With so many superhuman ways to acquire skills and knowledge in the Marvel Universe, selecting the most multi-talented superhero is a tough challenge. Villain (and anti-hero) Taskmaster can perfectly replicate any physical action just by seeing it once. Mutant brainchild Prodigy can absorb languages, skills, and knowledge simply by being in the same room with a person who has those talents. And it’s a given that Mr. Fantastic, supposedly the smartest man in the world, has a multitude of talents at his fingertips.
However, when it comes to truly acquiring a diverse number of skills, one Marvel superhero stands out from all the rest. While he might not learn abilities as fast as some of other superhumans, once you get an idea of what he can do it’s obvious that Jaime Madrox (aka The Multiple Man) is Marvel’s most multi-talented hero.
Who is Jamie Madrox?
Introduced in Giant Size Fantastic Four #4, Jamie Madrox is a mutant (or rather a mutant predecessor known as a “changeling” that develops powers at birth) with the ability to make clones of himself. By striking his body against any surface (or allowing himself to be struck), Jamie can use the kinetic energy to generate an exact copy (or “dupe”) of himself. These “dupes” not only look like Jamie, they can think independently and travel far away from Jamie. Moreover, Jamie can absorb his dupes so there aren’t too many copies of him wandering around.
Originally, Jamie only used his ability for mundane uses. He lived alone on a farm after his parents died, so he worked the land by creating duplicates of himself – basically using his dupes as a labor force. Eventually, the X-Men discovered him but rather than join the team, Jamie became a research assistant to Moira McTaggert on Muir Island. His ability to duplicate himself came in handy since he could do multiple experiments at the same time, making him a one-man research team.
Jamie began realizing he could use his power in more creative ways when he discovered that he retained all the memories of his dupes when he absorbed them, along with any skills or extra knowledge they picked up. Even more impressive, once Jamie duplicated himself again every dupe he created would have all of those shared skills and knowledge.
While Jamie did have some reservations about letting his dupes become too independent, he decided his ability to gain multiple types of knowledge and skills was too good an opportunity to miss. At one point, he began creating multiple copies of himself constantly and sent them out to learn different skills. Once each dupe gained sufficient mastery of a given talent, he would return to Jamie, let him reabsorb him, and share all his knowledge and skills with “Jamie Prime.”
Why Multiple Man’s Skills Are Better Than Other Multi-Talented Heroes
At first, it might seem that Jamie’s way of acquiring talents and skills isn’t as efficient as other superhuman ways of learning. After all, Taskmaster or Prodigy can pick up skills just by watching a person once or standing next to him or her. Jamie, by contrast, needs to wait months or years for his dupes to get good at a skill and then share their mastery with him. However, after taking a close look at Jamie’s learning strategies, it’s pretty obvious why the Multiple Man has a better way of acquiring skills.
For starters, learning fast doesn’t necessarily mean one can master all aspects of a skill. Taskmaster might be able to replicate any movement he sees, but that doesn’t mean he knows everything about it. In one story, a young Taskmaster perfectly replicated a professional Olympic-level dive – only to realize as he hit the water that he hadn’t learned how to swim. Likewise, simply absorbing knowledge like Prodigy does isn’t the most reliable way of learning either. Prodigy regularly forgets what he has learned once he walks away from the person whose knowledge he’s mimicking (although recent changes have allowed him to retain knowledge).
Jamie, however, is willing to learn things the hard way – or at least get his dupes to go through the hardship for him. And while his first few years of talent acquisition might be long and difficult, it’s worth noting that if Jamie had his dupes learn the right skills early on, he’ll actually have a much easier time picking up new skills as time goes on.
Remember – once Jamie absorbs a dupe, all the dupes he creates from that point on will enjoy that dupe’s knowledge and be able to apply it to their future learning. Thus, if Jamie sends a dupe to study Latin, absorbs his skill, and then sends multiple dupes to learn other languages, they will most likely pick up those languages faster since Latin forms the basis for multiple languages. Likewise, if other dupes learn the fundamentals of skills in martial arts, cooking, or art, the next generation of dupes can build on that knowledge.
Moreover, dupes can also create dupes of their own. This means they could potentially study and learn faster than any human ever could. A dupe who wanted to earn a degree could simply assign his dupes to perform individual tasks – attending class, writing term papers, performing field research etc. – and then absorb everyone’s knowledge and experience. A four-year college degree could be earned in a fraction of the time it takes most people.
How Many Talents Does Jamie Madrox Have?
So, what talents did Jamie manage to acquire over the last few years? While Jamie could potentially have hundreds of talents no one knows about, he has found opportunities to show off multiple skills. Several dupes completed multiple forms of formal education – including law school (making Jamie eligible to practice law). Another underwent training to become a S.H.I.E.L.D agent, giving Jamie expertise in espionage. One audited several anatomy classes, imparting substantial medical knowledge.
Language acquisition was also a particular passion of Jamie’s. Notably, instead of simply learning languages from CDs, Jamie actually sent his dupes to the countries where the languages were spoken. While this upset some dupes (including one who had to spend a miserable year and a half learning Russian in Moscow), this also means Jamie gained a greater insight into the customs and practices of different cultures in addition to their languages.
Several dupes also learned various martial arts, including one who became a Shaolin Monk, skilled in kung fu. One dupe even became an Olympic gymnast while another became a rodeo clown (yes, really). Still another did little more than practice playing-card throwing – which became surprisingly useful as Jamie can now throw cards as well as Gambit or Bullseye. Escapology and lock picking are also in Jamie’s long repertoire of skills.
Weirdly, while “Jamie-Prime” eventually opened a detective agency, he never actually acquired the skills of a professional detective. While one dupe did train to be a master detective, Madrox found him drunk on the streets and mentally deranged. Before Jamie could absorb his knowledge, the dupe was gunned down by police officers after he shot a corrupt officer. To compensate for his lack of deductive skills, Jamie typically cheats – by having his dupes spy on the people he wanted to investigate and feed him the information. Multiple Man might be Marvel’s most multi-talented hero, but there are some skills that seem beyond his reach.