TYLER DAYSPRING

BIOGRAPHY

Tyler Dayspring was raised as the son of Cable and Jenskot. That much is clear.

Cable has been known to spread misinformation about his past in general and his relationship with Tyler specifically. When Tyler was first mentioned in a chat with Cannonball, Cable only claimed Tyler was like a son to him. He described Tyler as a young man he worked with for a time before Stryfe corrupted him, brought him into the Mutant Liberation Front and led him to his death. [X-Force (1st series) #1] Cable later claimed Tyler as his biological son and explicitly told Cannonball he lied about his relationship with Tyler to keep Sam at an emotional distance. [X-Force (1st series) #25] Other aspects of Cable's first story don't ring true, however, as Tyler was never active in the present working for Stryfe. Rather, it seems Cable told what was essentially the story of Tyler's life and death in the future with the Clan Chosen, fudging the details to avoid revealing yet to Cannonball he was a time traveler. However, Cable has also referred to Tyler as "Jenskot's son," a curious appellation that again seems to distance Nathan Dayspring from being Tyler's biological father. The ramifications of that slip of the tongue have never been fully disclosed. [Cable (1st series) #23, 31]

Whatever the case, Tyler was raised in the Clan Chosen, the spiritual successor to the Askani Sisterhood and opponents of the High Lord En Sabah Nur (known as Apocalypse in the present day) and his followers. When Apocalypse fell, his forces split between the tyrannical government he established, the New Canaanites, and the allies of his insane heir Stryfe, known as the Scions of the High Lord. Raised in conflict and trained in warfare, it seems Tyler was every inch his father's son and fought as a loyal soldier of the Clan Chosen once he was old enough. One fateful day, however, the Clan Chosen were engaged with the New Canaanites at the Grand Canyon. Tyler and Aliya held the base camp while Cable and the Clan took the fight to the Canaanites. During the fighting, however, Stryfe and the Scions slipped behind Chosen lines and popped a therm charge at their camp. Stryfe killed most of the Chosen present, including Tyler's mother Aliya. [Cable (1st series) #1]

Tyler was kidnapped to face a far worse fate. Stryfe subjected Tyler to the ministrations of Frisco, a psionic mind-warper and nano-surgeon who used neural implants and psychic conditioning to bend Tyler's will to Stryfe's needs. A sadist as well, Frisco made unnecessary alterations and probes into Tyler's psyche when he was done, twisting his mind to the point of madness, in addition to making him loyal to the Scions. [Cable (1st series) #1,7, X-Force (1st series) #25] When Cable and the Clan Chosen came seeking vengeance against Stryfe and the Scions, they were shocked to find Tyler standing against them. Tyler used a neural link in his armor to sync his brain wave patterns with Dawnsilk, one of the Chosen. As a consequence, Cable would be unable to bodyslide the Clan Chosen away without essentially leaving Dawnie's mind behind and shattering her psyche. Faced with an impossible choice, Cable shot the neural link, severing the connection between Tyler and Dawnsilk. This freed Cable, Dawnsilk and the Clan Chosen to teleport away, but it caused significant neurological damage to both Tyler and Dawnsilk. [Cable (1st series) #1]

Abandonded to die by Stryfe and the Scions after this encounter, Tyler was instead recovered by the New Canaanites. General Parraidan Haight arranged for Tyler's body to be healed so New Canaan could use Tyler as an agent against both the Clan Chosen and the Scions of the High Lord. Tyler underwent further neurological programming at Haight's direction to ensure his loyalty, and be prepared as a time agent. Cable and Stryfe had already traveled into the past to sculpt it to their individual agendas, each of which were at odds with Canaanite rule. Tyler therefore became an assassin coded "the Other," dispatched into the past to eliminate Cable and Stryfe and preserve Canaanite superiority. Unfortunately for Haight, he neglected to realize the sum total of neurological manipulation and damage Tyler had suffered by this point had made him quite mad... and impervious to further brainwashing. Tyler entered the past intent on pursuing his own vengeance against those who had wronged him. [Cable (1st series) #5-7]

