Origin
One of the first adversaries of the original X-Men, the Vanisher first encountered the young team of mutants shortly after his first public appearance as a super-villain. He had robbed a bank and proudly announced that he was going to steal top-secret government defense plans from the Pentagon. Word of Vanisher’s exploits traveled quickly through the criminal underworld, and criminal bosses from all over flocked to meet him. Petty criminals believed that if they took him as their leader then they could not be stopped. Therefore, Vanisher soon accumulated a gang of criminals that had pledged their allegiance to him.
Making good on his threat to the government, Vanisher teleported within the heavily guarded room where the defense plans were located. Before the guards could stop him he was gone again. That was when he first encountered the X-Men, when he appeared outside the building. However, they were able to do little against him. He evaded every physical assault with his rapid teleportation, before disappearing entirely.
With the country’s defense plans in hand, Vanisher sought to blackmail the United States government by threatening to turn their defense plans over to the Communists unless he received ten million dollars. Therefore Professor Xavier came up with a plan to defeat the Vanisher. With the support of the government, the X-Men waited to ambush Vanisher outside of the White House. With an entourage made of crooks and mob bosses, Vanisher was still over-confident from his first encounter with the X-Men. However, he was taken by surprise by Professor X’s mental abilities. Professor X telepathically immobilized Vanisher by filling him with great fear, and then by mentally blocking his mutant powers, preventing Vanisher’s ability to teleport. Finally, Professor X removed the Vanisher’s memories. Not a complete mind-wipe, but selectively removing the memories of his powers and the sense of his own identity. Essentially, the Professor had ensured that Vanisher would no longer be a threat to the world. The X-Men were then able to quickly round-up the Vanisher’s criminal lackeys, while Vanisher was taken into police custody.
Creation
The Vanisher was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
Major Story Arcs
Factor Three
Eventually Vanisher regained his memory. Returning to crime, this time he sought out other criminal mutants and joined Factor Three. They were a subversive organization of mutants that sought to use their powers for world domination. Factor Three’s plans were to start World War III between the United States and the Soviet Union. Naturally, the X-Men opposed the scheme, and through their efforts they soon met Vanisher again. Unpredictably, they joined forces as allies. It transpired that the leader of Factor Three, the Mutant Master wasn’t a mutant. Instead he was an alien, a member of the Siris race. The Mutant Master intended to conquer the Earth. Therefore the rest of Factor Three (including the Vanisher) teamed up with the X-Men to defeat him.
The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants
After shamefully being used by the Mutant Master, and teaming up with his enemies, Vanisher decided to lay low for a while. However, Vanisher came out of hiding again in order to fight the Champions. As a member of the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants he used reprogrammed Sentinels to fight the Champions on his behalf. Predictably, he was defeated by the Champions and was trapped in mid-teleportation by Darkstar. A similarly short-lived scheme occurred when he joined a group of villains who challenged the Fantastic Four, but again he was soon defeated.
Fallen Angels
After traveling in another dimension with Nightcrawler, Vanisher returned to Earth. Settling down in the back streets of New York City, he veered away from major crime in order to boss around runaways. Young teens who ran away from home found a home in the Beat Street Club, where Vanisher groomed them as petty criminals and thieves called the Fallen Angels. However, he was lazy and the kids were aware that he relied on them to do all the hard work. Hence, Boom-Boom soon grew tired of taking his orders, and tried to turn him over to the mutant hunting team, X-Factor. However, as soon as Vanisher saw Iceman and Beast disguised as the mutant hunters, he teleported away, leaving Boom Boom to be ‘caught’.
Other members also left the group, but Ariel and Chance began to reshape the team and fill it with more mutants and super-powered kids. Ariel brought Boom-Boom back, while newcomer Gomi, and his two cyborg lobster friends Bill and Don found runaway New Mutants, Sunspot and Warlock. Once again, he would slack off while leaving the kids to go out and scavenge or steal food. Characteristically, he would always vanish at the first sign of violence, including when he came face to face with alien dinosaurs during their search for Devil Dinosaur and Moon Boy.
