. The RuleOfSymbolism didn't hurt, either.
* ChickMagnet: Whether by accident or design, most of Nate's supporting cast of characters were women, and a good chunk of those women were attracted to him. This becomes especially pronounced in his "New York street messiah" phase, where a PowerTrio of party girls all fall for him and move in with him, helping him to manage his newfound fame, and a FairCop (one of the party girls' ''parole officer'', no less) hits on him. Nate tends to be endearingly oblivious to this.
* ChildSoldier: He started out as a LaserGuidedTykeBomb and quickly grew into this during his time with Forge's Outcasts.
* ChronicHeroSyndrome: He hides it well behind his KnightInSourArmor attitude, but when push comes to shove Nate will never stand by and not act when an innocent person's life is in danger. Even when he becomes an AntiVillain, it's driven by a desire to do something good, to save the world.
* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: None of the members of Nate's supporting cast were ever seen or mentioned again after the series ended, save for the very thin exception of Threnody who was given a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo as a potential recruit in ''ComicBook/AvengersTheInitiative'', before finally popping up again in 2018 in an issue of ''Deadpool'' as part of the New Orleans Assassins Guild. And of course Madelyne Pryor appeared again, but she was also an established character long before Nate himself arrived on the scene.
* CloningBlues: Played with. He's the artificially created son of Scott and Jean, and a counterpart of Cable (though also technically his half-brother, as Cable describes him—while Cable's mother was a clone of Nate's mother, they're technically sisters rather than the same person) while he doesn't noticeably angst about it—he saves that for his LivingWeapon status and justified fears that he's accidentally going to rewrite reality in his sleep—his lack of life experience informs his character.
** Amusingly, Nate is the ''source'' of this trope for another Summers family clone, [[EvilTwin Stryfe]]. Essentially a flawed clone of Cable (who is himself flawed compared to Nate), Stryfe regards Nate's existence as something of a personal affront, and wastes no time capturing him and hooking up to one of ComicBook/DoctorDoom's power siphons upon his return in order to steal Nate's power, which he believes to be rightfully his. To further heighten the irony, Stryfe's scheme is largely derailed by Madelyne Pryor, who is ''herself'' a clone and frequent sufferer of Cloning Blues.
* CompellingVoice: Occasionally, he's capable of controlling people with just his voice, as an extension of his psychic abilities.
* CovertPervert: Nate, occasionally. For instance, when he's chatting with Franklin Richards about the Avengers, and Franklin brings up that one of his favourites is the Scarlet Witch, Nate's immediate assumption is because—like him—Franklin likes her current spectacularly {{Stripperific}} costume. Franklin being a little young for this, casually dismisses it, instead referencing the fact that she's a mutant and that she learned magic from Agatha Harkness, his babysitter.
* CrazySane: By the time of his Shaman period, when a character [[YoureInsane told him that he was insane]], his [[InsultBackfire matter-of-fact response]] is "quite possibly."
* DeadlyGas: Coldsnap-9, a Canadian concoction stolen from Department H by the Brotherhood and Nate. When Nate discovers what he did, be impulsively busts open the canisters, killing himself. [[BackFromTheDead Nate being his mother's son, it lasted about two pages]].
* DeadlyUpgrade: His powers were designed to kill him from the beginning, but [[spoiler: in ''X-Men: Disassembled'', it transpires that his powers were restored and boosted by a Life Seed, but it failed to heal him/restored his genetic degeneration problem.]]
* DeadpanSnarker: Whenever he's not acting petulant, his dialogue tends to end up like this. This has increased exponentially since he lost most of his powers and joined the New Mutants, with practically every other line of dialogue being snark. He tones it down a bit in ''ComicBook/UncannyXMen2018'', though he still gets a couple of good jibes at Jean.
* DefiantToTheEnd: To the Crusader, after Nate's powers betray him and the other has him at his mercy, and tells him to make his peace with 'whatever false deities you worship' (having got it into his head that Nate is some tool of Satan—the Crusader is not known for logic or sanity).
-->'''Nate''': Get... stuffed...
* DependingOnTheArtist: How old he actually looks during his solo series—he's meant to be about 17, and later, his late teens/early twenties. However, some artists draw him built along Cable's lines (while they're counterparts, Cable's had a lifetime of extensive physical training to bulk him up, while Nate's still a kid, and even if Sinister designed him to be in peak physical shape, you'd expect some disparity) and looking closer to his late twenties, while others draw him more slender and looking more like his actual age, and others still draw him looking about 15, at most. However, some degree of athletic build is a constant, with his frequently being referred to as 'Muscles' or similar.
** From ''New Mutants'' onwards, he gets more consistent, being drawn as muscular and in his early twenties (though his growing SkunkStripe and later BadassBeard make him look older).
* DePower: Nate has gone through a lot of these at one point or another. The most spectacular happened after his resurrection, he is captured by Sugar Man and used as a power source to the point of being nowhere near his previous abilities. By 2018's ''ComicBook/UncannyXMen2018'', however, they're back, and then some [[spoiler: (though he seems to lose them when transported back to the Age of Apocalypse, for some unknown reason... then it turns out that he's just inside Legion's head, and gets them back as soon as he realises this, flattening Legion in the space of about five seconds)]].
* DespairEventHorizon: ''X-Men: Disassembled'' is all about the results of Nate finally crossing this, plunging into despair—typified by a conversation he has with Jean in the form of an old woman, where both agree that the world's messed up, but Jean retains optimism. Thus, he decides that he has to remake the world by force. Arguably, though, he doesn't tip over the edge until a minutes-that-feel-like-months stint in [[spoiler: Legion's mental construct of]] the Age of Apocalypse without his powers, where he sadly reflects that while he originally thought that 616 was heaven to the AOA's hell, he's come to believe that it's just a more subtle form of hell. This ultimately leads him to TakeAThirdOption and create the ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan''.
* DestructiveSaviour: In his solo series. Due to his take-no-prisoners fighting style, and the power levels of his enemies, Nate's fights tend to have a high collateral damage quotient—for instance, he once practically levelled the city of Dublin.
** He also makes one hell of a mess of the planet in ''X-Men: Disassembled''.
* DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife: A purpose other than "killing Apocalypse", to be precise. Following the Shaman reboot, with a hiatus when he lost most of his powers, it's a matter of saving the world—whether it wants to be saved or not - though he learns the error of his ways at the end of ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan''.
* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: In one what-if tale he literally ''liquefies'' Apocalypse by mind-melding with Owen Reece the Molecule Man and forcibly unlocking the full potential of the latter's RealityWarper powers.
** In ''ComicBook/UncannyXMen2018'', he simultaneously has Apocalypse in chains and Magneto on a psychic leash, before taking out an entire ''team'' of heavyweight X-Men, including Omega Class mutants Jean Grey, Storm, Psylocke, and Iceman, with minimal effort. He also effortlessly flattens Legion.
* DimensionalTraveler: At the height of his powers, after the Shaman Reboot, he can achieve this with almost insulting ease, treating the Multiverse as his personal stepladder.
* DividedWeFall: The first encounter with Professor Xavier (who had been long dead in his universe) going bad led Nate to keep his distance from the X-Men for a long time.
