Origin

It was apparent that Jamie Madrox was a mutant as soon as he was born. When the doctor slapped his behind, a duplicate was formed. Jamie would uncontrollably form a duplicate of himself upon physical impact. To avoid being persecuted, Jamie's family moved to a farm in the middle of Kansas.

Professor X, a powerful mutant and expert on genetics, gave the family a special suit for Jamie to wear that would inhibit his mutant power. When Jamie was in his mid-teens, his parents were killed in a tornado before he really knew the extent of his powers and reason for the suit.

In his early 20s, his suit began to malfunction the surge in energy drove him a bit crazy. He found himself headed towards New York and fought against the Fantastic Four. Charles Xavier managed to arrive at the scene and settled the situation. Jamie's suit was repaired and Charles invited Jamie to accompany him back to his school. Xavier's school was to help mutants control their powers. Jamie didn't want to be part of the school and Xavier's team, the X-Men, but instead traveled with Charles to Scotland and became an assistant to mutant researcher, Moira MacTaggert.

When the mutant Proteus attacked and possessed one of Jamie's duplicates, it ended with the duplicate's death. During this time Jamie figured out he couldn't absorb dead duplicates. Jamie started to see how independent his duplicates really are. Jamie immediately experienced psychic feedback and felt the death. It was also at this time that Jamie became close to Moira's lover's daughter, Siryn.

Moira and Siryn journeyed to the U.S. to help search for a couple of missing members of the junior team of mutants, the New Mutants, and one of Jamie's duplicates decided he wanted to venture off on his own. Siryn and the duplicate were tricked into joining the team, Fallen Angels, and the two became involved briefly. Eventually Jamie was able to reabsorb the duplicate. He kept all the memories but didn't have any emotional attachment to them.

Jamie soon joined the government sponsored incarnation of X-Factor. Jamie and teammate Guido Carosella, known as Strong Guy, formed a close relationship due to their similar sense of humor. Jamie was recruited by a branch of the government to be turned into the ultimate one man army.

After X-Factor disbanded, Jamie spent some time on the island nation of Genosha, a nation where mutants were enslaved. Here he got the legacy virus. When Haven tried to heal him he died. But to everyone's surprise this was just a duplicate. He also joined the European branch of X-Corporation, a search and rescue organization for mutants.

Later he sent out duplicates across the world to gather information and skills when he reabsorbed them. He set himself up as a private eye in Mutant Town under the name XXX Investigations, which soon became X-Factor Investigations when he was joined by his former teammates.

Jamie and X-Factor have come up against Singularity Investigations, a private eye firm run by the enigmatic Damian Tryp. Tryp has stated that Madrox is not a mutant, but a member of another race entirely. These claims are thus far unsubstantiated, but the fact that Madrox's powers manifested on the day of his birth (instead of the traditional puberty activation of mutants) is evidence that Tryp may be telling the truth.

You and what army?

Jamie has come to the decision that the erratic behavior of his powers may be a result of stretching himself too thin, and has decided to round up and reabsorb more of his dupes. After first visiting SHIELD headquarters to acquire one of his duplicates (and being rejected and threatened by S.H.I.E.L.D.), Jamie was abducted by Hydra agents. Jamie was brainwashed by HYDRA psychologists, and convinced that he needed to "punish" himself. Jamie punished himself by repeatedly slapping himself, increasing the number of dupes of himself exponentially with each slap. Eventually enough dupes were created to overwhelm the HYDRA agents at the base, and to spread the reprogramming thin enough to break free of HYDRA control. Jamie phoned in an anonymous tip to S.H.I.E.L.D. with the location of the base and laid low until agents arrived. When his dupe came close enough, Jamie secretly reabsorbed him and departed as the Jamie Madrox of S.H.I.E.L.D..

Next Jamie left to locate a duplicate that he had sent out into the world to study religion. This dupe had taken up an alias and had created a life as both a minister and family man, John Maddox. After an emotional confrontation, Jamie decided that it was worth losing a small portion of himself to allow this version of himself to live the life and family that Jamie never had for himself. He left this dupe to live out his life free of worry for his own existence, and that of his family. Another duplicate was sent out to become a master detective, which he did. Jamie found this dupe as a drunk on the streets. He had succeeded in becoming a master detective, and what he had learned of his own life and the lives of others had driven him into a drunk stupor. He confided in Jamie that he had contemplated committing suicide to protect Jamie from the same fate. He also told Jamie of a corrupt cop that had taken out anyone who would learn of his corruption, and had made himself untouchable. As the dupe was explaining this, the officer walked out of the station and the Madrox dupe shot him, and was subsequently gunned down by the other police officers. As of issue 22 of X-Factor, Jamie is talking with an odd man named Josef Huber, who as it surprisingly turns out, want to kill all mutants. He is stopped by M.

