The X-Men are a fictional superhero team created by Marvel Comics. They first debuted in Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s The X-Men #1, which was published in September 1963. The X-Men property has grown to become one of the most popular comic book franchises in the world, generating a slew of spin-off series and, most importantly, a highly acclaimed film series, as well as launching the careers of a number of its authors and illustrators. Many X-Men characters, such as Wolverine, Storm, and Cyclops, are well-known and loved by Marvel fans; nevertheless, there are some mutants who are less well-known but equally fascinating.
One unknown mutant has managed to stay under the radar while simultaneously becoming a fan favorite throughout the X-Men mythos. Bishop is the mutant in question, a time-traveling ambiguous anti-hero from a nightmare future who is transported back in time to prevent a calamity. Bishop, the time-traveling anti-hero, is a fascinating and mysterious member of the X-Men.
As a result, many of his supporters have never heard of him. Bishop has both helped and hurt the future timeframe he had hoped to avoid along the way. His insight and knowledge of future events are balanced by his hasty and rash decisions, which change him from hero to villain and again. Aside from his predilection for time travel, there is a lot about this guy that only die-hard admirers know about, and this video is all about him, so buckle up and prepare for a trip through time.
What Shaped Bishop to become who he is?
Lucas Bishop was born in the twenty-first century A.D., in a world where the Sentinels, which are mutant-hunting robots, had gained control of North America. Professor Charles Xavier and the majority of the members of the mutant squad he formed, the X-Men, were slaughtered by the Sentinels in this version. “Mutant relocation camps” were used to kill or jail mutants. Bishop and his sister Shard, the progeny of Australian mutants Burnum and Kadee, were both conceived in one of the American “mutant relocation camps.”
They were marked with “M” tattoos above their right eyelids, the same as the other mutants there at the time, which goes to become a distinguishing mark for him. This was the beginning of a hardship-riddled life that would shape Bishop into the man he finally became.
In the “Summers Rebellion,” “regular” humans and mutants banded together to overthrow the Sentinels. While these “Regular” people, fought to coexist with mutants, radical mutant terrorist groups, such as the Exhumes, waged war against “normal” humans.
Bishop’s parents were murdered during the Summers Rebellion when he was only seven years old, and after being separated from his grandmother and sister, Bishop found his way to Manhattan, where he met the Witness, who cared for him and brought him up and also taught him how to be a thief for a while. Bishop was however finally reconciled with his sister and grandmother, who was also a mutant, in Las Vegas until she died. Their grandmother told them legends about the X-Men’s courage and encouraged them to follow Xavier’s dream of a world where mutants and the rest of humanity might live in harmony.
Two X.S.E members were hunting Virago, a member of the Exhumes, a fanatical gang of mutants that detested “regular” humans, when Bishop and Shard were both still toddlers. When Virago kidnapped Shard, Bishop climbed atop her back and demanded that she free his sister. Virago was ready to assassinate Bishop when Sureshot gunned her down. Bishop had previously viewed the X.S.E as his foes and the Exhumes as heroes, but from that moment on, he wanted to join the X.S.E.
Bellboy and Halftrack, criminal mutants, attacked Bishop, Shard, and their grandmother’s friend Hancock. The two crooks had just assassinated Hancock and were going to assassinate Shard. Bishop attempted to save Shard, awakening his mutant abilities in the process, but Billboy and Halftrack were finally stopped by two members of the X.S.E, Amazon, and Recoil.
Amazon and Recoil were so impressed by Bishop that they offered him a job in the X.S.E. Bishop agreed on the premise that Shard is admitted as well in the X.S.E. Bishop’s own superhuman ability had manifested by this time. As a result, Bishop and Shard were accepted as cadets in the X.S.E Academy, where they were supervised by Hecate. Bishop’s eventual adversary, Trevor Fitzroy, was one of the other students in their class.
