Quentin Quire

Origin

Quentin Quire joined the student body of the Xavier Institute after Professor X’s return from averting a war with Genosha and the rebuilding of the X-Mansion. He immediately stood out as a brilliant intellect and quickly became Xavier’s prize pupil, though the extent and type of his mutant abilities were never clearly defined

Quentin kept a piece of newspaper with him from the day he was born. It was the cover of an issue of the Daily Bugle which was put out at a time when mutants had just begun to be noticed in society. The main artwork on the page was a picture of a mutant with a whip that had rather distinctive clothing and hairstyle. The image represented the fear that humans felt towards mutants at the time.

As is sometimes the case with extremely bright, promising youth, Quentin was not socially adept, and resented it. He had feelings for the Stepford Cuckoos Sophie, but the Cukoos found him to be disturbing. He only had one classmate that he would hang out with, Glob Herman, which didn’t help his social status. He found one of his tormentors, Slick, to be particularly irritating because Slick’s ultra-cool image was a charade generated by his power to generate illusions.

Creation

Quentin Quire was created by Grant Morrison and artist Keron Grant and first appeared in New X-Men Vol.1 issue 134 (2003).

Character Evolution

Quentin Quire has been a constant nuisance to the X-Men since his debut at the riot. After his release from prison at the onset of Schism, Wolverine felt responsible to take Quentin into his care/imprisonment at the new Jean Grey School. While attending, albeit reluctantly, he has begun to engage with the other students, Idie Okwono in particular. He has been the White King of the Hellfire Club, and is currently the billionaire CEO of the Phoenix Corporation. He attends the Xavier Institute for Mutant Education and Outreach, located in Central Park. Recently, he joined a new incarnation of the West Coast Avengers.

Major Story Arcs

Riot at Xavier’s

Quentin began to fall into a downward spiral around the time of the death of famed mutant fashion designer Jumbo Carnation. He had recently received a phone call from his mother informing him that he was actually adopted. This news brought up questions about his very identity. Quentin lashed out at Slick one of his main tormentors, revealing Slick’s true appearance in front of the student body, in particular his girlfriend Longstrike. Quentin began to use the mutant enhancing drug Kick, and his brain began to work overtime burning sugar as fuel. He visited the site of Jumbo’s murder and decided to get his hair cut in the same manner as the mutant in the artist’s depiction on his newspaper cover. He returned to the mansion also wearing clothing designed by the late Jumbo Carnation. With the X-Mansion’s public open house coming up Quentin wished to make a confrontational statement about how far mutants have come by embracing stereotypical images generated by fearful humans.

With his identity coming into question, Quentin had attached himself to Jumbo’s death. Quentin’s brain function had also increased dramatically. As Emma Frost put it, Quentin’s brain was processing over 10,000 brilliant ideas per second. Quentin would have a public confrontation with Professor Xavier during their telepathy class. He openly challenged Xavier’s ideals of tolerance in favor of a much more radical view of human mutant relations, desiring not to live in a world side-by-side with Jumbo’s human killers. This display impressed several other students who began to follow Quentin’s line of thinking. With Glob Herman still by his side fellow students Tattoo, Phaser, and Skybolt adopted the same clothing as Quentin forming the Omega Gang. Now all five were abusing Kick, and ventured outside of the mansion that night. In a back-alley they found a group of humans who they savagely beat, killing some.

Xavier and the rest of the school faculty knew that Quentin was becoming dangerous, subtly influencing those around him with his telepathy, but they were unable to come to agreement on how to resolve the situation. Quentin led the Omega Gang in a raid of a U-Men hide-out, killing all they found inside. When the group returned to the mansion they ambushed Xavier in his office, knocking him out with a baseball bat. The following day was to be the day of the open house.

When Xavier became conscious again he was wearing a mask similar in design to the helmet Magneto wore. As Magneto’s helmet disallowed telepathy from getting into his brain, this helmet prevented Xavier’s telepathy from reaching anyone else. As the open house was beginning Quentin announced that they were holding Xavier hostage and began a riot at the school. Quentin influenced the student population of the school into demonstrating which evolved into a full fledged riot when the X-Men approached to calm the situation. In order to stop Quentin, Sophie took a does of Kick and using the power of Cerebro the five Cuckoos enhanced their already great power level to take down Quentin. Quentin was left beaten and humbled, and the strain of the incident had killed Sophie.

