Superman Analogue: Mimic
88The Exile's Calvin Rankin, the heroic alternate reality version of the X-Men villain called Mimic, could combine up to five sets of superpowers to make a shockingly capable #SupermanAnalogue!
Mastger List: https://twitter.com/CaseAiken/status/1346189702580342785?s=20
Original Thread: https://twitter.com/CaseAiken/status/1080831832428564480
Original Text: We're going to talk about one of my favorite characters from one of my favorite comics today, #Mimic from #EXiles, a series that I like to think of as "Sliders with Superheroes".
imic was an X-Men antagonist who in 616 was an asshole that the others couldn't stand to be around. You can guess from the name that his power is copying other powers. Starting with the OG #XMen, but able to grab and swap out others.
However, Exiles was a series about heroes from all over the multiverse saving realities and THIS Mimic was from a really bright one where he was a premiere one. Easy to see with Cyclops vision blasts, Wolverines senses, Colossus steel skin, and Northstars flight. Sounds familiar?
In addition to having a really interesting power set due to his limits on how many he could retain and never being perfect copies, Mimic had one of the best damn arcs of any character I've ever seen, which is fitting because EXiles was the rare Marvel book about change and growth
See, Mimic was legitimately his worlds version of Superman. He lived on a good world where heroes rose to the highest heights. But over the run, he was forced to encounter friend after friend that had taken the dark path and he often had to deal with them deeply. This took a toll
At first, he was second in command to Blink from Age of Apocalypse. They developed a relationship and she grounded him, but, when she left the team, he became leader and had to make many hard choices. Eventually he was taken over by The Brood, resulting in teammates dying.
This nearly destroyed him emotionally. He renounced lethal strategies and tried to lead others on this path, even redeeming an evil version of himself. He became a symbol of the reconstruction movement in comics, having gone down the grimdark path and reforged as a true hero.
Unfortunately, this is EXiles and no one was safe. A fight with a twisted version of Hyperion, another Superman analogue (I wonder if I should talk about him...) left Mimic at Death's door.
Leaving him vulnerable to a version of Proteus finishing him off.
Mimic to me represents the best examples of the creativity writers can employ with an established property: a character of the Kirby era given new life and new purpose and used as commentary on the medium of comic books in general.
As far as costumes go, they also follow the style of the character. He starts off with a very generic superhero costume, then moves on to something more akin to street wear (seen below) during his dark period, before settling on a more detailed modern X-Men style outfit.
Images:
1 - Exiles (2001) #31, Pencils by James Calafiore
2 – The X-Men Vol. 1 #19, Cover Artists are Werner Roth, Dick Ayers, and Sam Rosen
3 – Exiles (2001) #64, Pencils by Jim Calafiore
4 - Dark X-Men #1, Art by Simone Bianchi and Leonard Kirk
5 - Exiles (2001) #1, Pencils by Mike McKone
6 – Exiles (2001) #4, Pencils by Mike McKone
7 - Exiles (2001) #8, Pencils by Mike McKone
8 – Exiles (2001) #61, Pencils by Jim Calafiore
9 - Exiles (2001) #14, Pencils by Mike McKone
10 - Exiles (2001) #15, Pencils by Mike McKone
11 - Exiles (2001) #37, Pencils by Clayton Henry
12 – Exiles (2001) #51, Penicles by Mizuki Sakakibara
13 – Exiles (2001) #45, Pencils by Jim Calafiore
14 – Exiles (2001) #72, Pencils by Paul Pelletier
15 - Exiles (2001) #6, Pencils by Mike McKone
16 – The X-Men Vol. 1 #75, Art by Gil Kane, Frank Giacoia, Morrie Kuramoto
17 - Exiles (2001) #1, Pencils by Mike McKone
18 - Exiles (2001) #17, Pencils by Mike McKone
19– Exiles (2001) #61, Pencils by Jim Calafiore
20 – Exiles (2001) #26, Pencils by Clayton Henry
21 – Exiles (2001) #3, Pencils by Mike McKone
22 - Exiles (2001) #15, Pencils by Mike McKone
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