Gentle (Character)

Publisher: Marvel Comics

Created by: Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, Mark Brooks, Paul Pelletier

1st appearance: New X-Men #23,

Nationality: Wakandan

Team Affiliations: X-men

Legal Status: Unknown

Height: Variable                    Weight: Variable

Eyes: Grey                             Hair: None

Relatives: Unnamed mother, N’Baku (1/2 brother), Unnamed father

Skills and Abilities: Proficient hand to hand combatant.

Powers: With power described as extreme Strength, Nezno can increase his muscle mass almost exponentially to increase his strength to limitless proportions. The drawback to this is that his body often can’t handle the strain resulting in him having seizures. To help him cope with his powers he underwent a vibranium tattooing which had his entire body adorned with the metal to help contain his limitless and dangerous powers. He has lost the sense of touch with the onset of his powers and the more he uses his powers the stronger they become, eventually, they will break the tattoos and he will die.

Biography

A Wakanda born mutant to a Russian father. He was ostracized even before his powers manifested for being a “half breed”. All his life Nezhno was persecuted and rejected, even by his own mother, because his father was an outsider, and it was from him whom Nezhno inherited his X-Gene. His name “Nezhno” (Russian: Нежно) is a Russian word meaning “tenderly” or “gently”, while his surname “Abidemi” is a Yoruba word meaning “born during father’s absence”.

Nezhno was raised at the Royal Court of Wakanda. When his mutant powers manifested, Ororo Munroe, the new queen of Wakanda, advised her husband King T’Challa to send Nezhno to the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning to learn how to control his powers.

As a consequence of the abuse he endured when he was a kid, Nezhno developed a psychological trauma, which caused him to suffer great pain and seizures. To ease his condition, Nezhno’s entire body was covered with Vibranium tattoos to prevent him from over-exerting and killing himself with his power.

Xavier Institute

Nezhno found the atmosphere at the Xavier Institute to be very distracting and tried to distance himself from other students, rarely talking with them, considering them too unfocused and chaotic. Trying to subdue his emotions and powers, he spent all his free time meditating. Perhaps for that, and because he was a pacifist, he was given the codename Gentle, and was immediately placed on Storm’s squad so she could take a hands-on role in his development.

M-Day

In the aftermath of M-Day, Nezhno was one of the 27 remaining students from the Institute to retain their powers. In response to the increasingly desperate situation that mutants now faced, Emma Frost disbanded all of the former training squads. She decided to select an elite team of New X-Men trainees and organized an all-out battle in the Danger Room between the remaining students. Due to the nature of Nezhno’s powers, he was exempt from the session.

Limbo

One night at the school, Gentle tried to meditate but was constantly distracted by loud chatter of other students, who listened to a horror story told by Blindfold. It soon became clear that this wasn’t just a tale, but rather Blindfold’s visions of past, present, and future events about Illyana Rasputina, and the Demon Lord Belasco. As soon as the tale ended, Gentle and other students were teleported to Limbo and immediately attacked by demons. Even so, Nezhno was able to stay calm and was reluctant to use his powers. Only when Darkchild arrived did Gentle follow the advice of Blindfold and, for the first time in his school days, used his powers. He tried to protect Pixie from demon N’astirh, but the pain and spasms quickly brought him out of action. After the students returned to the school, Pixie thanked him for his help. She was delighted with his powers and surprised that Nezhno never used them before. In response to that, Nezhno told her that every time he uses his powers he approaches his own death.

Messiah Complex

When the first mutant since M-Day was born, most of the X-Men went looking for her; only students and several members of the team stayed in the Institute. Shortly thereafter it was attacked by an out of control Sentinel Squad O*N*E. Believing that the Sentinels planned to kill them all, Gentle decided to fight at full strength, regardless of the consequences for his health or life. Nezhno fought with the Sentinels on equal terms, but still in the end he was blasted away and lost consciousness. Later, he once again used his powers to protect fellow students from Predator X.

