Mutants abound in the X-Men universe, and while their talents range from weather control to teleportation, certain mutants are so powerful that they may represent a threat to life as we know it. Omega level mutants are the most powerful mutants that have ever existed, and while we are all familiar with Jean Grey, Magneto, and Franklin Richards, today’s film is about the most powerful mutant that has ever existed.
Matthew’s presence on Earth was revealed in Uncanny X-Men #23 by Brian Michale Bendis and Kris Anka in the aftermath of Marvel’s Original Sin crossover, and he proved to be just as strong as any Omega Level mutant, if not stronger. Xavier evidently regarded Malloy as a one-of-a-kind situation, as he chose to intervene in a fairly intrusive manner. Keep an eye out for what many consider to be one of Xavier’s worst gaffes.
He has a rather heartbreaking backstory :
There is a principle that Charles Xavier prized above all others – the principle that they would educate mutants and then let them choose what to do with their powers, whether to stand with the X-Men or against them. This freedom of choice regarding their powers was paramount because humans never gave them that choice. However, Charles Xavier messed up, and in the process of him thinking that he was protecting the world, he neglected his duties towards Mathew Malloy who was only a child when they first met.
Matthew’s powers developed earlier than his more ordinary mutant peers, as they do for many powerful mutants. It started when he was even younger than eight years old, signifying how much stronger he would keep getting as he grew up. He was identified by Xavier early in his gathering of X-Men aspirants, and his power signature on Cerebro was the biggest that Xavier had ever seen.
This led to Xavier taking an interest in the child and following many incidents involving psychic energy decimating the local area. Charles decided to visit Matthew via a child-like representation of himself in order to keep himself safe and better bond with the young mutant. He learned that there was a high possibility that Mathew had caused the death of his own parents, unknowingly of course, due to one of his blasts which had taken place when they were scolding him. He also learned that young Mathew had no control whatsoever over his powers and that these blasts ‘just happened’.
Xavier used the bond he developed with Malloy to discreetly put mental blocks in the young man, gradually limiting his power, after noticing that it was strong emotion in particular that had an adverse effect on Matthew’s powers and control over reality. Matthew eventually got powerful enough to see through Xavier’s deception and confronted him.
Fortunately, Matthew saw the logic in reining in his abilities, deciding to have his mind completely erased so he could live a normal life. And normal life was thus granted to him by Xavier. However, when you have this much power bubbling away inside you, the pot is bound to overflow at one point. And it did.
So, while this solution worked for a while, after Xavier’s death, the mental blocks that he had set in Matthew’s head began to erode. Furthermore, the X-Men wouldn’t learn about the impending threat until the Original Sin storyline, which revealed Xavier’s previously undisclosed last will and testament. The will described his encounter with Matthew and enlisted the help of several of his X-Men to continue his efforts to keep Matthew and others around him, unharmed.
Mathew did lose control all at one point and Xavier unfortunately was not around to intervene.
A crucial comic book story arc:
Uncanny X-Men Issue #23 is the first time Mathew Malloy appears to readers in the flesh. This issue is both his first appearance and the story of how the mental blocks put in place by Xavier finally fell apart, leading to Mathew being able to use his enormous power. He looks like any regular guy, a little on the scruffy side, but completely ‘regular’ in the comics so one does not expect the sheer enormity of the power that he is capable of harnessing.
When the Earth was attacked by the Skrulls during the Skrull Invasion, Matthew and his wife Jules were living in Charleston, South Carolina. The Skrull Invasion was a massive crossover event that lasted a long time and involved aliens called the Skrulls, who were shapeshifters, slowly trying to invade and take over the Earth – leading to an eventual, all-out war. It is when the invasion reached ahead, that Matthew witnessed his wife’s death.
He saw her get instantly vaporized while the two of them were having a fight. One of the energy blasts from a Skrull ship destroyed her. A S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier that had been in the region soared over his recently wrecked home and blasted the Skrull’s head off his shoulders as he came face to face with a Skrull agent who was about to kill him. This sent him into a state of immense shock. Remember how his powers are triggered by deep emotions? Well, floodgates were now open.
As a grieving man, he moved away to a place called Newberry, and a year after his wife’s death, he ran into his sister-in-law, Alana. Alana immediately recognized him and tried to talk to him, telling him that she was there to help and support him and that they were family irrespective of the fact that his wife and her sister had passed. Despite multiple attempts to move away from her, she kept speaking to him.
Her sincere remarks went unheard, and his emotional breaking point was reached when his memories of his wife were rekindled. His mutant talents manifested swiftly, and he lost control of them. A burst of energy erupted around him, smashing everything in its path. Alana was killed in the blast, which added to his sadness and self-hate. He just stood there, shocked.
In the comic issue’s final pages, we see a group of mutants get together for the reading of the last will and testament of Charles Xavier who had been killed by Scott Summers, or Cyclops as he is better known, in the Avengers Vs X-Men event. To digress a bit, this is integral to the story, Summers killed Xavier and turned him into the Dark Phoenix because he truly believed that Xavier would never do what it would take to force humanity into accepting mutants.
He had gotten sick and tired of the discrimination and it was out of anger, frustration, and the power he possessed, that he killed his mentor. He continued to believe that he was correct after killing Charles and thus separated from the rest of the X-Men as well. However, the will reading could not take place without the presence of all the members of the will named, and thus, they had to go and get Scott.
Malloy’s story doesn’t end in issue #23 and only gets uglier as the events unfold and the X-Men learn who exactly Malloy was and the level of powers he possessed.
What happened to his uncontrolled powers?
