Arthur "Artie" MaddicksArtie Maddicks

With the power of mental projections, the young mute mutant Artie Maddicks joins X-Factor as their ward and learns how to use his unique abilities. 

Family Losses and Gains 

As a covert agent of the subversive Secret Empire working for the Brand Corporation research firm (a subdivision of the Roxxon Corporation), Dr. Carl Maddicks fails to steal a mutation-inducing formula created by Henry McCoy (secretly the mutant Beast). For his failure, he is shot and left for dead by the Empire, but Carl survives and later accepts a position at Florida’s Ryan Research, Inc. He is joined there by his son, Artie, whose mother had died through unrevealed circumstances. 

On Artie’s 11th birthday, his mutant ability to project rudimentary images gleaned from his own or others’ thoughts manifests, but also leaves him mute, with pink skin, an enlarged, bald cranium and large pupil-less eyes; Carl hides Artie and swears to restore him to normal. When Carl fails to reverse Artie’s mutation, he hires mutant Edward Pasternak, AKA Tower, to kidnap McCoy (now publicly known to be the Beast), who Carl believes could help cure Artie. Carl shows McCoy his work, knowing McCoy would mentally correct it as he reads it; Artie projects McCoy’s thoughts for Carl to copy without McCoy’s knowledge. Once the formula is complete, Carl tests it on McCoy, coupling it with radiation treatments, ultimately resulting in Beast losing the hirsute aspect of his mutation. Not wanting Tower to lead Beast’s X-Factor teammates to them, Carl convinces Artie X-Factor wants to harm Artie’s kitten, Muffin. Artie uses his hated ability to temporarily paralyze others on Tower, but cannot maintain the mind-lock. Mind-linking with Beast, Artie discovers his father’s actions and is horrified by them. He refuses to help Carl any further. When X-Factor arrives to rescue Beast, Carl confesses his actions, and fearing Ryan security forces would kill his mutated son, Carl asks X-Factor to take Artie to safety. Carl stays behind to stop the security guards, and when he opens fire on them, the guards shoot and apparently kill Carl, which a horrified Artie observes through a psychic link with his father. Orphaned, Artie remains with X-Factor, and they teach him how to use his powers.

Visual Telepath

Artie is a limited telepath who communicates via projected 3-D images he creates from his own thoughts or by scanning the minds of others and projecting their thoughts. While initially only able to project images in his immediate proximity, with training, he learns to project them at greater distances, the greatest amount is unrevealed. Artie’s eyes often glow when he uses his powers, and he can link minds with another up to a city’s length away, which allows him to scan their thoughts and memories, but not project his own directly to their minds. While linked, Artie can locate people by following their thoughts and paralyze another person’s mind and body for an unspecified length of time, but doing so requires his full concentration, leaving Artie exhausted. Artie now wears a projection device provided by the Fantastic Four that allows him to project his thoughts in highly detailed holograms; first a full helmet, the device is later reconfigured into a smaller forehead mounted disk; the distance this device can project images is unrevealed.

Artie’s skull appears to change in size and shape in recent times; whether this is due to continued mutation, puberty or continued “M-Day” fallout remains unrevealed. Also, based on his Special Class membership at the Future Foundation, it has been surmised that Artie may have genius level intelligence; however, there has been no direct evidence to support this. 

Fearsome Foes

The Marauders pose a grave threat to the Morlocks and when Artie tries to help, he ends up in their path and in trouble. He also goes up against Victor Creed, AKA Sabretooth and William Baker, AKA Sandman.

Daydreamers

While a ward of the X-Factor team, Artie becomes friends with fellow ward, Rusty Collins. He also idolizes X-Men Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops, and Jean Grey. 

He becomes best friends with the young Morlock named Leech, and eventually Franklin Richards. The trio becomes known as the Daydreamers and go on adventures together. Artie and Leech later attend the Massachusetts Academy, where they receive image inducers to hide their appearances, and often use them to wreak playful havoc. Artie and Leech reunitewith Franklin and join the Future Foundation, where they share adventures on Earth as well as across time and the cosmos.

