BIOGRAPHY - Page 7
Meanwhile, Warlock’s former teammate Sunspot had been making waves over in the Avengers but he soon found himself in a tight spot and requested his friend’s help. Bobby now led A.I.M., which had been rebranded to Avengers Idea Mechanics. Unfortunately, he had also gained a number of enemies, such as the super-intelligent Maker and the evil computer system O.M.N.I.T.R.O.N.I.C.U.S. Warlock arrived in time to save Sunspot from the malevolent A.I. by forming a suit of armor around his friend. The Maker required a more elaborate scheme and so, 
when Bobby got word that he intended on attacking the US president, he had the perfect role for Warlock. With the real president hidden safely away, Warlock turned himself into a copy of Air Force One, complete with holographic security personnel, whilst Sunspot disguised himself as the president. The plan worked and the Maker attempted to kidnap the president but was trapped inside Warlock when he stepped onto the plane. After a brief reunion with the rest of his New Mutant friends, Warlock went off on his own again. [New Avengers (4th series) #14-17]
Not long after, Warlock began to get sick and so isolated himself away in a small remote cabin in the woods of Canterbury, Connecticut. His peace was disturbed by a young boy named Christian, 
who had been dared to prove he wasn’t a mutant himself by knocking on Warlock’s door. When Warlock greeted Christian in his usual jovial manner, the young boy was shocked at seeing the alien creature and lashed out. The rest of Christian’s friends circled Warlock and attacked him, thinking him some vicious alien. He begged them to stop, but Christian really turned out to be a mutant and his explosive powers critically injured Warlock, causing him to explode violently. Some of Warlock’s TO virus infected Christian, who quickly fled home in fear of what he had done. The TO virus took over Christian and, combined with his powers, caused him to obliterate his home, killing himself and his mother.
Warlock’s former teammate Karma had asked Dani Moonstar to track down her errant brother Tran, who until recently had existed as a psychic entity within Karma herself. Dani investigated the explosion at Christian’s house just in case it was related to Tran but, when she arrived, she became infected with the TO virus. Warlock’s consciousness had survived and now existed within 
Dani, but he was still sick and couldn’t control the virus. Karma kept Dani and Warlock’s predicament a secret, with the two calling themselves Moonlock and even going as far as creating TO constructs of the rest of the New Mutants. Karma set up a new team led by Magik to investigate mysterious occurrences, but they soon realized that Karma had been lying to them all along. When they confronted Karma, she brought out Moonlock and the New Mutant constructs causing a fight broke out. Moonlock was not in his/her right mind and attacked their friends, infecting them with the TO virus, Karma included. [New Mutants: Dead Souls #1-6]
The infected team were tracked down by the Office of National Emergency, aka O.N.E., who claimed they would be able to remove Warlock from their systems. It was a lie and the team were experimented on, turning them into mutant-sentinel hybrids. Things were going from bad to worse for the mutant race, with many of the X-Men seemingly being wiped out in a battle with X-Man. The Warlock-infected team were eventually freed by Cyclops and Wolverine, two of the few remaining X-Men. They formed a new team of X-Men, where they set out to deal with any unfinished business such as saving Madrox and capture Dark Beast. Even though he was an untrustworthy sociopath, it was Dark Beast who helped remove Warlock from his friends’ bodies. 
He explained that the virus infecting them was Warlock himself, and he had spread himself over numerous hosts so that he didn’t completely drain one person. Dark Beast convinced him to fully reform himself in the body of one of Madrox’s duplicates, and so Warlox was created. [Uncanny X-Men (5th series) #12, 15]
O.N.E. forces soon came for the X-Men, and they came with weapons that had been derived from the experiments conducted on the Warlock-infected mutants. Things were dire, with the X-Men being killed one by one in the battle, until only a few remained. O.N.E. sent a group of techno-organic Sentinels after them, and Warlox immediately recognized the systems as his own and attempted to take control of them. He left himself exposed while doing so and was blasted by a laser, critically damaging his body. His plan had worked and he had linked their memories to his, creating a weakness for the X-Men to exploit. As he lay dying, Hope Summers approached him and, mimicking Emma Frost’s telepathy, took his memories and used them to shut the Sentinels down. Hope confirmed to him that the plan had worked, and Warlox died moments later. [Uncanny X-Men (5th series) #21-22]
In unrevealed circumstances, Warlock somehow survived or was resurrected and he returned to full strength soon after. He reconnected with Cypher once more and the two became inseparable, quite literally as Warlock now spent a lot of time merged into his friend. The mutant race were on their knees, but Professor Xavier had an ambitious plan that Cypher would be a key part of. 
