Latest / Vigilante Vibes Podcast / Ep. 151. Who is Sage in Marvel Comics?!
Transcript
- 0:14Music hi guys my name is such a gelinci vibes and I am here to
- 0:21tell you another character breakdown and continuing Marvel
- 0:25mutants. I want to talk about sage.
- 0:28Sage first appeared in Marvel Comics as Tessa, a character in
- 0:31The Uncanny X-Men #132 in April of 1980.
- 0:36She later became known as Sage in X-Men number 109 in February
- 0:412001. So Sage is kind of an odd,
- 0:45interesting character in that essentially for the first like
- 0:5020 years she existed as a character, she was basically a
- 0:52different character than what we had since 2000.
- 0:57This is because there was a huge retcon with her before she was
- 1:00named Tessa and she was Sebastian Shaw's top Lieutenant
- 1:04in the Hellfire Club. And the retcon was that she was
- 1:07actually a double agent. And now going by Sage, who was
- 1:11trained and put there by Charles Xavier all the way back in like
- 1:14the 60s O 5 era of the X-Men. Sage is a mutant with a mind
- 1:20that works like a supercomputer, so she can store tons of
- 1:24information and process it insanely fast.
- 1:27Over the years she's used her abilities as a spy for both the
- 1:31X-Men and Excalibur, and she's also helped the Exiles fix and
- 1:35protect different realities across the Omniverse.
- 1:38Through it all, she stayed committed to looking out for
- 1:41both mutants and humans. That is the very short version
- 1:45of her. Allow me to go into her back
- 1:47story a little harder. Sage, originally known as Tessa,
- 1:50grew up in the Balkans and spent her teenage years in a war tour
- 1:54in Afghanistan. There she learned to survive by
- 1:58scavenging gear from fallen soldiers and fighting off both
- 2:01military forces and bandits. During this rough time, she
- 2:05discovered her first mutant ability, a perfect photographic
- 2:10and kinetic memory. One day she was drawn to a cave
- 2:14in the Hindu Kush mountains where she stumbled upon a badly
- 2:18injured Charles Xavier, crushed under a huge stone.
- 2:23After battling an alien named Lucifer, she saved his life and
- 2:28on their way back to the safety, helped defend Aun convoy under
- 2:33attack. Though shaken by the violence,
- 2:36she managed to protect the group, including Sebastian Shaw,
- 2:39another powerful mutant, before going back to her own life as a
- 2:43mercenary. At some point, she was captured
- 2:46and sold into a harem, but escaped.
- 2:49Eventually, Xavier reached out and recruited her not to join
- 2:52the X-Men, but to work undercover as a secret agent for
- 2:55Mutant Kind. When he trained the X-Men as
- 2:59superheroes, he trained her to be a spy, sharpening her mental
- 3:02powers and teaching her how to hide her thoughts from even the
- 3:06strongest of telepaths. Sage's mutant abilities are
- 3:10wild. She basically has a computer for
- 3:13a brain. She can process insane amounts
- 3:15of information, run calculations instantly, multitask like crazy,
- 3:20and recall anything she's ever seen or done with total
- 3:23accuracy. She can analyze behavior,
- 3:27calculate probabilities, and even control her own body
- 3:30completely, making her a beast in hand to hand combat.
- 3:34She can master fighting styles or new skills in seconds just by
- 3:38studying them, so it sounds exhausting to be her.
- 3:43Her telepathy is low level, but still powerful.
- 3:46She can read minds, send messages, create illusions, and
- 3:49resist psychic attacks. On top of that, she can detect
- 3:53mutant genes and manipulate DNA to boost powers or heal people,
- 3:57and even channel others abilities to a degree.
- 4:01At one point she merges with something called the
- 4:03Panopticron, a kind of massive crystal computer that sits
- 4:07outside of time and space. Through it, she becomes a living
- 4:10system, capable of watching and managing realities across the
- 4:13Omniverse. She can appear as a hologram
- 4:17anywhere in the Palace, or project herself through a device
- 4:21called the Talus to communicate with teams like the Exiles.
- 4:26The place has everything. Teleportation tech, medical
- 4:29bays, synthetic food and gear, and even entire rooms with
- 4:33living ecosystems thanks to Sage giving the Palace a kind of
- 4:37soul. She has also rocked other
- 4:42identities like Diana Fox where she wore a high tech uniform
- 4:45that gave her the Super strength fight and psionic protection.