* DoesNotLikeShoes: Following the Shaman reboot. This becomes a problem once he undergoes a DePower and can no longer just levitate over mud and stuff like that. Now that his powers are back, that's no longer a problem.
* TheDreaded: To many of the people in the 616 universe, at first. Since he was outright stated to be equal to Dark Phoenix in power while he was still a teenager, and isn't the world's most stable individual, this isn't overly surprising.
** Dark Beast is terrified of him. [[TheDogBitesBack With good reason]].
** Sunspot explicitly states in ''Unfinished Business'' that he's not too keen on finding Nate because he finds him scary. Considering that he's seen Nate on more than one bad day, this is not entirely surprising.
** As of 2018, even ''{{ComicBook/Legion}}'', one of the most powerful mutants ever, is scared of him. As it turns out, there is a ''very'' good reason for this: when the two finally go toe to toe in issue 8, [[spoiler: Nate wipes him out in five seconds flat]].
* DrunkOnTheDarkSide: Possibly. It's notable that he's usually much more human when he's stripped of his powers for one reason or another, and generally kinder. Also, as Armour puts it in ''Uncanny X-Men'', deeply traumatised.
* EnergyBeing: Has become one on several occasions.
* {{Expy}}:
** Literally an in-universe one to Cable, as they are essentially the same person from different realities and they have an identical genetic makeup (though Nate's genesis was slightly different from Cable's and he is much more powerful, due to not being infected with the T-O Virus).
** He also might have spawned an AlternateCompanyEquivalent one in the form of the New 52 version of ComicBook/SuperBoy, who has the same power set, the same LivingWeapon backstory, the same development from nigh sociopathic ReluctantHero with mild kleptomaniac tendencies into a genuine NiceGuy (though Nate was a fair bit nicer to begin with, if grumpy), the same difficult relationship with his elder counterpart and the same nature as TheDreaded to most of those he encounters.
* EvenEvilHasStandards:
** Mr. Sinister is opposed to the schemes of both Apocalypse and Onslaught, and seeks Nate out to prepare him for both. Unfortunately, Onslaught beguiles Nate and abducts him before Sinister can do much for him.
** The Purple Man is disgusted by the TerroristsWithoutACause of U.L.T.I.M.A.T.U.M. and their leader Flag-Smasher, to the point of ordering Flag-Smasher to get out of his limo and commit suicide by stepping off a cliff.
* EvilMentor: Not so much 'evil' as 'on the wrong side of the HeelFaceRevolvingDoor that day', but Havok mentored Nate while he was in the Brotherhood, coaching him to regain enough of his telekinesis so that he could fly again.
* FaceHeelTurn: Apparently in 2018's ''[[ComicBook/UncannyXMen2018 X-Men: Disassembled]]'', of the WellIntentionedExtremist variety, and not a totally surprising one in retrospect. Nate has always had a tendency to judge people, 'separating the just from the guilty', and an inclination to impose his will on the world (or at the very least, do everything he feels is required to prevent it from becoming another Age of Apocalypse). It is eventually explained that [[spoiler: he's dying, thanks to a DeadlyUpgrade by a Life Seed, and thus desperate to do what he can, while he can]]. When it's continued in ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan'', he's revealed as an AntiVillain, one who is genuinely desperately trying to help the X-Men and break them out of their pattern of suffering and conflict.
* FashionDissonance: [[RunningGag Nate's fashion sense is not the best.]]
** While the whole shirtless leather jacket thing might have worked in the early noughties, it generally leads to Nate being the butt of jokes about his fashion sense.
** His Age of Apocalypse leathers got this treatment too, even back in the nineties, with Pete Wisdom of ComicBook/{{Excalibur}} calling him a 'horrible little MTV clone'.
* FemmeFatale: Madelyne Pryor. Just look at the cover of issue #41. This is made all the more disturbing by the fact that she's the mother of his 616 counterpart, Cable.
* TheFettered: Had a period where he begrudgingly became this by necessity due to his PowerDegeneration literally putting his life in danger every time he used it.
* FishOutOfWater: Due to his forcible transition from the utter CrapsackWorld of the Age of Apocalypse to the comparatively more peaceful and sane reality of Earth-616.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: In 2010's ''Heroic Age: Heroes'', a one-shot in which ComicBook/CaptainAmerica assesses the various heroes of the Marvel Universe, he expresses some ambivalence about Nate, worrying that he might go the way of the Sentry. While Cap's suspicion seemed a little unfair (though not totally unwarranted) in light of Nate's track record at the time, eight years later writers decided that Cap had the right idea after all, as evidenced by Nate's [[FaceHeelTurn transformation]] into a WellIntentionedExtremist as soon as his powers came back.
* ForgotAboutHisPowers: From time to time Nate forgets about one of his powers or another. Considering the sheer number of them, this is far from surprising.
* FreudianExcuse: Not a villain (most of the time), but between [[CloningBlues Madelyne Pryor]], AOA!Jean, [[TeamMom 616!Jean]] and [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Queen Jean]], he could quite easily be the poster child for this trope. It would go a long way to explaining why the ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan'' reality has a stern prohibition on interpersonal relationships.
* FriendToAllChildren: Something he shares with Cable, and that they both get from their mother. Despite his occasionally gruff exterior, he's particularly nice to and good with children, as best shown when he affectionately tickles a small baby that he'd just saved from a building that an arsonist had just set on fire [[LaserGuidedKarma (after downloading the baby's terrified memories of choking to death into the arsonist's head)]].
** Also, during ''Operation: Zero Tolerance'', Cable roped him in to protect the Grey family, which Nate did to the best of his ability—while his powers were more or less fried (again), and he was unable to save Sara Bailey (Jean's older sister) and her husband, he did manage to protect their kids, proving remarkably gentle and caring with two very traumatised young children. For instance, to keep one of them calm, he used the last of his powers to essentially conjure up a construct of her stuffed bear.
** Even after his FaceHeelTurn of sorts in ''X-Men: Disassembled'', he flattens the X-Men, but doesn't raise a hand to the Young X-Men when he realises that they're children, and instead happily explains his motives to them when they ask.
* GenerationXerox: Everyone's reaction to him are comparable to their reaction to his mother Jean and the Phoenix Force, with emphasis put on his destructive potential underlined by his power readings matching those of the Dark Phoenix.
** A ''What If?'' reveals that he will grow up to look ''exactly'' like Cable, leading to an elderly Sunfire mistaking the two. Equally, whenever Cable is deaged/shown as a young man (particularly during ''Cable and Deadpool'' and Kid Cable), he looks exactly like Nate—allowing for the metal arm.
** His ability to play Norman Osborn and his cohorts like a harp is highly reminiscent of his dad. Unlike Cyclops, however, he made a crucial mistake—he underestimated the Goblin personality's capacity for rationality. If he'd adjusted his plan, he'd have succeeded in bringing down the entirety of Osborn's ''Dark Reign'' in a matter of days—and considering that Osborn very quickly snapped and went full Green Goblin, in public, just as Nate planned, it's arguable that he had the last laugh on that one.
