Sugar Man

Sugar Man is a fictional character, a mutant villain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He was created by writer Scott Lobdell and artist Chris Bachalo, and first appeared in Generation Next #2 (April 1995).[1]

This article is about the Marvel Comics mutant X-Men supervillain. For other uses, see Sugar Man (disambiguation).
Sugar Man
Sugar Man battles the New Mutants, From New Mutants vol.3 #27 (September 2011). Art by Marko Djurdjevic
Publication information
PublisherMarvel Comics
First appearanceGeneration Next #2 (April 1995)
Created byScott Lobdell
Chris Bachalo
In-story information
SpeciesHuman Mutant
Team affiliationsGenegineer
Seattle Core (Age of Apocalypse)
AbilitiesExpert biologist and geneticist
Superhuman strength
Four arms
Razor sharp claws and teeth
Indefinitely long, bio-electric razor sharp tongue
Enhanced sense of smell
Ability to alter body mass and size

Sugar Man first appeared during "Age of Apocalypse", an event that caused Marvel Universe's history to diverge. Although many of the storyline's characters were alternate versions of existing heroes and villains, Sugar Man does not appear to have an Earth-616 counterpart.

Fictional character biography

Age of Apocalypse

Sugar Man originally comes from an alternate timeline Earth-295, where Apocalypse conquered North America and set up a system in which mutants ruled. Sugar Man was a student of Mister Sinister, who taught him genetics and science. He becomes a capable geneticist with a lab at Niagara Falls where he regularly torments his human slaves.[2]

Later Sugar Man is placed in charge of Pacific Northwest's human slave camp, the "Seattle Core." Magneto needed a mutant with chrono-variant powers —time travel— in order to go back in time to restore reality's proper order before Charles Xavier's death, whose existence was revealed by Bishop, a displaced mutant from Earth-616. Apocalypse had already killed all mutants with chrono-variant powers to prevent anyone from undermining his regime, but Know-It-All was able to locate one with latent powers: Illyana Rasputin, the sister of Generation Next's leader, Colossus.

Magneto sends the fledgling group, Generation Next, to the Core in an attempt to rescue her. During their mission, Sugar Man encounters and kills several of the members, including Vincente and Mondo. During the process, Sugar Man is seemingly destroyed. In reality, however, he lost most of his mass and shrank to a minuscule size. He hides in Colossus' boot during the assault on Apocalypse's citadel.

In the 2000 Blink limited series, a flashback reveals that Sugar Man was once the jailer in charge of cellmates Illyana Rasputin and Blink (before she was rescued as a young girl by Weapon-X and Sabretooth) in a prison facility where he regularly abused them.

Arrival in Earth-616

During the assault on Apocalypse's citadel, Sugar Man takes advantage of the chaos to escape by jumping into the M'Kraan Crystal, the "Nexus of all realities". He arrives in the Earth-616 timeline, arriving in an unspecified location some twenty years in the past. Sugar Man travels to Genosha and contacts Genegineer, who he gives the formula for the "mutate bonding process", forcibly enslaving hundreds of mutants to the human Magistrates. When the first Genosha government - led by the Genegineer and Cameron Hodge - falls, Sugar Man begins working behind the scenes to affect the seemingly more peaceful government run by Sasha Ryan.

Eventually this government falls into a brutal civil war. When the mutant team Excalibur is investigating the first Mutate slave of Genosha, they almost learn the secret of the Sugar Man; however, this is thwarted when Sugar Man activates a device that kills the Mutate before his involvement can be revealed.[3] When Excalibur continues to keep searching for the secret history of Genosha, Sugar Man prevents them by destroying the master computer holding the information.[4]

Operating from the Shadows

Detecting that X-Man, another refugee from Earth-295, is active in Earth-616, Sugar-Man sends his agent Rex to eliminate him so as to maintain his anonymity.[5] Much to his frustration, the first assassination attempt is interrupted by Selene.[6] Sugar Man then attempts to capture Alex Summers, using Scarlet McKenzie as his operative. She fails and he eventually gives up after learning that another refugee from "The Age of Apocalypse", Beast, now calling himself "Dark Beast", is also trying to capture him.[7]

