Merge:Sage

Sage, colloquially known as Tessa, is a Marvel Comics superhero, associated with the X-Men. Created by writer Chris Claremont and artist/co-writer John Byrne, she first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #132 (April 1980).

A mutant, Sage possesses a number of mental abilities, including telepathy and a computer-like brain. She was originally seen as an assistant to the Hellfire Club's Sebastian Shaw, but an extended back story revealed that she was actually a spy for Professor X for several years.

Recently, she has openly been a member of the various X-Men teams. She is currently a member of Excalibur.

Character biography
As a youth, Sage came from a war-torn area. Living by herself in the Hindu Kush, she tried to keep out of the conflicts between the rebels and the government, though she was willing to use her guns and other weapons on any threat. One day, she felt herself called to a cave which was considered haunted by the locals. She felt a voice in her head and it guided her deeper into the cavern where she found Charles Xavier, who was stuck underneath a pile of debris. His legs had been crushed during his battle with the alien Lucifer. Xavier sensed that Sage was a mutant, and told her that she was one and what being a mutant meant.

Sage helped Xavier and tried to get him to a hospital but during their journey down the mountains they happened across a United Nations relief convoy that was attacked by robbers, who raped and killed the UN workers. Sage exacted revenge on their behalf and killed the men in return, though she despised herself for being so brutal. Years later, Sage met up again with Xavier, who at the time was recruiting the original X-Men. Instead of having her join them, he trained her in secret as a spy. He sent her to the Hellfire Club to keep watch on Sebastian Shaw. While working there, she encountered Psylocke and Jean Grey, as well as Emma Frost, who was then the White Queen. Sage has shown remorse that during this period she was unable to prevent Jean Grey's transformation into the Black Queen, which in turn led to the creation of Dark Phoenix.

Sebastian Shaw and Emma Frost once dared the man known as Elias Bogan to wager in a game of poker. Though he held no rank in the Inner Circle, Bogan was a telepath and was one of the Club's most important and powerful members, and having him as a patron guaranteed success. If Shaw lost, Emma would belong to Bogan, but if Bogan's agent lost, then his fortune would be turned over to Shaw. Although Bogan had never lost a game before, the impossible happened, mostly due to Sage's advice and analytical skills. Bogan honored the wager, but he carried a grudge against Sage and waited for an opportunity to get his revenge.

Bogan bided his time, and years later kidnapped Sage. He permanently scarred her below the eyes, and offered her back to Shaw for everything he had. Shaw refused and cut his ties with Sage. However, the X-Men became aware of Sage's predicament, and Storm came to her rescue.

Out of gratitude, Sage stayed with the X-Men. Afraid of ever being possessed again, she once more turned off all of her telepathic power inwards, sealing off her mind and making it absolutely unreadable, though this meant she could no longer use her telepathy. With the X-Men, Sage acted as a living computer, able to remember everything she sees and hears and provide analysis. However, her main mutant power is the ability to "jump-start" other mutants' abilities. She used this power to save Beast's life and give Rogue better control of her powers. She was part of the team searching for Destiny's diaries, the Books of Truth. During this period she formed a close friendship with the X-Man Bishop. The team stayed together even after the diaries became invalid because they did not approve of the way Xavier was running the school. When the mansion was destroyed, the team returned to help in the rebuilding process and have since remained there.

She has also been a member of X-Treme X-Men, along with X-Men Rogue, Gambit, Storm, Cannonball and Bishop (Rogue and Gambit in this are depowered), and once again had to come face to face with the monster himself, Elias Bogan.

Sage, meanwhile, has rejoined the Hellfire Club to keep an eye on Roberto da Costa (who has become the new Lord Imperial) to make sure he is not corrupted by power as Sebastian was. Yet for reasons unknown, Sage has recently left Sunspot's side, perhaps because the new Inner Circle replaced Sunspot's Inner Circle, and has instead traveled to England to join forces with the newly reformed Excalibur. It appears that she had recently become romantically involved on some level with Pete Wisdom.

Powers and abilities
Known Powers:

Computer Brain/Kinetic Memory: Her mind works in the same way as a computer with unlimited storage capacity, only much faster. She is able to perform several mental functions at once without losing focus on any of them. Also, allows her to instantly recall specific information with incredible speed and accuracy. She's able to store everything that she experiences in a photographic memory and retrieve it immediately without the typical human pause for thought. The sheer speed of her thoughts lead into augmenting her analytical ability so that she is able to make snap decisions about her surroundings and create complex scenarios at that same speed. As such, Sage is able to track the probability of an event by piecing together stored data.
 * Multi-tasking: able to perform multiple tasks at once by allocating a partition of her brain to each task. For example, Sage can use her mind to replay a movie she had watched previously, play a game of internet chess, and focus on battling an opponent without any one task distracting her from another.

Genetic Sight: able to 'see' a person's genetic code, reading complex DNA sequences for latent and manifested mutations, thereby allowing her to sense mutants and, in many cases, understand how their powers work more thoroughly than they themselves do.
 * Jumpstart: After analyzing the DNA of another superhuman mutant, Sage is able to selectively evolve their existing genetic traits as well as catalyze the untapped genetic potential of latent mutants. Once begun, the procedure is irreversible and can often result in unpredictable side effects. She used this power to jump start Slipstream's latent powers. This power is apparently the reason behind the Beast's transformation to a feline-like form.

Telepathy: possessed low-level telepathic abilities that allowed her to read minds, communicate with others over a distance, project her astral form, manipulate the minds of others, and create realistic mental illusions. She had to shut down these powers in order to protect her mind from the evil telepath, Elias Bogun.


 * Mind Sense: ability to sense most forms of sentient life in proximity with her, thus making her an expert tracker
 * X-Factor Sense: ability to sense the presence of the mutant gene in others who are in proximity to herself.
 * Firewall: She has the power to protect herself from mental attacks - be they psionic or cybernetic in origin. She can even reflect the attack back on their originators. She can only achieve this state if she shuts off her telepathic powers.

Known Abilities: Sage is a very skilled fighter in both hand to hand combat and with using weapons. She has been compared to being equal or better than the other skilled fighters among the X-Men's ranks. She is also exceedingly smart. Her computer mind makes it easy for her to learn new talents.

Paraphenalia:

Cybernetic sun-glasses: Sage's cyberglasses allow her to interface and communicate with computers, computer mainframes, and any data processors at a speed that's equal to, if not greater than, that of the computers themselves.

Misconceptions: Cyberpathy: Many believe that Sage can psionically control any data-processing equipment within an undeterminded range. This includes computers, and calculators. However, Sage has never demonstrated such abilities. She controls data-processing equipment either in the conventional fashion through its user interface, or via her virtual-reality cyberglasses, which have extensive abilities to interface with a wide range of data-processing technology.

The word "cyberpath", when applied to Sage, refers to her perfect memory and ability to analyze data, as explained in X-Treme X-Men.