* GeniusBruiser: When he gets past his temper, he's actually very clever and very resourceful, using his power creatively and effectively. On his return, he proves that he's very much Comicbook/{{Cyclops}}'s son by promptly [[OutGambitted out maneuvering]] ComicBook/NormanOsborn, the entire ComicBook/DarkAvengers and Dark X-Men, teams including [[ManipulativeBastard Karla Sofen]], ComicBook/{{Daken}}, ComicBook/{{Mystique}}, and ComicBook/{{Ares}} and very nearly ends ''Comicbook/DarkReign'' in the space of a couple of issues. If he hadn't misjudged the Goblin persona, he'd have won. [[IndyPloy And this is with a plan that he came up with on the fly.]]
** He also knows, it seems, everything there is to know about reality warping and dimension jumping. He's certainly done enough of it.
* GettingSmiliesPaintedOnYourSoul: Becomes disturbingly capable of this on his return in ''ComicBook/UncannyXMen2018'', thanks to being an immensely powerful telepath—something most aptly demonstrated with the Horsemen of Salvation, who, as Storm demonstrates, he can convert on the fly.
* GlorifiedSpermDonor: Refers to 616 Cyclops as this, almost word for word, to 616 Havok. He's on better terms with him later—though he still likes his mother better.
** He refers to his mother in similar terms in ''X-Men: Disassembled'', rejecting her attempt to reach out to him, albeit in a less than convincing fashion. The finale of the arc makes it very clear that this was a sham.
* AGodAmI: Occasionally, particularly in ''ComicBook/UncannyXMen2018'', declaring his intent to remake the world in his image—and the scary thing is that he more than has the power to back it up. How much of this was him playing the part of the god-like messiah out of perceived necessity is ambiguous, but it wouldn't exactly be the first time he's considered this.
** To further highlight this, for his reinvention as an AntiVillain in ''[[ComicBook/UncannyXMen2018 X-Men: Disassembled]]'', as part of the run up to the ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan'' event, it was decided to give him a visual revamp, and, in a classic case of Marvel's idea of subtlety, they went with [[https://media.comicbook.com/2018/10/uncanny-x-men-6-1137116.jpeg this]]. A God Is He indeed.
** As he points out, with his raw power, there's very little difference between playing god and ''being'' god. Of course, it's left ambiguous how much he believes it, with Hope being positioned as the Mutant Messiah in ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan''. [[spoiler: ''Age of X-Man: Omega'' has him explicitly deny it.]]
* AGodIAmNot: His more usual attitude, and one he confirms in [[spoiler: ''Age of X-Man: Omega'']]
* GoodIsNotNice: Initially, Nate's basically what you get when you give a grumpy [[DeadpanSnarker and sardonic]] teenager ChronicHeroSyndrome, a raging case of [[ShellShockedVeteran PTSD]], and a reputation as TheDreaded that means that pretty much everyone is scared witless of him. This trope is the unsurprising result. Later, he becomes more detached, judgemental, and ruthless.
* GoodIsNotSoft: Early in the series, Nate is a hero through and through, but he can also be bullheaded and abrasive to the people around him. And when it comes to combat, he does ''not'' hold back, expressly rejecting the traditional ThouShaltNotKill philosophy of the X-Men due to coming of age in a much more hard and brutal world than the one they know. Later, he gets more polite and more morally ambiguous.
** He's also got a bit of a Messiah Complex, which can be... worrying.
* GracefulLoser: At the end of ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan'', he calmly explains his genuinely well-intentioned reasoning behind the ''Age of X-Man'' itself (while also being forced to concede by [[spoiler: the unconsciously created construct of Dani Moonstar, his ex-girlfriend]] that he's NotSoAboveItAll regarding relationships), and acquiesces to the X-Men's demands to return to the 616 universe.
* GuestStarPartyMember: Nate's only video game appearance (as of 2020) in ''VideoGame/XMenLegends II'' sees him play this role. Unfortunately, he ''only'' appears in the [[UsefulNotes/PlayStationPortable PSP]] version of the game.
* HeroicSacrifice: Nate dispersed his essence to every living being on Earth to prevent [[PlanetLooters an alien parasite from consuming them]] killing them both. It lasted eight years real time, surprisingly enough.
* HoldingBackThePhlebotinum: With no TO virus like ComicBook/{{Cable}}, keeping him from using his immense power to solve problems in a flash requires his powers to frequently be burned out, somehow blocked, or on occasion held back by having him pick up the IdiotBall.
* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: In the first few issues of his solo title, Nate was pretty much the only member of the Outcasts who didn't feel uneasy about the hulking, [[RedEyesTakeWarning red-eyed]] Essex, who was of course Mr. Sinister in disguise, and who ended up killing almost all of the Outcasts save Nate himself. The experience was transformative, as not only did Nate never again extend any other villains such benefit of the doubt, he swung to the opposite extreme and became suspicious by default, which hurt his relationship with the 616 X-Men.
* HorsemenOfTheApocalypse: Inverted in ''X-Men: Disassembled'', where Nate assembled a team called the Horsemen of Salvation. In place of Pestilence, Famine, War and Death, Nate has Horsemen of Life, Bounty, Wellness and Peace. The choices for this team fall straight into ''bizarre'', though, as Nate chooses Magneto to be his Horseman of Peace (which Magneto promptly demonstrates his qualifications for [[OxymoronicBeing by blowing up the X-Mansion]]) and for the other Horsemen he chooses Angel, Blob and Omega Red. While these are technically logical choices, when looked at in a mirror (Blob, famously gluttonous, becomes the Horseman of Bounty; Omega Red, a PoisonousPerson, becomes the Horseman of Wellness; and Angel, famously the Horseman of Death, becomes Life), Nate had never actually ''met'' any of them (though he was familiar with his reality's Magneto), or had any even remote ties to before this story — which is the subject of InUniverse bemusement as well.
* {{Hypocrite}}: He hates being controlled or manipulated, but if he feels it necessary, has no compunction about doing the same to others — something which has been discussed from time to time. He escalates to full on ControlFreak in ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan'', because (in his eyes) the X-Men have a tendency to 'cut off their noses to spite their face', [[JerkassHasAPoint which he's not entirely wrong about.]] He eventually learns to let go, at the end of ''Age of X-Man'', [[GracefulLoser letting them go back to the real world and do as they wish]], after straight-up explaining what he was trying to do/how he was trying to help them - and a number of X-Men admit that [[JerkassHasAPoint most of what he says makes sense]], especially Magneto.
* IJustWantToBeNormal: A running theme of his, as epitomised by his 'Greyville' fantasy under the influence of Mysterio, where he's essentially the friendly neighbourhood superhero—alongside the original, his good friend Spidey. Even in the ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan'', he eschews the messiah role and presents himself as simply a member of that reality's X-Men.
* ImpossiblyTackyClothes: His... ''odd'' fashion sense is a RunningGag.
* ImprovisedWeapon: During one story arc late in the ''X-Man'' run when he fought the Crusader, Nate decided to fight him on his level and [[http://i.imgur.com/0iAHhAH.jpg assembled a sword and set of armor for himself]] with his telekinetic powers.
* IncestantAdmirer: Maddie Pryor, eventually a textbook {{Yandere}}, to Nate's intense discomfort.
* IncestSubtext: By the ''bucketload'' with Maddie Pryor, mother of Cable (his 616 counterpart) and clone of Jean (616 counterpart of his mother). To Nate's credit, he backed off fast as soon as he realised just how she was related to him. Maddie... [[https://78.media.tumblr.com/be441d5006070648c856e52f9415408b/tumblr_nmadcj8Zcs1rw95j3o1_1280.jpg not]] [[IfICantHaveYou so much.]] It got to the point where they were the series' FanPreferredCouple.