However, his powers of teleportation didn’t help him when the Fallen Angels were taken to Ariel’s home planet, the Coconut Grove. Ariel’s true agenda was to collect as many mutants as possible. Her race had reached a point where they could no longer evolve and they wished to study Earth’s mutants. However, she switched sides when they also imprisoned her, alongside the other Fallen Angels. Vanisher often relied on her teleporting abilities more than his own, but he was completely dependent on her powers to teleport them back across the galaxy to Earth. The Fallen Angels disbanded, leaving only Siryn and Multiple Man to try and steer the young mutants on the right path and not be too badly influenced by Vanisher.
The New Enforcers
After losing control of the Fallen Angels, Vanisher kept to himself for a period of time until he was forced against his will to attack the New Warriors and other super heroes. Darkling was a superhuman who also used energies from the Darkforce Dimension, which he used to coat other super powered villains and heroes. The Darkforce then took over the darker parts of their minds and controlled them, including Vanisher. His appearance surprised the New Warriors, and naturally caused trouble when he couldn’t be attacked because of his teleportation. Vanisher and the others remained trapped and controlled prisoners of Darkling until Firestar used her microwaves to loosen the strength of the Darkforce. Once freed, Vanisher naturally teleported away.
Later, Vanisher joined a second incarnation of the Enforcers. The New Enforcers were a consortium that operated in obscurity. Along with Eel and a woman named Blitz, Vanisher became involved in a clash between the criminal organizations A.I.M. and HYDRA. They were confronted and soon defeated by Spider-Man.
Sledge’s Service
A few years later, Vanisher sought to understand his powers in greater detail. He was able to teleport between dimensions and visited the Darkforce dimension. However, he mistook its cute prairie dog-like inhabitants as friendly critters. Instead, they soon turned vicious and threatened unless he constantly entertained them with stories. Once he’d run out of traditional stories, he began to recount his own version of events from all his previous adventures. He was later rescued by Warpath of X-Force, who had been manipulated into saving Vanisher by the mysterious mutant organizer known as Sledge.
Freed from the other dimensional story-hungry critters, Vanisher was indebted to Sledge. Because of this, he joined Sledge’s small crew of mutants, which brought him across X-Force’s path some months later. He took Sledge and Risque to Hawaii to steal the heart of the goddess Pele. However, tiki-looking Lava Men also sought to steal the heart. Therefore Pele started to fight back by manipulating the others. Risque was placed in a permanent sleep while Pele replaced her. Vanisher fled to a nearby island, but ‘Risque’ led X-Force to him. Meltdown wanted to use her time-bombs to blow her up, but instead Siryn distracted him by flashing her legs and using a fake Southern accent. He was fooled long enough for the rest of X-Force to capture and coerce him into cooperating. When the heart of Pele was returned to the heart of the volcano, X-Force were graced with peaceful enjoyment for as long as they wished, while Vanisher and the others were pardoned for their wrong doings against the Goddess long enough for Vanisher to take them home again.
The Vanisher later resurfaced as a leader of a South American drug cartel which was producing and distributing drugs that gave superhuman powers (possibly MGH), throughout the Americas. Stacy X, Iceman and Archangel were instrumental in stopping his North American operations.
X-Force
Vanisher had more encounters with X-Force, but this was a different incarnation of the team. He had been hired to steal a strain of the Legacy Virus from one of Mr Sinister’s Labs by one of Bastion’s followers. Learning of this, X-Force planned to ambush him. However, when confronted by Angel, Vanisher accidentally triggered a transformation into Archangel. The violent outburst served as a perfect distraction, and so Vanisher managed to escape. However, the team’s failed attempt brought Domino into their roster. With her intel, they used Vanisher’s known safe houses in Japan to set another ambush. Attacks from Wolverine, Archangel, X-23 and Domino merely caused him to teleport away until he arrived in the house where Elixir was waiting for him. Elixir healed Vanisher of the wounds the others had inflicted, but then turned back after informing Vanisher that he had ‘killed’ him.
