SCRAMBLE THE MIXED UP MAN

 

SCRAMBLE THE MIXED UP MAN

Real Name: Lionel Jeffries

First Appearance: Alpha Flight (Vol. 1) #30, January 1986

Powers: Dr. Lionel Jeffries (aka Scramble the Mixed Up Man) is the older brother of Madison Jeffries. Like his brother, he is a mutant with transmutative powers.

His mutant power is the ability to morph and restructure all manner organic substances on a molecular level upon physical contact. By focusing on the person he's touching, Scramble could rebuild damaged tissue and heal various forms of physical injuries, from minor to near-fatal. His power could not restore the dead, a fact that caused him to suffer a psychological breakdown for at least a decade. Originally, he could not affect himself with his own powers, however an encounter with his brother and the interaction of their powers allowed Scramble to repair his disordered brain. He could now use his powers on himself as well as heal mental damage in others and himself.

He can restrain someone by fusing their limbs together into a single mass, or he can transform people into horribly disfigured monsters. When Scramble conceived of the idea of fusing himself with Roger Bochs, the two of them became Omega. Morphed into a solid mass of flesh, Omega combined Scramble's transmutative abilities with Bochs' imagination and creativity, but Jeffries was the dominant mind and soon "killed" Roger's consciousness while retaining his skills. Omega was a massive creature that had absorbed corpses and random pieces of dead flesh to become an enormous and ever-shifting blob. Manipulating his mass allowed Omega to extend tentacles or spikes of various shapes and lengths. He could identify dormant superhuman potential in others and approximately sense his brother's location if he was nearby.

Dr. Lionel Jeffries was a genius-level intellect who held an M.D. with a specialty in surgery. He was a combat medic specialist with the United States Army where he underwent armed/unarmed combat training and patient care, and later joined the United States Army Medical Corps. He was an expert surgeon, a skill which was greatly enhanced by his mutant power. He was also an FRCSC (Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada).

BOX I

 

BOX I

Real Name: Roger Bochs

First Appearance: Alpha Flight (Vol. 1) #11, June 1984

Powers: Roger Bochs was an engineer and mechanic who was missing both of his legs from the lower-thigh down, whether by illness or accident is unknown. Though physically impaired, he possessed a brilliant intelligence and started up his own company, Bochs Enterprises, which dealt in engineering and robotics. This helped him to make a small fortune. It was during this time that the wheelchair-bound Roger created what is known as the Box robot and, later with the help of James MacDonald Hudson, the cybernetic remote that controlled it.

The original Box robot was made primarily of steel, had vast strength (it could press up to 40 tons) and was highly resistant to damage. It was mentally controlled from outside by a person wearing a psycho-cybernetic helmet. The helmet transformed psions from the wearer's mind into electrical impulses which it then broadcast to Box. The wearer needed only to will Box to perform an action in order to cause Box to do it. Moreover, the helmet allowed its wearer to perceive mentally the sensory data registered by Box: The wearer "saw" and "heard" what Box perceived.

His helmet was later stolen by James Hudson's enemy Jerome Jaxon, who used the Box Mark I to become Box II. The Mark I was destroyed in combat with Guardian, and the feedback in turn destroyed Jaxon's brain. Bochs went to work redesigning his technology to create a new Box, with the help of Madison Jeffries. The Box Mark II had few combat-based differences from the Mark I: It was slightly stronger (up to Class 85), it had powerful jets in the soles of its feet enable the robot to fly. Box also contained many different devices, among which were ones enabling it to tap into computers and receive or jam radio signals. Box contained special tracking equipment, and it could see in all areas of the electromagnetic spectrum. Other devices could also be installed within Box if the need arose.

The primary difference was that the Mark II was forged out of "living metal", a uniquely constructed alloy somehow capable of physically interfacing with organic beings. By touching the suit, Bochs could "phase in" with the metal, mingling his molecules with the structure of the suit itself and placing his mind directly inside the suit's control circuitry, literally becoming the robot. The living metal could also be programmed to recognize individual genetic codes, allowing Bochs to ensure that only he could "phase in" or "phase out" in order to control the suit. Walter Langkowski's spirit briefly inhabited the Box Mark II, making him Box III, but it soon departed the robot and allowed Box I and his partner Mr. Jeffries to operate in the field with Alpha Flight.

At one point, Bochs combined with Lionel Jeffries and the two of them became Omega. Morphed into a solid mass of flesh, Omega combined Scramble's organic-transmutation abilities with Bochs' imagination and creativity, but Jeffries was the dominant mind and soon "killed" Roger's consciousness while retaining his skills.