* InnocentBlueEyes: As a small child. When he's older, during one of his rare moments of wonder and joy, they look like this. Thanks to the art of Roger Cruz, it's absurdly adorable.
* InvincibleHero: By the end of his series it takes a planetary or universal (even multiversal) scale threat to challenge him or an outright sucker punch. On his return in the ''Dark X-Men'' miniseries, he can singlehandedly assault a HAMMER complex and take a moment to stop and tell a HAMMER Agent that yes, she should take that UNICEF job she's considering, and take on the Dark Avengers and Dark X-Men simultaneously without breaking a sweat and explaining exactly why their attacks won't work all the while.
** As of his return in ''Uncanny X-Men'', he seems to be even stronger. He can communicate with everyone in the world without much discernible effort, and when Kitty questions the plausibility of this, Apocalypse flatly points out that he's got Magneto on a leash, turned off Kitty's powers with a word, and has Apocalypse himself in chains (who he's apparently just keeping around as a reminder of what he's working to prevent—though he does listen to him later on when he thinks he's got an interesting idea). [[spoiler: It later turns out that, for whatever reason, his powers don't work in the Age of Apocalypse... then it's revealed that it's actually inside Legion's head, and once he figures that out, he effortlessly flattens Legion and body-jacks him. After that, it takes Jean, Psylocke, the Stepford Sisters, and Sage, along with a whopping great lightning bolt from Storm, to separate him from Legion—and even after ''that'', he calmly carries on a conversation inside his head with Jean while all those psychics, Storm, the rest of the X-Men, and Magneto hammer away at his defences to absolutely zero real effect.]] The final issue reveals that his powers are back and boosted because of [[spoiler: a Life Seed]], which gave him his powers back but [[spoiler: left him still dying]], leaving him confused as to what he was meant to do, and inspiring his actions throughout the arc. Then he created the ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan''.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Even at his most dickish and grumpy, it's very clear that Nate inherited heroism from both parents, particularly his mother's compassion. Even after his FaceHeelTurn in ''X-Men: Disassembled'' and ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan'', compassion and trying to do something good — albeit through [[WellIntentionedExtremist insanely extreme]] methods — are his driving motives.
* [[KidFromTheFuture Kid From The Alternate Universe]]: Nate for Cyclops and Jean Grey.
* KnifeNut: Jackknife, one of the few original villains from Nate's title, was essentially a mutant version of this, as his PsychicPowers manifested as crimson EnergyWeapon blades.
* KnightInShiningArmour: To Threnody in particular, for whom he was a borderline LoveMartyr.
* KnightInSourArmour: for much of his series, at least until he met Peter Parker, he was fully convinced that people, human and mutant alike, sucked. Since he was regularly persecuted, never thanked and [[TheDreaded most people were utterly terrified of him (and not entirely without reason)]], it's hard to argue against this. But he still saved people, because that's what heroes do.
* LargeHam: Early on, it seems like he can't do anything without all volume control being off and, usually, a large explosion of power and a barrage of SesquipedalianLoquaciousness. Even after he calms down and evens out a bit, he still retains a penchant for dramatics. [[FridgeBrilliance This makes a lot more sense when you remember that he was raised by resistance fighters undercover as Shakespearean stage actors.]]
* LaserGuidedTykebomb: Nate was created by the Sinister of the Age of Apocalypse timeline, for the express purpose of killing Apocalypse, who Sinister currently served as a Horseman.
* LaserGuidedKarma: He's particularly adept at this, even early on, downloading the memories of a terrified baby who'd been caught in a blaze into the mind of the arsonist that set it. He also punished [=AoA=]!Domino, Apocalypse's assassin, by restoring her previously defunct conscience.
* LetsYouAndHimFight: Nate's acquaintance with characters from the main MarvelUniverse usually started from trading blows. This is't overly surprising since his power levels made him TheDreaded (something Cable notes), he had a rather skewed idea of who the good and bad guys were in 616 thanks to the differences in his world, as well as an initial HairTriggerTemper, and a very justified sense of a paranoia.
** Notably averted with ComicBook/SpiderMan. When Peter finds the 'street prophet', Nate picks him out, calmly walks up to him and suggests that they just talk things through. Peter accepts.
-->'''Nate''': [[LampshadeHanging I know it's practically a requirement in situations like this]] but is there any chance we could pass on the gratuitous fight?
* LikeASonToMe: To the Forge of his home reality.
* LikeBrotherAndSister: Rogue had a certain degree of BigSisterInstinct towards him, intermittently keeping an eye on him from a distance and trying to help keep him out of trouble. Since Nate was TheDreaded, a WeirdnessMagnet even by X-Men standards, and none too eager to join up with the X-Men, there wasn't too much she could do—though she did give Bishop a memorable dressing down when he wound up picking a fight with Nate over concerns that Nate was an irresponsible threat to everyone around him. Nate, for his part, played the role of grumpy little brother to perfection (much as he did to Cable). Remarkably, she was also one of the few people who the HotBlooded Nate grudgingly listened to, and actually liked. Thanks to the fact that both had a SkunkStripe and dark hair, they even looked a bit alike.
* LineageComesFromTheFather: Mostly averted—he has his mother's power set, her compassion and her explosive temper (the latter being most obvious). On the other hand, he also has his father's cynicism, [[DeadpanSnarker snark]], [[TallDarkAndHandsome looks,]] and tendencies towards being TheChessmaster.
* LongBusTrip: Takes two; between the end of his solo series in 2001 and ''Dark X-Men'' in 2009 (which was mainly about his return), and between the end of the ''New Mutants'' run in 2012 and 2018 when he reappeared as an important part of the Metus arc in Cable's ongoing—albeit only in flashbacks. Following that, he's returning in the present as part of the relaunch of ''Uncanny X-Men'' and January 2019's X-Event is called ''Age of X-Man''.
* LoveTriangle: With the introduction of Threnody one of these developed between Nate, Thren, and Madelyne Pryor. Nate himself was largely clueless of this, to the frustration of both women. Extra awkwardness would come from the InUniverse [[TheReveal revelation]] that Nate and Maddie were related, even if neither of them knew this for a long time. As it turned out, while it bothered Nate, it didn't seem to bother Maddie in the slightest, who seemed to see him as a ReplacementGoldFish both for her ex-husband, Scott, and her son, Cable.
* MessianicArchetype: Every now and then, starting in the ''ComicBook/AgeOfApocalypse'' when he's the one meant to destroy Apocalypse (which he does—or rather, beats him to a pulp and leaves him for Magneto to finish) and later during his days as the Street Prophet of Washington Square, in which he shows something of a knack for playing the messiah role. However, it really comes in when he gets the Shaman upgrade.
** He fully embraces the role in ''Uncanny X-Men'', though it's somewhat subverted by the fact that he's playing a part, and is mostly acting out of desperation because [[spoiler: he's dying again and he's trying to do what he can in the time that he has, because that's what he thinks he's meant to do, thanks to the Life Seed giving him his powers back, but not his life.]] It's telling that in the follow-up BatFamilyCrossover, ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan'', he plays the part of an ordinary (if senior) member of the X-Men, and Hope is the (admittedly dead) MessianicArchetype instead.