His uncontrollable powers made him a danger to himself and all those around him and thus, everyone got involved. Following the incident where he destroyed his sister-in-law Alana, Matthew remained standing in the large sinkhole he had made, reflecting on what had just occurred – he was shocked himself.
A robotic drone with a holographic picture of Director Maria Hill of S.H.I.E.L.D approached him (keep in mind that the Skrull Invasion was a massive crossover event and the Avengers were also involved). She asked if he was the cause of the calamity and destruction around him and if he was a mutant. With his abilities manifested there was one major problem – they were uncontrollable.
He was once again driven to his emotional breaking point. Maria couldn’t get him to calm down as he was insane – his memory muddled and grief overflowing. Thus, to control him, she dispatched a strike force to his location, only for him to uncontrollably unleash his power and wipe out the entire team.
Hill, desperate for help, enlisted the services of Exodus and his ally Headlock, both mutants with telepathic powers, to telepathically engage with him and maybe reason with him. However, both men suffered from nose bleeds and potential brain aneurysms as a result of Matthew’s excessive power as he refused their entry into his head.
She then approached the X-Men for help. Hill had Rachel Grey, another mutant, contact Matthew telepathically and stall him, as the X-Men reached the Helicarrier, using images of Professor X and most of Earth’s fiercest heroes to urge him to step aside.
However, Rachel’s farce only lasted so long. Malloy was able to see through the mirage and discover that the X-Men were to blame, but he didn’t hold it against them. It is important to note here that he was not a villain and nor did he want to cause destruction. He simply did not know how to control his emotions and by extension, his powers.
As a result, when he wrecked the Helicarrier, he transferred them away whilst Maria and her operatives were protected by telekinetic bubbles. As a last-ditch effort, Maria had another Helicarrier launch an all-out assault on Matthew, but as they shot, Cyclops and Magik, another mutant, were caught in the crossfire, killing them instantly.
While this is taking place, a mutant named Tempus, who is an interesting addition to the mix because she had the ability to time travel via her temporal bubbles, realizes that there was only one way to stop Malloy and that was, to erase his existence entirely. The writers thus use time travel to end the story of Mallow – something that is considered a sin when it comes to comic book writing.
Tempus travels back in time to when Charles was alive and they go further back to the exact time and place Malloy’s parents met to prevent them from meeting, so he ceases to exist. At the same time, and stay with me here, Malloy, unbeknownst to SHIELD, is able to revive himself and return to kill the SHIELD agents.
He tries but fails to resuscitate Cyclops and Magik. He then arrives at the Jean Grey School after concluding that Scott was correct about humanity – they would never accept mutants. Emma Frost, Cyclops’ lover was on the lawn as he arrived, he asked her for help however, she was sobbing over Scott’s death. Seeing him, she attacked him in rage however, he murdered her as well.
When the other X-Men members noticed this, they all attacked Malloy. He eventually lost control and destroyed them all, as well as the school. However, Charles and Tempus were successful in preventing Malloy’s parents from ever meeting in the past, thus changing the course of history and it all went back to normal as if the event had never taken place. All the X-Men who had died in the event were alive and well. He and his powers were essentially wiped off the face of the Earth.
Just how powerful is Matthew Malloy?
Xavier had once noticed a mutant signature so strong that he thought Cerebro was broken at first. The rest of the X-Men were on an operation at the time, and Xavier thought Magneto might have picked up on this mutant as well. Knowing Magneto, he knew that he had no time to waste, so Xavier set out on his own – and came across a new mutant who was exceptionally young.
Matthew’s abilities were raging out of regulation, and he had previously murdered his parents as a result of his unregulated abilities. After much deliberation, Xavier came to the conclusion that he needed to dampen Matthew’s abilities. He argued that the youngster was an outlier and not the regular mutants he fought for.
This should be a marker for Mallow’s insane powers and abilities because it shows that Charles himself should that this mutant was too powerful to be free even after working with Omega-level mutants like Jean Grey. Dr. McCoy describes Matthew Malloy as “more than an Omega Level Mutant” since he is an Omega Level Mutant with “Omega Level Power.”
Director Maria Hill also designated him as an Omega Threat. Apocalypse, Phoenix, Onslaught, and Franklin Richards were all compared to him by Cyclops. Matthew was said to have godlike abilities, including control over life and death, as well as time and space. He has displayed a variety of skills, including the ones listed below.
Matthew’s telekinetic abilities were demonstrated when he demolished the S.H.I.E.L.D airship. Matthew also has the ability to read people’s minds, deflect psychic waves, and see past illusions. When Exodus and Headlock attempted to enter his head, he resisted them and severely injured them both. He further has the ability to control and generate numerous types of energy, allowing him to alter the surroundings around him and cause destructive explosions.
Charles Xavier believes he can summon energy from another world, a third dimension probably. He can also manipulate, transmute, and modify matter and can teleport himself or others to faraway places. Lastly, Matthew has the ability to raise himself from the dead. All of this makes him a formidable enemy and as has been seen, there is literally no winning against him, he can destroy powerful mutants like they were nothing buts ants beneath his shoe.
Two conclusions, there are two very important things to take away from Mathew Malloy’s story. Number one – the fact that he truly was the most powerful mutant to ever exist and Number 2 – the fact that Charles Xavier went against all of his principles to make sure that Mathew was first suppressed and then literally skipped through time to ensure his removal from the face of the Earth. Do you think Xavier did the right thing? Or could all of this have been avoided if he had taught young Malloy how to control and use his power for good when he was a child, instead of putting in mental blockers? Let us know in the comments section below!