Real Name: James ProudstarAs a young boy, James idolized his brother, and when John returned from a stint in the Marines was overjoyed to see him again. Unfortunately, their mother then revealed to the family that she had cancer, prompting a visit to an amusement park, where James had his fortune told by none other than Destiny, though of course James thought she was a fraud. Then, James secretly accompanied John when he infiltrated Arroyo labs, the clinic that was running tests on his reservation's people and treating them for cancer. James was discovered by Dr. Edwin Martynec, who revealed himself to be a mutated werewolf, and also that he was faking the cancer diagnoses so he could irradiate his patients and observe the results.
After John died on the X-Men's second mission, James (who had manifested his own mutation) joined the Hellions as Thunderbird II, hoping eventually to avenge his brother's death by killing Professor X. After receiving some training, James struck out on his own, ambushing Banshee on Muir Island and holding him for ransom in the Cheyenne Mountain complex near where his brother died. The X-Men came to rescue Banshee, and with the help of his Hellion teammates, James got Professor X alone and helpless. Fortunately, he found that he could not murder in cold blood. Though Xavier offered James a place at the School for Gifted Youngsters, James returned to the Hellions.
Eventually Jimmy left the Hellions, encouraged to return to his home in Camp Verde to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. He was recruited by Cable in the final days of the New Mutants. At first Jimmy declined, but after his family and tribe was massacred, and the evidence pointed to the Hellfire Club, Jimmy accepted Cable's offer, again hoping to avenge the deaths of his family. After a while Jimmy realized that he was living in his brother's shadow, so he changed his name to Warpath. He also developed a huge crush on teammate Siryn and helped her battle her foray into alcoholism by reuniting her with her foster-father (Black Tom). At the same time, he helped Juggernaut convince Tom that it was time to turn himself in and get medical attention for his deteriorating plant-lifeform condition.
When Cable moved X-Force back to the X-Mansion, he tried to get Warpath to train with a bo staff, which he did for a short time, but never used in action. By this time, Warpath was experiencing an increase in sensory awareness and strength that allowed him to perform feats he never imagined before, such as run at 100 MPH and climb walls by digging his fingers into the concrete. One night, he received a message regarding the massacre's perpetrators and ran to New York, where Risque introduced herself to him from the shadows, planted a kiss on his lips and left.
Then, when Selene made her move against the Externals, killing those who remained, Warpath sensed her presence up in Gideon's apartment and climbed the building to find it. He was able to track Selene, but fell victim to her spells and was knocked out. Fortunately, Risque arrived and pulled James out before Selene could drain his life. Risque took James to Florida to recuperate and they fell for each other. Finally, Jimmy wanted to get back to his friends, and the duo arrived just in time to defend X-Man from Sinister. Warpath intended to remain at the Mansion, but after being confronted by the Blob and Mimic in NYC, Risque finally fulfilled her "mission" by slipping a sleeping pill into Jimmy's drink and bringing him to Sledge in Detroit.
Sledge had no malicious intent, but rather offered James the location of his tribesman Michael Whitecloud, who had somehow survived the massacre on the reservation. In return, he asked Warpath to enter a dimensional gateway and retrieve the person who was trapped there. That person ended up being the Vanisher, and James rocketed him out of the dimension with his vacuum suit's jetpack. As a result of this experience (in which he almost got trapped forever telling stories to the dimension's natives), James began to question his constant searching for vengeance and his focus on the past. James got Whitecloud's location from Sledge and went to see him with Siryn. Whitecloud told Warpath the more about the massacre and how he escaped and how to access the files he stole from the Arroyo Institute, which was the reason for the destrucion of Camp Verde. However, Whitecloud's head exploded before he could reveal the names of those who sponsored the massacre. James retrieved the documents, but was ambushed and captured to Martin Edwards (Edwin Martynec), who was waiting for him. Martynec revealed that he had been working for Stryfe to create mutated soldiers and experimenting on the people at Camp Verde, but the escape of one of his doctors and one of his creations necessitated the massacre as a cover up. Siryn and Warpath broke free but Martynec injected James with a drug and killed him.
In a hell dimension, Warpath was confronted by Stryfe, who wanted to force him into despair, which would allow Stryfe to be resurrected by Blackheart. Fortunately, Jimmy was able to connect with Siryn, who was doing CPR on him. Also, Brunnhilde, a Valkyrie, brought the rest of X-Force to the hell dimension to fight for Jimmy's soul, and they won, returning Jimmy to life. Recently, under Pete Wisdom's tutelage, James learned how to use his enhanced abilities to do things he never thought of, like fly. Exactly how he manipulated his power to do this is still unknown. James remained with X-Force through Wisdom's tenure and through one faking of the team's death. However, when X-Force came upon a top-secret plot to use alien technology to recreate a planet-moving engine, they apparently could not stop the bio-engineered defenders of the facility. James and his teammates (except Domino) were presumed dead following the explosion they set off, leveling the alien tech base. However, they soon appeared an a press conference for the new team calling itself X-Force, and got into a fight with the other mutants over naming rights.
Shortly thereafter, James was recruited into the Mumbai, India office of the X-Corporation. When Professor X came to visit, James saved his life from assassination by the deranged Lilandra. He worked with former teammate Feral, her sister Thornn, and sometimes Sunfire. Before receiving his X-Corp uniform, he was wearing his brother's old costume, which the Indian public adored.
After M-Day, Warpath came to the Xavier Institute, but didn't like the way it was being turned into a reservation. He received two knives as gifts from Storm around the time of her wedding. The knives were made of vibranium, perfectly balanced and able to cut through most things. With his hand-eye coordination and reflexes, Warpath soon mastered throwing the blades at targets from a distance. Then Professor X asked James to join him on a mission to Shi'ar space to stop the angry Vulcan from destroying the Empire. Warpath agreed...
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