Flashback Friday: Manifold

Every Friday we use the powers of Marvel Unlimited to look back at the very first appearance of a major character, place, or object that made waves this week.

As Manifold jumped into the search for Ezra Keith’s killer this week in Ta-Nehisi Coates and Butch Guice’s BLACK PANTHER AND THE CREW #5, we decided to review where everything began for the mutant.

An Aboriginal Australian with teleportation powers, the man also known as Eden Fesi made his first appearance in 2009’s SECRET WARRIORS #4 by Jonathan Hickman and Stefano Caselli. The series—about a team of young heroes assembled from Nick Fury’s personal files on super powered individuals—saw Fesi join the crew in the middle of Dark Reign, as Norman Osborn accumulated an immense level of power with H.A.M.M.E.R.

Nick Fury worked in the shadows to combat this new organization by recruiting his list of super humans as well as hundreds of former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who refused to shift allegiances to Osborn.

Fury sent Daisy Johnson and Sebastian Druid to remote Australia, where they found Eden alongside his mutant mentor—fellow teleporter, Gateway. Though Gateway initially refused Johnson and Druid’s advances, he eventually agreed to allow his protégé to join the battle against Osborn.

On Eden’s very first mission, he teleported alongside his team to a flying Hydra base where they saved Fury and a group of captive S.H.I.E.L.D. soldiers.

Eden Fesi stuck around the Secret Warriors until the series ended with issue #28. During this run, he suffered an injury that left him in a coma—though emerged stronger, with a sincere understanding for what it takes to be a super hero.

Later, writer Jonathan Hickman had Eden join the Avengers, where his reality-bending powers proved to be a vital method for his teammates and him to jump in and out of delicate and dangerous situations. During this course of events, Eden adopted the codename Manifold.

In the wake of Secret Wars, Manifold fled to the secluded nation of Wakanda in the pages of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ other book, BLACK PANTHER.

Flash Forward

Manifold once saved all of existence from the machinations of Doctor Victor von Doom.

In SECRET WARS #1, the Ultimate Universe entered a collision course with the central 616-universe. As certain heroes assembled to fight the Incursion, others attempted to save the group of super powered beings at-large.

With all of reality at stake, T’Challa connected Eden a machine that enhanced his teleportation abilities, allowing the Australian to jump across space and rescue their heroic allies from the brink. After transporting his allies to the safety of a lifeboat vessel, Manifold eschewed the safety of the ship to continue the fight. One of those lifeboats—filled with people he just saved—untethered from reality and supplied Doom’s headquarters, Doomworld, with the combined power required to reassemble the universe to its (nearly) original state. Well done Manifold!