* MindOverManners: Frequently disregards this early on, though he gets called on it just as frequently, including by himself. He discards those tendencies as part of his CharacterDevelopment.
** He seems to have reverted on this score in ''Uncanny X-Men'', as part of a FaceHeelTurn (albeit of the WellIntentionedExtremist variety), casually using Magneto, Blob, Omega Red, and Archangel (and later Storm) as puppets—though at least in Archangel's case, he was apparently actually helping him with his SuperpoweredEvilSide. He also demonstrates his abuse of this to an extreme in ''Age of X-Man'', though going by his internal monologue, he absolutely hates doing it.
* MindOverMatter: His telekinesis is, initially, his go-to ability (his telepathy gets much more emphasis later on), and considering it is powerful enough to qualify him for RealityWarper status, it well should be.
* MindRape: Generally avoids this, especially as he gets nicer. However, he's also capable of getting very nasty and very creative with the LaserGuidedKarma when pushed—note what he did to [=AoA=]!Domino, Apocalypse's assassin (restored her long withered conscience, reducing her to a catatonic wreck), and to a random arsonist during his New York hero days who had set fire to a building containing a lot of homeless people, including a small baby (transferred the baby's traumatic memories of choking to death to the arsonist).
* MisunderstoodLonerWithAHeartOfGold: Nate was not a team player, even less so than Cable, and usually preferred to do his own thing, prior to joining up with the New Mutants - and even that was initially mostly just a living arrangement. He was also widely feared for his unfortunate combination of monstrous raw power, frequent PowerIncontinence, and an epic HairTriggerTemper. Plus his fears over how he was essentially dying from the moment of his birth, thanks to Sinister's genetic time bomb. However, he was also a JerkWithAHeartOfGold at worst, [[FriendToAllChildren invariably kind to children]], and an all round hero who mostly just wanted to help out every now and then, while being left alone to live his life. This would all generally work out fine if he wasn't a world-class WeirdnessMagnet, and one who tended to get a bit... ''strange'' when without a MoralityChain or two. And even then, he's always trying to do the right thing.
* MommasBoy: A positive example. Nate gets on with his father fairly well, but unlike his 616 counterpart Cable, he's closest to his mother. They only meet briefly in his native universe and don't realise who they are to each other, but this is sufficient to form a connection which leads to him subconsciously reaching out on arriving in the 616 'verse and resurrecting Maddie Pryor. He and 616!Jean develop a close bond and she's the one who inspires him to be a real hero. Needless to say, he is ''pissed'' on his return to find out that his mother is dead and that Mystique had been impersonating her.
** She's also the one person who really manages to get through to him in ''X-Men: Disassembled'', getting to the heart of his motives—part of his understated MotiveRant includes the line, "I tried to be the son you wanted me to be." [[spoiler: Unfortunately, it's not quite enough.]]
** Moira [=MacTaggert=] also served as a ParentalSubstitute, and she was one of the few people he listened to—on one memorable occasion, he was having a spectacular tantrum/freak-out following his paranoia getting the better of him. Moira then basically scolded him into submission (as Rahne put it "putting the hard word on him"), to the bafflement of {{ComicBook/Excalibur}} and seemingly, Nate himself. As Moira herself observed, due to his lack of life experience, he simply didn't know how to argue back.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone:
** The Quito incident. Specifically, while under the control of [[EvilCounterpart Queen Jean]], he flattens Quito.
** Towards the end of ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan'', when he sees just how much of a CrapsaccharineWorld it has become.
* MyRealDaddy: While Creator/JephLoeb created him, and Terry Kavanagh wrote most of his solo series', Creator/WarrenEllis and Creator/DanAbnett codified his current depiction as a somewhat strange CrazySane mutant Shaman and WellIntentionedExtremist, who also happens to be [[DeadpanSnarker sarcastic]] and a bit of a dork.
* MysticalWhiteHair: At the end of ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan'', his increasingly white striped beard and hair goes all white, and is initially paired with a BadassBeard (which, for some reason, vanishes towards the end of the epilogue).
* NaiveNewcomer: When he first arrives in Earth 616 he is baffled by the prospect of a world that is largely at peace.
* NamesTheSame: The Gauntlet, a bunch of psychic CapeBusters are not the same as the Gauntlet, a group of psychic mutants who use their powers for their own gain.
** And neither of them have any relation to Gauntlet, the Dark Rider and one-eyed mutant mercenary.
* NatureVersusNurture: His encounters with Cable generally explored this.
* NecessarilyEvil: How he characterises his actions in ''X-Men: Disassembled.''
--> Utopia comes at a price.
* TheNeedless: By the end of his series, he doesn't actually need to eat, drink, sleep or breathe (to the point where he doesn't even notice that he's in a cell full of raw nitrogen), and does human things mostly to reassure humans and mutants alike. However, following his depowering, he does seem to need to do all of the above.
* NiceGuy: After his character development, all he really wants to do is help people. [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Even early on]], he shows signs of this, pulling a Moses for Wolfsbane just to show her the sunken ships that she dreamed about seeing, even though it hurt him to do so.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Nate means well, but his impulsive behavior has sometimes resulted in this.
** When Nate first met Professor X, he forcibly dragged Chuck out of his AstralProjection state and into the real world. This was a feat unmatched by any psychic before him, and it inspired the nascent Onslaught dwelling in Xavier's mind to create a psionic body for himself.
** Nate was also responsible for accidentally awakening the mutant ability of Jackknife, an abandoned member of the Abomination's Forgotten who quickly succumbed to WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity.
** Later still Nate unwittingly awakened three of the [[ComicBook/AlphaFlight Great Beasts]] with an uncontrolled burst of his power.
** His actions in ''X-Men: Disassembled'', while well-intentioned, resulted in the passing of anti-mutant legislation and the roll-out of a mutant vaccine, while simultaneously the vast majority of the X-Men were trapped in the ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan''.
* NomDeMom: He is Nathan ''Grey'' while Cable is Nathan ''Summers''. Unsurprisingly, he's always been much closer to his mother, regarding his father with a certain degree of ambivalence—though he does warm up towards Cyclops when he joins up with the New Mutants.
* NonindicativeName: Nate's the ''X-Man'', but save for one very brief instance, he's ironically never actually been a member of the team. This is rectified in ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan''.
* NoShirtLongJacket: Rocked this look during his return in the ''Dark X-Men'' miniseries, before returning to his previous leather jacket.
* NotSoAboveItAll: The mystery of the two Dani Moonstars, one in the real world and one in the ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan'' is resolved by the explanation that the latter is a subconscious creation of Nate's, something which shows that he's not so above the human connections and relationships as he liked to claim, leading to a HeelRealization.
* NotSoDifferent: He spends a long time distancing himself from Cable, but he turns out quite a lot like him, with the two going through nigh-identical character developments—Nate becomes a Shaman, while Cable goes through his 'Saviour Cable' phase (though in Cable's case, it was part of a complicated GenghisGambit. For Nate, it was apparently genuine.)
