Empath (comics)
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Empath (Manuel Alfonso Rodrigo de la Rocha), is a fictional mutant in the Marvel Universe. He was created by Chris Claremont and Sal Buscema and first appeared in New Mutants #16 (1984) as a member of Emma Frost's original Hellions.
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[edit] Fictional character biography
Manuel de la Rocha was born in Castile, Spain. He is a mutant who attended school at the Massachusetts Academy, where he was one of the original students of then villain, the White Queen. Frost's students, who were known as the Hellions, were rivals of Charles Xavier's students, the New Mutants. De la Rocha was one of the few Hellions, along with James Proudstar, Amara Aquilla, and Angelica Jones to survive an attack by time-travelling villain Trevor Fitzroy (although Empath's former teammate, Tarot would eventually be resurrected).
During his tenure with the Hellions, de la Rocha met and fell in love with Amara Aquilla, the New Mutant known as Magma. Aquilla eventually left her team and became a member of the Hellions, so that she could be close to de la Rocha, and de la Rocha even accompanied her back to her home in Nova Roma. The romance ended, however, when Aquilla began to suspect that de la Rocha was using his abilities to control her emotions, which he in fact was. When the colony of Nova Roma was discovered to be a ruse by the witch Selene, Empath used his abilities for a time to convince Magma that this was a hoax. This set a bond of mistrust between the two that would never be broken.
Later, Empath joined X-Corporation, where he became the Communications Director for the Corporation's Los Angeles chapter along with his former love Magma. However, after M-Day, Cyclops ordered the closure of the X-Corporation headquarters to better focus all available resources on protecting their members and allies. Empath was one of the few mutants to retain their powers in the wake of House of M.
After M-Day, Cyclops used Empath immediately to reel in Magma who, in her devastation over the death of her boyfriend because of the depowering, had wrecked a South American village. Empath is currently staying at the Xavier Institute along with the other 198, however his shared history with Magma has led her to be convinced (yet again) that he is toying with her emotions at every possible instance.
[edit] Powers and abilities
Empath possesses the ability to sense and manipulate the emotions of other sentient life forms. He can affect a large group of individuals at one time, and can exert varying levels of empathic control over them, ranging from subtle manipulations that others are generally unaware of to a complete negation of emotion that reduces others to a zombie-like state in which he can command them with little effort. His power operates by means of Empath's own brainwaves overriding the parts of the brain that govern emotion in others.
[edit] Alternate Versions
[edit] Age of Apocalypse
In the Age of Apocalypse reality, Empath was held hostage by Mikhail Rasputin, who attached the young mutant to a computer system in order to amplify his empathic abilities to control the human population of Eurasia. This caused Empath incredible agony, and when his handler, Keeper Murdock (the Age of Apocalypse's version of Daredevil), accidentally touched him, Murdock realized the horrific pain the young man was in and ended his life.
[edit] Bibliography
- The X-Men: 198 Files by Eric J. Moreels, Marc-Oliver Frisch, and Brian E. Wilkinson
- X-Universe #1 by Scott Lobdell and Terry Kavanaugh
- X-Universe #2 by Scott Lobdell and Terry Kavanaugh
