David North (character)
| Agent Zero | |
|---|---|
 Agent Zero, on the cover to Weapon X #3. Art by Georges Jeanty | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | X-Men (vol. 2) #5 |
| Created by | Jim Lee |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Christoph Nord |
| Species | Human Mutant |
| Team affiliations | Cell Six, CIA, Weapon X, Team X, Major Arthur Barrington |
| Notable aliases | David North, Maverick |
| Abilities | None. Formerly:Absorption of kinetic energy for use in force blasts or super-strength, Enhanced healing, no discernable scent, Anti-healing factor corrosive |
David North (birth name Christoph Nord) is a mutant comic book character in the fictional Marvel Universe. He is known as both Maverick and Agent Zero. North first appeared in X-Men (vol. 2) #5 and was created by Jim Lee.
History
Cell Six
Christoph Nord was born in East Germany. His early history is clouded in mystery, though there are whispers that his parents were scientists for the Nazi regime. He also had an older brother, Andreas. A mutant, Christoph possessed the ability to absorb kinetic energy through impact with little to no harm. An idealist, he fought against the communist regime during the height of the Cold War, joining a West German black ops unit named Cell Six. On a mission in Italy, he was injured by a rival assassin codenamed the Confessor.
While recovering, he met a Russian nurse, Ginetta Lucia Barsalini, whom he fell in love with and married. Over the next three years, Cell Six's field agents were eliminated one by one, except for Nord. Nord realized the truth; Ginetta was a spy. Threatening to shoot her, he demanded to know her employer. Saying he didn't have the guts to shoot a defenseless woman in cold blood, she lunged at him with a knife, causing him to shoot her in self-defense. Dying, she revealed to him that in killing her, he had killed their unborn child as well. Long after this incident, Nord continues to be wracked with guilt about the betrayal and still seeks answers as to whom Barsalini was working for. This watershed moment left Nord cold and untrusting of everyone, especially women.
Weapon X
Fueled by the betrayal, Nord became one of the most efficient covert operatives in Germany. In the 1960's, his exploits caught the attention of the CIA, who offered him a spot in the clandestine Team X. He agreed, and at this time, changed his name to David North. As a part of Team X, he was one of several mutant operatives the government experimented on and utilized. Each member unknowingly received false memory implants, and North received an aging suppressant culled from Logan's mutant healing factor. North's immediate team consisted of three field agents: North, Logan (who later became Wolverine), and Victor Creed (who later became Sabretooth). The mutant teleporter John Wraith, also referred to as Kestrel, served as the team's intelligence man and extractor. It was at this time that North began wearing his signature yellow and black faceplate. On a mission in East Germany, both Creed and Logan were badly injured. Rather than follow protocol and leave them, North dragged them to the extraction point. Cornered by Andreas Nord, now an assassin, North saved his teammates the only way he could; killing his own brother in cold blood. Because of this incident, Logan holds North in very high regard.
Another mission saw the three agents try to take down the Russian super soldier Omega Red. They succeeded in stealing the carbonadium synthesizer, which was necessary for the Russian to control his death factor pheromone. Taking down the psychopathic Omega Red, however, was not as easy. In the chaos, Creed panicked, killing a CIA mole. The team then escaped by jumping from a ten-story window. The synthesizer was thought lost, and a rift formed between Creed and Logan due to Creed's actions on the mission. Unbeknownst to the agency, Logan had recovered the synthesizer and hid it. Maverick suspected as much at the time, but did not know for sure.
By the early 1970s, Team X was summarily disbanded. However, the team's agents where captured by Weapon X. Sometime later, North inexplicably lost his powers. Undaunted, North left the agency, but continued to work in espionage as a mercenary using the trade name Maverick. The inspiration for the name came in a conversation where North boasted that he neither trusted or needed anyone, to which Logan responded, "A regular maverick, eh?"
Mercenary
Decades passed and Maverick developed a reputation as one of the best hired guns available. Maverick compensated for his lack of powers with meticulous planning and a reliance on the latest technology. He worked for private parties and governmental agencies alike, taking several contracts from retired Major Arthur Barrington, the man who had brought North into the CIA. When Omega Red captured Wolverine as well as several of the X-Men in an effort to locate the carbonadium synthesizer, Maverick was sent in by Barrington. Maverick tracked Sabretooth to Omega Red and with the X-Men's help, he obtained the device from Wolverine, and hid it once again.