Vanisher fled to a hospital where he was examined. The doctors were all baffled by the results, but Vanisher took the results of his MRI scan back to X-Force. Elixir had implanted a deadly tumor into Vanisher’s brain. However, the tumor was in the shape of the X-Men’s circular X-Logo. Desperate for a cure, Vanisher agreed to work with the wet-works team if they would remove the tumor. He explained that he failed to snatch the Legacy Virus sample, since he came under attack from several clones of the Marauders. Typically, he dropped the vial and vanished before they could harm him. However, forced to work with X-Force, he returned to the lab which he knew was full of Marauders.
With passive powers, Vanisher remained out of the fight. A surprise attack from smile-faced soldiers of the Right changed the flow of the battle. Wolverine gave the order for Vanisher to evacuate everyone. Instead, Vanisher teleported himself to safety, abandoning X-Force to their fate. However, they survived and later caught up with him again.
Victim Of Physical Abuse
Back at Angel’s Aerie, Vanisher was bound and gagged. He was often kept either restrained, or threatened. With her assassin’s training, X-23 showed no mercy and often resorted to physical abuse to torture him into obedience. Whenever she cut off his fingers or other bodily parts, Vanisher had to rely on Elixir to heal the wounds. However, none of it stopped the pain of the torture he was forced to endure.
During a mission against the Leper Queen’s Friends of Humanity, X-23 cut off Vanisher’s ear simply because because he’d been trying to convince Elixir to heal his tumor. Forced to attend a rally with Warpath as they searched for the latest mutant victim injected with the Legacy Virus, he knew that they could die if they were caught in the explosion from the dying mutant. Therefore he tried to escape by attempting to convince Warpath to allow him to teleport them to a brothel in Portugal.
Similarly, when the team were trapped in the future in an attempt to retrieve Cable and Hope, Vanisher was paired up with Domino and X-23, neither of whom had any intention of putting up with his chatter, nor cared when he began to vomit. He had already attempted to abandon the team by removing his temporal anchor device as soon as he arrived in the post apocalyptic future, but soon discovered that he was trapped. They discovered that Kiden Nixon’s temporal powers were being used against her will in order to prevent time travellers from leaving. So when Kiden was killed, Vanisher quickly escaped back into the present day and abandoned X-Force yet again. Upon returning to Earth, he fled to his brothel. However, the girls there were terrified of him because he was violently vomiting everywhere. Convinced that Elixir had indeed ‘killed’ him, Vanisher returned to X-Force desperate for a cure before he died.
Necrosha
When Selene’s army of resurrected mutants attacked Utopia, X-Force was assembled once more. In the chaos of all the attacks, Warpath was kidnapped by Selene’s Inner Circle. Meanwhile, Vanisher desperately searched for Elixir. However, Elixir had been in a comatose state since curing Hellion and Surge of the Legacy Virus. He didn’t wake until Hrimhari made a pact with Hela to cure Elixir, in order to save the lives of Wolfsbane and her unborn child. Elixir ignored Vanisher, focusing his efforts on saving Wolfsbane. So when Cyclops gave the command to teleport all of X-Force to Necrosha, Vanisher also took Wolfsbane since she was wearing an X-Force uniform.
Immediately bombarded by an endless surge of dead mutants, Vanisher begged Elixir to heal him. However, Elixir revealed that he’d been healed long ago. The reason Vanisher had been so violently ill wasn’t the tumor. Instead, he’d contracted syphilis from frequenting brothels.