When Nate Grey's Earth-616 counterpart, Cable, travels to Genosha and becomes involved, Sugar Man believes him to be Nate and decides to reveal himself following 20 years of secrecy.[8] Sugar Man realizes he was wrong and concludes that someone is manipulating the events to uncover his secret when Cable discovers his lab, forcing Sugar Man to activate the self-destruct mechanism in his lab.[9] As Cable, Domino, Jenny Ransome, Phillip Moreau, and the brainwashed ex-Magistrate Pipeline try to deactivate the bomb, Sugar Man captures Phillip Moreau. Sugar Man's plans for Phillip remain unknown. With the database destroyed, Sugar Man's existence is kept secret. The clues themselves were passed to Phillip by Mister Sinister, who had long suspected that the Genosha mutate process was based on his own genetic research.[10]

After nearly coming face-to-face with 616's Mr. Sinister in Genosha, Sugar-Man begins working with the Dark Beast to keep their existence secret: Sinister learning that they are the ones who are using his techniques in 616 would work against them. In this vein, they target Bishop, who retains memories from the Age of Apocalypse.[11] After the failed attempt to slay Bishop by using the Dark Beast's operative Fatale, the two refugees part company.[12]

Return to the Age of Apocalypse

Sugar Man returns to Earth-295's past Earth-295 by utilizing a hyper dimensional device. After succeeding, he quickly resumes experimentation on a super-virus that he hopes to bring back to Earth-616 in order to wipe out humanity. Unfortunately for Sugar Man, Nate Grey follows him and, with the help of Magneto and Forge, thwarts his plot and sends him back to Earth-616.[13]

The Fall of Genosha

Back in 616, Sugar Man and the other refugees from Earth-295 are targeted by the Shi'ar empire, who see Holocaust's embedded shard of the M'Kraan Crystal as sacrilege. When the shard is removed, all refugees are sent back to Earth.[14]

Afterward, Genosha is quickly destroyed by the wild Sentinel, directed by Cassandra Nova. The whereabouts of Sugar Man are unknown until he reappears in Genosha, killing a band of Magistrates who are exploring the island with the Dark Beast. Callisto and Karima Shapandar confront Sugar Man and apparently kill him with a pipe through the head.

Endangered Species

He recovers from Calisto's attack and is one of the villains contacted by Beast when he is trying to reverse the effects of M-Day. Sugar Man declines, saying that Beast can't afford him.[15]

Recent activities

After Dark Reign, Sugar Man leaves his hideout to find the device known as the "Omega Machine". He finds the device in an abandoned H.A.M.M.E.R. facility with, to his delight, Nate Grey hooked up to it.[16] He remakes the device to open portals to other realities and begins creating technologically derived mutates as part of his experiments while he tries to reach Earth-295, the Age of Apocalypse.[17] Realizing that the only way Sugar Man will leave him alone is to give him what he wanted, Nate uses all of his strength and willpower to open a portal to 295; before Sugar Man can escape into it, he is forced to return to 616 by Moonstar, where he is taken into custody by Captain Steve Rogers.[18]

Return to the Age of Apocalypse

Sugar Man is released from prison by Dark Beast. They rebuild the dimensional portal technology and return to the Age of Apocalypse, where the two use the energies of the life seed to resurrect a number of fallen mutants to provide Weapon Omega an army.[19]

The Human Resistance later captures Sugar Man and gives him to Penance in exchange for her co-operation. Penance plans to reform Sugar Man and utilize his science in her reformation of society.