- 4:50That uniform could even reshape her body and possibly let her
- 4:54borrow some powers. Sage is always packing gear.
- 4:58She wears high tech cyber shades she built with Kitty pride that
- 5:03work like little mini computers. They let her and her team mates
- 5:08see holograms, communicate, detect energy signatures,
- 5:11analyze tech, and even access networks.
- 5:14She also created her own private system, Sage Net, that could
- 5:18quietly tap into major surveillance feeds like from the
- 5:22US government, The Avengers, even the Fantastic Four.
- 5:27Besides all the tech and mutant powers, she's handy with
- 5:30weapons, carrying a knife, using non lethal handguns, and riding
- 5:34a custom motorcycle when needed. Sage has a long and complicated
- 5:39history, especially with a villain named Elias Bogan.
- 5:44He became one of her biggest enemies after losing a bet to
- 5:48her while she was undercover as Tessa in the Hellfire Club.
- 5:52Bogan eventually got his revenge by kidnapping her and branding
- 5:56her face with tattoos. Though she beat him, the
- 5:59experience forced her to shut down her telepathy to avoid
- 6:03being tracked. While working with the superhero
- 6:06team Excalibur, Sage went undercover again, this time
- 6:09infiltrating Albion's shadow corpse under the alias Diana
- 6:14Fox. After an energy blast messed
- 6:17with her mind, Fox Persona took over, turning her into a loyal
- 6:21agent named Britannia. She ended up killing some of
- 6:25Excalibur's allies before finally breaking free and
- 6:28stopping Albion. Later, when Merlin that Merlin
- 6:33but Marvel style, tried to overthrow his daughter Roma,
- 6:37Roma survived by transferring her mind and some of Merlin's
- 6:41darker traits to Sage. These new personalities started
- 6:45fighting for control over her body.
- 6:46Diana Fox even returned briefly, ultimately sacrificing herself
- 6:51so Sage could regain control. Because of her work as a spy,
- 6:56Sage didn't get a lot of bonding time with her fellow mutants,
- 6:59but she did grow close to Bishop while they were investigating a
- 7:02murder case in Alaska. She also helped her Exiles
- 7:06teammate Nocturne recover from a stroke.
- 7:10Sage's very first mission was as a spy was infiltrating the
- 7:14Hellfire Club, where she got close to Sebastian Shaw and took
- 7:18on the name he gave her, Tessa. Even when Shaw trusted her, she
- 7:21was secretly reporting everything back to Professor X.
- 7:26This is where she actually met Elias Bogan for the first time.
- 7:29He was just a creepy old telepath who made a bet with
- 7:33Shaw over who would win Emma Frost in a power play.
- 7:36With Sage's advice, Shaw won, but Bogan held a grudge.
- 7:41She also warned Psylocke, who was Betsy Braddock at the time,
- 7:45not to get involved with the club and tried but failed to
- 7:49stop the Phoenix Forest from being corrupted by Mastermind
- 7:52and turned into the club's Black Queen.
- 7:55This failure haunted her, but she kept her cover.
- 7:59At one point, Donald Pierce, a rogue White king, kidnapped her,
- 8:03but Xavier and the New Mutants rescued her.
- 8:05That was when the first time she and Xavier saw each other in in
- 8:09years. Things escalated when Rachel
- 8:12Summers attacked the vampire Celine, the club's new Black
- 8:16Queen, leading to a fight between the X-Men and the club,
- 8:20but they all had to join forces when a Sentinel named Nimrod
- 8:24showed up. After that, Sage helped extend a
- 8:27truce between the two groups, which led to Magneto briefly
- 8:30joining the Hellfire Club. Later, when Shawn's son Shinobi
- 8:36attacked and took over the Inner Circle, Sage stayed and helped
- 8:40him build a new one until she saw where it was headed and
- 8:43called in the X-Men to stop him. She then returned to Shaw's side
- 8:47and helped him regain control, though she was quietly allowed X
- 8:51Force to escape his brainwashing attempt.
