Multiple Man

In a spin-off from the rogue dupe who tried to assassinate the real Multiple Man, this animated version of Madrox was a member of the Marauders who worked for Mr Sinister. Madrox was seen stood next to Sinister, and acted as his personal bodyguard & one-man army. When Cyclops believed that Sinister had abducted Jean Grey, he hunted down other Marauders and eventually tracked down Sinister in his lair. Sinister taunted Cyclops and revealed that he didn't have Jean Grey. When Cyclops threatened to attack, Sinister commanded Madrox to attack. His duplicates easily overwhelmed Cyclops, since the concussive optic blasts would produce more dupes. Even when the rest of the X-Men appeared, they had difficulty coping with the sheer number of dupes until Iceman contained them all in ice blocks which prevented him from moving or creating more duplicates. The connected-dots motif on his body-suit would glow when he created new duplicates.

Origin
In the town of Los Alamos, New Mexico, it was immediately apparent that Jamie Madrox was a mutant as soon as he was born. When the doctor performed the old-fashioned smack to encourage the baby to cry & breathe a twin suddenly appeared. However, it wasn't a twin, but a duplicate. James Arthur Madrox was a rarity amongst mutants, in that his mutation was clear from birth, instead of waiting to develop in his teenaged years. He would uncontrollably form a duplicate of himself upon physical impact. This was a shocking experience to the doctor and to his parents as well.

Professor X was an old friend of the Madrox family and upon his advise Jamie's family moved to a farm in the middle of Kansas. Jamie's father, Dr Daniel Madrox created a special suit for Jamie to wear that would inhibit his mutant power. When Jamie was in his mid-teens, his parents were killed in a tornado before he really knew the extent of his powers and reason for the suit. Jamie then spent many years on the farm as his only companion. The duplicates would work on the farm, but without anyone else around life was still lonely for him.

In his early 20s, his suit began to malfunction the surge in energy which started to drive him crazy. He found himself headed towards New York and fought against the Fantastic Four. Charles Xavier managed to arrive at the scene and settled the situation. Jamie's suit was repaired and Charles invited Jamie to accompany him back to Xavier's School for the Gifted. Jamie didn't want to be part of the school or the X-Men, and instead chose to travel with the Professor to Scotland and became an assistant to mutant researcher, Moira MacTaggert.

Power and Abilities
Madrox can create exact duplicates (often referred to as 'dupes') of himself whenever he receives physical impact. His mutant power manifested itself at birth, which is rare for a mutant. As each duplicate is an exact replica of himself, he gained the codename Multiple Man. Each duplicate looks like a twin of Madrox, and will reproduce his physical appearance including his clothing. Although Madrox admitted to having a wardrobe full of the same outfit (so he wouldn't have to worry about what to wear), his power provides fully clothed dupes who also wear what Madrox is wearing. This was put to use when he duplicated the hat & scarf in order to disguise Aegis as another duplicate.

His body absorbs kinetic energy of different ranges to create differing number of dupes. This can be as minor as snapping his fingers, clapping his hands together, or even greater impacts such as bumping into a wall, or being struck.

The greater the kinetic impact; the greater the amount of duplicates produced. Therefore, a slight snap of his fingers can produce as few as one duplicate, while a punch from a heavy-hitter like Strong Guy could produce half-a-dozen duplicates, if not more.

Originally the suit that Madrox's father designed was to reduce the accidental production of duplicates. Madrox was still a young boy when he was forced to wear the green body-suit, and therefore hadn't developed enough control over his power. As the years passed, he gained enough control to prepare himself and therefore reduce or even prevent duplicates from appearing when his body was bumped in to. Therefore he no longer has to wear the energy absorbing body-suit his father designed, but he does continue to wear a similarly patterned motif.

Dupes can still be accidentally created if Madrox is struck without being mentally prepared for it. The impact from other mutants' powers (Cyclops' eye beams or Siryn's sonic scream) have been known to trigger duplicate creation.

