Mimic

Context

This character exists in Universe AZ, a super-hero setting designed by writeups.org contributor Azrael for their tabletop role-playing games campaign.

This setting merges various published universes (including DC and Marvel) to build a detailed timeline and continuity.

I found the character interesting and felt that there was potential to expand on it. I also had a need for some minor characters with a semi-villainous history to fill out the initial team put together by Jason Todd to take down Baron Zemo during his Thunderbolts plot. Gregor here makes three members for the teams core, Jason, Gregor, and Josiah Bradley.

I have also written a small section of history giving Gregor involvement with the Xavier Institute, and the Scions of M (Universe AZ equivalent of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants).

Gregor is still heavily involved with Superman and Superman is his legal guardian, the problem is he was placed in the custody of Superman not Clark Kent, for that reason and his emerging powers Superman enrolled him at Xaviers where he could ensure Gregor was cared for and not endanger his own secret identity.

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Background

Powers and Abilities

Gregor possesses seemingly unlimited powers to transform his body into other forms. He can vanish into invisibility, become a wraith who can walk through walls, or assume the forms of earthly, extraterrestrial, or imaginary animals.

Most impressively, he was able to mimic Superman’s powers, as well as the Kryptonian level powers possessed by Solivar, the champion of Gorilla City (Solivar got them just like Supreme, Alan Moore version), perhaps by actually transforming his DNA into that of the subject he is mimicking.

Unfortunately Gregor’s powers sometimes operate without his conscious control. Typically this happens when he is under serious stress or in a highly emotionally charged situations. His training under the teachers at Xavier’s has removed many of his earlier limitations and he has gained much greater control of his powers.

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History

Gregor Nagy was born in 1970, the son of Dr. Jan Nagy, a famous and wealthy scientist.

By 1981 Dr. Nagy would be the only scientist Superman trusted to examine Kryptonite. While Jan was performing a laser based scan on a sample of Orange K there was a sudden power surge and young Gregor was bathed in strange radiation. The boy seemed to be fine and Superman was on hand to prevent a more serious incident so all parties soon believed the matter over.

Unfortunately that was not the case, in 1983, Gregor’s mother was discovered to have advanced cancer and she soon died leaving the boy with just his father. Superman and Dr. Nagy had become friends and so he became a fairly regular visitor, even taking Gregor for flights with him to cheer the boy.

In 1984 Dr. Nagy was diagnosed with an advanced terminal illness that soon resulted in his death as well. Surprisingly Nagy had named Superman as Gregor’s guardian in his will. This left Superman in a rather serious quandary, as Nagy had not know Superman was Clark Kent, and therefore Clark couldn’t take the boy in without compromising his identity. Nagy’s will also made young Gregor a target for those who might want to use him against Superman.

Superman therefore initially took Gregor to the Fortress of Solitude and explained the situation to the boy, even revealing his identity to Gregor, and he also told him that he couldn’t just leave him at the fortress. While Clark ordered his Majordomo robot Kellex to prepare a set of rooms for Gregor he took the boy for a tour of the Fortress.

Despite his long-standing friendship with Superman Gregor, under the stress of losing both his parents in short order and being suddenly thrust into an impossible situation, found himself resenting Clark. When a sudden surge of anger caused him to lash out verbally at Clark he found himself transforming into a duplicate of the Supremium-mutated Gorilla City hero Solivar (an exhibit of whom he was standing in front of).

In this powerful form Gregor was nearly a match for Clark, who was naturally holding back as he didn’t want to hurt the boy, and it was guilt at hurting Superman that caused him to revert. Emotionally distraught, and embarrassed at attacking Clark, Gregor wished he could just disappear and found himself invisible and intangible (much like Phantom Girl, whose statue he had seen earlier).

He then fled to a distant corner of the Fortress and hid for a while, Clark eventually found him and they made peace, though Gregor was still in a state of emotional termoil.

Gregor spent several days at the Fortress with Clark, as well as trips to Smallville (while wearing a holographic disguise), he even briefly met five members of the Legion of Super Heroes when they dropped in for Clark’s birthday. Imra, Garth, Brainy, Rokk, and Tinya from the year 2989 had come back to wish him well and to meet Gregor.

While the group was there they, and Superman, answered a call from the JLA to assist with an unknown alien incursion. This would be both the first meeting of the JLA and the Legion and the JLA’s first encounter with the Brood. During these events Batman was infected by the Brood and had to be taken to the 30^th century for treatment.

He returned several weeks later, both literally and subjectively, current JLA member Scott Summers alerted Charles Xavier about the Brood later.