Jamie also has a duplicate who work for S.H.I.E.L.D. This duplicate registered Monet and Strong Guy.

Jamie was essential during the Messiah Complex. Cyclops and Emma came up with the idea to send Jamie into alternate futures to gather information on the first mutant baby since M-Day. The two alternate futures they chose were the two with the biggest spike caused by the mutant baby. Forge built a machine to send Jamie's duplicates into. One of the duplicates goes on the platform and is teleported to one of the alternate futures. The other stepped on the platform and when it was in the middle of teleporting Layla comes on and get teleported along with the duplicate. The real Jamie left at Forge's place goes into a coma. Layla and the duplicate are seen eighty years into the future. In this future they discover the mutant race has been pushed all into a camp or killed. No one speaks of mutants and the word mutant is never said. The duplicate is seen on mutant scanners and is caught so is Layla. They are taken to a mutant internment camp and washed, then tattooed with an M over their eye. They are also shaved bald. They then see Bishop as a child and go to talk to him. Bishop tells them that the mutant baby is responsible for killing over one million humans. The military then sent an order to arrest all mutants. Now they know what they needed to know, Layla puts a bomb on Jamie and he blows up, giving the real Jamie his memories and awakening him. In the present Madrox awakens with the M on his face and warns the X-Men of Bishop's treachery.

 
Powers

Jamie's body produces exact duplicates (dupes) of himself whenever he absorbs kinetic energy. This kinetic energy can be as mundane as snapping his fingers, clapping his hands together, bumping into a wall, or being struck. He has also been able to create duplicates with little to no physical damage after being struck by Cyclops' optic blast or Gambit's exploding cards (both abilities use pure kinetic energy). When a duplicate splits off, the dupe is also wearing whatever clothing Jamie was wearing at the time.

Helping himself

His power seems to be always active (similar to Rogue or Cyclops), so many times duplicates are created unintentionally. Each duplicate can create other duplicates, and each is capable of independent thought and action. Lately, all duplicates he creates are very strongly influenced by one aspect of Jamie's personality making them very unpredictable and sometimes emotionally unstable. Recently, Jamie has come to believe that this new splintering of his personality is from spreading himself too thin and releasing too many dupes into the world. Originally the limit of duplicates that Jamie could create was around forty, but since then he is able to create much more than that. The current limit has not yet been specified.

Jamie has a low-level telepathic and empathic connection to his duplicates which in the past has been used for a degree of control/coordination of the group. He has also demonstrated that this connection can be used sort of like a homing device to track dupes when they are close by.

Jamie can also reabsorb his dupes into himself. He no longer needs physical contact to do this, and can remotely absorb dupes anywhere in close proximity. The absorption process integrates their memories, experiences, and skills into himself. Because Jamie has sent dupes out into the world to experience all he can simultaneously, Jamie has acquired a vast amount of knowledge and skill in a variety of fields. Jamie has been (or is currently) a lawyer, doctor, private investigator, a monk, a trained agent of both SHIELD and HYDRA, an Olympic gymnast and much more. Jamie also sent out dupes to learn hand to hand combat and has mastered Muay Thai kickboxing, Judo, Filipino Pencack Silat, Krav Maga, Kung Fu and other martial arts. Additionally, he is able to speak a wide variety of languages. The large number of times he has reabsorbed dupes that have lived separate lives has also left Jamie with some degree of confusion, unable to sort out whether certain things were experienced by a duplicate or himself.

Jamie used to also absorb physical damage done to his duplicates (around half of the damage that the dupe incurred), but does not anymore. He has even absorbed dying duplicates in the past without incurring any physical damage, but he strongly tries to avoid this because of the mental and emotional anguish it causes him to experience his own death in this manner. Because physical damage is not passed on, absorption of dupes gives him some small amount of healing ability. It is also speculated that if the original Madrox is killed that one of his duplicates would take on the main portion of the abilities of the group and become the new Madrox.

Characteristics

Gender--Male

Height--5' 11"

Weight--155 lbs (77 kg)

Eyes--Probably blue, though he has also been drawn with green and brown eyes

Hair--Brown

Alternate Realities

Earth-9997

In the Earth X reality Madrox was forced to eat one of his dupes to not starve to death, and he became Wendigo. As Wendigo he kept his duplication powers, adding all powers of the Wendigo.

Earth-295

In the Age of Apocalypse reality Jamie was a pawn in Apocalypse's wrath. His duplicates, called the Madri, served as priests to Apocalypse. They captured Bishop, but were defeated by the X-men. This world's Jaime was the conduit for all of the Madri. Because it was the only way to defeat them for good and make sure Apocalypse never used him again, Jamie decided to shut down his mind which killed all of the Madri.