Artie’s Account

With X-Factor, Artie roomed with Rusty Collins, another ward of X-Factor, who openly caused a scene about Artie’s appearance and aggressively rejected Artie’s efforts to befriend him. Artie linked with Rusty and learned Rusty’s secret fear of his own pyrokinetic powers had caused him to lash out. When Rusty ran away and got into trouble with evil mutant Joanna Cargill, AKA Frenzy, Artie helped X-Factor locate and rescue him; after X-Factor convinced a grateful Rusty to stay and learn how to control his powers, he apologized to Artie for his previous behavior and befriended him. Often, Artie became frustrated with not being able to communicate what he learned after mind-linking with his friends and mentors; Artie especially near-idolized Cyclops, grew close with Jean Grey, and began regularly carrying a teddy bear. 

When Nathanial Essex, AKA Mister Sinister’s Marauders began slaughtering the Morlocks, mutants that lived beneath Manhattan, Artie sensed danger for Rusty, who had been taken there by his new romantic interest, the Morlock Sally Blevins, AKA Skids. Artie’s efforts to communicate this to X-Factor’s public relations director Cameron Hodge went ignored, so Artie went into the Morlock tunnels himself, first tracing one of his projections on a wall for when X-Factor returned, telling them where he had gone. There he met the power-canceling, deformed Morlock named Leech, the two boys quickly became fast friends, and helped each other avoid being harmed by Sabretooth. The two were separated when Artie left to get help from X-Factor, who he sensed in the tunnels nearby. Warren Worthington, AKA Angel, soon found Artie, but Angel was gravely wounded by the Marauders while helping Artie escape. Artie was eventually located by Asgardian God of Thunder Thor Odinson, AKA Thor, who helped lead Artie to X-Factor. Following the massacre, X-Factor took Leech in as their ward, happily reuniting the boys; the two friends became near-inseparable. When Angel’s wings were amputated from his injuries in the tunnels, Artie blamed himself, despite X-Factor’s other wards trying to convince him it wasn’t his fault. He also experienced heightened anxiety when outside the X-Factor complex, knowing the Marauders were still at large.

Artie and Leech were eventually sent to Vermont’s St. Simons Academy boarding school to receive formal educations, but were soon kidnapped by demons seeking mutant baby sacrifices to empower a demonic invasion of New York City (“Inferno”). They were rescued by X-Factor’s wards (calling themselves X-Terminators) and fellow St. Simons student, techno-morph Takeshi Matsuya, AKA Wiz Kid, and during the duration of the crisis, Leech and Artie helped safeguard the kidnapped babies, then returned to school. Visited periodically by members of X-Factor, Artie, Leech and Wiz Kid all found acceptance at St. Simons and took part in school plays, but were all injured while opposing the Alliance of Evil, who attacked the school while on assignment for Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.). On a later joy ride in Wiz Kid’s flying saucer creation, the kids were photographed by alien believer Ida Fassbender and mistaken for aliens. When they went to her house to relieve her fears, Fassbender was initially terrified, but once understanding they were mutants, not aliens, she prevented police from taking them into custody and allowed the boys to consider her their special “Grammie.” 

Sometime after X-Factor rejoined the X-Men, Artie and Leech attended Cyclops and Jean Grey’s wedding. Charles Xavier, AKA Professor X, then opened a branch of his school for gifted youngsters in the Massachusetts Academy and arranged for Artie and Leech to be transferred there. However, when the boys went to New York City to be picked up by school headmistress Emma Frost, they were held hostage by members of Gene Nation, Morlocks who escaped the Morlock massacre by fleeing to another dimension that hardened and aged them; they wanted to kill Leech for being a representative of the weak, embarrassing Morlocks they once were. After being rescued by Frost and taken to the Academy, fellow students Angelo Espinosa, AKA Skin, and Everett Thomas, AKA Synch, built a treehouse in the fully interactive biosphere terrarium for Leech and Artie; the boys liked the tree house so much, they rarely left it. When the Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards, AKA Mister Fantastic, and Sue Richards, AKA Invisible Woman, were believed dead, their son, Franklin, stayed at the school for a time, becoming close with Artie and Leech. School headmaster Sean Cassidy, AKA Banshee, took the three to celebrate Halloween in Rutland, Vermont, and members of the X-Men took them to visit X-Man Beast’s childhood farm. 