Quentin was taken into Beast’s lab. Quentin’s neurons were continuing to accelerate the rate at which they were firing until, one-by-one, they were turning into faster-than-light energy and disappearing. Beast could only hypothesize that the stimulation by Kick had triggered a secondary mutation within Quentin. Xorn was brought in to heal him, but what was happening could not be stopped. Xorn helped ease Quentin into a different state of being, killing his body. Just before Xorn committed euthanasia Quentin asked Xavier what would happen if he was wrong, and the enemy was among them. He could have been referring to Xorn at the time, who was lated forced by Sublime to duplicate Magneto. It is possible that Xorn knew that Quentin had figured it out at the time, and killed him to keep it a secret.

Phoenix: Endsong

His body was destroyed, and his mind was kept in a semi conscious form in Beast’s lab, where it was eventually brought back to full consciousness and then given a body by the Phoenix Force returning to earth. He then attempted to resurrect his lost love, Sophie. Unfortunately Quentin was only able to use his telekinesis to reconstruct her body, he did not possess the ability to bring her back from the dead. With the help of the phoenix force however she was returned to life. This did not last more than a second though as Sophie was apparently disgusted and chose to remain dead. Whether she was still disgusted by him, or repulsed by the actions he had committed, remains a mystery.

Nation X

Beast brings Quentin’s container to his lab on Utopia after the X-Mansion is abandoned. Finding life on a higher plane to be “boring,” Quentin revives himself and decides to become a Villain and secretly destroy Utopia, claiming that the X-Men stole his idea to create a mutant nation. He elects to make his endeavor a game and selects Martha to be his arch-nemesis and gives her seven and a half minutes to stop him. Martha attempts to alert the X-Men and locate Quentin, but he manages to intercept and taunt her at each attempt, ultimately smashing her container and leaving her to die. Martha realizes that Quentin has infiltrated Cerebra to destroy the island and attempted to take revenge on the Cuckoos by putting them in a mental loop. Martha manages to break the Cuckoos free, who quickly defeat him.

Schism

During the recent x-event in which cyclops and wolverine’s disagreements come to a head and wolverine leaves to establish his own school, the new black king of the Hellfire Club Kade Kilgore released Kid Omega from containment. He decides to celebrate his freedom by breaking in to an international arms conference that Cyclops happens to be speaking. While inside Kid makes some of the world’s top leaders reveal there deepest darkest secrets, all live on camera. Now listed as the worlds most dangerous mutant, he seeks refuge on Utopia. Even though Wolverine advised handing him over to Captain America, Cyclops decides that Kid Omega shall be put back in containment, and given to authorities in order to be tried by a jury. However, Wolverine decides to take a reluctant Kid Omega with him to Westchester, New York the home of the Jean Grey school for Higher Learning.

Regenesis

Since attending Wolverine’s school, Kid Omega was of great help in their first conflict against a spawn of Krakoa that was being controlled by the new incarnation of the Hellfire Club. Wolverine even took Kid Omega with him to a gambling planet in order to use his skills to gain money for the school. Certain aliens that are there however can detect psychics and they end up fighting their way out of the casino.

Alpha & Omega

Quentin was able to construct an entire world within the confines of his own psyche. He pulled the minds of Hisako Ichiki and Wolverine into his psychically constructed world, causing them to enter a comatose state. His “world” functioned as an AI driven game in which Wolverine and Hisako were unwilling players. Eventually, Quentin began to lose control over this “world”, and Hisako and Wolverine were sent back to their own bodies.

Phoenix Corporation

Quentin, after having graduates from the Jean Grey School, became a teaching assistant. After the mysterious Phoenix Corporation found a way to hack into the school systems with a foreboding message, Quentin decided to track them down. He encountered Younge and his ‘sexy nuns’. Storm and Wolverine soon followed, but were occupied with Faithful John and the nuns. Quentin hijacked a bamf, and ended up at the New Xavier School for Mutants, where he spoke with Cyclops, who later convinced Wolverine to give Quentin a chance. Back at “Camp Cyclops”, Quentin battled the time displaced original X-Men, as well as Cyclops’s new students. He was able to take them all down with great ease. Back at JGS, Faithful John was defeated by the efforts of Oya, Storm, Fantomex, Armor, Hellion, and the other students. Quentin, Oya, and Wolverine faced Quentin’s future self, who was the possessor of the Phoenix Force. They killed future Quentin, leaving the Quentin of the present confused and distraught. He left the school after inheriting billions of dollars from the Phoenix Corporation. Now a billionaire, Quentin owns the east coast branch of the Hellfire Club, and is the Hellfire Club’s newest White King. He recently turned 17 on September 17th, and threw a large birthday bash. Wolverine infiltrated the party and attempted to give his lost student one last push.

