And 5X the ways for Jamie's dupes to drive him crazy.
Madrox is a five-issue miniseries starring the X-Men character Multiple Man. Written by Peter David and drawn by Pablo Ramiondi, the series shows Jamie Madrox working as a private detective operating out of New York's "Mutant Town" district following the fall of X-Corporation. Joining Jamie are his former X-Factor teammates, Guido Carosella a.k.a. Strong Guy and Rahne Sinclair a.k.a. Wolfsbane. The series serves as a prelude to the 2006 run of X-factor which was also written by Peter David.
The series follows Jamie trying to figure who tried to kill him when one of his duplicates, or "dupes" as he calls them, is stabbed to death. To that end, he heads to Chicago to seek the aid of an telepathic reporter named Stringer who is an associate of his.
Madrox contains examples of:
- Alliterative Name: Carol Campbell, the woman whom Rahne, Guido and the Jamie duplicate take on as a client while Jamie is in Chicago.
- Ambiguously Bi: One of Jamie's duplicates tells Stringer that he has a "very shapely mouth", much to Stringer's discomfort and Jamie's annoyance. When Jamie insists that he has no idea what is going on, another dupe says, "In denial much?".Jamie: Great. Just what I need: to start rumors about myself.
- Ask a Stupid Question...: This exchange from issue #2 between Carol Campbell and a Jamie dupe. Considering that issue #4 reveals that Ned is actually having an affair with a man, Jamie asking if he was seeing another woman actually isn't that unreasonable.Carol Campbell: Mr. Madrox, I believe my husband, Ned, is cheating on me.
Jamie duplicate: With another woman?
Carol Campbell: No, with a cocker spaniel.
Jamie duplicate: Guess I walked into that one.
Guido: Guess you did, Holmes. - Astral Projection: Ned Campbell's mutant power. He uses it to have an affair with his lover without his wife catching him.
- Atrocious Arthropods: Sheila DeSoto, the fiancée of mob boss Eddie Vance, is the true villain of the story and is a mutant with the ability to take on a terrifying insectoid form. She got engaged to Eddie in order to kill him and take over his racket, and murdered a Madrox duplicate when he learned of her plans.
- Batman Gambit: Jamie comes to Vance's house and reveals everything to him: how Sheila only got engaged to him to learn which Chicago mob bosses to kill off so she could take over, how she was planning to kill Vance herself once she was through with him and how the Jamie dupe that Sheila married figured this out and was killed by Clay under Sheila's orders. Jamie then shoots Vance in the head and is attacked by Sheila who tries to kill him. However, it turns out that Jamie actually shot Vance with a paint gun and his true plan was to expose Sheila's treachery to Vance who plays possum and then shoots both Sheila and Clay.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Sheila is the one who had Jamie's dupe killed when he learned she was planning to kill her husband and take over his racket.
- Blackmail: Jamie threatens to reveal that Stringer is a telepathic mutant if he doesn't help him gain access to the Chicago Tribune's archives to help with the case.
- Bleed 'Em and Weep: Jamie reacts with horror and disgust when he kills one of Vance's men in self-defense.
- Body Horror: Sheila can sprout insect-like limbs and other body parts giving the impression of a giant insect wearing a human skin.
- Character Title: Madrox is Jamie's last name and he's the main character.
- Chekhov's Gun: The new pane of glass Jamie's duplicate installs turns out to be very helpful in saving his life when Clay tries to kill him.
- Clones Are People, Too: Rahne expresses concern for the Jamie duplicate when he is nearly shot dead by Clay.
- Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: Stringer resembles Steve Buscemi.
- Crazy-Prepared: The pane of glass Jamie's duplicate had installed in issue #2 is revealed to be refractive in issue #3 — it makes him look two inches to the left of where he actually is to the outside observer. This throws off Clay's aim and he ends up only grazing the duplicate instead of killing him.
- Defective Detective: Jamie is immature, cynical and lousy at making coffee. The first issue has Rahne finding him drunk on the floor of his office.note
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: According to Guido, Jamie's reason for becoming a detective is to give himself some direction after being aimless for so long.
- Destination Defenestration: Clay is in the midst of stalking a man he's been hired to kill when he learns that Jamie survived his assassination attempt. The next page shows the man being tossed out a window from several stories up after Clay is told to finish his initial assignment. A later scene suggests people believe the man jumped.
- Death Dealer: Jamie kills one of Vance's men by slashing his throat with a playing card.
- Downer Ending: Sheila is killed by Vance after she is revealed as the true villain. However, Stringer also dies from a trap set for him and Jamie by Sheila and Clay, Jamie realizes a woman he thought he loved was a liar and a murderer, and Vance is still in power as a crime boss with fewer rivals thanks to Sheila killing his competition. On Guido and Rahne's end, Rahne accidentally kills the husband of their client when she finds proof of him cheating on his wife and she feels terrible about it. Worse, the client finds out despite Rahne and Guido trying to keep the truth from her.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Eddie Vance lets Jamie go after the latter saves his life and exposes his fiancée's treachery.
- Femme Fatale: Sheila DeSoto married the Jamie duplicate with the intent of having him join her in her criminal endeavors. He fled from her, and she had Clay kill him because he knew too much. She also got engaged to Eddie Vance so she could learn who the major players in the Chicago mob scene were and kill them to take over their rackets with the intention of killing Eddie once she was done with him.