During Thomas Cassidy, AKA Black Tom Cassidy’s attack upon the Academy, Artie, Leech and Franklin were teleported to safety by Ted Sallis, AKA Man-Thing, along with extradimensional Howard the Duck and extraterrestrial Tana Nile, but Franklin’s powers inadvertently diverted them into multiple pocket realities based on his subconscious, which the six “Daydreamers” explored before returning to the Academy. After the school was opened to human students, Artie and Leech moved into a renovated attic, where they turned it into their dream living quarters and playroom. Emma Frost gave them image inducers, which allowed them to holographically disguise their mutant appearances, and strict instructions they were not to be used as toys, but the boys soon ran amok as cartoonish versions of Spider-Man and Doctor Doom, earning reprimands from Frost. 

When Frost included them on a field trip to Manhattan, Artie and Leech became bored with the museum itinerary and ran away to visit Franklin, who had since returned to the Fantastic Four after they were discovered to be alive. The boys presented themselves as Spider-Man (Peter Parker), distracting Sandman long enough to prevent the true Spider-Man from being beaten by him, then caused a small teenage girl mob after appearing as members of a popular boy band. They tried to enter Avengers Mansion by appearing as Captain America (Steve Rogers) and Thor, but were captured by the Avengers, then detained until an angry Frost could retrieve them. After this, the boys remained at the Academy until an anti-mutant bombing resulted in Synch’s apparent death and the closing of the Academy.

Much later, when an insane Wanda Maximoff, AKA Scarlet Witch, stripped the majority of mutantkind of their abilities on “M-Day,” Artie lost his powers, but was a “Rem,” remaining physically mutated as well as mute. After being separated from Leech for an extended period of time while Leech lived amongst other still-empowered mutants, Artie and Leech were invited to Franklin’s birthday party, where they were asked by Reed Richards to move in with the Fantastic Four and be a part of Richards’ Future Foundation, an organization dedicated to improving the world for tomorrow; both boys accepted. Artie was given a helmet that mimicked his thought projection ability. Artie used his growing intelligence and increasing technical aptitude to assist the other Future Foundation pupils solve various challenges, beginning with devising a temporary cure for Ben Grimm, AKA The Thing’s rocky hide.

After saving the future from the Mad Celestials and attempting to rid the world of Doctor Doom with Fantastic Four stand-in Scott Lang, AKA Ant-Man, at the helm, Artie joins his fellow Future Foundation classmates to liberate their teacher, the android Dragon Man, when he was captured by S.H.I.E.L.D. and headed for deactivation. Led by their temporary teacher Jim Hammond, AKA Human Torch, they successfully freed their beloved Dragon Man.

Following the incursion of Earth-616 and Earth-1610, the Future Foundation along with most of both planets’ populations were destroyed. Though some survived, such as Mister Fantastic and his evil counterpart from Earth-1610, Reed Richards, AKA the Maker, who worked with God Emperor Doom on his patchwork planet of Battleworld to restore the Multiverse. There, Owen Reece, AKA Molecule Man, helped finally restore the Multiverse but his molecules were spread across it as a result. Artie and the Future Foundation desired to help Owen by searching the Multiverse for his molecules, in hopes of putting him back together. With the Fantastic Four’s approval, Dragon Man, former classmate-turned-professor Alex Power, and his sister Julie Power, AKA Lightspeed, led the students on a search across the Multiverse for their friend. On their journey, they found the Maker, mistaking him for their Mister Fantastic, imprisoned in a prison world. Artie used his telepathic abilities to locate him and break him free. To their dismay, the Maker was also after Owen’s particles and stole a piece that they had located. Artie and the Future Foundation narrowly escaped the Maker’s attack and despite the setback continued their journey.