Avengers & X-Men: AXIS

Quentin was inexplicably captured and detained in the Red Onslaught‘s “Reeducation Camp” for “genetic filth” (Mutants, Inhumans, etc.) on the abandoned island-kingdom of Genosha. He is captured alongside Scott Summers, mutant renegade, and Evan Sabahnur, his best friend and the genetic clone of En Sabah Nur, the Apocalypse. They are freed by Magneto, who murdered the Red Skull, thereby unleashing the Red Onslaught. The four mutants did battle with Ahab. Both Evan and Quentin are pierced by the lances of Ahab, the warden. Reinforcements soon arrived in the form of members of the Avengers, X-Men, and Fantastic Four, and a larger battle ensued. Eventually, the Red Onslaught and the two special sentinels he pitted against the heroes (built by Tony Stark & designed to take down heroes) took down most of the reinforcements. Quentin, Evan, and the remaining heroes went into hiding on Genosha, while Quentin blocked the Red Onslaught’s telepathic scans, keeping the group hidden. The surviving members included Quentin, Evan, Sue Richards, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Medusa, Iron Man, and Magneto. Quentin watches over Evan while he heals, and later continues to battle the Red Onslaught telepathically, holding off his attacks, even after the heroes fall in battle and Magneto’s Cabal takes on the Onslaught. Evan continues to give Quentin gentle encouragement, until Quentin can no longer hold out, and is defeated by the Onslaught, as Evan joins the battle. The Scarlet Witch and Doctor Doom complete the Inversion Spell, defeating the Red Onslaught, but also ‘inverting’ several of the heroes and villains, as well, including Quentin and Evan.

After the battle on Genosha and the casting of the Inversion Spell, Quentin returns to his life as White King of the Hellfire Club, but he feels changed. The Inversion Spell has caused Quentin to become nicer and more mild-mannered. As he goes around the room at the Hellfire Club’s Black Party scanning people’s minds, he notes that he previously would have exposed all these people’s secrets and created general chaos at the party. But now, he senses the change within him, and refrains from doing so. In fact, he invited his friends from the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning to attend the party. Idie Okonkwo (Oya), Kubark (Kid Gladiator), Glob Herman, and Broo attended the party and expressed their astonishment at Quentin’s change in personality and outlook. They are pleasantly surprised, but also very distrusting of this new Quentin. Also in attendance at the party were the Inner Circle – Kade Kilgore, Wilhelmina Kensington, Manuel Enduque, and Max Frankenstein. The group praised Quire for bloodying up Wolverine at his 17th Birthday Bash. They also warned him against causing yet another scene. Ororo Munroe, aka Storm – the new Headmistress at JGS, and also inverted on Genosha – attended the party, even though she had no invitation. Storm, rather than Quentin, was the one causing a scene, kissing a man who was already with another woman, and then proceeding to kiss the woman when she protested. Storm began fighting the security guards who attempted to escort her out, and amidst all the chaos, Quentin formed his psychic shotgun and delivered a blast directly to Storm’s head. She was down, and when she reemerged, she angrily confronted Quentin, blaming him for her change in behavior, punching him in the face, and leaving. Quentin now understands what’s happened – those on Genosha have been altered by the Inversion Spell. After this revelation, he also realizes that he is now in poor standing with both the Hellfire Club and the X-Men.

Post-Secret Wars

Generation X

Quentin decided to enroll in school again, this time voluntarily, after having left when he became disillusioned with his life at the school, and decided to run the Phoenix Corp and be the White King of the Hellfire Club. His status at the Hellfire Club is currently unknown, but he has returned to the school, now known as the Xavier Institute for Mutant Education and Outreach, located in Central Park. He is a member of the ¨special class” taught by former Generation X member, Jubilee. During this time, Quentin and his classmates have faced off against a vampire-like, Emplate-corrupted Monet, who was also a member of the original Generation X. Quentin has been somewhat reluctantly developing friendships with his new classmates – especially his roommate Benjamin Deeds (Morph).

Jean Grey

As time-displaced Jean Grey realized the Phoenix Force was returning to Earth, she made attempts to reach out to other Phoenix Force hosts of the past. Among these were Colossus, Magik, Rachel Grey, Hope Summers, and Quentin. The group came together to help Jean and Hope fight off an army of Reavers. During the fight Quentin used his psychic gun to give Jean access to the mindscapes of the various X-Men assembled. When Jean appeared inside Quentin’s psyche, he showed her the damage the Phoenix had done to him, and though the group tried to reassure Jean, Quentin was the only one willing to be brutally honest with her.

