Sublime (Marvel Comics)

Sublime
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	New X-Men Annual 2001
Created by	Grant Morrison
In-story information
Alter ego	Sublime
Species	Sentient bacteria
Team affiliations	Weapon Plus Project, U-Men, TransSpecies Movement, Winterbrand Tech, Megacorp
Notable aliases	John Sublime, Dr. Sublime, Michael Grand, Kick
Abilities	Present within all human beings, capable of exerting at least some level of mental manipulation over those it inhabits; enhances the powers of mutants exposed to it and possesses them after repeated exposure

Sublime, also known as John Sublime, is a supervillain (actually a fictional sentient "bacteria") in the Marvel Comics universe. Sublime first appeared as John Sublime in the New X-Men Annual 2001.

Character biography

Sublime is the self-appointed name of a sentient bacterial lifeform that arose during the beginings of life in Earth. With the rise of multicellular lifeforms, Sublime found endless numbers of hosts it could infect. However, mutantkind, inmune to Sublime's infection, eventually arose and multiplied, becoming the first threat to Sublime's domination.

It was hinted that the very hatred and fear of mutants was caused by Sublime itself. But the bacteria took more direct actions in order to ensure that mutant population would be held check, if not exterminated, in order to keep it from becoming the dominant species of the planet.

The first step was the Weapon Plus Project, Sublime took over a human body, dubbed Dr. John Sublime, and became the director of the Program, overseeing the creation of living weapons created by each installation of the program, from Captain America (Weapon I) to the Super-Sentinels - Fantomex, Huntsman and Ultimaton (Weapon XIII, Weapon XII and Weapon XV), passing through Nuke, Wolverine, and Deadpool, the latter two originating in the Weapon X Project, seemingly the most prolific living weapons producer.

For many years, Sublime remained behind the scenes, manipulating the Weapon Plus Project and installing Malcolm Colcord as the Director of Weapon X, which would eventually lead to the so-called War of the Programs between Colcord and Sublime, as Weapon X became an independent organization.

As millions of mutants were born worldwide, Sublime, still under the identity of John Sublime, took other steps to ensure the extermination of mutantkind. One of these steps was the creation of the TransSpecies Movement a.k.a. Homo Perfectus, outwardly a group of mutants born in human bodies, though actually a cult of humans that sought to empower themselves by grafting mutant body parts to their own bodies. The militant faction of this group, the U-Men, refused to have any sort of contact with the world, which they considered impure, for which they sealed themselves in containment suits.

During a trip to Japan's new office of the X-Corporation, the X-Men discovered Sublime's farm of mutant prisoners, who were being harvested for mutant body parts which could give the U-Men powers. Sublime, who was in the country on a book tour, thus became aware of the X-Men's immediate threat to his plans. Sublime also planted the mutant healer Xorn in one such prison in China.

Although Xorn was rescued by the X-Men, he was actually a mole. Xorn, seemingly transformed into a duplicate of Magneto by the Scarlet Witch, became addicted to the drug Kick (which was actually Sublime's bacterial body in concentrated doses high-enough to finally enable the infection and possession of a mutant). Xorn dealt the drug to Quentin Quire, thus placing Quire under Sublime's influence, which would cause the Open Day Riots made by the Omega Gang, and which led to the death of Sophie of the Stepford Cuckoos.

Meanwhile, Sublime and the U-Men spread their influence to New York City, where they kidnapped the telepath Martha Johansson, harvested her still-living brain, and used it as a weapon against the X-Men. Johansson resisted, and forced Sublime to fall front Emma Frost's grip to his apparent death. The Sublime organism survived, regenerated its host body, and returned to actively overseeing Weapon Plus, as always, from the shadows.

Sublime suffered a setback in its plans with the destruction of two of Weapon Plus' Super-Sentinels (Huntsman/Weapon XII and Ultimaton/Weapon XV) and the defection of Fantomex (Weapon XIII). Sublime had envisioned a team of mutant-hunters with scripted actions operating from a space station (a section of Asteroid M) in order to make the genocide of mutantkind look like "Saturday morning cartoon come to life". Weapon XII had already been destroyed during its test-drive, Fantomex, intended to be the smart, cool member of the team refused to be anybody's weapon. Only Ultimaton remained, and even though he followed the direction of Weapon Plus operatives, he had began to question his role as a slaughter machine but was ultimately killed by Wolverine.