While the Legion members were at the fortress Imra implanted subtle mental blocks in Gregor’s mind to prevent him from compromising Clark’s identity several years down the road. As Gregor continued to struggle with his emerging powers, and with Clark largely unable to offer guidance due to the radically different nature of their powers, which caused a corresponding worsening of his emotional state, Clark decided to talk with Gregor about options.

Clark told Gregor about a place called the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, this school he explained was run by Superheroes, and it was devoted to helping people like them learn how to use and control their powers. While Gregor thought it over Kara Zor El, aka Supergirl, aka Danielle Crane, came to the fortress to visit with Clark and to access some files in the computers.

Gregor and Kara hit it off well and he started to come a bit out of his shell. Kara rather quickly assumed an “older sister” role towards Gregor, but his emerging powers and his confused emotions caused him to have several further incidents.

Gregor then told Clark that he wanted to go to Xavier’s and Clark contacted Charles Xavier and he came to the fortress to meet Gregor. After carefully crafting a new identity for Gregor he was enrolled at the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters as Calvin Rankin from Toledo Kansas.

They enrolled Gregor under the name Calvin Rankin and he had to continue to use his holographic watch as his name and picture had been in newspapers, along with the headline “Son of Superman”.

Man or Beast?

In September of 1984 Gregor became a student of the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. As Calvin, Gregor began operating in costume under the name Changeling, as a junior member of the X-Men in January of 1985.

Over the next few months as “Calvin’s” control over his powers became sharper and more focused, he suffered yet another emotionally devastating event when Kara was killed during the Crisis in August of 1985. Utterly shattered for weeks his control began to slip and he became more reckless.

As a member of the X-Men he even teamed up with Superman and the JLA on a couple of occasions. Despite all of this a simmering rage was building within the young man.

This rage was being caused by his having to live essentially like he was in the witness protection program, as even at Xavier’s he usually had to keep his holographic disguise in place, as well as a feeling of abandonment towards Superman (who actually visited more than most of the students parents). Gregor was also feeling anger at Clark over Kara’s death and he began to feel, wrongly, that Clark had somehow failed her.

All of this might have eventually worked out, however while the X-Men were in battle with Magneto and his Scions, Gregor’s recklessness caused him to duplicate Charles’s powers to fight Emma Frost, Magneto’s Consort, and he engaged her in mental combat. His inexperience with mental combat left him at a disadvantage and only the intervention of Charles himself broke Gregor out of it.

Emma however had been able to get a glimpse of “Calvin’s” anger and resentment towards Superman. Over the next few months Emma, under Magneto’s orders, began to work on Gregor’s mind from long range, reinforcing his anger, and making him become more open to the enticing new girl at the school and the radical ideas she had to tell him. This girl was, naturally enough, actually Mystique. As she got closer to him he became angrier and began lashing out in training and verbally berating his teammates.

Gregor eventually had a serious fight with Cannonball (Sam Guthrie) over Sam’s verbal defense of Superman after Clark left the planet in 1987 following his execution of General Zod and his henchpersons on Earth 20. While Sam was unaware of “Calvin’s” relationship with Superman, as Superman visited under the assumed name of Thomas Rankin, even if he had been aware Gregor’s response was wildly disproportionate. Sam suffered somewhat serious injuries in the fight and “Calvin” was suspended from the team as a consequence.

Gregor was also unaware, at the time, the last survivor of Earth 20 was now residing at the Kent farm. When the being known as Matrix became the second Supergirl in early 1988 while Superman was still off planet Gregor’s instant resentment was so strong that he jumped at the finally extended invitation to join the Scions of M. While he believed he made these choices of his own free will, he was little more than a Pawn for Magneto… well, perhaps a Bishop.

Magnetically Enthralled

In his early days with Magneto Gregor was kept under Emma’s mental influence nearly constantly. Despite this the mental blocks erected by Saturn Girl protected both his real identity as well as Clark’s, even to the point that he began appearing as Calvin Rankin without his holographic watch, which he soon lost.

With Superman still off-planet Gregor was ordered to move a large asteroid into a wide orbit around Earth, just barely within the range of Magneto’s stolen Shi’ar teleporter. Over the next few months Gregor and other members of the Scions hollowed out the asteroid and turned it into an extensive base, the crew even installed cloaking technology, also stolen.

Magneto chose to name the base Avalon. With his new facility complete Magneto returned to his plans.

Gregor was next sent out alongside a team of Scions in an attempt to capture Magneto’s renegade daughter Lorna Dane aka Polaris. As Lorna was a member of the Avengers, lead by Nightwing, Valor, and Troia, the plan of attack was a two pronged assault with Changeling’s (“Calvin”) support crew sent in first to draw out the Avengers.