Shi’ar-Asgardian War

Majestor Kallark aka Gladiator of the Shi’ar Empire was commanded by the Shi’ar gods to invade Asgard and retrieve Thor (Jane Foster). These gods challenged Thor to a divine competition, threatening to destroy Earth if Thor refused to compete. After a long set of challenges, Thor was falling behind in the competition, putting Earth in danger. Deciding that enough was enough, she battled the Shi’ar gods, and the Asgardian army was not far behind. Taking Gladiator’s assault as an act of war, Cul Borson, the Lady Sif, and the Warriors Three arrived with Asgard’s finest to battle the Shi’ar. They fought their way into the temple of the gods, and joined Thor in battle. As a last ditch effort, the gods of the Shi’ar summoned the Phoenix Force. Thor was easily defeated by the Phoenix. Gladiator turned on his gods, and decided to join forces with the Asgardians to defeat the Phoenix, who was threatening to destroy the universe. Gladiator’s son Kubark, aka Kid Gladiator, urged them to call upon Quentin Quire, with whom he was once friends.

They found Quentin relaxing on Krakoa, the sentient island, talking about how bored he was with life. He did not want to help initially, but was convinced to join Kubark, Thor, and Warbird when they mentioned the Phoenix. Quentin stood with Thor, the Asgardians, and the Shi’ar as they faced down the Phoenix Force. Quentin’s plan was to use his psychic shotgun to get into the White Hot Room (the heart of the Phoenix) to have a conversation with it, as this was the only way to defeat it. Meanwhile, Thor helped by facing the Phoenix head on. Thor unleashed the cosmic storm on the Phoenix Force, allowing Quentin to get through to the White Hot Room. He made a deal with the Phoenix Force. Thor and the Odinson battled the Phoenix while this transaction occurred. Quentin was granted a portion of the Phoenix Force, and the rest of the force agreed to leave. Quentin had convinced the rest of the Phoenix Force to go to Earth to find the teenage Jean Grey. The Shi’ar gods were imprisoned in Omnipotence City (the nexus of all divinity), and the Phoenix Force-powered Quentin was hailed as the new god of the Shi’ar. Although aluring, Quentin decided to return to the Xavier Mansion.

West Coast Avenger

Quire goes searching to make a name for himself separate from the X-Men. He shows up at the private detective office of Kate Bishop, where she was currently trying to figure out a way of reforming the West Coast Avengers. Quire showed up with a documentary crew, who were willing to fund this endeavor as long as they could document it.

With this new team, Quire helped them look into an upstart West Coast Masters of Evil, led by Kate’s rival, Madame Masque, and a vampire cult that had Kate’s presumed dead mother among their ranks. He developed romantic tension with fellow Avenger, Gwenpool, however, their relationship never had a chance to materialize after a would-be superhero called The Dutch Oven, who Kate rejected during her recruitment drive, got the documentary cancelled.

X-Force

By transforming Krakoa into an island nation for mutants, Pr. X put a bullseye on the collective heads of mutants. With a new nation comes new enemies. They found the need for a CIA like operation to analyze threats through intelligence gathering and black ops. Quire joined as a member of the field team with Wolverine and Domino.

Because X-Force was given full access to The Five and the resurrection protocols, Quire abused it immediately, first to have them change his natural hair color to pink so he no longer needed to dye it. And then to create multiple “blanks” that combined his genetics with another mutant for him to astral project into and find the perfect enforcer body.

This was an early sign of Quire’s identity crisis thanks to his constantly dying and being resurrected during X-Force missions. One such corpse he left behind was handed over to bio-trafficking organization, XENO. With XENO’s new Quire zombie, they first framed the mutant nation for an attack on a cruise ship before attacking the country directly, including killing Beast with a stroke and trapping Black Tom in vegetation. Once Sage confirmed it was Quire’s psychic signature, Quire went into the astral plane to find the source, only to be attacked by his own zombified energy signature. With Jean Grey’s help, Quire was able to purge his old body of any latent memories or powers, ending the psychic attack.

When Cerebro accidentally evolved into a nexus for the collective consciousness, it caused one of the back-ups to gain sentience and start feeding on mutant brains, misunderstanding its directive to store and digest information. Quire eventually charged into action causing Cerebrax (as it was now calling itself) to explode. Quire was killed in the explosion, and his memory backups were scrubbed from the Cerebro files, making resurrection impossible.

Status

• Known Relatives: Unidentified foster parents.
• Citizenship: U.S.A.
• Place of Birth: Unrevealed.
• Marital Status: Single.
• Occupation: Adventurer, X-Force field agent; formerly Hellfire Club’s White King, CEO [Phoenix Corporation], student.
• Education: Various courses undertaken at Xavier Institute for Higher Learning and the Jean Grey School. Possessed enough knowledge to design anti-gravity floaters for Martha’s container.

