Slightly Misplaced Comic Book Characters Case File #492: Maverick

So, I decided now that the era is basically over to go back and read through the X-Men’s Krakoan era.  It was a different concept, I’ll tell ya that much:  all the world’s mutants, good or bad, all living on the same island as a new nation with some neat sci-fi tricks like immortality for starters.  As I was going through a storyarc for Wolverine’s solo book, the character of Maverick popped up.  I hadn’t seen the guy in a while, and I have written entries in this series with less to go on than that.

Anyway, Maverick, or as he is sometimes known as, Agent Zero.

Maverick, born as Christoph Nord before changing his name to David North, first appeared in X-Men #5 by John Byrne and Jim Lee.  He was, originally, just a gun-totin’ old friend and teammate of Wolverine from back in the day, a guy who was there when he, Logan, and Sabertooth all tried to take down Omega Red and it all went oh-so-wrong.  But this was the 90s, so he was probably just supposed to be a cool-looking guy in a mask with a couple guns and pouches.  Intially, his mutant powers weren’t very showy:  he could absorb kinetic impacts without experiencing much personal harm.  Drop him off a building?  No problem!  Let the Hulk hit him?  He can take it!  Ask him to play the piano?  That one he probably can’t do.

Anyway, Maverick did eventually get a backstory.  He was originally from East Germany, but at some point became a West German agent for a black ops team with a beautiful Italian wife.  Only as his teammates started dropping dead, he realized his wife was a spy, and during the confrontation, he killed her in self-defense.  Oh, and she may have been pregnant, or she may have been messing with him.  Who can say?  Regardless, from there he joined the CIA and eventually got onto Team X with Wolverine, Sabertooth, and others like Wraith and Silver Fox.  At least, I think that included Silver Fox.  It may not have.

Regardless, the Team-X stuff ended badly, but Maverick resurfaced to save Wolverine from a returned Omega Red, leading to some X-Men team-ups and eventually Maverick gets it into his head to take down Sabertooth.  As near as I can make out, he has this idea frequently but has yet to finish the job.  Marvel did try to give him his own series at one point, but he contracted the Legacy Virus, and that may be the most noteworthy thing about the guy.  See, Maverick is a mercenary basically.  He goes where the money is.  The Legacy Virus may or may not have killed him, but it did alter his powers when he finally did recover, allowing him to redirect kinetic energy as well.  Also, he had no scent.  He was forcibly recruited to Weapon X at one point by Sabertooth and Wraith, during which he changed his code name to Agent Zero.

Eventually, he got brainwashed but good and did awful things, a sentence that could describe just about every character to be part of Weapon X. The big question is usually whether these awful things bother them or not.  Wolverine?  Bothers him.  Sabertooth?  Not so much.  Maverick/Agent Zero?  He doesn’t really remember them,

During the Krakoan era, Wolverine went undercover to save Maverick, captured and put up on the auction block by some baddies, but Maverick declined an invite to move to Krakoa as his new group, creatively called the Mercs, just went to work for the U.S. government anyway.  And oddly enough, his new contact was one of his bidders who realized there was an easier way to hire a mercenary.

Now, Maverick, under the Agent Zero codename, did appear in live action as played by actor Daniel Henney.  However, that was in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and in that movie, he just had enhanced reflexes, firearm accuracy and the like.  He also died.

I think we’d be forgiven for forgetting that was him.

Then again, he is a very 90s sort of character.  Maybe he can stay there.