Shard was ambushed by the mutant vampire creatures known as Emplates shortly after taking leadership of her own squad in the X.S.E., which was orchestrated by her delinquent ex-boyfriend Trevor Fitzroy. Shard was compelled to slaughter mutants to survive after being transformed into one of them. Bishop was compelled to kill his beloved sister in a subsequent meeting with the X.S.E. rather than let her exist as the beast she had become.
Bishop sported a holographic matrix projector on his wrist that contained Shard’s essence. However, he was compelled to quit the X.S.E. and work for the shadowy Witness for a year in order to get this technology. Bishop was pursuing Fitzroy again after returning to the XSE and uncovered relics of the X-Men: a distorted telegram from Jean Grey alerting about a traitor. This telegram and the quest for Fitzroy led Bishop to the current timeline of the X-Men.
Quite the tragic story littered with the loss of loved ones and instances of terrible violence and brutality. All of this made him the Bishop we know today.
What makes Bishop so Powerful?
Bishop is known to be insanely powerful as he can lift at least 2 times his body weight, or 550 pounds when he is strengthened. Bishop exhibits the normal human strength of a man of his age, stature, and constitution who is devoted to regular intense activity with a cybernetic arm with which he can lift at least twice his body weight; 550 lbs., when he is not boosted by his ability to absorb energy.
His capacity to absorb energy can boost his power to superhuman levels, with no known upper limit. Bishop is also a police officer with experience in the homicide division. Bishop’s extensive armed and unarmed fighting training has turned him into a lethal unarmed combatant.
He is a master marksman with weaponry from his own time, including ones that he carried with him from the future when he first arrived in our world, as well as modern heavy-duty military and regular guns and weapons. Bishop frequently employs XSE pistols to channel the energy that he has absorbed.
As far as his trademark powers are concerned, he has quite a few. Bishop is a mutant that has the ability to manipulate kinetic energy and absorb most sorts of energy, such as energy directed at him. The energy can be transformed into electricity, plasma, fire, and other forms of energy. He can then re-channel it through his limbs for concussive blasts or in the same form as when it was absorbed, including Storm’s meteorological effects like lightning.
This redirected energy appears to be capable of harming beings who are typically impervious to their own abilities. His mutant abilities make it incredibly tough to harm him with energy-based assaults, while also allowing him to cooperate well with any energy-using comrades. Bishop’s personal reserves can also be used to store absorbed energy.
Bishop gains a multitude of benefits from storing this energy within his body, including superhuman strength with no known limitations, superhuman speed, greater stamina, accelerated healing, and invulnerability. Sleep, food, drink, bodily functions such as answering the call of nature, and oxygen are all reduced by his abilities. Bishop can also fly thanks to his abilities. Flying is also possible with this energy.
Bishop has been spotted in recent years learning to absorb physical injury in the same way that Sebastian Shaw does, and redirecting this kinetic energy towards improving his own physical talents. Some energy types are much harder to take in than others, and Bishop can really only accept so much energy before having to expel it or risk dying.
He also has the ability to know where he is at all times. This isn’t a mutant ability in and of itself, but rather an acquired method honed via time travel experience. It’s possible that enhanced mental senses play a role in this power, but this has never been shown conclusively. It is, nevertheless, a useful skill to have, particularly for somebody in Bishop’s field of work, who frequently jumps from the future to the past and again.
Because of his XSE training, Bishop is immune to nanites. His trademark cyborg arm is fuelled by nuclear energy and has two clawed tentacles, as well as the ability to time jump due to built-in time travel technology. However, the entire extent of his cybernetic arm’s technology/abilities is unknown. Bishop’s cybernetic gives him Cyberkinesis, which enables him to control technology.
Some lesser-known facts about Bishop
Since Bishop is such an underrated character, there are many interesting facts about him that often go unnoticed. The first lesser-known fact is the mystery of his first name. Bishop has been dubbed as “Bishop” by fans since his first debut in Uncanny X-Men #282 in 1991. For years, fans thought little of it because it was simple and straightforward to remember. Bishop didn’t have a first name until a decade later, and it wasn’t until then that they discovered it.