** Ultimately (and disturbingly), to Apocalypse through their shared God complex. However, Nate's is a touch more, well, complex: Apocalypse aspires to rule as a God-King, while Nate stumbles into this by being a compulsive ControlFreak with vast telepathic powers who's desperate to prevent a dystopia, as demonstrated by the ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan''. While on the face of it, it's a utopia in total contrast to the ''ComicBook/AgeOfApocalypse'', in many ways, it's just as awful — and in others, owing to Nate's vast telepathic and reality warping abilities, it's actually ''worse''. It just doesn't look it. Unlike Apocalypse, however, Nate acknowledges his mistakes, and when reforming the AOX with [[spoiler: AOX Magneto]], one of the first things they do is to remove the secret police and mind-wiping.
* NotSoStoic: In ''X-Men: Disassembled'' he tries to act as if Jean [[MommasBoy (who he's always been close to)]] is a GlorifiedSpermDonor at best, and in ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan'' as if he's totally onboard with his own precepts of being separated from connections to others. In both cases, this is a sham, he's aware of the former—he admits to her at the end that he's just trying to be someone she could be proud of—but isn't of the latter, having subconsciously [[spoiler: conjured up a version of his last girlfriend, Dani Moonstar]], who gives him a gentle speech about how connections are a good thing, and what make people human.
** Being trapped in [[spoiler: a version of the Age of Apocalypse—in what turns out to be Legion's head—without his powers for what feels like months]] leaves him downright traumatised, as Armour points out. Considering that it's probably all his worst nightmares come to life (and that was ''before'' he was locked in a tube like the one that created him), it's unsurprising that he drops the calm, pleasant demeanour he'd had before and goes absolutely berserk.
* OddFriendship: With Peter Parker, as at first glance a cynical, brooding character like Nate doesn't seem like an obvious fit for the wisecracking and free-spirited Spider-Man. That said, both men have been forced by tragedy into growing WiseBeyondTheirYears, and that common bond draws them together. Additionally, Nate honestly looked up to Peter as a mentor and older brother figure, while Captain America's ''Heroic Age'' file on him notes that Spidey spoke in his favour after he turned up again.
* OffhandBackhand: Pulls a brutally contemptuous one on Cannonball in ''X-Men: Disassembled'', that, despite his usual invulnerability while blasting, flattens him.
* OurVampiresAreDifferent: ComicBook/{{Morbius}} sees use as a MonsterOfTheWeek in issue 24. Unusually, while Morbius doesn't normally turn people, he ''does'' turn Nate—which Spidey and Nate both speculate is because Nate ''expects'' to be turned by a vampire bite, giving him a kind of psychosomatic version of vampirism. Eventually, he shakes it off.
* OurZombiesAreDifferent: The people controlled by [[spoiler: Threnody]].
* PapaWolf: Cyclops seems to have developed a degree of this towards him after he was rescued [[spoiler: from the Omega Machine]], making it clear that Nate is family and that he is coming back to Utopia whether ComicBook/CaptainAmerica and SHIELD like it or not.
** The Age of Apocalypse version of Forge had this towards him, protecting him at all costs.
* ParentalIncest: Although combined with FridgeLogic. Nate had a relationship with Madelyne Pryor who is a [[CloningBlues clone of Jean Grey]], an alternate version of the woman whose DNA he was created from, making her essentially his genetic mother. The relationship mercifully lost its romantic overtones once Nate found out who she was, at least on Nate's part... And it got worse when she was killed and impersonated by an evil megalomaniac Jean Grey from yet another alternate universe for months. [[spoiler: She later brought Nate to her reality, where she became the evil queen of Earth, and introduced him to that reality's version of Nate Grey, and it is all but openly stated that she made him—her own biological son for all intents and purposes—be her slave, which, yes, includes ''sex slave''. Nate was later forced to kill her in self-defense.]]
* ParentalSubstitute: ''Age of Apocalypse'' Forge and Cyclops in the father column, 616!Jean Grey and Moira [=MacTaggert=] in the mother column.
* PersonOfMassDestruction: Nate was considered to be the most powerful mutant in the world with Dark Phoenix-level power, and increasingly verged on PhysicalGod territory. If his powers had killed him as planned, it would have wiped out a quarter of the planet, and he states towards the end of the Shaman run that he was born to destroy planets. The being he is fighting at the time does not dispute this.
* PhysicalGod: Towards the end of the Shaman arc, during ''Dark X-Men'', and following his {{Depower}}, once again in ''Uncanny X-Men'', to the point where he comfortably subdued Apocalypse—another example of this trope—and is keeping him around simply as a living reminder of what he's working to prevent, and later takes out an entire team of X-Men featuring Jean Grey, Psylocke, Storm, and Ice Man, four Omega Class mutants in their own right, in a very brief OffscreenMomentOfAwesome.
* PopularityPower: after the ''ComicBook/AgeOfApocalypse'' ended, he was sufficiently popular to get a self-titled series that ran for 75 issues, a key role in the ''Onslaught'' crisis crossover, essentially a miniseries of his own in ''Dark X-Men'' (albeit after an eight year real time gap), then a spot on the ''ComicBook/NewMutants'', and ''then'' a leading arc in the new run on ''Uncanny X-Men'' and [[ComicBook/AgeOfXMan a full event]] in 2018/19.
* PowerDegeneration: Nate's power put a huge strain on his body and would kill him before he turned 21. This was eventually revealed to be a fail-safe put into place by [=AoA=]!Sinister, because he didn't want Nate to be around to destroy ''him'' after he took out Apocalypse. The PowerTattoo discussed below stops it... [[spoiler: until the Life Seed gives him a DeadlyUpgrade.]]
* PowerTattoo: He received the traditional "X" symbol as a large tattoo covering the left side of his chest after assuming the role as Mutant Shaman. It was given to him by an alternate counterpart to stabilize his genetics. [[spoiler: It works until the Life Seed gets involved.]]
* PowerTrio: Jam, Bux and Rita, a trio of streetwise party girls from Nate's New York hero period.
* PsychicNosebleed: A frequent sufferer of these, as most psychics tend to be. In his case, however, it was usually a sign of degenerating powers.
* PsychicPowers: His telekinesis makes him a RealityWarper at full blast, and his telepathy is strong enough that he [[spoiler: curbstomps Legion and possesses him in approximately five seconds.]]
* PutOnABus: His greatest nemesis isn't Holocaust or Apocalypse, but Marvel's terminal inability to integrate high-powered characters into the setting on a regular basis. After his title's end (in which he was frequently depowered for the sake of drama), he was put on his first bus, one which he rode through most of the 2000s until 2009's ''ComicBook/DarkReign''. Following that title's end he found himself ComicBook/NormanOsborn's prisoner, and remained in custody for a few years until Cyclops finally got it in his head to rescue him. He then appeared in the then-latest incarnation of the ComicBook/NewMutants, but following that title's cancellation he found himself on his third bus. He was brought back after another few years to be the titular villain of the ''Age of X-Man'', but afterward got placed on Bus #4, which he is still on as of 2021 - though he's regularly mentioned in relation to the ''Age of X-Man'', which had rather extended consequences.
* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Forge's Outcasts, the [=AoA=] group that took Nate in during the first few issues of his title.