Barrington later sent him to acquire the Xavier Files, profiles of the powers and weaknesses of various mutants, which were compiled by the X-Men's founder. His enemy exploded in the ensuing clash, seemingly destroying the files. Maverick was later hired by the US government to protect Aldo Ferro, a former Weapon X member. Former Team X alumni sought Ferro out after Mastadon (comics) died when his age suppression factor reversed. Unbeknowst to Team X, Ferro was responsible for the planting of false memories during their time with Weapon X. Betrayed by Ferro, Maverick then sided with his former teammates, and Ferro was seemingly killed in the subsequent battle.
Maverick next sought to kill Sabretooth to make him pay for his numerous crimes. Against his better judgment, he joined forces with the X-Men to merely capture Sabretooth, setting in motion what became a failed attempt by Charles Xavier to rehabilitate the serial killer.
Legacy Virus
Maverick swiftly contracted the Legacy Virus, a terminal disease that only affected mutants. This development brought about the random return of his powers, but also a loss of energy and horrible scarring all over his body. At first, he tried to convince Wolverine to kill him, but Wolverine would not, and Maverick decided to make the best of it, and "fight the good fight." His health declining, he traveled the world from safe house to safe house, using his savings to procure treatment for his infection.
While in New York, he saved a fellow Legacy Virus positive mutant, teenager Chris Bradley, from an attack by the anti-mutant group, the Friends of Humanity. The FOH retaliated by firebombing Bradley's home, and Maverick used his connections to help the Bradley family, moving them to Florida, providing aliases for them, getting Chris treatment, and setting Chris' parents up with jobs.
In Canada, former KGB agent and mutant telepath Elena Ivanova found him, demanding he help her track down Sabretooth, who had killed her mother during his Weapon X years. Before he could answer her, they were attacked by Omega Red, who had tracked Ivanova to Maverick, in hopes of recovering the carbonadium synthesizer. With the help of John Wraith, they succeeded in keeping the device away from the villain. After saving her, Ivanova felt that she owed Maverick, and she stuck by his side, despite Maverick's icy demeanor. They traveled together for a time. The Legacy Virus then took hold, killing North.
Ivanova used her powers to resuscitate North. To his surprise, the virus went into remission, and his powers not only returned, but were enhanced. The kinetic energy his body absorbed could now be released as beams of concussive force or used to increase the strength of his physical attacks up to tenfold. His revival also cleared his mind of Weapon X's memory implants.
Trouble soon found them, in the form of a Russian mob boss Ivan Pushkin. Sending his goons Hammer and Sickle to kidnap them both, Pushkin used Ivanova's powers to brainwash Maverick into killing Major Arthur Barrington. Maverick came to his senses, blinding the left eye of Sickle with his own weapon. While this occurred, Chris Bradley ran from home, missing his girlfriend in New York. The FOH tapped his friends' phone and when he reached New York, they again tried to kill Chris. Maverick, Ivanova, and Wolverine saved him and his friend. Ivanova then used her abilities to make the FOH and Chris' girlfriend think he'd died in the scuffle.
Both shaken by the life threatening events of the past few days, Ivanova and North's relationship, platonic up to this point, became physical. The following morning, Ivanova still expressed the desire to go after Sabretooth. Maverick harshly warned that an assault against Sabretooth was a fool's errand, and he further implied she'd slept with him to coerce him to aid her goal. Angered, Ivanova left Maverick that night to continue her vendetta. Tracing her steps, Maverick tailed Ivanova to Sabretooth in the nick of time as Ivanova was rendered comatose by the mutant psychopath. Maverick stopped Sabretooth from delivering the killing blow, and left Ivanova in the care of the Bradley family.
Maverick then renewed his vendetta with Ivan Pushkin. Pushkin retained the Confessor's services to spring Sickle from jail, then go after Maverick. The Confessor defeated Maverick and brought him to Pushkin, who held him captive, still having hopes of coercing Maverick to work for him. Maverick would have none of this, however, freeing himself and then stopping Pushkin from acquiring a huge payload of high tech weaponry. In the midst of achieving this goal, Sickle gained a measure of revenge, gouging out Maverick's left eye and stranding him in the Swiss Alps.
Agent Zero
The Weapon X project was soon reinvigorated, and having brought Sabretooth and Wraith back into the fold, they were sent to recruit Maverick. Wraith lured an unwitting Maverick into a rendezvous. Maverick refused to join, and a battle ensued. Wraith was killed, and Sabretooth threw Maverick off the roof of a 20 story building onto a car parked on the street below.