Characteristics

• Gender: Male
• Height: 5’8″
• Weight: 129 lbs. (59 Kg)
• Eyes: Brown
• Hair: Brown, dyed purple or pink

Powers and Abilities

Quentin Quire is an Omega level mutant. His primary powers are telepathy and hyper-intelligence, but he later displayed telekinesis. Emma Frost said that Quentin’s mind processed a couple thousands to over millions of brilliant thoughts a second, this was while he was not under the effects of the drug kick. She also said that she and Professor X could not hope to keep up with him, and Professor X commended him for his intelligence and potential. Due to his superhuman intelligence Quentin burns through calories a lot faster and is therefore usually seen eating chocolate bars. When his secondary mutation triggered, Quentin evolved into a being of pure psionic energy and he was able to guide Phoenix when she mended the 616 timeline.

His telepathy allowed him to do things such as read minds, telepathically attack others. He also displayed more subtle and complex methods of applying his powers, such as locking Wolverine in a memory loop and affect others opinion of him without them being aware of it. Since Wolverine has some natural telepathic resistance and mental blocks implanted by Professor Xavier, this speaks volumes of Quentin Quire’s telepathy. He was also able to read Beast’s mind with no problems, who has similar blocks. In order to defeat him the stepford cuckoos felt that it was necessary to use both the drug kick and cerebra, which would have amplified their collective power up to 70 times, cerebra being 10 and kick 7.

In Phoenix Endsong Quentin displayed impressive telekinetic abilities. He was able to effortlessly freeze everything and everybody in the x-mansion. He was able to keep up a battle with the x-men, albeit inexperienced in combat, and halt the bleeding from his wounds. His telekinesis was rather precise for being in its nascent stage, as Quentin was able to partially reconstruct Sophie’s decayed corpse. Tapping into the phoenix force he was actually able to bring her back to life. The Phoenix Force also requires the host to be an omega class mutant and of some ability, which is shown when Quentin displayed such a high degree of control.

Psychic Constructs

Quentin has displayed the ability to create psychic constructs, similar to those of Psylocke and Rachel Grey. Among these psychic constructs that have so far been seen are: psychic shotgun, large psychic fists, psychic sword, psychic knife, psychic Wolverine claws, psychic X-23 claws, a psychokinetic shelter, a psychic bouquet of flowers and a card, and others.

Abilities

Like all students at Xavier’s school for the gifted, Quentin has received training in various martial arts. He has also psychically absorbed the fighting abilities of Wolverine, making him an expert physical combatant, though Quentin would much rather effortlessly take down his opponents with telepathy. His genius level intellect has been compounded by the knowledge he’s gained from the likes of Hank McCoy.

Phoenix Force

After being granted a portion of the Phoenix Force during the Shi’ar-Asgardian conflict, Quentin gained the powers and abilities that come with that privilege. He was able to fly through the vacuum of space, unaided. His natural telepathic and telekinetic abilities increased to cosmic levels, and he is able to use the cosmic flames of the Phoenix Force at his whim.

Other versions

Earth-15104

In the Here Comes Tomorrow storyline, Quentin lives in the extra-dimensional White Hot Room with other past hosts to the Phoenix as the Green Phoenix. He guides Jean Grey and helps her fix this timeline, despite the fact that he would have just killed it.

Earth-91172

On Earth-91172, a world ravaged by the Hulk, Quentin is the leader of the Next Wave of Heroes – the last heroes of earth. The members are Patriot, Wiccan, Lightspeed, Speedball and Sophie, Mindee and Esme Cuckoo. He is in a relationship with Sophie.

The Exiles were supposed to come and save this reality, but never showed up, so Quentin traveled to different realities to search for them. This ended with him leading a new group of Exiles consisting of himself, Wild Child, Spitfire, Power Fist and Nighthawk. Their first mission will be to save Earth-91172.

Earth-295

Quentin Quire appears in the Age of Apocalypse as the head of a psychic pyramid known as the Overmind. Having enough power to pose a threat to the Overlord, Jean Grey and Prophet approach him in order to join their cause. Unfortunately, during the psychic negotiation, Quentin takes his own life. Quentin’s brain is then taken and used by Stryker against the Shadow King.

Battle of the Attom

Quentin Quire appears in the Battle of the Atom future timeline as the host of the Phoenix and still a member of the X-Men. When his younger Earth-616 counterpart asked him when he finally left the school, this future version just laughed at him and walked away suggesting that he never left.