* RealityWarper: His MindOverMatter power is so great that it makes him this in all but name. Prior to his Shaman upgrade he was perpetually worried that he might accidentally rewrite the world around him, even in his sleep. As he had already restored a one-armed man's arm to him (completely subconsciously), literally resurrected Madelyne Pryor during a fever dream, and [[ArsonMurderAndJayWalking accidentally turned his clothes into his Age of Apocalypse gear in his sleep]] this concern was not at all unwarranted.
** In ''Uncanny X-Men'' and ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan'', he demonstrates that he's now a fully fledged version of this trope.
* RedEyesTakeWarning: In ''Uncanny X-Men'' when using his powers (and when annoyed by Apocalypse)—unsurprisingly, this is following an apparent FaceHeelTurn.
* RefusalOfTheCall: Early in the ''X-Man'' run he is met by Charles Xavier, who [[TheForceIsStrongWithThisOne senses his enormous psychic presence]] immediately upon his arrival in Earth-616, and wastes no time tracking him down and making an offer to him to join the X-Men. Wary of [[GloriousLeader men like him]] and not knowing that Xavier is alive on this world, consequently thinking that Xavier is feeding him a line, Nate refuses. Violently. Ten issues later, he refuses the call a second time, this time from Jean Grey.
* ReluctantHero: Madelyne makes it clear to Nate after they reunite that she does not see herself as a hero and is willing to help him and teach him, but not at the risk of her life. Despite this, she does actually risk her life for his sake in their fights against Holocaust and Stryfe.
* RoguesGalleryTransplant: Aside from Morbius above, Purple Man (still a member of ComicBook/{{Daredevil}}'s rogues gallery at this point), Flag-Smasher (a ComicBook/CaptainAmerica villain who would later transplant to ComicBook/{{Deadpool}}), and Mysterio (like Morbius, also from ComicBook/SpiderMan's rogues) all make appearances to menace Nate. And while he didn't appear in Nate's title, perennial ''Spidey'' BigBad Norman Osborn also became a pivotal villain to Nate during the ''Dark Reign'' event (and would have gotten squashed like a bug by Nate had [[LuckyBastard luck not been on his side]] that day).
* RunningGag: A low-key one is Nate's perpetual lack of fashion sense.
* SameCharacterButDifferent: Readers used to Brian Bendis's interpretation of the Purple Man seen in ''ComicBook/{{Alias}}'' might scratch their heads at this earlier take. While still evil, this Purple Man appears to be a WellIntentionedExtremist rather than a hollow version of TheHedonist, has little interest in abusing the PowerPerversionPotential nature of his CompellingVoice, and most poignantly has a deceased family that he misses and aims to see resurrected via his scheme to control [[RealityWarper Nate]]. This is a stark contrast to Bendis's Purple Man, who is purely TheSociopath and has no friends or loved ones. However, tellingly, Nate directly states that Killgrave is lying to himself and that all he really wants is power and control, suggesting that the only difference is that Bendis' Purple Man stopped lying to himself and became a CardCarryingVillain.
* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Early on, he was very verbose, and [[LargeHam a bit of a ham]] too. This probably had quite a lot to do with the fact that the people who wound up raising him were posing as a theatre troupe, performances and all, meaning that he picked up a lot, including showmanship.
* ShellShockedVeteran: Nate is ''hideously'' traumatised, with fairly textbook PTSD, as Armor points out in ''Uncanny X-Men''. Considering how deeply twitchy he is for most of his solo series, and that in ''Uncanny'' it's shown that beneath the hyper-confident all-powerful messiah facade is a deeply depressed young man who, in his skewed mind, is desperately trying to do what he thinks is the right thing, she's not exactly wrong.
* ShoutOut: Harvester's arrival to Earth is very clearly a twisted reflection of Superman's. First his spaceship destroys a military aircraft. Then an elderly couple who are married (but not to each other) witnesses its crashlanding and goes to investigate. They are turned into stone. Yeah, what we have here is [[EldritchAbomination the opposite of a saviour]].
* SkunkStripe: His lock of white hair is probably his most notable distinguishing feature. He even has one on his beard when he comes back in the 2018 ''Uncanny X-Men'' series, which at the end of ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan'' develops into MysticalWhiteHair.
* StoryBreakerPower: The main reason why he doesn't have very many appearances outside of his (admittedly long running) solo series and decades-later revival in the pages of ''New Mutants''. Even in the pages of his solo title, almost none of the villains were anywhere close to his level of power and the only way for the writers to maintain a sense of dramatic tension was to either play on his PowerDegeneration or have him be depowered (as evidenced by the sheer number of times he suffered from the latter). Writers finally decided the best way to keep him from breaking the story was to just turn him into a villain (albeit a sympathetic one), as seen by his 2018 FaceHeelTurn—and when he pulled a HeelFaceTurn at the end of that event, he was promptly PutOnABus.
* SuperWeight: Early on, mostly operates at a Type 3 level at first, owing to a lack of experience/PowerIncontinence/genetic degeneration causing his powers to switch off, spiking to Type 4 more and more as he gets better control of his powers. Grows into a Type 5 following the Shaman Reboot, then drops down to borderline Type 2 following his DePower. Following his FaceHeelTurn in 2018, he seems to have finally embraced his full potential as a Type 6, worfing the likes of Apocalypse and terrifying even Legion (for good reason, as [[spoiler: he crushes the latter in about five seconds when they finally fight]]).
* TagalongKid: Roust, a street-savvy kid from Nate's New York hero period.
* TakeAThirdOption: The second Gauntlet (telepaths using their gifts to quietly enrich themselves) explained to Nate that they refused to side with Professor Xavier or Magneto because they were not interested in mutant politics, and because they believed that both sides had worldviews that were too narrow. Given that they were able to operate for God knows how long without either side learning about them, the Gauntlet may have had a point.
* TallDarkAndHandsome: He takes after his dad.
** TallDarkAndSnarky: Again, he takes after his dad.
* TangledFamilyTree: Part of a particularly tangled bit of the Grey-Summers family tree. This is lampshaded by Dani Moonstar when a therapist comments on Hope's attitude towards Nate, and by Hope herself.
* TeensAreShort: Sometimes—his height varied on depiction, sometimes being around 6 feet tall, sometimes being comfortably shorter than Rogue. Now, he's hovering about six feet.
* TheoryOfNarrativeCausality: Aware of it by ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan'', and it turns out that the entire Age of X-Man is an attempt to defy it as much as possible on the X-Men's behalf—the results are a CrapsaccharineWorld, but he's trying.
* TokenGoodTeammate: He was a member of the [[Characters/XMenBrotherhoodOfMutants Brotherhood of Mutants]] for a very brief time (Havok and Dark Beast's version of the team, which they called simply "The Brotherhood") and during this time Nate was very much this.
* TookALevelInBadass: Takes several. At his first appearance in the 616 universe, he's basically a scared kid in an adult's body. Many levels in badass later, he can comfortably take on opponents like Hybrid, Maddie Pryor, and the Great Beasts, who are historically threats to entire teams of X-Men. This level of capability is demonstrated when he comes BackFromTheDead, he immediately takes on all of the Dark Avengers at once. The only one who even slows him down is [[WarGod Ares]], and even then, he still has the time to [[AwesomenessByAnalysis verbally dissect the abilities of the entire team and explain why they won't work on him, while being surprisingly polite about it.]] He then pulls a BatmanGambit worthy of the trope namer in possessing Norman Osborn and only loses because he misjudged the Green Goblin persona's capacity for rationality—and since Osborn went nuts, Goblin style, shortly afterwards during ''Siege'', just as Nate had intended, it's arguable that he had the last laugh on that one.