Return to Wakanda

After the X-Men were disbanded, Nezhno, together with Queen Ororo, returned to Wakanda. Doctors examined his body and found that his condition worsened during his time in the United States and, therefore, he needed more tattoos. All he ever wanted was to be accepted by his own people and had hoped that during his absence the Wakandans changed their opinion of him. Unfortunately, Nezhno quickly ascertained that everything remained the same and even his mother, whom he hadn’t seen for many years, berated him for returning to Wakanda. Once again rejected by his country, Gentle finally realized that the only people who ever accepted him were the X-Men, and regretted that he pushed away those who tried to be his friends.

These negative emotions allowed the Shadow King to possess Gentle’s body and use it to kill the soul reader B’Chaku. Nezhno was arrested, but Storm freed him from prison, believing that he could not commit murder. Unfortunately, the Shadow King was able to take possession of T’Challa and declared that Storm and Gentle were traitors and ordered for their detention. At first, Nezhno was ready to surrender and to be executed for his crime, but Storm forced him to fight and flee. In the end, they managed to defeat the Shadow King and saved not only Wakanda but also the X-Men. After that, Nezhno decided to return to America.

San Francisco & Utopia

He joined the X-Men at Graymalkin Industries in San Francisco and later relocated with them to Utopia. When the island was attacked by Predators X, Nezhno with a few other students lent his powers to Rogue so she could fight the Predators. After the return of the Mutant Messiah and the subsequent attack of the Nimrod Sentinels, Gentle was amongst those who fought back at Golden Gate Bridge.

Jean Grey School for Higher Learning

After the schism between Cyclops and Wolverine, Gentle decided to join Logan’s Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, thinking that in order to create a better world for mutants, they needed to live as if it already existed, not preparing every day to war for survival.

When it was discovered that the Terrigen Mists spread throughout the atmosphere of the Earth were lethal to mutants, Storm moved the Jean Grey School to the extra-dimensional realm of Limbo, in order to protect its students from both the mists and the ever-growing anti-mutant hysteria. Gentle was one of those mutants living in X-Haven, the portion of Limbo used as the new grounds for the school.

X-Men Red

Nezhno eventually returned to Wakanda. He assisted Jean Grey’s team of X-Men after they were attacked by a brainwashed Storm when they were returning to Wakanda from a mission since they had been offered asylum by King T’Challa. Nezhno even shielded Storm from the lightning of her own making after the Sentinite controlling her mind pushed her into trying to commit suicide. Jean later convinced Gentle to join her team, both because of his strength and his compassion, and offered to help him work on blocking his pain so he could unlock his full potential. During Nezhno’s first session of telepathic therapy, Jean found out that the pain he suffered when he used his powers was not tied to them, but was actually a subconscious mechanism to prevent himself from using his powers. His mother would hit him every time he manifested his mutation, causing Nezhno to develop the psychosomatic block. Jean used her powers to heal Nezhno’s psychological wounds, which also allowed him to regain his sense of touch.

X-Men Disassembled

Nezhno was one of the many mutants that opposed the crazed X-Man from remaking the world in his image. When X-Man realized that his vision of the world would never come about with the X-Men around, X-Man made his enemies vanish in an instant, including Nezhno.

Age of X-Man

Nezhno and the other mutants were sent to a different reality created by X-Man where he attempted to create a utopia where they and all other mutants lived in peace but with their memories erased so they didn’t resist.

Nezhno was one of the students who were part of the Agricultural Division at the Summers Institute for Higher Learning. He was seen walking past all the other students in the lunchroom while they were talking. After lunch, Gentle attended Ms. Guthrie’s class as she was showing them that taking care of the produce and livestock at the Institute was vital as the community heavily depended on it.

While not seen, Nezhno was presumably sent back to the real world when X-Man decided to release the mutants he trapped in his reality.

House of X

Nezhno later became a resident of the new mutant nation of Krakoa. He and the rest of the Krakoa celebrated when Krakoa was recognized as an official nation.