Oliver Bird (Earth-17040)

History

Oliver Bird is a powerful telepath and a co-founder of Summerland, a safe haven for mutants. Oliver was a beatnik poet who at some point in his life inherited Summerland, then a horse ranch, and converted it into a high tech facility where mutants could learn to control their powers, together with his partner Cary Loudermilk. At some point, Oliver met Melanie Bird, who would eventually become his wife. Oliver used his telepathic powers to explore the Astral Plane, and eventually went too deep and was unable to find his way back. With his body maintained by his wife and Cary, Oliver would remain a prisoner in the Astral Plane.

Many years later, David Haller, another telepathic mutant, found his way into the Astral Plane, where he encountered Oliver. David was, unbeknownst to him, the host of a parasitic mutant known as the Shadow King. At this time, Oliver's mind had begun to "drift" and he had started to lose his memories due to being stuck in the Astral Plane for too long. Still, Oliver counseled David about the creature in his head and advised him on how to try and escape the Astral Plane.

When the Shadow King made a bid to take control over David's body and trapped him and the other Summerland mutants' psyches in an imaginary version of Clockworks Psychiatric Hospital, Oliver intervened, rescuing the Summerland mutants' psyches one-by-one. He is reunited with his wife Melanie, but does not remember her or his old friend Cary. As astral projections, they together try and save David and Syd from being shot by Walter, a former student at Summerland and now Division 3 operative.

The illusion is eventually broken, and David temporarily regains control of his body. Oliver meanwhile, finally returns to his body, though his memories are still jumbled. Now allied with Division 3, the Summerland mutants try and extract the Shadow King from David's psyche. It is during this process that Oliver's memories finally begin to return, as he remembers his wife. When it seems that the Shadow King will kill David if he is forced to leave his body, Syd uses her power to switch places with him, removing him from David's body but trapping him in hers. He moves from her into Kerry Loudermilk, but is confronted by David before he can escape. David manages to force him from Kerry's body, but the conflict knocks him out, and the Shadow King escapes into Oliver's body, and drives off.

Slave of the Shadow King[]

Now possessed by Amahl Farouk; the Shadow King, Oliver's body is used as a tool by Farouk who seeks to find his own, original body. Despite having no control of his body, Oliver's psyche is still aware of what the Shadow King is forcing him to do. Farouk wields both Oliver's body and psyche as a weapon, using him to contact the now despondent Melanie Bird in order to gain intel on Division 3. Oliver declares that he is going to kill Farouk, something the latter simply laughs off.

As David is putting a final plan to kill the Shadow King into motion, Farouk uses Oliver to manipulate Melanie into finding them first. He leaves Oliver's body and enters Melanie, but still exerts control over him. He leaves him for David to find, and David, believing Oliver to be Farouk, begins torturing him for the whereabouts of Syd. Syd meanwhile is taken by Farouk who, in the guise of Melanie, poisons her mind against David, revealing that he is in fact mentally ill, that deep down he enjoys hurting people, and that he will destroy the world. Oliver is brought to the brink of death by David's mental torture, and is seemingly finally released from the Shadow King's grasp. He somehow survives the ordeal and is seen, three years after the events, in the Astral Plane together with Melanie, the pair having abandoned their bodies and the world to dwell there.

Life in the Astral Plane[]

Together with his wife Melanie, Oliver lives an idyllic life in the Astral Plane, living in a simulacrum of a late 1800's country home and scavenging things that fall into the Astral Plane when they are forgotten or abandoned in the real world. One day, Oliver comes across a baby, the result of a person in the real world losing their mind and winding up in the Astral Plane. Oliver and Melanie raise the child, revealed to be their former co-worker Sydney Barrett. Oliver and Melanie raise Sydney with the goal of preparing her for life in the real world. Their lives are soured only by the presence of an entity known as The Wolf who tries to convince those in the Astral Plane to succumb to despair and fear.

When Sydney becomes a teenager, the family relocates to an Astral Plane simulacrum of a late 1800's city slum. After Sidney encounters an old friend who was corrupted by the Wolf, she convinces Oliver and Melanie to help save her. They succeed in rescuing her from the Wolf's grasp, and Oliver fights him in a telepathic duel taking the form of a rap battle. While Oliver wins, the girl chooses to stay with the Wolf. This teaches Sidney the final lesson Oliver and Melanie sought to impart on her before she could "become an adult" and go back to the real world; that not everyone wants to be saved. With this knowledge imparted, Oliver sends Sydney back to her body, telling her that he and Melanie cannot return to the real world and will stay in the Astral Plane.

Attributes

Powers

Telepathy: Capable of sensing and perceiving information from the minds of others, as well as project his own mind to others. He also managed to detect and read the mind of the Shadow King when the latter's host, Legion, visited the Astral Plane, though the Shadow King wasn't focusing on masking its presence to Oliver.

Astral Projection: Oliver was able to enter the Astral Plane and manipulate it to create himself an ice chamber. His chamber walls could project images like a video screen and allow him to view events happening inside and outside the Astral Plane. He was even shown to be able to manipulate the real world to an extent from the Astral Plane, appearing as a projection to allow Cary and Melanie to move despite time being frozen, as well as using music to form letters in the air to swarm around and shield David and Sydney from bullets. He was unable to leave the Astral Plane on his own, until he was thrown out by the Shadow King.

Disintegration: Oliver can disintegrate an entire person with only an hand gesture.

Links and References

References