Under the influence of Sublime via Kick, and believing himself to be Magneto, Xorn assembled a new Brotherhood of Mutants to lay waste to the Xavier Institute and then New York City. They were defeated by the X-Men, but Xorn, Sublime's influence, killed Jean Grey, who was manifesting the powers of the Phoenix Force. Unbeknownst to all, the Phoenix was the ultimate threat to Sublime's plan. In retaliation for Jean's murder, Xorn was beheaded by Wolverine.

Later, Chamber, an X-Man who had infiltrated Colcord's Weapon X organization, was ordered to assassinate Sublime by Brent Jackson, a SHIELD agent turned Weapon X field leader. Chamber incinerated Sublime, but Sublime again regenerated. At the same time, Sublime was also responsible for sending Sabretooth against Mister Sinister in order to obtain Sinister's latest creations, "The Children".

Here Comes Tomorrow

In the Here Comes Tomorrow storyline, it was revealed in flashbacks that after Jean's death and Xorn's apparent death that Professor X left the Xavier Institute to rebuild the island of Genosha, and a broken Cyclops declined Emma's offer to jointly run the Xavier Institute. Beast became the new Headmaster and faced many troubles in his attempt to teach new generations of mutants and to fight for the Dream. The stress resulted in Hank consuming Kick and, subsequently, becoming the new host for Sublime. In this new host body, Sublime waged a war against mutantkind and the X-Men, destroying the Xavier Institute in the process.

150 years after Jean's death, Sublime was still making war, and Earth was filled with new species that were fighting for an ecological niche in the world including homo sapiens superior and homo sapiens sapiens (which was on the verge of extinction). Sublime longed to wipe out all other species, thus bringing evolution to halt, and replace it with the stagnation of his own mass-produced minions, including the Crawlers, genetic constructs made from the DNA of Nightcrawler and empowered with the genetic codes of Multiple Man and Cyclops. Sublime was aided by his champion, Apollyon, the last of the U-Men and the result of the separation of Fantomex from his bio-mechanical symbiotic ship, E.V.A.

Sublime stole the Phoenix Egg, in which a merged Phoenix/Jean Grey creature awaited her resurrection in order to bring "the judgement of the Phoenix". After emerging from the egg, the partially-amnesiac Jean/Phoenix became a minion of the Sublime (who she believed was the Beast), exterminating the race of sentient termites dominating the "Panafrikan Basin" and later attacking the mutant population of "Megamerica" on his orders.

Soon after, Sublime managed to duplicate the Jean's DNA and obtained her Phoenix-level telekinetic powers. The nearly all-powerful Sublime fought and defeated each one of the X-Men, who were actually buying time (with their lives) for Jean to act.

Jean had fully regained her memories and was now ready to convey the judgement of the Phoenix, to "Burn away what doesn't work". Jean purged Sublime from the Beast's body, destroying the bacteria once and for all.

Sublime's host, the Beast, was then beheaded by Apollyon, who did not realize that his former master was no longer inhabiting the Beast's body.

Jean then psychically reached backwards in time to encourage Cyclops to fall in love with Emma Frost and thus remain at the Institute; as a result, the original timeline that led to Sublime's possession of the Beast has been negated. However, it must be noted that Sublime still exists in the present, and that his current status and whereabouts are unknown.

With the massive depowering of mutants following the House of M, mutantkind's threat to Sublime has been greatly diminished. However, it remains to be seen if the depowered mutants lost their innate inmunity to the Sublime infection.

Days of Future Now

In another future timeline, seen in the Weapon X: Days of Future Now miniseries, Sublime and Weapon Plus waged war with Wolverine for years before Sublime was sent back in time and forced into the body of his own younger self. Although this apparently trapped him in a temporal loop, it is possible that this instead created a divergent timeline.

That Which Endures

John Byrne's run on Avengers West Coast introduced That Which Endures, the self-professed guiding force of evolution, which was, not unlike Sublime, an ancient organism that sought to test mutants as viable hosts. It is debated among fandom whether Sublime is the same as That Which Endures. If that is the case, then Sublime's first appearance was in Avengers West Coast #46.