38 – BISHOP

Subject: Bishop
Real Name: Unrevealed
Height: 6′ Weight: 210 lbs.
Group Affiliation: X-Men (Gold Strike Force)
First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #282, November 1991

Power Ratings:

• Energy Projection: 2/7
• Mental Powers: 1/7
• Strength: 3/7
• Fighting Ability: 6/7
• Intelligence: 2/7

Uncanny X-Men #283 (the issue after Bishop’s first appearance) was one of my first X-comics (as a kid in the Philippines real imported comics were prized commodities), and the cover (specifically of Bishop over the shoulder) struck me so much I cribbed it. Then I brought the drawing to my 2nd grade class, and it got such a strong reaction kids offered to buy photocopies of it. It might’ve been the first time I ever made money as an artist (albeit as a copycat; and little did I know at the time that the artist I copied, Whilce Portacio, was a Filipino himself).

Bishop was a quintissentially 90′s X-character: an ethnic, hulking, gun-wielding time traveler… basically an urban Cable. He even has a decidedly post-modern power (he absorbs energy attacks and releases it back). He made arguably as big of a splash as Cable did when he debuted, but his storyline was pretty flimsy (as a member of the future Xavier Security Forces, he chased the evil mutant Trevor Fitzroy as he hopped to the present) and otherwise inconsequential to the overall X-continuity. He’s since found himself a niche among the sea of mutants, and was a pivotal character in recent X-Men crossover storyline Messiah Complex.

Visually, Bishop’s got a lot of texture, from his energy powers, to his hulking gun, to his costume, to his bandana, to the tattooed “M” on his face, to his jeri-curl mullet. Lee nails all these details well, probably because Bishop was co-created by Lee himself (along with Whilce Portacio and John Byrne), right before Lee and Portacio ditched Marvel to form Image, so it was probably fresh in his mind.

His Power Ratings justifiably present him as a strong and formidable fighter, but a 2/7 for Energy Projection seems paltry… sure, he doesn’t generate his own Energy blasts, but that’s the same rating as Kylun and Shatterstar, neither of whom have any Energy Powers at all.