Secret Wars

Sugar Man was believed to have stayed on the Age of Apocalypse when the reality was closed from the Multiverse during the X-Termination event, however in the lead-up to the incursion between the Earth-616 Earth and Earth-1610 as seen in the Secret Wars storyline, he had managed to return to Earth-616 before its closure and has been in hiding since then. Believing that the villain has the means to boost his magnetic abilities, Magneto seeks him out. Sugar Man is able to unveil a set of mobile power amplifiers with the intention of selling them to Magneto. Magneto, however, takes the technology violently and impales Sugar Man with numerous metal pipes, leaving him barely alive.[20]

Apocalypse Wars

While investigating the mysterious appearance of 600 new mutant signatures Colossus takes a group of younger mutants to investigate. During the investigation they discover that Sugar Man has created the new mutants and plans on traveling to the future with them where he will raise and control them.

Death

Bishop, a time-traveling X-Man and occasional detective, has received a warning about an unspecified, imminent event that would have catastrophic consequences on the X-Men's timeline which lead him to Sugar Man's lab where the X-Man had a quick confrontation with the frightened villain before getting knocked unconscious. By the time Bishop woke up, Sugar Man was dead with his body split in two.[21]

Powers and abilities

Sugar Man is a mutant who possesses superhuman strength, four arms, hands with razor-sharp claws, a giant mouth full of razor-sharp teeth, and a dense, razor-sharp tongue of indeterminate length that fused with bio-energy able to pierce and damage stone, steel, and even non-solid objects such as gas and liquid. It is unknown if all of his abilities, as well as his bizarre physical appearance, are a natural part of his mutation, or later additions through genetic tampering.

He has an enhanced sense of smell and can use it to detect fear.

He can control his own body size and mass.

Sugar Man also possesses advanced regenerative abilities.[22]

Sugar Man is an expert, at least by modern standards, in sciences including biology and genetics.

Other versions

X-Babies

In the dimension ruled by Mojo, Dazzler encounters childlike versions of the Age of Apocalypse villains, including Sugar Man. These entities seem to be created by Mojo himself, though he has lost control of them.

In other media

Video games
  • Sugar Man appears in X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, voiced by James Arnold Taylor. Sugar Man is a boss that appears as the supervisor of the Core. Sugar Man reveals that he is the same Sugar Man from the Age of Apocalypse (although this claim can be debated) and expresses admiration for how Apocalypse manages to conquer the world and run it effectively no matter what timeline he is in. He also compliments Apocalypse as a good boss. It is unexplained how Sugar Man managed to reach this timeline from the Age of Apocalypse.
  • Sugar Man appears as a boss in Marvel: Avengers Alliance, Season 2, Mission 1.
gollark: We have technological night vision goggles. Which are probably cheaper than genetically engineering people.
gollark: I do know about the various design flaws, but also we can compensate with technology.
gollark: I guess better eyes would be slightly useful.
gollark: Intelligence is very polygenic.
gollark: Maybe faster healing somehow, but good luck finding genes for that.

References
  1. DeFalco, Tom; Sanderson, Peter; Brevoort, Tom; Teitelbaum, Michael; Wallace, Daniel; Darling, Andrew; Forbeck, Matt; Cowsill, Alan; Bray, Adam (2019). The Marvel Encyclopedia. DK Publishing. p. 360. ISBN 978-1-4654-7890-0.
  2. X-Man Annual 1996
  3. X-Men Prime #1
  4. Excalibur #87
  5. X-Man #6
  6. X-Man #7
  7. X-Factor #113
  8. Cable (1st series) #26
  9. Cable (1st series) #27
  10. Cable (1st series) #28
  11. X-Men (2nd series) #48
  12. X-Men (2nd series) #49
  13. X-Man Annual #1996
  14. X-Man Annual #1997
  15. X-Men (2nd series) #200
  16. New Mutants #25
  17. New Mutants #26
  18. New Mutants #27
  19. Age of Apocalypse #2
  20. Magneto #19
  21. Uncanny X-Men (2018) #1
  22. Marvel Encyclopedia: Updated and Expanded.
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