History
At the beginning of Young X-Men, Eric Gitter is getting a tattoo on his hand in a tattoo parlor in La Jolla, California called Ink Inc. He is revealed to be to be a loud-mouthed and rude teenager with a criminal record. Two cops later enter the tattoo parlor and proceed to try to arrest Gitter. When the cops try to apprehend him, Gitter shows that the tattoo in his hand is finished and it looks like a bio-hazard sign. He wants to test his tattoo and touches an officer with his hand. The officer immediately drops to the floor and starts to throw up. The other officer then arrests Eric and he is taken to jail. Once in jail another cop bails him out, this cop is then revealed to be Scott Summers aka Cyclops.
Ink, with Blindfold, is part of the Blue Team that must confront Moonstar. After leaving Moonstar unconscious, he knocks out his partner, Blindfold as well. He warns her that she should have seen that coming.
A conversation with Blindfold implies that he is not a mutant as he believes. When the team is given mutant tracking gear, only five mutants in the room are detected, despite there being six mutants in the team, and one mystery character watching over them (presumably Greymalkin).
Ink is paid by Donald Pierce for giving him (Pierce) Moonstar and Blindfold–and is referred to as a mercenary.
When Cyclops is revealed to be Donald Pierce, Ink has a change of heart and fights against him along with the former New Mutants and the rest of the Young X-Men. Unfortunately, Blindfold’s vision came true and they were too late to save Wolf Cub, the teammate that was destined to die.
It is decided that the team will continue to work together and that Ink is allowed to stay even though he worked with Pierce. During the next mission, it is revealed that Ink is not a mutant. After finding this out, he leaves
the team. He gets drunk and is attacked by the Hellfire Cult, a group that attacks mutants, the irony is not lost on Ink. Cipher shows up and tells Ink that the team needs his help. Resistant at first, he decides to help but goes to his Tatto Artist, the real mutant, and gets two more tattoos, the caduceus symbol that heals and a Phoenix force tattoo. He arrives on the battlefield and heals Moonstar, who has been shot and proceeds to take away the powers of all the Y-Men. Using all that power has put the Tattoo artist into a coma. It is decided that, even though he is not a mutant, he will stay on the team, Scott fears him running around unchecked with Phoenix-like powers.
He makes a friendship with Greymalkin, both of whom are new to the X-Men family. Ink asks about Cipher but Cipher, who was ease-dropping, bursts in and stops the conversation. Shortly after this he heals Dust who is dying.
Powers
Ink gets powers by getting tattooed by a mutant tattoo artist.
Every time Ink gets a new tattoo by the mutant tattoo artist, he acquires the ability of that tattoo. For example: in issue #5 he gets a tattoo of two wings on his back, endowing him with the gift of flight. He shows off his new power after being dropped in midair by Cannonball. So far Ink has gotten a tattoo of a bio-hazard sign, because of this he now has the power to make people sick. He also has some kind of an explosion tattooed on his right arm. He says he used it to punch through a brick wall.
In issue #2 we can see that Ink has a new tattoo. This tattoo consists in some lines that cover his whole left hand. This gives him super strength. At the last pages of issue #3 we see another guy that has tattooed the explosive on his hand and has the same powers as Ink. Some preview page of 4th issue show two new tats on Eric’s head that give him telepathy, although some psi-shields can block him.
In issue #9 Ink gets the tattoo artist to give him the power to heal others and give him the power of the phoenix force, but this put the artist into a coma as a result.
A list of Tattoos/ Powers
- A Bio-Hazard symbol on his right hand gives the ability to make people who come into contact with it sick.
- The explosive sign on hid right arm gave the ability to make an explosive punch.
- The Wings on back give the ability of flight..
- The lightning bolts on both sides of his head gives telepathy.
- The Colossus like lines on left hand gives Super strength.
- The Caduceus symbol on left hand-palm gives the ability to heals people .
- Phoenix Tattoo over eye gives Phoenix like powers, but not the actual Phoenix Force. This was able to defeat the Y-men and heal Dust. It is described as being able to do anything, however this seems to be false.
- The Nuclear emblem on an alt universe iterations right hand gave him atomic explosion based powers.
- The Red Plus symbol on the back of his neck gives Ink a Healing Factor.
- The Bullseye on his chest bestows Eric with optic blast abilities akin to cyclops
Because the powers he has are actually the product of the Tattoo artist, he cannot get powers from other tattoos. If the Tattoo Artist dies, it is most likely that Ink will lose all his powers. Currently his tattoo artist may have come out of his catatonic state, while it was theorized that when he woke up. Ink would lose his powers, it was evidently proven false as he’d been given new tattoo’s to obtain new powers.
In Other Media
Film
X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
Ink appears in X-Men: Days of Future Past, portrayed by Gregg Lowe. In the film, he is shown in 1973 as part of a special division of mutant youths who are being utilized by the U.S. government during the Vietnam War. With the war coming to an end, Ink and the others are due to be shipped off for experimentation by Bolivar Trask, but are rescued by Mystique. Ink is shown using his bio-hazard tattoo to make several of his captors violently ill.