- Film Noir: The plot has the standard tropes associated with the genre. A brilliant yet dysfunctional Private Detective, a mysterious Femme Fatale, an untouchable mob boss, a grouchy reluctant ally and even a Downer Ending. The tropes are also lampshaded by Jamie.
- Gender-Blender Name: The "Kim" Ned Campbell is having an affair with is actually a man.
- Good Old Ways: Stringer doesn't care for the changes advances in technology made to the file room of the Chicago Tribune.They used to call the file room "The Morgue", you know. You'd rustle through manila folders with ancient clippings. It smelled of news in here. Now it smells of Pine-Sol and this screen gives me a headache. How is that progress?
- He Knows Too Much: The reason why Sheila had Jamie's dupe killed.
- Human Ladder: Jamie creates several duplicates of himself to create a ladder so he can get over a fence into someone's property.
- I Know Kung Fu: Jamie acquires whatever knowledge his duplicates have learned when he re-absorbs them. In issue #3, he saves himself from an attempted drowning by one of Eddie Vance's men by breaking the man's fingers after recalling what his dupe learned in an anatomy class. He later uses some escape artist tricks he learned from Penn & Teller and Ricky Jay to pick his cuffs.
- Impossible Task: While Jamie is in Chicago, Guido, Rahne and a duplicate Jamie left in charge are hired by a woman who believes her husband is having an affair. She has no evidence of this other than him saying the name "Kim" in his sleep. Also, her husband is a quadruple paraplegic with astral projection, meaning that if he is having an affair he wouldn't even need to leave the house. Fortunately for them, Rahne discovers that she can see his astral form.
- In a Single Bound: Guido leaps from one building all the way to the room from which Clay shot the Jamie duplicate.
- Logical Weakness: Jamie can absorb the knowledge, memories and experiences his duplicates have amassed while they are away from him. Unfortunately, this also includes bad memories and experiences like a hangover after a night of heavy drinking or the trauma of getting stabbed. Also, if the dupe is too traumatized, it will affect their memory, which is why it takes so long for Jamie to figure who tried to kill him.
- Lovecraftian Superpower: Sheila's superpower transforms her into a horrific combination of human and insect.
- Ms. Fanservice: When Jamie goes to Eddie Vance's mansion to investigate Sheila DeSoto, he finds her swimming topless in the pool.
- Modesty Towel: Sheila is only wearing swimsuit bottoms when Jamie comes to see her in Eddie Vance's mansion. She puts on a towel to preserve her modesty.
- Mugging the Monster: While walking down the street in issue #1, Rahne is harassed by two guys. She wolfs out and they run away.
- Naked First Impression: Madrox first meets Sheila DeSotto when he finds her Skinny Dipping in her pool, arriving just as she climbs out of the pool topless. Her naughty bits are either concealed by Scenery Censor or by it being just out of frame and she later wraps herself in a Modesty Towel.
- Omniglot: Jamie knows Russian thanks to one of his dupes spending a year in Moscow (which said dupe apparently didn't like). He also apparently knows Hawaiian thanks to another dupe studying the language.
- Private Detective: Jamie's new occupation.
- Protagonist Title: Madrox is Jamie's surname.
- Psychic Glimpse of Death: When Jamie reluctantly absorbs a dying dupe, he gets images and flashes of his memory. It puts him out of commission for twenty minutes.
- Psychic Link: Jamie has a psychic link to his dupes. When one of them is shot he feels the pain.
- Red Herring: Jamie presumes that Vance had his dupe killed for having an affair with his fiancé. When Sheila tells him about the deaths of other Chicago mob bosses and how the killer can "read minds", Jamie assumes Stringer is behind the killings. The true villain is Sheila herself who is planning to take over the Chicago mob syndicate and killed Jamie's dupe when he learned of her goals.
- Remember the New Guy?: Jamie's narration states that Stringer is an acquaintance of his from when he was working for the government-sponsored version of X-Factor. However, this series is the first and last time Stringer has ever appeared.
- Required Secondary Powers: Carol Campbell's mutant power allows her to spontaneously combust like the Human Torch. Unlike the Human Torch, however, she isn't fireproof, which the heroes realize when she confronts the man her husband was sleeping with and her anger and the shock causes her powers to activate.
- Rules Lawyer: When Clay discovers that the Jamie Madrox he killed was actually a duplicate, he argues that he still completed his assignment to kill Jamie and that Sheila never specified that it had to be the original one. Sheila doesn't have any of it and orders Clay to complete the job.
- Self-Duplication: In addition to Jamie, there is also the assassin Clay.
- Sherlock Scan: Jamie supposedly does this to Rahne in the first issue and even refers to it as a "Sherlock Holmes riff". Subverted in that he didn't actually deduce anything; he had one of his dupes follow her and gained the knowledge of what she'd done that day after he absorbed them back into himself.
- Smarter Than You Look: One of the thugs roughing up Stringer in issue #2 is able to eloquently explain what the term "film noir" means.
- Underestimating Badassery: One of Vance's men sarcastically dismisses Jamie as being a threat. He later ends up being killed by Jamie.
- Unfortunate Names: Jamie's detective agency is called "XXX Investigators". Rahne says it sounds like they investigate pornography. Jamie's response is "I can live with that". In the last issue, Guido changes it to "X-Factor".