During the assault Changeling was directed to subdue any member of the Avengers and assume their form. After doing so he was to get close to Lorna and capture her then make his escape. He had the misfortune to pick Valor, probably due to his anger at Superman, as Valor was also tied closely to Superman.

Valor was able to fight off Gregor and keep Polaris safe while the rest of the team held off the Scions. The fight continued for several minutes, then suddenly, Magneto called off the attack. Escaping and returning to base was only accomplished by 4 of the crew sent, Gregor, and three others.

When they returned Magneto waved off their failure as inconsequential and issued new orders. Gegor was made to transform into a variety of new forms by Magneto and he was directed in attacks against a number of targets. He eventually came into conflict with both the X-Men and Superman and the JLA.

On one of these missions he was captured and reverted to the form of Calvin Rankin. With his Calvin Rankin identity exposed, and still believing himself to be a loyal member of the Scions, he soon broke out of custody while being transported to the Vault.

This is a Job for Superman!

Not long after (1990) Magneto decided to obtain a number of nuclear devices to convert into crude Gene-Bombs in order to increase the number of Metahumans in the world dramatically. Knowing that such an action would be noticed he had Gregor prepared to assume the form of Superman specifically to keep the real Superman from interfering, as well as to combat other heroes. Choosing a ballistic missile submarine as his target Magneto set his plan in motion.

While Magneto and a small team of Scions entered the sub in the mid-atlantic Gregor was sent into the air above to keep lookout. True to predictions he soon saw Superman on the way, with a familiar hard to see jet not far behind, Gregor intercepted Superman and fought him to a standstill, boasting that Magneto would “rewrite the face of the world” and that Superman was responsible for everything.

Evading Superman momentarily he crippled the X-Men’s Blackbird forcing them to abandon the vehicle. With their flying members burdened with those not gifted in that way Gregor was able to evade them easily and return to Superman. Xavier however had now locked on to Gregor’s mind with Cerebro from the mansion. Probing deep within Gregor’s mind Charles first engaged Emma Frost and severed her connection with Gregor.

That alone was not enough to free Gregor, still locked within the identity of Calvin Rankin, forcing Charles to venture further within the young man’s tortured psyche. Charles found, buried deep within Gregor’s mind, a series of powerful mental blocks, which he attributed to Emma.

Charles was able to break through the blocks, which brought Gregor’s personality back full force, he stopped fighting Superman in sudden confusion and hovered in mid-air as he sorted through the jumble of thoughts and emotions passing through his mind.

Magneto and his team had now obtained their objective and were leaving the, now crippled and sinking, sub. As Gregor regained control over himself he managed to hold onto the form of Superman and, after telling Superman to go after Magneto he streaked off after the sub.

Superman and the X-Men were able to prevent Magneto from escaping with the bombs and captured several of the Scions, though not Magneto or Emma (who actually wasn’t there), while Gregor brought the sub safely to port. Thoroughly disgraced with himself and determined to make up for what he had done under Magneto’s influence Gregor returned to Superman and turned himself in for his crimes.

With both Superman and Xavier going to bat for him, and taking into consideration that he was under mental control at the time, Gregor was offered a deal. He would be made a member of an undercover team called X-Factor for a period of 5 years, in exchange for which he would have his record expunged, his conviction was made under the name Calvin Rankin aka Changeling, since neither Superman nor Xavier exposed the name Gregor Nagy.

Gregor was assigned to X-Factor rather than Task Force X aka Suicide Squad as he had not committed any criminal acts of his own free will. During his time with X-Factor he used a new identity, Christopher Moore, and crafted the new heroic identity of Mimic.

Overcoming Adversity

Gregor served as a member of X-Factor under the name Mimic, and he was with the team in 1992 when they were publicly exposed following an incident with the alien Brood. Mimic himself was publicly commended by President Terry Sloane in a speech about the team not long after.

This was followed in 1994 by the disappearance of SHIELD Director Nick Fury, and the public return of the first Captain America, Steve Rogers, while not directly connected with SHIELD X-Factor was affected by the appointment of Ivana Baiul as SHIELD’s new Director. In particular Ivana shelved the SHIELD Guardsman program. X-Factor had coordinated with the Guardsmen many times and their commander, Americommando IV (Josiah Bradley), was a friend.

The initial public reaction to X-Factor was favorable and soon several prominent Super heroes and teams also voiced support for the team. Among them Superman, Reed Richards, Isaiah Bradley, Steve Rogers, and the majority of the JLA, and Avengers.