Taken to Weapon X near death, the Malcolm Colcord, Director of Weapon X again offered him the chance to join, as he could still be saved. This time, he reluctantly agreed, trying to rationalize it by saying he couldn't "fight the good fight" as a corpse. He was healed and then upgraded with explicit intent of assassinating Wolverine. He has no scent, makes no sound thanks to a vibranium suit, possesses an enhanced healing factor, and a corrosive was added to his concussive blasts that hinders a foes' healing factor. In addition, he was equipped with a wide array of weapons, from wrist-mounted plasma blasters, to an adamantium-coated knife. He was the agency's most potent weapon.
As the world believed that Maverick was dead, a victim of Sabretooth's, Nord sought to keep it that way. He dyed his brown hair black and adopted a new alias, Agent Zero. After sending him on a few simple missions, the Director tried to break his will by sending him to kill his friend and former teammate Wolverine, a mission he purposely botched. Feeling guilty for joining the enemy, he contemplated suicide daily. His hatred for his teammate Sabretooth still ran deep, as he tried yet again to kill him, only to be stopped from dealing a fatal blow by the Director.
During a mission, Agent Zero encountered a new Maverick, who unbeknownst to Zero, was the same mutant he'd befriended years earlier, Chris Bradley. Bradley had infiltrated a mutant terrorist group called Gene Nation in an effort to destroy them from inside. Bradley had wanted revenge on Weapon X for 'killing' North. To achieve that goal, he received training in black ops by Cable and assumed the Maverick mantle. Zero, believing this new Maverick was a terrorist, shot and killed him, only to find the truth as Bradley lay dying. Returning to the base after this occurred, Zero found Weapon X had disappeared without a trace. Maverick then picked up Bradley's fight, attacking Gene Nation strongholds across the world and also searched for answers as to what happened to the program.
It was revealed the reason that Zero doesn't know what happened to Weapon X was because he was being brainwashed by a fellow Weapon X member under orders from the Director, as Zero had become increasingly harder to control. Zero had gone after Gene Nation because of Weapon X's instruction. Without realizing it, Zero served as executioner at Neverland, a mutant concentration camp set up by Weapon X. But just as soon as Weapon X bothered to reveal these truths, they put him under again, and Zero went on, none the wiser.
Decimation
Agent Zero lost his powers on M-Day, as a result of Scarlet Witch's actions during the House Of M. It was shown in New Avengers #18 when he appeared on a screen showing a list of depowered mutants.
Even more recently, he has been seen in Wolverine: Origins in a center for former mutants and once again using the Maverick alias.
Alternate versions
An alternate version of Maverick was revealed to exist in Exiles #62. Maverick was forced to join Weapon X, a group of reality-hopping people who had to kill people in order to save realities. Little is known about Maverick, except that he apparently got killed by the bladed shield of an alternate version of Captain America. For a time, the body got trapped in the Timebroker's Crystal Palace until the Exiles send his body back home. On his homeworld of Earth-1287, Maverick was revealed to be an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. before his abduction, working alongside Nick Fury, who later honored his best agent by giving him a proper funeral.
In a possible future timeline (Earth-5700), Agent Zero joined a Wolverine-led version of the X-Men, teaming with Archangel, Juggernaut, Sunfire, Mystique, Aurora, and Deadpool. After a time, the Director activated Zero's imbedded mental directive, and Zero, against his will, slaughtered the X-Men, except for Wolverine. Unable to bring himself to kill his friend and teammate, he fought the mind control just long enough to commit suicide.
Television and film
Maverick appeared in one episode of the '90s X-Men cartoon, "Weapon X, Lies and Videotape", searching answers about his past and his involvement with Weapon X, teaming with Wolverine, Sabretooth and Silver Fox. In the episode "Whatever It Takes", the character Morph briefly turns into Maverick to taunt Wolverine. Maverick also appears in flashbacks that depict himself and Wolverine battling Omega Red, though that memory could be one of Weapon X's implanted memories.
In X-Men Evolution, Omega Red tells Wolverine that he has a vendetta against him, Maverick and Sabretooth which Logan does not recall.
Agent Zero is rumored to appear in the upcoming film Wolverine.
External links
Bibliography
As Maverick
- Maverick vol. 1 #1
- Maverick vol. 2 #1–12
- Weapon X: The Draft: Agent Zero
- Wolverine vol. 2 #62–64, 67, 87, 162–166
- Wolverine Annual 1995
- X-Men vol. 2 #5, 10–11
- X-Men Unlimited vol. 1 #2, 5–7, 15
As Agent Zero
- New Avengers #18
- Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Wolverine
- Weapon X: The Draft: Agent Zero
- Weapon X vol. 2 #2–3, 11, 19–21, 23–25