He went by several identities, including Red Bishop, Archbishop, Major, and Sergeant, as well as his own name, Lucas. Perhaps his tragic past forced him to hide his first name in order to distance himself from others and hold them at arm’s length, or perhaps the creators were just seeking a way to flesh out his character.
The second fact is that he is a classic example of living long enough to see oneself turn into a villain. The hunt for a traitor who was culpable for the X-Men’s demise was the primary motivator in Bishop’s life when he arrived on present-day Earth. This was alluded to in a jumbled communication delivered by Jean Grey, which Bishop deduced and resolved to stop. He initially suspected Gambit of being the traitor, and there was enough evidence to back up his suspicions.
In the end, the genuine traitor was a portion of Charles Xavier himself, which combined to form Onslaught, an ultra-powerful entity. Bishop utilized his abilities to save the X-Men from impending death at the hands of this traitor, only to turn traitor himself later when he sought to kill Hope, a young female mutant. It wasn’t the first time, but it would not be the last.
He kept a great deal of crucial information to himself. Bishop grew up in a terrifying dystopian future, and when the opportunity to change it for the better presented him, he jumped at it. Unfortunately, the mission devolved into a perverted fixation, with Bishop believing that the aims justified any means. He knew a lot more than he let on about the present and how it related to the future.
Bishop was aware of what happened during M-Day, the Shadow King’s plans, and a slew of other episodes in advance, yet he felt compelled to mislead, misdirect, and manipulate his companions on the spur of the moment if it served his interests.
Finally, during the Civil War, he embraced dictatorship. Bishop didn’t appear to have any issue opting in when it came to authoritarian government overreach, despite growing up in a dystopian nightmare future. Attempts were made to record the world’s superheroes during the events of the Civil War in order to maintain an eye on them under the control of the ruling government entity. On a technicality, the X-Men were exempt, but that did not deter Bishop from keeping a tight eye on anyone who opted to lend a hand to Captain America. It was a surprising act of open treachery, as well as a readiness to welcome the very thing he had worked so hard to avoid.
Bishop in the X-Men timeline
Being from a completely different century, Bishop had never expected to meet the X-Men let alone be in their ranks but fate had other things in store for him. Trevor Fitzroy escaped his incarceration in Meeting with the Legends by channeling a large percentage of his life energy. During his escape, he freed 93 mutant criminals who had been sentenced to life in prison.
Bishop and the Omega Squad tracked the criminals via a time portal created by this occurrence and this is when Bishop met the X-Men for the first time after emerging from the portal. Except for Fitzroy, the X-Men assisted in the capture of all of the offenders. Bishop then fought the X-Men, but quickly learns that he’ll need their assistance to defeat Fitzroy.
Following the battle with Fitzroy, Charles Xavier offered Bishop a seat on the team, which he accepted under the leadership of Storm. Bishop joins the team and meets Gambit, quickly discovering that Gambit is a younger version of Witness. Post this, Bishop continued to fight alongside the X-Men as a member of their ranks.
Bishop’s long-sought traitor among the X-Men turned out to be Professor X in the shape of Onslaught on the second story arc he is part of, known as the Onslaught arc. Bishop’s insight of the future was really the only thing that kept Onslaught from slaughtering the X-Men, but it wasn’t enough to keep Onslaught from decimating the whole human race.
Bishop made peace with Gambit after defeating Onslaught, proving that he was not the spy after all. Bishop is separated from the rest of the X-Men while on a mission to stop the Phalanx in deep space. Despite Deathbird’s deception and manipulation, he begins a romance with her. They have several escapades far out in space, but he appears to kill her when she flips on him and the X-Men.