** And then, on his 2018 return, he takes out an entire team of X-Men—including Psylocke, Jean Grey, Iceman, and Storm—in a few moments offscreen, while also mentally controlling Magneto (who's historically very resistant to that kind of thing) and restraining Apocalypse.
* TookALevelInJerkass: In ''ComicBook/UncannyXMen2018'', where he's an outright antagonist, an AntiVillain, a WellIntentionedExtremist, and a bit of a dick. However, it's revealed that most of this is driven by desperation, because [[spoiler: he's dying and desperately trying to change the world for the better before he dies]]. In the follow-up, ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan'', he mellows out again.
* TookALevelInKindness: Steadily grows nicer throughout his ongoing series. The Shaman reboot just cements this... mostly. He's a bit otherworldly and weird. Plus, if you cross one of his lines, he's even more uncompromisingly ruthless than before—and he wasn't exactly a devotee of ThouShaltNotKill before, either. He ends up [[TookALevelInJerkass becoming a jerk again]] in ''Uncanny X-Men'', and sort of in ''Age of X-Man'', before he takes a big level in kindness again, conceding his mistakes, learning from them (and opting to try and learn from 'his tribe' rather than 'teach'), also apologising to those members of the X-Men (like Nature Girl) who genuinely want to stay in his reality.
* UncannyFamilyResemblance: One alternate reality comic set in the future shows that he'll grow up to look ''exactly'' like Cable, to the point where an elderly Sunfire mistakes him for Cable, something confirmed by Nate's white hair and BadassBeard at the end of ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan'' (though he still looks considerably younger than Cable). Conversely, a deaged Cable looks ''exactly'' like Nate, SkunkStripe and all.
* UsedToBeASweetKid: Not a classic villain (but definitely an antagonist in ''Uncanny X-Men'' and until the end of ''Age of X-Man''), but it is a little startling to contrast his KnightInSourArmour personality to his very first appearance as a kid no more than five or six years old who manages, [[TheVoiceless without saying a word,]] to elicit a little bit of CutenessProximity from [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate Sinister]] [[TheDragon himself!]]
* UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: His primary motive in 2018's ''Uncanny X-Men'', in the run up to the creation of the ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan'' outright stating, "Utopia justifies the means." However, this is later modified to Avoiding Dystopia Justifies The Means.
** The ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan'' itself is very much this trope, with the results actually being ''more'' disturbing than the ''ComicBook/AgeOfApocalypse''.
* WalkingShirtlessScene: After the [=retool=], his standard outfit becomes a open jacket with no shirt. Even before that, he was prone to wandering around without his shirt off.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: He always had elements of this, thanks to a more ruthless streak than most heroes because of his origins, but it got dialled up during his Shaman period, and most recently in ''X-Men: Disassembled'' when [[spoiler: he's entirely willing to kill off the X-Men, even if he does regret doing so, while also seeking to repair the world by force. When they reappear, he tries to talk them round, and only ultimately decides to get rid of them—presumably to the ''ComicBook/AgeOfXMan''—as a last resort. And as it turns out, the Age of X-Man was built specifically to help them, be a heaven for them, free of the TheoryOfNarrativeCausality, which drives them to conflict and suffering.]] His explanation for his actions boils down to this one line, to Jean:
--> [[spoiler: I'm dying, mother. I just wanted to do something good before I go.]]
* [[WhenSheSmiles When He Smiles]]: It's rare, but when he does genuinely smile, it is absolutely adorable.
* WideEyedIdealist: Was this to an extent. He's under absolutely no illusions about what humans and mutants are capable of, but he believes in a better world and is absolutely horrified by what he missed, i.e. ''Avengers Disassembled'', ''House of M'', ''Civil War'', ''Secret Invasion'' and the beginning of ''Dark Reign''. Norman Osborn remarks on it and mocks him. Considering ''Siege'', it looks like Nate had the last laugh on that one.
** He also notes that he believes in Hope as the Mutant Messiah—which is pretty impressive, since he'd done the Mutant Messiah gig himself—and consequently takes Cyclops' side in ''ComicBook/AvengersVsXMen''.
* WiseBeyondTheirYears: Zig-Zagged. Being a force-grown LivingWeapon who first appears when he's biologically 17 and chronologically only a few years old, if that, he mixes this with profound immaturity. Early on, all he knows how to do is fight, and on Muir Island during one manifestation of his not unreasonable paranoia and his HairTriggerTemper, unleashing his vast power, how is he stopped? By TeamMom [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments Moira [=MacTaggert=] giving him a loud scolding.]] As Wolfsbane noted, he just didn't know how to argue back. Moira herself said at the end of the issue that Nate had absolutely no life experience and worried for him.
* WorthyOpponent: Apocalypse sees him as this, as shown in a what-if scenario when Big Blue makes him a WeCanRuleTogether offer. Nate's response is [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu very memorable]].
--> '''Apocalypse:''' Cease this posturing. Accept your legacy and claim your rightful position at my side. You have earned this.
--> '''Nate:''' Earned... yeah, I forgot your credo that only the strong deserve to survive. Well, meet Owen Reece, with me in his head-- ''[[http://i.imgur.com/pai8PHz.jpg he's stronger than you]]''.
** This is reaffirmed in ''Uncanny X-Men'' in 2018, when Apocalypse is a bit annoyed at being imprisoned, but respects Nate's power and spells it out for Kitty Pryde (who was still in disbelief), and gives him honest advice for "a ruler who would be worthy of the counsel of Apocalypse", implicitly accepting Nate's superiority. Nate's attitude is a little more ambiguous, fixating on Apocalypse as his epitome of evil and eternal enemy - not unlike Cable, come to that.
** By contrast, Apocalypse's son Holocaust ''wants'' to be this to Nate, but Nate consistently dismisses the psychotic little bugger as "small fry". Since every single fight between the two ends in a CurbstompBattle in Nate's favour, malfunctioning powers and all, this is not especially surprising.
* XanatosSpeedChess: He becomes very, ''very'' good at this after his Shaman upgrade.
* YoungerThanTheyLook: Despite being for all intents and purposes in his late teens Nate actually is only a few years old due to accelerated ageing by Sinister.
* YoureInsane: Nicola Zeitgest accuses him of this. [[InsultBackfire His matter of fact response]] is [[CrazySane that he might well be]], but it doesn't make any difference to their situation.
* YourMindMakesItReal: In ''Dark X-Men'' he freezes Venom by making him psychosomatically relive the experience.
** Previously, he'd psychosomatically become a vampire after being bitten by Morbius: while Morbius' bites don't turn people, he expected to be turned, so was turned. It would seem that he got over it.
** It gets to the point where even ''death'' is this for him—as in, he's only dead for as long as he either thinks he is or wants to be.
* YouSeeImDying: Revealed early on in his series. Then, long after it was apparently cured, [[spoiler: it returned in issue 4 of ''X-Men: Disassembled'', when he explains that he's dying and that's why [[WellIntentionedExtremist he's acting as he is.]] As he puts it to Jean, "I'm dying, mother. I just wanted to do something good before I go."]]
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