Yet the revelation about his health didn’t seem to scare Vanisher away. Instead, he was so determined to help save Warpath that he lost his arm during a fight against Blink. The team reconvened and Elixir healed Vanisher again. They were all shocked by his valor, until he revealed that Warpath had always treated Vanisher kindly. Therefore, Vanisher had developed a sense of loyalty for the one member of X-Force who hadn’t abused or tortured him.
So he stayed with them for their final battle, let Warpath coat him in sacred paint that allowed them to combat a Goddess. In order to get his revenge against Blink, Vanisher and Domino goaded her into teleporting into a trap. They were the bait and Archangel attacked her with his razor sharp wings, causing her to flee the battle. After X-Force successfully prevented Selene from becoming a Goddess, many members left X-Force. However, Vanisher chose to stay involved, and went for some tentative ‘rest and relaxation’ with Domino in Brazil.
Second Coming
They remained in Brazil until Cyclops contacted Domino. The news was grave. Cable and Hope had returned from the future, but Bastion rallied his forces to attack them and the X-Men. One by one, Bastion’s forces began attacking the X-Men’s teleporters. Magik had been violently taken back to Limbo ,so Pixie was sent to retrieve her, while Ariel and Nightcrawler had been killed in action. Overhearing Cyclops’ conversation, Vanisher fled back to the brothel in Portugal.
Immediately, Vanisher was greeted with a terrible sight. The girls in the brothel had been massacred and their bodies mercilessly dumped on the floor. Like X-Force, Bastion had set an ambush. Stephen Lang and the Mutant Response Division had lay in wait and opened fire while Vanisher was in too much shock to teleport. Riddled full of bullets Vanisher managed to teleport away and collapsed on a rocky hillside. Despite his own injuries, left alone to die, he was concerned about the deaths of his ‘girls’. It remains unclear what happened to him next. The X-Men remained unaware of what had transpired, believing him to have characteristically run away.
Vanisher was recently seen at the Temple of Cyttorak after Cain Marko forced him to teleport both of them there. We don’t yet know where Vanisher was hiding until now, nor how Marko found him.
Powers
The Vanisher has the psionic ability to teleport himself and a certain amount of additional mass. One of his biggest demonstrations being when he teleported himself and five others (Archangel, Domino, X-23, Elixir and Wolverine) into a lab in Japan. Telford traverses through the Darkforce Dimension when teleporting, much like Cloak. He has an extrasensory ability that does not allow him to materialize within a solid object. He has teleported from Southern California to Genosha in a single teleport with 7 passengers.
Aside from his powers, Telford is still very resourceful and intelligent, and he has some knowledge of robotics, enough to reprogram Sentinel robots to perform certain tasks. He is also a capable leader and tactician who utilizes his own and others powers fairly well. He has enough skill in hand-to-hand combat to defend himself in a fight, and has some athleticism about him. He has the average amount of strength of a man his size and build who engages in regular exercise.
Alternate Universes
Earth-1610: Ultimate Marvel
In the Ultimate Universe, Vanisher is first shown in Ultimate War issue one. He and Hard-Drive are shown as the only teleporters in the Brotherhood of Mutants during the Ultimate War story arc.
Film
Deadpool 2
Vanisher appears in a cameo for the 2018 film and was portrayed by Brad Pitt. Most of the time, he is invisible. He is a member of Deadpool’s X-Force but got killed from falling into electric poles.
Television
Wolverine and the X-Men
In an alternate time-line showing a future where Sentinels rule, Vanisher was among the mutants who were imprisoned. He became a member of the future X-Men that formed around Professor X. He was often shown with Berzerker. After Marrow told Master Mold about the location of the Professor, she confessed to Vanisher that she was the one responsible.
Like his current re-designed appearance in X-Force, this version of Vanisher is also covered in black tattoos. Unlike his comic book counterpart, this Vanisher was reliable, loyal, and his powers depended upon his line of sight. He was unable to teleport randomly to places he couldn’t see, as he explained that he had to see somewhere to teleport there.