Although unable to communicate with others telepathically, Madrox has a low-level telepathic and empathic connection to his duplicates. In the past has been used for a degree of control/coordination over groups of duplicates. He has also demonstrated that this connection can be used sort of like a homing device to track dupes when they are close by.

However, as his duplicates grow increasingly independent and unpredictable, they have been able to lie to Madrox and avoid detection. It is this telepathic connection with his duplicates that allows Madrox (and any other nearby dupes) to feel the pain experienced by a dupe. It is also responsible for the psychic feedback whenever a dupe dies.

Each duplicate can create other duplicates, and each is capable of independent thought and action. Over the last few years all the duplicates created have been influenced by one aspect of Madrox's personality. This has made them very unpredictable and sometimes dangerous, as seen when one lied to Madrox and later pushed Rictor off a building. Therefore he tried to avoid creating large groups of duplicates unless the situation called for it (such as when he wanted to hide Aegis from the Superhuman Restriction Act authorities) or when all the duplicates share a common cause (protecting Siryn from Damian Tryp).

Madrox has come to believe that this new splintering of his personality is from spreading himself too thin and releasing too many dupes into the world. The more time a dupe has, then the more sense of independence and autonomy it develops. This process began back when Madrox joined the Fallen Angels. When Chance's mutant power cancelled out the powers of other mutants around her, the stubborn duplicate with the broken ribs didn't instantly vanish like all the other dupes did. Also, John Maddox has established a life and family, while Cortex appears to have developed other mental-based powers. Therefore, they are able to resist re-absorption and reason with Madrox.

To prevent the world from being over-run with millions of duplicates, Madrox can also reabsorb his dupes into his body. Previously he had to make physical impact with a dupe, mirroring the production process. He no longer needs physical contact to do this, and can remotely absorb dupes anywhere within close proximity. He has been able to recall dupes who are in the same room, falling off buildings, and even from across Mutant Town. The absorption process integrates the memories, experiences, and skills gained by the dupe, and is therefore learned by Madrox. As such, Madrox has previously sent dupes out into the world to acquire a vast amount of knowledge and skill in a variety of fields. Therefore, Madrox has passed the bar entrance examination to become a lawyer, doctor, private investigator, a monk, a trained agent of both SHIELD and HYDRA, an Olympic gymnast and much more. Madrox is also a master of martial arts since his dupes have studied hand to hand combat and has mastered Muay Thai kickboxing, Judo, Filipino Pencack Silat, Krav Maga and Kung Fu. Additionally, he is able to speak a wide variety of languages. Conversely, the pain, injuries and depression experienced by dupes is also absorbed and retained by Madrox.

The large number of times he has reabsorbed dupes that have lived separate lives has also left Madrox with some degree of confusion, unable to sort out whether certain things were experienced by a duplicate or himself. When X-Factor arrested X-Force, he told Siryn that it was like a dream that he remembered and years later he couldn't recall if he or his dupe had slept with Siryn or M.

Madrox has used the absorption process to heal physical damage experienced by his duplicates. By creating a dozen healthy duplicates, the injuries of one dupe are therefore watered down and lessened when they are all re-absorbed at the same time. However, if an injured duplicate was to create dupes of his own then he would create duplicates with the exact same injuries.

He has even absorbed dying duplicates in the past without incurring any physical damage, but Madrox strongly tries to avoid this because of the mental and emotional anguish it causes.

It is also speculated that if the original Madrox is killed that one of his duplicates would take on the main portion of the abilities of the group and become the new Madrox. However, during the Age of Apocalypse, the original Jamie Madrox was able to defeat the army of clerical Madri by shutting down their life functions from afar. However, the resultant psychic backlash also caused him to die. Likewise, the original Jamie Madrox was hunted down in the Ultimate Universe and killed in order to stop Magneto's army of Multiple Men.