Gregor continued to work with the team until 1996, at that time a change in the leadership at their base (Part of the shakeup following the exposure of SHIELD Metahuman expert Dr. Richfield Franck as Mr. Sinister), combined with the fact that he had served his sentence, lead him to leave the team and return to civilian life.

Gregor’s peace was short-lived, in 1998, during an invasion by the forces of Apokolips, the JLA, JSA, Avengers, Fantastic Four, were all believed to have been killed along with Darksied. In the months that followed a new team known as the Thunderbolts appeared in New York.

Not to long afterwards Gregor received a message from Josiah Bradley asking him to meet at a location in Rhode Island. When he arrived Josiah introduced him to a man named John Watkins III, who he asked him to listen to. As John’s story unfolded, describing how he had discovered that he was the only child of the only child of the original Citizen V, John Watkins, and how that information had lead him to investigate the Thunderbolts and discover them to be lead by Baron Zemo, Gregor agreed easily to assist Watkins in creating a team of false villains to expose him.

Wearing a Black Hat

Crafting the new identity of Omnifarious, as John and Josiah took on the roles of Red Hood and Iron Monger, Gregor worked well with the others in John’s (aka Jason Todd) false Masters of Evil and was part of the reason for their success against Zemo’s Thunderbolts, as they worked closer to their goal they were swept up into the events of Zero Hour, during which the missing Heroes returned home from various time periods, as far flung as ancient Atlantis, and the 30^th century.

As this unexpected event caused Zemo to accelerate his plans and he was ultimately beaten and he, as well as Karla Sofen, were taken into custody.

The deception that Zemo had created had, however, also caused several of his recruits to really want to become heroes and they had turned on him at the critical time. Taking his false Masters, and the sincere Thunderbolts, Watkins took the name Citizen V from Zemo and took command of the combined group.

Though they had to face a lot of public distrust, and were pursued by SHIELD for some time, both Gregor and Josiah resumed their previous identities as Mimic and Americommando respectively. Despite being wanted fugitives the Thunderbolts responded when Doomsday appeared in the last days of 1999, along with many others.

Gregor fighting alongside of his former guardian for the first time in years, was unable to maintain a powerful form under the beating Doomsday unleashed and he lost consciousness.

When he woke he re-entered the fray using his powers to evacuate victims and clear Doomsday’s path. The battle stretched from the west coast of the US to the middle of Washinton DC. When Superman appeared to be faltering Gregor transformed himself into the Solivar duplicate he had used years before and attacked Doomsday. While he gained Superman a brief respite he was once more knocked out (with the Washington Monument) and when he regained consciousness Superman had been killed.

The Thunderbolts part in stopping Doomsday won over the public and the exposure of the corruption that Ivana Baiul had brought to SHIELD, as well as her ties to the illegal covert organization Project: Rebirth, followed by the reinstatement of Nick Fury as Director of SHIELD, lead to the Thunderbolts being (largely) pardoned.

As part of a new arrangement with SHIELD the team was given a new headquarters and they publicly revealed their identities, Gregor revealing his true identity of Gregor Nagy, since he had not used the name in over a decade he felt it would no longer threaten Superman’s identity.

The death of Josiah Bradley in 2000 nearly shook the team apart but they were held together in large part by Gregor, and his faith in all of them and his refusal to give up on Superman’s ideals.

Gregor was not involved in the events of Superman’s return as the Thunderbolts were in another solar system at the time. However when they returned he was overjoyed to be reunited, and he attended Clark and Lois’s wedding the following year.

In 2004 Gregor recommended Songbird for membership in the JLA and she was accepted. Since then Gregor has continued as a member of the Thunderbolts and he is a well respected hero.

Description

Gregor is a fairly normal looking, reasonably attractive, young man. He has sandy blond hair and blue eyes. He does however have pointed ears, this is believed to be side effect of his powers, and is fairly low profile.

He wears a blue and gold uniform reminiscent of his old X-Men suit which is made using unstable molecules to allow it to survive his transformations.

Personality

Gregor has worked hard to overcome his personal demons, but he still has problems dealing with unusually stressful situations. He is generally upbeat and is a dedicated member of the Thunderbolts. His experiences with Magneto still haunt him and can have a significant effect on him sometimes.

The many tragedies of his life have left him with a bit of a “whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” attitude towards life and he can seem slightly uncaring about things.

By Azrael and Chris Cottingham.

Source of Character: Universe AZ.

Helper(s): Dr. Peter S. Piispanen, Roy Cowan, Sébastien Andrivet, as helpers on Chris’s original DCU version of Gregor are helpers here as well.

Writeup completed on the 2^nd of August, 2011.