After arriving in the past, Tyler created an identity for himself as the mysterious European business man, arms dealer and criminal syndicate figure known only as Mister Tolliver. With Cable and Stryfe unaware of his presence and true identity, Tyler manipulated them both as Tolliver like pawns on a chessboard. Stryfe, too, sought to establish himself as a contemporary criminal and terrorist in the modern era. He therefore formed a business relationship with Tolliver, running a secret facility coordinating Tolliver's opium trade through the mountains of Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Tolliver hired Cable and his Six Pack of mercenaries for several jobs, forming ties between them and his own organization. Tolliver then gave the Six Pack a contract to secure his opium route in Afghanistan from Soviet interference. However, he withheld any full disclosure about who ran his opium route or where they were housed. Just as Tyler planned, the Six Pack uncovered Stryfe's facility and infiltrated it out of their own curiosity and initiative. This chain of events led to Cable and Stryfe meeting in the modern era for the first time, where they had previously been unaware of each other's presence. Thus, Tyler had set his enemies against each other. Furthermore, Cable's impulsive reaction to seeing Stryfe was to blow up the entire facility held by their mutual employer, Tolliver. This meant the Six Pack had broken a contract and gave "Mister Tolliver" plenty of excuse to turn on the Pack and hunt them down for their failure. By pitting Cable and Stryfe against each other, Tyler strained Cable's relationship with the Six Pack to the breaking point, costing him valuable allies and provided a cover for Tolliver to constantly try to kill Cable without Cable ever suspecting Tolliver was a time-traveler, much less his prodigal son. [Cable: Blood and Metal #1-2]

Cable's time traveling made him an intermittent presence in the modern era, meaning Tolliver had time to busy himself with his criminal enterprises during the months and years Cable was inactive. He acquired the services of Deadpool -- the former Weapon X test subject -- from his current handler, Butler. [Deadpool (4th series) #34] Tolliver also independently began employing Deadpool's former girlfriend Vanessa in anticipation of Cable's return. When Cable did return and settled in to this timeline as drill sergeant to the New Mutants, Tolliver was prepared. He anticipated Cable reaching out to his old Six Pack associate Domino for assistance training the New Mutants, and had her kidnapped. Vanessa was a bio-morph named Copycat, able to mimic the powers, appearances and even memories of people she was in long-term contact with. Tolliver held Domino as a prisoner, while forcing Vanessa to morph into her. Tolliver then dispatched Deadpool to make an assassination attempt on Cable while also sending Vanessa, now posing as Domino, to stop the attempt and ingratiate herself with Cable. Thus, his spy was firmly in place. [New Mutants (1st series) #98, X-Force (1st series) #11, 15]

While building his plot against Cable, Tolliver also continued to oversee other business. He attended a summit in Las Vegas for the dissemination of the fallen Kingpin's assets to gain revenge on Lotus Newmark's organization for a past business deal. [Nomad (2nd series) #4] He also had Deadpool retrieve the injured terrorist Black Tom Cassidy from a near fatal encounter with Cable and the New Mutants, now called X-Force. Tolliver arranged for Black Tom to receive medical treatment and augmented his powers, putting the mercenary in his debt and knowing that Black Tom's vendetta against Cable for his injuries would harass the Askani'son further. [X-Force (1st series) #5, Deadpool: The Circle Chase #1]

Still, several months went by without Vanessa's pre-arranged reports, leading Tolliver to suspect she had become sympathetic to her targets. Tolliver sent Deadpool to beat Vanessa back into submission. This tactic seemingly failed, for it alerted Cable and X-Force to Vanessa's status as a spy. X-Force intended to destroy their compromised new headquarters with explosives, faking their deaths before tracking Tolliver down. Tolliver anticipated Cable's moves, however, and engineered the means to set off Cable's explosives remotely, nearly killing Cable and X-Force in the middle of a battle with Weapon: PRIME. [X-Force (1st series) #11-13]

Miraculously, Cable survived the explosion and used Vanessa to locate Tolliver in Sardegna, Italy. Just as he discovered the real Domino in Tolliver's dungeon, the arms dealer arrived with Deadpool. Vanessa was critically wounded as Deadpool and Cable faced off for Tolliver's amusement. When Domino freed herself from her bonds and shot Deadpool in the back, however, Tolliver attempted to flee. Cable and Domino grabbed hold of his helicopter as it took off and tried to force it down. A fire started in the cabin as Cable and Tolliver's goons exchanged blasts, and the helicopter exploded. Cable and Domino made it to safety, but Tolliver seemingly died in the explosion. [X-Force (1st series) #14-15]

