44 – PROTEUS

Subject: Proteus
Real Name: Joseph MacTaggart
Height: Variable Weight: Variable
Group Affiliation: None
First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #126, October 1979

Power Ratings:

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

Proteus was a primarily late 70′s-era X-villain, created during the seminal Chris Claremont-John Byrne era: the ultrapowerful son of Moira MacTaggart, Proteus had the power to alter his victims’ perceptions of reality. When you’re insane, that’s a pretty crazy combination to have.

After his first encounters with the X-Men he remained largely absent until a brief but impactful storyline in the early 90′s (Kings of Pain), which came out right before these cards did, and is surely the reason why Proteus gets himself a card. Unfortunately, two details: 1) Proteus “died” by the end of that storyline, a detail not at all referred to in the card, and 2) Proteus’ X-Tra fact refers to his weakness to common metals (he had previously been defeated by Colossus), except apparently in the Kings of Pain story it was shown that he had overcome that weakness.

The art is pretty awesome and lets Lee stretch himself a bit (almost literally, in this case), with the skewed and stretched angles and grotesqueries that Lee wasn’t really known for. Likewise his Power Ratings paint an appropriately formidable picture, with a 7/7 for Energy Projection on account of his reality-warping powers (dunno if that’s really congruous, but oh well); so far in the cards Phoenix (Rachel Summers) has been the only one with equally high marks for Energy Projection. In fact, his ratings match Phoenix’ exactly except for one point lower in the Mental Powers department.