MADISON JEFFRIES

 

MADISON JEFFRIES

Real Name: Madison Jeffries

First Appearance: Alpha Flight (Vol. 1) #16, November 1984

Powers: Madison Jeffries is a mutant with the power to psionically affect metal, plastic, and glass. He can levitate anything made of or containing these materials and manipulate them with considerable finesse. Jeffries can completely disassemble complex machinery in instants without breaking or damaging a single part. His abilities can be used to fix broken parts or tear machines to pieces. Madison possesses a techno-forming capacity, the ability to create working machines and devices by taking raw materials and modifying them to fit the design. Jeffries has a talent for mechanically duplicating human physiology in that he can take a random collection of spare parts and form them into a giant animatronic hand or a fully automated android mimicking the form and range of movement of a real person.

Before now, Madison was not an inventor by nature. While his power was capable, he himself could not direct it to form state-of-the-art technology. He relied on a normal accumulation of mechanical skill and knowledge to guide what he created. One aspect of his power that allowed him to offset this limitation is a mind-tap ability. By having someone mentally focus on the blueprints and design of some high-tech machine, Madison can act as a conduit, unleashing his power guided by the information he was tapping from that person and then creating whatever the construct was to the proper specifications. Given the level of technical sophistication Madison would display in later years, it is possible that he retained knowledge of each device he created through a mind-tap, allowing him to recreate the process on his own at a later date if he wished. As his knowledge and skill levels progressed, Madison began conceiving of his own designs and inventions.

Madison eventually took control of the Box armor and created the Box Mark IV armor. Reconstructing the Box armor into a modular robot enabled him to make better use of his transmuting power. Box armors II-IV were created from "living metal", a uniquely constructed alloy somehow capable of physically interfacing with organic beings. By touching the suit, Jeffries could "phase in" with the metal, mingling his molecules with the structure of the suit itself and placing his mind directly inside the suit's control circuitry, essentially “becoming” the robot. The “living metal” could also be programmed to recognize individual genetic codes, allowing Jeffries to ensure that only he could "phase in" or "phase out" in order to control the suit and allow certain individuals access. Madison could alter the molecular structure of metals to create "living metal" out of any scrap available to him, so he wasn't dependent on always having just one unique suit to use. However, while "phased in" to the suit, Jeffries' transmutating power was limited to only affecting the suit, not other exterior objects. He could, however, absorb additional materials into the armor on contact, increasing his mass, size, and strength accordingly. By mentally modifying his suit, Box IV could reshape all or parts of his mechanical body into different features: extending wings from his back to aid in flight, turning his arms into machine guns or laser weapons, converting his entire body into a giant wheel, sled, miniature fighter jet, etc. By this point in his life, Jeffries was a skilled enough engineer to convert himself into a living transport ship for all of Alpha Flight. In ship form, he was capable of artificial gravity, atmospheric stabilizers and hyperspace travel. He later re-modified his armor's appearance to create the Box Mark V, but only briefly employed this version of the suit.

Upon rejoining Alpha Flight, Madison Jeffries had quit using the Box identity. He was kidnapped by Zodiac on his first mission and later turned up again as one of their Gemini twins. The Gemini described themselves as "The Gemini of metal and the Gemini of flesh", which could be interpreted two ways: One is that Madison was the Gemini of flesh, and his "twin" was a metallic doppelganger created and animated by his powers. The other is that Madison was the Gemini of metal and his partner was his older brother, Scramble the Mixed-Up Man (Lionel Jeffries), back from the death. In life, Lionel had transmutative power over flesh and organic matter as a mirror image of his brother's power over metal and inanimate material. In any case, the entire Zodiac team was apparently slaughtered by Weapon X, leaving only Madison. Additionally, he shared a psychic link to Lionel, allowing each to detect the other's presence.

Since joining the X-Men, his power has expanded to include a form of machine telepathy. He can now sense the presence of mechanical systems and psychically interpret information about them from a distance. Madison often receives this information as if the machines are actually "talking" to him. He can sense the function and capabilities of machines, determine whether they are operating properly or suffering from some sort of hardware or software malfunction, and so forth. When interacting with computer systems, Madison can mentally read their programming and stored files, and can now modify this information as an intricate extension of his techno-forming ability. At his present skill level, Madison Jeffries is now a mathematical and engineering savant, and has developed new forms of quantum mechanics and inter-dimensional interfaces.

Madison Jeffries received training in hand-to-hand combat and the use of firearms during his time in the United States Army, where he achieved the rank of Specialist and was a highly-skilled mechanic.