Seemingly. In fact, Tyler had presumably teleported to safety at the last minute, leaving Nathan oblivious both to his survival and real identity. In an apparent attempt to sow chaos for its own sake, Tyler circulated rumors among the criminal and mercenary communities about "Tolliver's Will," a document which reportedly turned his entire estate (property, funds, armaments and even "the greatest weapon in the world") as a reward over to whoever beat all other challengers to the prize. This caused a lot of trouble for his former employees and lead enforcer, Deadpool. Somehow, Tyler had acquired the A.D.A.M. Unit Zero after Stryfe's apparent death and secured it with the rest of his cache at the Palace of Tomorrow's Hope outside Kathmandu, Nepal. Deadpool and various associates and enemies (including Vanessa, Weasel, Kane and Slayback) battled over the Zero unit until it was reactivated and disappeared from Nepal, reconnecting with Tyler. [X-Force (1st series) #23, Deadpool: The Circle Chase #1-4, Avengers (1st series) #366]

In the meantime, both Cable and Stryfe were believed dead for a time after a climactic battle on the Moon. Cable mysteriously returned weeks later, by way of the 39th century before arriving in the modern era again. This in part led General Haight to determine Tyler had gone rogue and he dispatched the one-man killing machine known as Sinsear to eliminate Tyler for his betrayal. Sinsear's hunt in the present alerted Cable for the first time that Tyler had been Mr. Tolliver, leaving Nathan temporarily convinced he had killed his own son in the helicopter explosion without realizing it. [Cable (1st series) #1-5]

Tyler was not only alive, but aware of another fact Cable was oblivious to as well: Stryfe survived their last encounter as a dormant second personality inside Cable's own body. Tyler felt that he could not maximize his vengeance unless Stryfe once against became dominant inside Cable's body, allowing him to strike at both of them at once. To achieve this, he came at his enemies sideways, by visiting Mr. Sinister and informing the mad geneticist of Stryfe's condition and how to reawaken him. With the assistance of Zero, fully reactivated by the quest for Tolliver's Will, he also intercepted a sister of the Askani who had come back to stop Stryfe's actions. Through her knowledge, he was able to confirm for the first time that Cable was the real son of Scott and Madelyne Summers, while Stryfe was the surviving clone created by the Askani. Tyler gleefully struck at Stryfe's sense of identity with this knowledge when the Chaos-Bringer tracked him down at his sanctuary. The fullness of his revenge would have to wait for another time, however. Cyclops, Jean Grey and Professor X arrived to save Cable, restoring his mind and seemingly banishing Stryfe's consciousness forever. Tyler slipped away into the night as the rest of the Summers family confronted their past. [Cable (1st series) #6-8]

With Stryfe gone, Tyler had the notion of stylizing himself as the one true heir to Apocalypse, defying his father and surpassing Stryfe in the same act. Taking the name Genesis, Tyler began gathering Apocalypse's Celestial technology for his own ends. He crafted a dimensionally-unstable citadel and fashioned an armor for himself resembling Apocalypse's true form. Genesis also used a power siphon to drain other mutants, adding their strength to his. (Whether this power siphon augmented Tyler's existing mutation with stolen energy or copied the specific mutations of others is unclear.) In an attempt to forge his own legend, Tyler recalled a fateful massacre from his time period in the city of Akkaba, Egypt. The birthplace of Apocalypse, En Sabah Nur slaughtered every single inhabitant in a macabre display of power and murder. As Genesis, Tyler recreated the massacre himself, "stealing" the legend from the future in an insane desire to make it his own.

Through these acts, Genesis established himself as Apocalypse's heir and earned the allegiance of the Dark Riders, whom he expanded with several new members. To feed their survivalist tendencies and his own power siphon machine, Genesis turned the Riders against their weaker members to make them stronger as a whole and as grist for the mill. It was while hunting another of Apocalypse's vassals, the former Horseman called Caliban, that the Dark Riders crossed paths with Cable, Domino and Storm in the Morlock Tunnels. After this chance encounter, Genesis decided to reveal his new path in life to his father.

The Dark Riders lured Cable and his allies to Egypt, where Dayspring was confronted with the recreation of the Akkaba massacre. Tyler announced himself as Genesis to Cable and took his father hostage. At the citadel, Genesis crowed about his success at exceeding everything Cable, Stryfe and Apocalypse had accomplished in the past, while Cable desperately tried to reason with his mad son. Tyler was beyond reason, however, and subjected Cable to the power siphon so that he could feed off his father's psychic energy. Domino and Cable's other allies infiltrated the citadel and freed him from Genesis's machine. As the citadel began falling apart around them, Cable used his newly rediscovered telepathy to try and reach his son from one mind to another. For a second, it seemed as if Tyler was responding to Cable's telepathic connection, but Genesis would not relinquish the power he had begun amassing. Genesis and the Dark Riders teleported away, while Cable tried to hold on to hope for his son. [Cable (1st series) #17-19]

