Jamie Madrox (aka The Multiple Man) has a very useful power. A mutant, Jamie can create apparently limitless copies of himself that all think and act independently of the “Prime” Multiple Man. Jamie can then recall those duplicates into himself, absorbing their knowledge, skills, and memories. Using this ability, Jamie’s been able to amass a lot of knowledge and talents by sending his “dupes” to different parts of the world to learn valuable skills.
In one alternate reality, however, Jamie was forced to do something horrible with his powers – something that afflicted him with a terrible curse. Although others have contracted this curse, it’s safe to say Jamie Madrox experienced it in the most disgusting way when he became... the Wendigo.
Based on a creature from the folklore of the First Nations Algonquian tribes, Marvel’s version of the Wendigo is a giant, white furred creature of enormous strength and near invulnerability that prowls the Canadian wilderness seeking humans and animals to devour. The Wendigo is so powerful it once took both Wolverine and the Hulk to subdue him – and even then he recovered superhumanly fast.
What’s truly disturbing about the Wendigo, however, is how the creature is created. Thanks to a curse in the Canadian wilderness, any human who turns to cannibalism and eats human flesh will be cursed to transform into the Wendigo and roam the wilderness seeking others to savage. The curse can be lifted by mystical means – but it must always be transferred to another person, as there must always be a Wendigo. In the parallel world “Earth-9997” where the events of Marvel’s Universe X: Beasts took place, Jamie Madrox once used his powers to send duplicates of himself to all points of the world to function as informants. Thanks to this strategy, Jamie was able to acquire and share incredible amounts of information with himself.
One of the “dupes” (or possibly the original Jamie himself) was stationed in Wakanda and ended up getting trapped outside of a dome that maintained Wakanda’s climate. The entire area outside the dome was a frozen wasteland and the stranded Jamie eventually turned to cannibalism – by creating and eating one of his own duplicates. While this Jamie wasn’t in Canada, Jamie’s belief that his act of cannibalism had cursed him caused him to transform into the Wendigo and ravage Wakanda. Worse, since this version of the Wendigo was born from a mutant who could duplicate himself, it retained Jamie’s powers and could duplicate itself into an army of Wendigos, each one with a ravenous appetite.
Eventually the X-Men and the Wakandan army herded the Wendigos into a flaming pyre, causing them to feel enough pain to reintegrate into a single being. As the monsters died, he last reverted into Jamie Madrox and confessed how he had become the Wendigo. Apologizing for his actions, Madrox died – although given the nature of the Wendigo curse, it’s likely someone else immediately became afflicted.
While the Wendigo curse is a horrible thing for anyone to endure, in Jamie Madrox’s case, it became a truly horrible plague that threatened to destroy everyone. Even more horrible, the Wendigo’s legendary hunger only increased as Madrox created more duplicates of himself – meaning the Multiple Man was easily the most monstrous version of the Wendigo ever to be created.