When you hear that Fox is developing a Madrox, the Multiple Man film starring James Franco, the question that is naturally on many movie fans' minds is, "Wait, who the heck is Madrox, the Multiple Man?" If you're one of the lucky fans to know the answer, you know that Franco might have attached himself to one of the most engaging characters in the X-Men universe. And for those of you who have no clue who the mutant is, we're going to fill you in on the history of a very cool and unique character.

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Jamie Madrox debuted at a very strange time in mutant history. He first appeared in Giant-Size Fantastic Four #4 (by Len Wein and Chris Claremont and drawn by John Buscema, Chic Stone and Joe Sinnott). You see, Len Wein was becoming the Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics and he had to cut back on his writing duties. He was about to start a run on Fantastic Four but had to abandon it before he could even begin because of his editorial duties. So what would have been his first issues of his run were instead put into a Giant-Size issue.

That story introduced Madrox the Multiple Man (who Wein originally wanted to name Zerrox). He was a young mutant who lived with his parents on a farm. They had built him a suit to prevent his powers from going haywire, but after their deaths, the suit malfunctioned and suddenly every little piece of contact was forming a duplicate of Madrox. He ended up going kind of crazy due to it all and fought the Fantastic Four (Madrox actually single-handedly defeated the Thing!). At the end of the issue (after fixing his suit), the Fantastic Four dropped Madrox off with Professor X to have him help Madrox with his powers. That seems normal enough, right? So what was so strange about it? Well, Giant-Size Fantastic Four #4 came out about a month before a different Giant-Size book, Giant-Size X-Men #1, also written by Len Wein! For whatever reason, Wein never considered including Madrox as a member of the All-New, All-Different X-Men.

Eventually, Claremont revealed that Madrox had ended up at Muir Isle, working as a lab assistant to Moira MacTaggert at her genetics lab there. He showed up in a couple of stories set at Muir Isle, but he was pretty much a non-existent character between 1975 and 1987. That briefly changed in 1987 when Madrox was one of the members of an odd miniseries called Fallen Angels (by Jo Duffy and drawn by Kerry Gammill, Marie Severin, Joe Staton and many inkers).

The concept of the series was that Sunspot injured his best friend, Cannonball, during a game (Cannonball is quite vulnerable, it seems, when he is not blastin') and he was so distraught over what he had done that he ran away from the school. Warlock followed him and the two ended up in New York City, where they befriended an eclectic group of young super-powered teens. Madrox was sent by Moira, along with another mutant that no one was doing anything with, Siryn, to keep an eye on Sunspot and Warlock. They ended up falling in with the group, as well (and Madrox and Siryn started a relationship). The series ended and Sunspot and Warlock returned to the New Mutants and Madrox eventually came back to Muir Isle.

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The problem was that Lorna Dane, the mutant once known as Polaris, had ended up being transformed into a sort of vessel for the Shadow King to exert his influence over people. So when she ended up on Muir Isle, the Shadow King slowly turned all of the mutants there (which included a bunch of mutants sent there following the Mutant Massacre) evil, including Madrox. The original X-Men, then calling themselves X-Factor, teamed up with the then-current X-Men to free the enslaved mutants. When the dust had settled, X-Factor and X-Men decided to merge together to form one big X-Men team. A few of the mutants left on Muir Isle, though, who did not re-join the X-Men were offered a chance to take over the X-Factor name and become a government sponsored mutant strike force. Madrox was one of the mutants who agreed to join the team, which debuted in X-Factor #71 (by Peter David, Larry Stroman and Al Milgrom). However, no sooner had Madrox joined the team than another Madrox showed up and claimed to be the real Madrox!

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As it turned out, the Madrox who had been in Fallen Angels was actually a rogue duplicate who had refused to be sucked back into the prime Madrox's body. In the end, though, the original Jamie took control of the situation and re-absorbed the duplicate. Jamie then continued to serve admirably in X-Factor, although in the classic X-Factor #87 "X-Aminations," when the team visits a therapist, Jamie admits that he is constantly haunted by feeling alone...

Sadly, Madrox then contracted the Legacy Virus, a disease that targeted only mutants. In X-Factor #100, Jamie actually died!

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Luckily, a few years later, it, of course, turned out to be just one of Jamie's duplicates that died (that really should be his excuse every time he dies). He did not return to the team, however, instead choosing to mostly stay on his own. He bummed around for most of the late 1990s and early 2000s, although he ended up joining up with Banshee's militaristic X-Corp and when that went sour, joining Professor X's more reasonable X-Corporation substitute teams. Madrox was almost killed while serving on the French X-Corporation team when they encountered Weapon XII.

A few years later, Peter David returned to the character for a miniseries called MadroX, where David re-envisioned the character as a private investigator (the idea being that he sent out duplicates to learn all sorts of trades, like detective work, and when he re-absorbed them, he retained all of their knowledge), working alongside his former X-Factor teammates, Strong Guy and Wolfsbane, serving the mutant population in the "Mutant town" area of New York City.

While the series was ostensibly intended to become an ongoing series if it proved popular, no one actually thought that it would happen (as miniseries almost never turn into ongoing series). This one, luckily, was an exception, and Peter David was soon launching a brand-new X-Factor ongoing series starring Madrox as the head of X-Factor Investigations, with even more mutants joining the team, like Siryn, M and Rictor, as they all deal with the chaos that occurred from M-Day (where almost all of the world's mutants lost their powers - including Rictor).

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It was here that Peter David also introduced a fascinating new facet to Madrox's powers. Now, every time he created a duplicate, he would have no idea what kind of personality the duplicate would have. That proved to be an issue right away when he was in danger and the duplicate that he created to save him decided to let him drop, instead!

Jamie slowly grew into his new leadership role with the team, learning to get past his early, carefree days. He began dating Siryn, for real this time.

During one mission for the X-Men, Jamie sent his duplicates into the future to investigate possible future scenarios. One of his dupes, though, was captured and branded with the same "M" tattoo that Bishop wore. That brand suddenly applied to all versions of Jamie. Siryn became pregnant and Jamie and Siryn seemed poised to move forward as a family but then tragedy struck.

As it turned out, the Jamie who first slept with Siryn (and got her pregnant) was actually a duplicate (Jamie was so drunk one night that he slept with M and Siryn and he didn't remember which one he slept with as the "real" Jamie) and so as soon as Jamie touched the baby, he re-absorbed it into himself. As you might imagine, that was highly traumatizing to both Siryn and Jamie.

Jamie ended up leaving the team and ending up in the future, where he fell in love with Layla Miller, who he had first known as a young girl, but she had been trapped in the future on Jamie's visit to the future and grown into adulthood. She and Jamie returned to the present and they actually got married. After a long, decade=-long run, X-Factor came to an end and Jamie and Layla retired together. That was supposed to be their happy ending.

Tragically, however, it turned out that the Terrigen Mists, which Black Bolt had exploded into Earth's atmosphere in an attempt to keep them from THanos, were fatal to mutants. Jamie was one of the first mutants to discover this when he was then killed by the Terrigen Mists in the event series, Death of X. However, this being Jamie Madrox, it is probably only a matter of time before we learn that it was a duplicate who died instead. Especially with a possible new movie coming out starring him!