- 8:56Eventually Bogan returned kidnapped, Sage tried to ransom
- 9:00her to Shaw. Shaw refused to pay, but Storm
- 9:03and the X-Men rescued her. That's when Sage cut all ties
- 9:06with Shaw and officially joined the X-Men.
- 9:10Sage and Storm went on to investigate Destiny's prophetic
- 9:14Diaries, forming A breakaway team called the Extreme X-Men.
- 9:19During their first mission, Sylac was killed and Beast was
- 9:22critically injured. Sage saved his life by
- 9:25activating his healing factor, revealing that she could
- 9:28manipulate mutant DNA. From then on, she left her
- 9:32identity as Tessa behind and fully embraced being Sage.
- 9:36Later, when Shaw found out that she had been spying on him all
- 9:41along, he teamed up with Lady Mastermind to trap Sage in
- 9:45endless illusions. She reached out to Heather
- 9:48Cameron, whose lifeguard, and together they broke free.
- 9:52Sage also helped activate Lifeguard's brother's powers,
- 9:55and both siblings joined the team for a bit.
- 9:59Sage even helped Rogue control all the powers she absorbed over
- 10:02the years, and when they realized Rogue had Destiny's
- 10:06memories, they stopped searching for the Diaries.
- 10:09Sage also suggested the team stay separate from The Maine
- 10:13X-Men. Anticipating rising tensions
- 10:16with humans, Sage continued to work closely with Bishop, posing
- 10:20as federal agents and solving mutant related crimes.
- 10:23In one case, they discovered Bogan had manipulated a young
- 10:26mutant, Jeffrey Garrett, into teleporting people to their
- 10:30deaths. Bogan had possessed the boy and
- 10:33taken control of the Danger Room, but Storm saved the day
- 10:36again. Sage later helped investigate
- 10:40the attempted murder of Emma Frost, only to be attacked by
- 10:43Sorne, who erased her memories entirely.
- 10:47She also uncovered Bogan's psychic slave in the catacombs
- 10:51under the old Hellfire Club, who turned out to be Rachel Summers.
- 10:56After the X Mansion was destroyed, Sage and her team
- 10:59returned to help rebuild. They joined Storm's new Extreme
- 11:03Sanctions executive, the Xsea kind of mutant police force, but
- 11:10went. Then Sage was taken over by a
- 11:12version of the Fury, a killer AI, and had to be freed by her
- 11:16teammates. When Shaw tried to restart the
- 11:20Inner Circle, Sage joined him again, but purposely let Donald
- 11:24Pierce's attack go unreported, leading to Shaw getting
- 11:28seriously injured. She then left to work with
- 11:31Sunspot, the new Black King. After the events of M Day left
- 11:35most mutants powerless, Sage joined the new Excalibur team in
- 11:39the UK. She went undercover again as
- 11:41Diana Fox, but her mind got scrambled and Fox took control
- 11:46as Britannia. She killed several allies before
- 11:50Sage regained control. Later, Sage was seen in human
- 11:56form again, working for an alternate version of SWORD as an
- 11:59ambassador. She helped defeat the
- 12:02Exterminators and chose to stay in that reality with her X-Men.
- 12:06She also fought alongside Jean Grey, the Stepford Cuckoos,
- 12:11Psylocke, and others against X-Men.
- 12:14X-Men, I should say Nate Grey, who had taken over Legion's
- 12:19body, but the entire group was seemingly wiped out.
- 12:23Most recently, she was a part of the new X Force led by Forge,
- 12:27but that run was discontinued at issue #10 which is a shame
- 12:30because I felt it did a great job highlighting the characters.
- 12:34Like Sage, or like Captain Britain, really.
- 12:36As usual, I have comics for you to check out too.
- 12:39Good to know Sage even more. You can check check out Xtreme
- 12:43X-Men #13 that's when Sage arguments Rogue's abilities and
- 12:48creates false identities and the invading aliens computer
- 12:52surveillance system. It's a it's fun, it's a good
- 12:54one. Extreme X-Men #44 Sage's back
- 12:58story. Uncanny X-Men #446 Sage is
- 13:03possessed by the Fury, X Factor number one through 10 and also
- 13:08check out Benjamin Percy's X Force.
- 13:12So with that being said, I hope you enjoyed this breakdown.
- 13:15I hope you will like and subscribe, and I hope you have
- 13:18the Marvel.