BISHOP: Page 3 of 9

Publication Date: 3rd Feb 2022
Written By: Peter Luzifer and Monolith.
Image Work: Douglas Mangum.
Biography

BIOGRAPHY - Page 3

Soon, he learned to work well within the team. He continued to work with the Gold Strike Force and worked on relaxing more during off-times. His closest associates within the team seemed to be his direct superior, Storm, Xavier himself and Jubilee, who seemed to take it as a personal mission to loosen the big guy up. Bishop was never very good at inter-personal relationships, even in his own time, but he tried his best and, not before long, he found himself attracted to a local bartender named Pamela Greenwood, who seemed hauntingly familiar to him for some reason. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #299]

In the meantime, Bishop acquitted himself well in battle against serious threats like Sabretooth, the Acolytes, and even stood fast against Magneto himself. Bishop had brought Shard's holographic matrix with him back through time and occasionally incorporated it into the Danger Room's systems for scenarios. After the matrix began to malfunction, Bishop gave it to Forge and the master inventor managed to make the hologram fully tangible and interactive. Bishop and his holographic companion encountered Mountjoy, another refugee from their future who was causing havoc. Mountjoy stormed the mansion after possessing Bishop and was able to assimilate a number of X-Men into himself. However, Shard and the freed Bishop managed to defeat him after luring the body-snatcher into the Danger Room and scrambling his absorption. Shard urged Bishop to kill Mountjoy and fulfill his obligations as an X.S.E. officer, but Bishop refused and only captured the killer, finally accepting the X-Men's methods as his own. In the fight, Shard's martix was damaged and Bishop had to send her holo-matrix to Forge at X-Factor's Virginia base to be repaired. [Bishop #1-4]

Shortly thereafter, Bishop was part of an X-Men squad that traveled back in time to prevent Legion from killing Magnus before he could become Magneto. They "succeeded" in saving Magnus but Legion accidentally killed his own father Charles Xavier instead, causing a ripple in the timestream which wiped out the X-Men and himself. Being a chronal anomaly already, Bishop did not fade from existence but instead remained 20 years in the past as a partial amnesiac. Aging decades in this new reality, the Age of Apocalypse Bishop would have a chance encounter with the new X-Men, formed by Magneto in this reality. After regaining a good portion of his memories, Bishop managed to convince Magneto that his reality was "wrong."

Sending out teams of X-Men to distract Apocalypse and gather the time-traveling Illyana, the precog Destiny and a shard of the M'Kraan Crystal itself, Magneto acted on Bishop's word to repair the Hell that Earth had become. With the help of his allies, Bishop managed to travel back to before Legion killed his father and prevent the event. The old Bishop confronted his younger self and, having no time to explain, knocked him out to get to the combatants. He leapt in front of Legion and rammed the psi-knife, meant for Magneto, into his own chest, absorbing and releasing the psi-energy back into Legion. Dying of the energy feedback, Legion was horrified by seeing images of the Age of Apocalypse in Bishop’s mind. With the ripple in time repaired, the old Bishop faded from existence. However, a good deal of his memories got channeled into his younger self. Without Legion to anchor them in the past, the X-Men were transported back to the present, unaware of what really had transpired. [Age of Apocalypse event]

The X-Men returned to their daily routines, though Bishop was plagued by memories of the world that never was. Not even Xavier could fully figure out what was going on in his head. Cyclops and Phoenix had recently undergone a similar experience - during their time in the Askani future raising Nathan - and they tried help Bishop integrating his memories and preserve his sanity. Despite his confusion, Bishop did manage to uncover the truth about Pamela Greenwood: she was in fact the shape-shifting assassin, Fatale, who had been assigned by the Dark Beast to keep tabs on Bishop. McCoy was a refugee from the Age who escaped 20 years into the past to avoid his reality's dissolution. He remembered Bishop, and paradoxically had been watching him since even before the inciting event that led to the Age. Seeing through this ruse was a major help in convincing Bishop of his own mental stability following the Age of Apocalypse. [X-Men Prime, X-Men (2nd series) #48-49]

When most of Generation X was captured by Emplate, M sent out a distress call to the X-Men but only Bishop was available to respond. He immediately rushed to the Massachusetts Academy to help and was almost defeated by Emplate’s minions. As he recovered from the battle Bishop was dazzled and confused. Looking up, he mistook Monet for his own mother. After Bishop had a moment to rest, he and M continued to battle Emplate. Bishop was determined to end his threat before his vampiric condition could spread to other mutants, like it did in the future he came from, where it ultimately led to the death of his sister, Shard. In the end, though, the villain teleported away, unharmed. [Generation X (1st series) #13-14]

Shortly thereafter, an incident with the Juggernaut intruding on the mansion led to the revelation that Charles Xavier was in fact the traitor to the X-Men Bishop had been attempting to stop.  Having mind-wiped his arch-enemy Magneto a few months earlier, Xavier's own dark ego had merged with Magneto's to create a malevolent psychic entity known as Onslaught, who simultaneously operated on both the psionic plane and in the physical world. As Onslaught began its attack on the X-Men, Jean Grey taped that fateful message which partially  survived into Bishop's future. The entity would have succeeded in massacring the X-Men if Bishop had not been present to deflect the creature's killing stroke; something only he could do because of Onslaught’s dual nature and the mental blast having a physical component. Onslaught was eventually defeated through the sacrifice of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, though Bishop took it very hard that his knowledge of the team having a traitor in their midst was not enough to avoid the incident.

At last, Bishop had successfully prevented the X-Men’s death and thus effectively changed his future timeline. Bishop also finally made peace with Gambit over his previous suppositions and apologized to the Cajun. [Onslaught crossover]