His next appearance is in the story arc known as The Last X Man. Bishop took a break from the X-Men after his interstellar escapades, but he ended up stuck in a distant possible future. He thought he saw a glimpse of his sister, Shard, in an abandoned building while walking in modern-day New York City.
Bishop was inexplicably whisked to a distant catastrophic future while investigating. Bishop assembled a squad of mutants to battle against Trevor Fitzroy, the ruler of the future, with the help of the “Witness.” Fitzroy had Shard kidnapped and kept him in his captivity.
Bishop and his mutant comrades eventually won the allegiance of the locals and overthrew Fitzroy. Unfortunately, Shard was murdered by Fitzroy during the last battle, leaving a devastated Bishop by her side. During the Maximum Security crossover, Bishop was briefly transported to the present by Apocalypse, who recruited him as one of The Twelve.
X-Treme X-Men is another important storyline Bishop appears in because he, along with Storm, is a founder member of the X-Treme X-Men squad. They went out to find Destiny’s Books of Truth without the permission of Xavier or the rest of the original X-Team. These books appear to hold the key to mutants and humankind’s future. Bishop assisted the X-Men on several missions while also maintaining strong ties to the X-Men at the Xavier mansion. He even assisted in the investigation of a rumored murder on the house grounds.
Bishop and the rest of the X-Treme crew eventually formed the X-Treme Sanctions Executive, which allowed them to become licensed agents. Bishop and the rest of the crew eventually rejoined the original X-Men team following the events of E is for Extinction, where many mutants died.
Later, in the story arc known as District X, Mutant Hamlet, a slum town in New York populated largely by mutants, was given the moniker District X by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Bishop was asked to assist the FBI, and he was given the responsibility of dealing with mutant issues.
Ismael Ortega, a police detective, was his companion. Ismael began to crack under the strain of discovering that his own spouse was also a mutant. Even after the happenings of House of M, in which 99 percent of the mutant populace lost their powers, Bishop continued to visit the District on a regular basis, despite the fact that the Scarlet Witch had depowered the majority of its residents. He devotes most of his time to the X-Men, saving Africa with Storm and assisting Psylocke in defeating the Foursaken.
Bishop then joins O*N*E* in the Civil War to aid in the arrest of the 198 and the X-Men. Bishop expresses his dread of what the future may hold after he and Scott Summers butt heads. Bishop leads the Micromax and Sabra teams with Tony Stark’s approval and is able to find the 198 and the X-Men, commanding them to stand down. Bishop is finally turned on by General Demetrius Lazer, who has Cyclops assault him. Bishop refuses to attack Scott, instead of absorbing as much energy as he can. He releases it into the sky when it becomes too much, destroying an O*N*E* sentinel in the process. Later, he joins forces with the X-Men to save the 198 from an impending catastrophe. Post this, he decides to leave the X-Men.
The incident that triggered the future Bishop’s knowledge is known as the Messiah Complex. It is in this story arc that Mr. Sinister and his squad begin their search for anyone with knowledge of the future after the birth of the first mutant kid since M-Day.
Bishop is the only target who has not been located or eliminated as a result of this manhunt. He is revealed to be the one who betrays the X-Men in order to murder the child. He eventually locates Cable and the baby and assassinates Cable. He discovers that Cable is regarded as a hero in the world he created, while he is recognized as a monster. Bishop is later kidnapped by the X-Men, and it is revealed that the genuine messiah child is still alive.
Lastly, Bishop decided to join the Uncanny X-Force squad co-led by Psylocke and Storm as part of the Marvel NOW! relaunch. A recently reconstituted Spiral and Alpha Flight’s Puck were among Bishop’s new teammates. Bishop was possessed by a malevolent bear spirit when he returned to the present through the timestream. He was cured after a struggle with the other members of the Uncanny X-Force. However, as Bishop’s exploits with the Uncanny X-Force came to an end, the squad disintegrated, making way for a completely new X-Force team without Bishop.
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