Stryfe

While physically dead, Stryfe attempts to return to life through the body of Warpath.^[23] However, his attempt is avoided by the arrival of X-Force and Warpath is sent back to the living by Blackheart.^[24]

By unknown means, Stryfe revives and attempts to subjugate Latveria.^[25] Stryfe is opposed by Cable and Nate Grey, and at first beats them easily, even going as far as to siphon off all of Nate's power. Madelyne Pryor appears to join forces with Stryfe, but secretly steals the psionic energy from Stryfe and gives it back to Nate. Nate, Madelyne, and Cable join forces to defeat Stryfe.^[26]

Stryfe reappears, controlling the activation sequence for the Prime Sentinels. He uses them to hunt down Lady Deathstrike, who holds the complete codes for all the Sentinels in her cybernetic systems. Deathstrike is forced to turn to the X-Men, and together they defeat Stryfe, who teleports away.^[27]

Later, Stryfe experiences a personal existential crisis and becomes depressed at the futility of his efforts over the years after the X-Men finally manage to cure the Legacy Virus, which Stryfe considered to be his life's work and the one permanent victory he had against Cable, his parents Scott and Jean, and the rest of the X-Men. He hunts down

During Messiah War, instead of dying, Stryfe was able to transport himself into the future where he is discovered by Bishop, who has been traveling through time in an attempt to kill Hope Summers.^[30] This was confirmed by the writer Christopher Yost to be the same Stryfe that had previously plagued the X-Men, mentioning in particular his survival of his fight against Nate Grey and Cable.^[31] Bishop propositioned a chance to kill Apocalypse, if Stryfe aided him in killing Cable, who Stryfe said he no longer cared about. After Bishop initiated a global catastrophe that wiped out most of the people on Earth, Stryfe was able to step in and fill the leadership void. Together, Stryfe and Bishop traveled to 2963 A.D., where their combined efforts attacked Apocalypse while he slept in his rejuvenation chamber, and defeated him, assuming they killed him. Stryfe stole his Celestial Ship and technology and used it to raise an army that gave him total control over the people, save for a small rebellion. Stryfe tyrannically ruled over his subjects, the Stryfetroopers, with Bishop as his right-hand-man for nearly a decade. Stryfe placed Ship in Westchester County, New York and renamed the city, New Celestial City. Shortly after building his empire, Stryfe employed Deadpool as security and imprisoned Kiden Nixon, who was used to create a chronal net, preventing anyone from jumping out of the timeline. However, when Stryfe was reminded by Wolverine that he already "died a hero" to just become a villain again, Stryfe claims to not know what he is talking about. Cable, Deadpool, a time-displaced X-Force and Apocalypse join forces to defeat Stryfe and Bishop. Cable and Hope travel further into the future, X-Force return to the present, and Apocalypse drags Stryfe away, intending to use him as a new host body for his essence.^[32]

Vendetta

Stryfe is able to prevent Apocalypse from using his body as a new host and travels back in time to the present in the Cable and X-Force and Uncanny X-Force crossover, "Vendetta". Upon discovering that Bishop has returned to the present, Hope tries to kill him in an act of vengeance. Stryfe appears and kidnaps them both and brings them to an old, abandoned Mutant Liberation Force base. There, he attempts to manipulate Hope into killing Bishop who has come to realize the error of his ways. Stryfe explains to Bishop how he wants him to suffer after he betrayed him during Messiah War and claims that he was imprisoned and tortured by Apocalypse for years until he planned a successful escape and killed him. Stryfe tries to corrupt Hope by making her give in to her feelings of hatred towards Bishop, convincing her to take revenge and murder Bishop although he is shackled and refuses to fight back out of remorse. Cable and both teams of X-Force soon intervene and combat Stryfe. Hope sees that Stryfe is trying to undo the lessons which Cable taught her and refuses to kill Bishop but she does severely injure him. Stryfe is defeated by Cable and both X-Force teams, but before escaping he telepathically forces Hope to mimic his vast and nearly uncontrollable psionic power in the hope that she will destroy her friends. Bishop helps her to disperse the massive energy and they come to an uneasy truce.^[33]

Powers and abilities

Stryfe is a clone of the mutant Cable and, as a result, possesses Cable's abilities of telepathy and telekinesis. However, these abilities are far more powerful than the ones Cable has generally displayed, sufficient to block the use of Cyclops and Jean Grey's superhuman powers. This is because Stryfe was never infected with Apocalypse's techno-organic virus like Cable was. Therefore, he does not have to constantly expend his abilities to keep the virus from consuming his body, which apparently was a huge drain on Cable's capabilities. Stryfe can use his psionic abilities in a variety of ways such as moving large objects with his mind, reading minds, mind control, telepathically negating and activating the use of other's powers, telepathic camouflage, telekinetic flight, telekinetic force fields, mind transference and telekinetic blasts. Stryfe also has far more control over his massive psionic abilities than Cable or Nate Grey, apparently from having a whole lifetime of experience of learning how to use his powers which his alternate counterparts never had. Stryfe also possessed other abilities through genetic manipulation similar to those that Cable achieved through cybernetic augmentation, including superhuman strength and durability.

Stryfe wears battle armor that is highly impervious to damage. He has used various advanced weaponry and technology from the 39th century of his alternate future.

Reception

• In 2017, WhatCulture ranked Stryfe 3rd in their "10 Most Evil X-Men Villains" list.^[34]

Other versions

Ultimate Marvel

In