EMPLATE: Page 2 of 3

Publication Date: 22nd Dec 2022
Written By: Gremlin.
Image Work: Dean Clayton and Gremlin.
Biography

BIOGRAPHY - Page 2

Sometime later, Emplate visited Monet and begged her to help him break free of the dimension to which he was forced to retreat all the time. She refused to help and so he showed her images of thousands of hands tearing at his soul.

She was shocked to see how much pain he was truly in and he begged her to find someone to replace him and go to the dimension in his stead. Unable to stay in Earth's reality any longer he faded away, leaving Monet to wonder what he meant. [Generation X (1st series) #24]

When the Generation X students went missing, Emplate sent D.O.A to meet with their teachers, Emma Frost and Banshee, to offer a deal. He knew where Monet was at all times and as such he could tell them that location. In return for his help, he wanted Penance back. Banshee was against the idea but Emma used her telepathy to knock him out and arrange a meeting with Emplate. They met up and Emplate was in a visibly weakened state, due to not feeding on any mutants for a long time. Before Emma could hand Penance over, though, Banshee showed up and put a stop to things. Emplate only just managed to phase out before Banshee unleashed a sonic scream at him. [Generation X (1st series) #29-31]

Emplate returned to his home dimension and contemplated his next move, but the arrival of a surprise guest would turn the tides in his favor. A door magically appeared in his otherworldly lighthouse base and, when he opened it, the dimension-hopping Chimera fell out. She explained she had the technology to open up portals, or warp gates as she called them, to any other dimension. Emplate immediately struck up a partnership with her and his first stop was to the Massachusetts Academy. Thanks to Chimera and her plasma wraith minions, the students were easily overpowered but Emplate got a shock when he saw his twin sisters there. 

Apparently, after being caught in an explosion, Monet had split apart into Nicole and Claudette again. Seeing their big brother back, they immediately joined together and, before Emplate could stop them, they merged with his body as well. The new entity, calling herself M-Plate, looked like a woman but had Emplate’s characteristic design. With aspects of both Emplate and the twins, she was initially confused as to whose side she should be on. She eventually decided to alter her initial plans, kidnapping Synch and escaping back to her dimension through another portal. [Generation X (1st series) #33-35]

In his travels across the dimensions, Emplate had once come across the Citadel of the Ultimate Amalgamator. Inside was an alter which, when activated properly, would merge a being’s mind with the consciousness of every other mind in existence. Now that M-Plate was more powerful than ever before, she had a chance of fulfilling her desire and ruling over all of reality. The only thing that had been standing in her way before was a young girl called Gaia, whose power was the key to triggering the event.

Chimera, who didn’t like the sound of the plan, objected to it and was incinerated by M-Plate for her disobedience. Until now, Gaia had refused to cooperate but, with Synch in tow, M-Plate forced him to copy Gaia’s powers and start the event for himself. He was about to do so when the rest of Generation X found them and interrupted things. M-Plate easily stopped them in their tracks but a creature called Dirt Nap managed to swallow M-Plate whole, causing her to lose concentration and set the students free. Dirt Nap wasn’t able to contain M-Plate in his body and he exploded, erupting the contents of his stomach out. The violent process had managed to split up Emplate, Nicole and Claudette into their individual forms again. Generation X turned on Emplate but he managed to escape once more thanks to some technology left over from Chimera. [Generation X (1st series) #36-39]

It was a few months before Emplate showed up again and, in that time, Monet had been set free from the Penance body whilst Nicole and Claudette took her place in it. Emplate himself was not fairing so well, as he was getting weaker and weaker from not feeding. He began stalking Generation X while waiting for the perfect time to strike and feed. When Synch accidentally copied his powers, his location was revealed and the students attacked him. They quickly realized, though, that a direct confrontation wasn’t Emplate's usual M.O. and he was merely acting as a distraction so D.O.A and some more minions could capture Penance. While some of the team went to save Penance, the rest fought Emplate, but he managed to brainwash them into fighting for him instead. Synch managed to make Jubilee angry enough to snap out of the conditioning and she decided to end the fight by setting off a huge explosion. Emplate was severely injured and he remained in the school infirmary until they could decide what to do with him.

Given the recent events, Carter St. Croix was called and he met with his son for the first time in years. Even though he was in a weakened state, Emplate still managed to delight in taunting his father and told him that Marius died a long time ago. Monet left the school for a while to be with her father again and presumably Emplate was taken into their care, as he wasn’t seen there again. [Generation X (1st series) #57-58, Generation X Annual ‘99]

It would be many years before Emplate resurfaced and in that time Generation X had broken up and the world’s mutant population was severely reduced in numbers. Emplate had managed to make it back to his home dimension but now his food source was on the verge of extinction. Traveling to Westchester, he found the X-Men’s mansion in ruins with no one but construction workers around. He discovered that most of the world’s mutants now lived on an island called Utopia and so he phased onto it and began stalking his prey.

It wasn’t just mutants who lived there, though, as he was spotted by the robot Danger and was forced to reveal himself. He dismantled Danger and then began to feed on Madison Jeffries before he was confronted by a squad of X-Men. Since none of the X-Men had fought him directly before, he managed to catch them off guard and even grab a taste from Pixie. He phased out of the dimension again before they could regroup as he had finally managed to locate the perfect meal for himself. He phased his entire lighthouse onto the X-Men’s base and boldly grabbed the young girl Bling! before anyone could stop him. Bling!’s mutant power enabled her to shoot shards of rock-like mineral from her body, something which delighted Emplate. Phasing the lighthouse back into his own dimension, he proceeded to feast on her before locking her in the dungeon for later.  

The X-Men got to work quickly trying to build a device to pull the lighthouse back into their dimension. They got a break when another student, Trance, spotted the dimensional rift that Emplate left behind when he phased into the reality. Borrowing some of Trance’s astral projection powers, Rogue traveled into Emplate’s dimension and found his lighthouse. After defeating some creatures D.O.A. sent after her, Rogue set about finding Bling!. Upon learning of Rogue’s presence, Emplate decided to kill Bling! and move his lighthouse somewhere else for a while. Luckily, Rogue managed to stop him in time and, after confronting him, discovered she could absorb his power for herself. Emplate finally got a taste of his own medicine and things got worse when he discovered she had also tampered with his lighthouse.

Since it was on a floating lump of rock, he could fly it anywhere, but Rogue had caused it to crash into a glass moon that contained a deadly creature inside. Emplate was forced to phase the lighthouse out of the dimension and on to Utopia for fear of the giant creature’s wrath. Once he was corporeal, the X-Men used a device and forced him to stay that way while Bling! finally got revenge and knocked him out. The device holding him began to fail, though, and the X-Men reluctantly let him escape back to his dimension once more. As he cursed the X-Men and vowed vengeance, Emplate became more concerned with his immediate safety when he realized the creature he fled from was waiting for him. [X-Men Legacy Annual #1, X-Men Legacy (1st series) #228-230]