Cypher was taken to the island of Krakoa where he was told that it would be the new home for the mutant race. Cypher’s mission was to talk to the sentient island and find a way to make it into a livable biosphere for everyone. After Xavier left, Cypher expressed his concern with Xavier’s plan to Warlock, but he chose to help him fulfill it regardless. Warlock was going to be a critical part of it as Krakoa survived by draining the life force of other beings to survive. Warlock spread his TO components across the island and consumed the organic material, and in turn Krakoa would feed on these new parts of Warlock. Whilst it was a short-term solution, it allowed Krakoa to survive without draining anyone else and with no harm coming to Warlock. One of the benefits of this method was that Warlock could spread his influence across every part of the island and act as a surveillance system that Cypher could monitor. At this point Xavier and the others were unaware of Warlock’s true influence on the island, and so Cypher kept up the pretense that Warlock was unable to leave his body. Instead, Warlock’s presence was noted by a techno-organic coating on Cypher’s right arm.
Months passed with Cypher and Warlock’s hard work paying off, as mutants started moving to the island. With more mutants on the island, Krakoa could syphon off a small portion of each of their lifeforces, meaning Warlock wasn’t being fed on as much. [House of X #1, Inferno (2nd series) #3]
Warlock’s role on the island remained a secret for a while with most people assuming the tech on Cypher arm was a benign form of the TO virus. Warlock was briefly spotted by Cyclops separated from Cypher, but he quickly merged back into him, leaving Cyclops to believe he was seeing things. [X-Men (5th series) #7] He was soon caught out again a few weeks later when he and Cypher accompanied Nightcrawler back to the X-Mansion to investigate a disturbance. When they were attacked by the Sidri, an alien race, Warlock was forced to leave Doug’s body to fight. Magik happened to witness it and questioned them, but she ended up keeping their secret for a while longer. [Giant Size X-Men: Nightcrawler #1]
Warlock continued to go wherever Cypher went, such as into space with the New Mutants, but for the most part he remained on Krakoa and acted as Cypher’s council when he began to question himself. He was soon forced to take a more active role in events when the existence of Krakoa’s sibling island, Arakko, came to light and the two islands went to war. Arakko was trapped in another dimension, but its forces used the inter-dimensional realm Otherworld as a stepping-stone to get to Krakoa. Saturnyne, the ruler of Otherworld, did not want to see a war waged on her soil, and so created a competition, in which select heroes of both Krakoa and Arakko would compete. Using a series of cryptic clues, she pointed both sides to locate a number of swords to be wielded by champions, who in turn would compete. Cypher decrypted the clues for the Krakoan swords and was shocked when it seemed Warlock was to be used as a sword. Cypher decided he should be the one to wield Warlock, to which his friend raised concerns for his safety. Doug couldn’t be talked out of it and so Warlock vowed to do his best to ensure no harm came to his friend. Magik, Exodus and even the island of Krakoa itself tried to talk Doug out of using Warlock, but he remained steadfast.
Soon enough all the swords and champions had been gathered and it was time for the competition to start. Whilst others got to use their swords, Warlock wasn’t needed after all, as Doug’s test was to marry Bei the Blood Moon, a woman from Arakko. After the competition was over, the forces of Krakoa and Arakko called a truce and an uneasy alliance was created. One of the outcomes of the whole event was the secret of Warlock’s presence on the island had been revealed. Whilst no-one really gave it much thought, they still didn’t know the true extent to which his TO systems ran through Krakoa. [X of Swords crossover]
With Doug having married Bei, he suddenly had other priorities and Warlock found himself at a loose end without his best friend. Since he had been keeping a low profile the past few months, 
Warlock took the opportunity to reconnect with the rest of the New Mutants. He took to mimicking the physical attributes and actions of his friends, something that did not go unnoticed. Warpath confronted him and Warlock awkwardly explained he was feeling lonely without Doug and he was trying to create a new best friend. Warpath comforted Warlock and explained it wasn’t so easy to just replace a best friend, and that he needed to talk to Doug and explain how he felt. Thanks to the encouragement, Warlock did just that and discovered Doug felt the same, with the two friends reconnecting again. [New Mutants (4th series) #14, 19]