The madness of Genesis was not abated by one brief moment of clarity, however. He continued maliciously lashing out at those he deemed his enemies or potential threats to his claim as heir of Apocalypse. Genesis and the Dark Riders located a human woman named Faye Livingstone in a nursing home, who was frequently visited by Mister Sinister. Genesis considered Sinister a rival and kidnapped Faye, believing her a possible emotional weakness he could use against Essex. Mister Sinister believed the same and remained cold and dispassionate, even as Faye died before his eyes due to Genesis's machinations. [X-Men Annual '95] Genesis also psychically reprogrammed Cable and Domino's ally Grizzly from the Six Pack, turning him into a serial killer in the Rocky Mountains. He even sent Cable a postcard to try and lure him into Grizzly's path. Instead, Domino went alone to confront her old friend and learned what Tyler had done to Grizzly. Grizzly had enough self-awareness left to hate what he had become, and wanted to die before Tyler's programming forced him to kill again. He forced Domino's hand as they fought, leaving her no choice but to shoot him. Grizzly died thanking Domino for releasing him, but Domino was prepared to kill Tyler for this, Cable's son or not. [Cable (1st series) #22-24]

Finally, Genesis had a complicated scheme to manipulate Wolverine to his own ends. First, Genesis and the Dark Riders freed the killer known as Cyber from prison. After testing his Adamantium skin for impurities, they murdered Cyber using mutated deathwatch beetles to strip away the flesh and bone from his body. The man was devoured whole, leaving only the metal behind for Genesis to work with. Genesis intended to use this Adamantium to restore the unbreakable skeleton and claws Wolverine lost months ago to Magneto, rebirthing Wolverine as the new Lord Death, first of the next generation of Horsemen. [Wolverine (2nd series) #93-96]

Through various agents, Genesis antagonized Wolverine and drew him to the citadel in the desert, where Tyler captured Wolverine and prepared him for the renewed Adamantium bonding process. Tyler's elaborate schemes did not stop there: he also had his Dark Riders capture hundreds of innocent humans and encase them in sarcophagi lined with Celestial technology. Genesis reportedly intended to use the psychic energy of these humans' deaths to bring Apocalypse back to life, and present a brainwashed Wolverine as Lord Death to Apocalypse as his first Horseman.

This deranged plan seemed to be born out of nothing more than Tyler's madness. Reviving Apocalypse was wholly inconsistent with his stated goal up until then of being Apocalypse's successor and heir. This contradiction made it unclear whether he intended to serve the resurrected Apocalypse or simply kill him again to prove himself the fittest. Furthermore, it was later revealed the sarcophagus allegedly containing the body of Apocalypse was empty, leaving open the question of whether Tyler was so delusional he had completely lost his hold on reality.

During the Adamantium bonding process, Wolverine's fellow X-Man Cannonball infiltrated the citadel and attempted to stop the procedure. Cannonball was overwhelmed by Genesis and the Dark Riders' sheer numbers, but his cries of pain and need reached Wolverine inside the stasis tank. Through force of will, Wolverine rejected the Adamantium and the brainwashing neural implants, causing an explosive backflow, which shattered his tank and expelled the Adamantium as deadly shrapnel, killing two of the Dark Riders before he even emerged.

Pushing his healing factor to its limits like this caused Wolverine to degenerate into a nearly feral state. He stalked and killed the remaining Dark Riders before attacking Genesis himself when he assaulted Cannonball. In his final moments of life, a glimmer of sanity emerged from Genesis' mind as he realized just how foolish he was to antagonize he who was the best there is at what he does. For all his stolen power and pompous demeanor, the self-styled heir to Apocalypse didn't stand a chance against Wolverine. Tyler Dayspring was finally put out of his misery. [Wolverine (2nd series) #99-100]

After Tyler's death, Samuel Guthrie offered an isolated hill on the Guthrie property as a burial site for Cable's son. Cable struggled for a time to forgive Wolverine for killing his son, and forgive himself for not doing more to save Tyler from the path he went down. [Cable (1st series) #32] During his own near-death experience after the battle with Onslaught, Cable had a vision of Tyler and Aliya from the other side of life and death. It appeared Tyler had finally found a peace in death that he had never known in the last few years of his life. How literal this vision was is open to interpretation, but Nathan Dayspring was comforted by the hope that it may be true, somewhere. [Cable (1st series) #36]